The story of July 4th is messier than you remember

Summary

Throughline – "The Story of July 4th is Messier Than You Remember"

Podcast: Throughline (NPR)
Host: Rund Abdelfatah
Episode Date: July 2, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Throughline dives deep into the complex and often messy story behind July 4th and the Declaration of Independence. Far from a straightforward tale of unity and freedom, the episode explores the political compromises, human contradictions, and persistent inequalities that defined America’s founding moment—alongside the audacity and vision that continue to shape the nation’s ideals. Hosted by Rund Abdelfatah, the episode features historical analysis and primary source readings and draws lines from the 1770s to the present, questioning who the Fourth of July really celebrates—and what it means today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Revolutionary Crisis and Need for a Declaration

Timestamps: 00:15 – 02:20

• Set-up: In June 1776, the Continental Army was struggling, and morale was low. With British forces closing in on New York, American leaders needed a unifying message to rally support (00:15).

  • Quote: “They needed a rally cry to commit people to see the fight through, come what may.” – Rund Abdelfatah (01:10)

• Risk of Treason: The stakes were existential; the signers risked hanging if the revolution failed.

  • Quote: “Yes, indeed, we must all hang together, because otherwise, most assuredly, we'll all hang separately.” – Benjamin Franklin, paraphrased by a historian (01:50)

2. The Committee of Five: Drafting the Declaration

Timestamps: 06:18 – 12:13

• Committee Members: Diverse (for their era) in background: John Adams, Robert Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Roger Sherman—well-read men who debated Enlightenment philosophies (07:02).

  • Quote: “You had a committee of diverse views and talents, even though they were all white men, but they shared a love of science and they were readers of history.” – Historian/Expert (07:27)

• Intellectual Sources: Influenced by John Locke’s notion of social contract; Jefferson drafted, Franklin edited (07:39; 09:16).

• Editing the Mission Statement: Franklin famously changed Jefferson’s “sacred” to “self-evident” regarding truths about equality (09:03).

  • Quote: “Ben Franklin's printer's pens with backslashes crossing out sacred, and written in next to it, the word self-evident.” – Historian/Expert (09:16)

• Drafting Process: Numerous edits, debates, and versions before the final text (“a mission statement for our nation” [02:43]).

3. The Vote for Independence & The Midnight Ride

Timestamps: 13:37 – 18:35

• Dramatic Tension: On July 2, 1776, the fate of independence hinged on the vote of Delaware’s Cesar Rodney, who rode overnight through illness and a storm to cast the deciding ballot (13:44–15:10).

  • Quote: “Still in his riding clothes, Rodney arrives, a scarf wrapped around his scarred face, and he casts the deciding vote for independence.” – Rund Abdelfatah (15:01)

• Why July 4th?: July 2nd was the vote, but the official approval of the declaration’s language (after edits) happened July 4th (15:36).

• Slavery’s Omission: Original draft condemned the King’s role in the slave trade; this was removed to garner the needed votes, highlighting foundational moral compromises (16:00–17:26).

  • Quote: “Many Americans in the colonies were profiting from the slave trade ... so before the declaration could be approved by enough members of Congress, that passage was cut.” – Rund Abdelfatah (17:11)

4. Announcing Independence: Symbolism and Division

Timestamps: 18:53 – 23:27

• The Broadside: On July 4, printer John Dunlap creates 200 copies to distribute; not all are signed, and initially there’s secrecy around who backed independence (18:53–19:51).

• Reading to the Troops: Washington orders the Declaration read to Continental Army in New York City.

  • Quote: “George Washington says, I want the Declaration of Independence to be read aloud to the troops.” – Narrator/Host (19:30)

• Immediate Impact: The reading precipitates the toppling—and melting—of King George III’s statue for ammunition (“Melted Majesty”) in a striking gesture of revolution (20:40–22:49).

  • Quote: “There were more than 40,000 bullets made from this statue that was toppled in Bowling Green ... they later referred to those bullets as Melted Majesty because they had melted down King George.” – Historian/Expert (22:03)

• Ongoing Division: Throughout the colonies, support for the war was never overwhelming—a significant minority supported England.

5. Making It Public: Names and Stakes

Timestamps: 25:33 – 27:40

• The Goddard Broadside: In January 1777, printer Mary Catherine Goddard publishes a version with all 55 signatories’ names—at their increased risk if the war failed (25:33–26:15).

  • Quote: “The first female postmaster of the United Colonies and the only woman to have her name on the Declaration of Independence, Mary Catherine Goddard.” – Narrator/Host (26:00)

• Unified Identity: This public affirmation of signers helped cement the idea of a single nation—not just a movement led by a few in Philadelphia (26:28–27:40).

6. Continued Relevance, Contradictions, and National Healing

Timestamps: 27:40 – 36:34

• Ongoing War: Revolution continued for years with many pivotal moments ahead; July 4 gradually became a widely-celebrated holiday (27:40–28:10).

• The Founders’ Humanity: The episode cautions against both demonizing and canonizing the Founders, stressing their failures and the necessity—and peril—of compromise (28:18–29:13).

  • Quote: “Compromises may not make great heroes, but they do make great democracies.” – Historian/Expert (paraphrasing Franklin, 28:18)

• Legacy of the Declaration: Successive reform movements (abolition, women's rights, civil rights) have all invoked its language to hold America to account (“all men are created equal”).

  • Quote: “People die on battlefields at Gettysburg fighting to get closer to a country in which all men, all people, are equal.” – Historian/Expert (30:17)

• Cycle of Crisis & Healing: Reflects on other U.S. eras of division (Civil War, 1960s), asking whether the Declaration can still heal a fractured country (32:54–34:39).

  • Quote: “Can America come together and heal is a good question. But as a historian, you say, well, we've certainly done it before.” – Historian/Expert (33:28)

• Modern Challenges: Wealth inequality, loss of social mobility, the role of corporations—all raise new questions about national identity, justice, and the meaning of “common ground” (34:20–36:34).

  • Quote: “We have to rebuild a common ground where everybody feels they become part of the process and that their kids will do better than they did.” – Historian/Expert (35:20)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote or Moment | |---------------|-------------|---------------------| | 01:50 | Benjamin Franklin (via guest) | “Yes, indeed, we must all hang together, because otherwise, most assuredly, we'll all hang separately.” | | 09:16 | Historian/Expert | “Ben Franklin's printer's pens with backslashes crossing out 'sacred', and written in next to it, the word 'self-evident.'” | | 13:44 | Narrator/Host | “On the night of July 1, 1776, Cesar Rodney received an urgent message. You have to get up here.” | | 15:01 | Rund Abdelfattah | “Still in his riding clothes, Rodney arrives, a scarf wrapped around his scarred face, and he casts the deciding vote for independence.” | | 22:03 | Historian/Expert | “...there were more than 40,000 bullets made from this statue... they later referred to those bullets as 'Melted Majesty'.” | | 26:00 | Narrator/Host | “The first female postmaster of the United Colonies and the only woman to have her name on the Declaration of Independence, Mary Catherine Goddard.” | | 28:18 | Historian/Expert | “Compromises may not make great heroes, but they do make great democracies.” | | 30:17 | Historian/Expert | “People die on battlefields at Gettysburg fighting to get closer to a country in which all men, all people are equal.” | | 33:28 | Historian/Expert | “Can America come together and heal is a good question. But as a historian, you say, well, we've certainly done it before.” | | 35:20 | Historian/Expert | “We have to rebuild a common ground where everybody feels they become part of the process and that their kids will do better than they did.” |

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:15–02:20 – Setting the stage: War setbacks and emotional stakes of the Declaration
• 06:18–12:13 – The Committee of Five and internal drafting process
• 13:37–15:10 – Cesar Rodney's midnight ride and pivotal vote
• 16:00–17:26 – Removal of anti-slavery language—founding compromise
• 19:30–22:49 – Reading to troops, riot, toppling "Melted Majesty"
• 25:33–26:15 – Mary Catherine Goddard and the printing of the names
• 28:18–29:13 – The necessity and peril of compromise
• 30:17–31:20 – The Declaration as touchstone for reform movements
• 33:28–34:39 – Historical perspective on healing through national crisis
• 35:20–36:34 – The loss of common ground and hope for American democracy

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Tone & Takeaway

Faithful to Throughline’s signature style, the episode draws connections across centuries with vivid storytelling and clear-eyed analysis, favoring neither hagiography nor cynicism about the Founders. It contends with the story’s hard truths—compromise, contradiction, and exclusion—while simultaneously illustrating the Declaration’s enduring power as a moral and aspirational text, returning repeatedly to the question: What would it take for America to become what July 4th promised?

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For Further Reflection

• How do the contradictions and compromises at America’s founding echo in politics and society today?
• Can the “common ground” sought in 1776 be rebuilt in a polarized 2026?
• What does it mean to return to foundational ideals in the face of their historic limitations—and who gets to define what “Independence Day” means in the 21st century?

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For more episodes, subscribe to Throughline on Apple, Spotify or the NPR app.

Transcript

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[Rand Abdelfattah]

June 1776.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

All these different things had been brewing to make a bad tea joke.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

One year into the Revolutionary War, things were not looking good for the newly formed Continental Army. A guy named George Washington had been put in charge of it, and he was kind of on a losing streak.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

You have all these people fighting and dying.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Things are beginning to come to a head.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Washington was stationed in New York, where the British were closing in fast.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Ships were coming in from England, and it was looking as though New York was going to fall.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

At a certain point, I suspect they're sort of saying, okay, remind me again, what are we fighting for?

[Rand Abdelfattah]

They needed a rally cry to commit people to see the fight through, come what may. So, in the face of mounting odds and setbacks, some in the Continental Congress decided they needed a Declaration of independence.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

This is who we are. This is a laundry list of what you've done, and I can't be in this relationship anymore.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Over the next month, a declaration was drafted and then announced to the world as John Hancock. The president of the Continental Congress, whose signature has become iconic, said at the

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

signing, we must all hang together.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Benjamin Franklin, who needs no introduction, responded,

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

yes, indeed, we must all hang together, because otherwise, most assuredly, we'll all hang separately.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

A dark joke, because the truth was, if the revolution failed, every single person who signed on could be tried and hanged for treason.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Think at that point, you're saying, hey, we just reached the point of no return. It means you don't get to turn back. You got to keep marching ahead.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

The declaration begins when in the course

[Reader of Declaration Excerpts]

of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

But it's the second sentence that everyone knows.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

The second sentence is a mission statement for. For our nation. A nation in which the governance comes not from the divine right of kings or the sword of conquerors, but by a social contract that's signaled in the very first word of the sentence. We.

[Reader of Declaration Excerpts]

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and. And the pursuit of happiness.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

It's a sentence that actually sets a new type of nation on this planet,

[Reader of Declaration Excerpts]

that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

This is not the way the world worked 250 years ago, but more than half the nations on Earth now are pretty much guided by the principles of that sentence, that whenever any form of

[Reader of Declaration Excerpts]

government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

I'm Rand ABDELFATAH, and this July 4th on throughline from NPR, we're doing a kind of document exploder looking at the story of the Declaration of Independence, the messy drama that surrounded it, and what it all can tell us about how to find our way forward as a country in 2026. Devastating compromises, midnight rides, a nail biter vote statue toppling, riots. That's all coming.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Hello, this is Lawrence calling from Zurich, Switzerland, and you're listening to Throughline from npr.

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[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Part 1 the Committee

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

of Five, the Continental Congress in June of 1776 finally decided they had to declare independence. And so they created a committee to explain and declare why they were doing it.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

This is Walter Isaacson, professor at Tulane University and author of the Greatest Sentence Ever Written.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

They were nominated by their fellow members.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

And this is Denise Kiernan. She's written several books about the revolutionary period. Her latest is called Obstinate Daughters, the

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

rebels, writers and renegade women who ignited the American Revolution.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Okay, so this committee that Congress put together consisted of five people.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

John Adams of Massachusetts, Robert Livingston of New York. You have one slave owner, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, a working class runaway, Ben Franklin, who had started a print shop, then becomes the president of the society in Pennsylvania for the abolition of slavery.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

And the last guy, Roger Sherman, who started life as a cobbler in Connecticut.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

And so you had a committee of diverse views and talents, even though they were all white men, but they shared a love of science and they were readers of history.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

They'd all read John Locke's second treatise on government.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

People like John Locke come up with the notion of a social contract as the source of our rights, as the source of our governance. And Thomas Hobbes, they knew about the state of nature. Nasty, brutish and short.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Jefferson kicks things off and starts writing a first draft.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Jefferson basically locks himself away in a place he rented.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

He's rented a room on Market street in Philadelphia, and Ben Franklin's house is closer to the river on Market Street. So he sends it by hand.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Not his hand. He's not going to walk it over himself, but someone's hand we can even imagine.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Maybe Robert Hemings, the enslaved valet, has to bring it down two blocks to Franklin's home.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Robert Hemings, by the way, is the older brother of Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who is widely believed to have given birth to several of Jefferson's children, children who would also be enslaved by him. So the draft is delivered the Benjamin Franklin, and there's a note attached to

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

it, something along the lines. I'm paraphrasing with the good Dr. Franklin with his great wisdom. Please do what he can to improve this draft, because he is much more familiar, et cetera.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

This first draft begins, we hold these

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

truths to be sacred. You go sacred, but then you see the black printer's pen, Ben Franklin's printer's pens with backslashes crossing out sacred, and

[Rand Abdelfattah]

written in next to it, the word self evident.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

He's saying, we're trying to create a new type of nation where our rights come from the rationality and from reason, not from the dictates. Or dogma of a particular religion.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Sacred does automatically take you to a religious connotation.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Yeah, it takes a religious connotation, but they were deists. They did not believe in a particular dogma or particular religion. They left it so that everybody could worship even the notion of creation if you didn't want to believe in a creator.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Over the next couple of weeks, they made a bunch of these kinds of edits.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

There were lots of different versions that went back and forth.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

And while the first part of the declaration reads like a mission statement, we

[Reader of Declaration Excerpts]

hold these truths to be self evident.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

The rest of it is basically a list of everything the King has done wrong.

[Reader of Declaration Excerpts]

He has refused his assent to laws, he has forbidden his government, he has

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

dissolved representatives he has forbidden.

[Reader of Declaration Excerpts]

He has obstructed the administration of justice, obstructed cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

He has endeavored to prevent for imposing taxes on us without our consent, taking away charters.

[Reader of Declaration Excerpts]

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

One of the ones that we hear often. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

I'm curious who their audience was. Were they writing this so that King George III would read it? Were they writing it for all the, you know, people they were representing in the colonies to sort of feel like they were unifying as a country?

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Yeah, there were three or four audiences,

[Rand Abdelfattah]

the people in the American colonies.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

You have to remember the beginning of 1776. Most Americans did not want a break from England. They wanted representation, but they were not trying to overthrow the control of the King, England's enemies. Our revolution against England was actually a part of a much larger war, which was the war basically between France and England. Then we're going to make it part of this larger war, and France will

[Rand Abdelfattah]

support us and their colleagues in Congress.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

This would have to go on to be approved by Congress itself. Right.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

They need votes from representatives from the thirteen colonies, north to south. By early July, their draft was ready and they took it to Congress. But before the language could be finalized, a vote was set for July 2, 1776.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

The vote on July 2 is, are we going to declare independence from England?

[Rand Abdelfattah]

If the answer was no, the Declaration of Independence would be stopped in its tracks.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

There was an incredible amount of debate.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

The evening before the vote. They took an informal poll and it

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

did not appear it was going to pass.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Coming up, the midnight ride that saves the Declaration of Independence.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Hi there.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

This is Francesca Vilitz Kennedy.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

I'm calling in from Brooklyn, New York you're listening to Throughline from npr.

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[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Part 2 the Midnight Ride.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

On the night of July 1, 1776, Cesar Rodney received an urgent message.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

You have to get up here.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

He was in Delaware, his home state, overseeing some military plans. The message said said a vote was set to happen in Congress the following day in Philadelphia to decide whether they would declare independence from England. And at that moment, the two other Delaware delegates were divided on that question, one for, one against. Without Cesar Rodney's vote, Delaware would be counted as a stalemate and the vote might fail.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

And Rodney was not a physically particularly well man.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

He was described as, quote, the oddest looking man in the world. Tall, thin and slender as a reed, pale, his face is not bigger than a large apple. Severe asthma and a long battle with facial cancer had left him disfigured and frail. But he rides through the night 80 miles on horseback, thunder echoing above him, rain pouring down on him, mud everywhere.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

And he makes it just in the nick of time to vote on July 2.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Still in his riding clothes, Rodney arrives, a scarf wrapped around his scarred face, and he casts the deciding vote for independence. Legend has it he said, quote, as I believe the voice of my constituents and of all sensible and honest men is in favor of independence, and my own judgment concurs with them. I vote for independence. So then, if the vote happened on July 2nd, why do we commemorate July 4th? What's the big deal about July 4th?

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

So basically between the 2nd and the 4th, now you have Congress has to approve this language that the committee of five came up with.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

The vote on the second established, yes, they are declaring independence, but they needed to have the language in that declaration approved by Congress, which wouldn't happen until the 4th after more tweaking, and in some cases, a lot more than tweaking,

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

a lot of the language around slavery was taken out.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

The committee of Five's version had a whole section condemning the king for his role in the slave trade.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold. He has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce, referencing a promise of freedom that was made to enslaved individuals if they were willing to leave their enslavers and join up with the British, which did have a very significant impact on how the war played out in certain parts of the colonies.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

That whole thing was.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Did not make it struck.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

They were not mincing words, but many Americans in the colonies were profiting from the slave trade and the industry it propped up. So before the declaration could be approved by enough members of Congress, that passage was cut.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Now everybody can debate whether or not you should have made those compromises. You can have historians say that was evil. In some ways it was. You can also have historians say if you didn't do it, you would never have the colonies creating a union.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Jefferson himself was a slave owner. They knew that the gap between the words that they were writing and the reality that they were living and that the country was going to be living for the foreseeable future were going to be at odds.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Jefferson himself wrote that sentence. While he's enslaving people.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Around this time, Jefferson was enslaving Close to 200 people.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

So, yeah, you got a lot of contradictions in there. It's an incredibly important moral issue. But it wasn't the main issue that they had to contend with. Probably the main issue was, were we a federation of states, or were we one nation? Should Congress have equal votes for state? Should it be proportional representation?

[Rand Abdelfattah]

A lot of the thorniest questions remained unanswered. A problem for another day. But on that day, July 4, 1776, a revised version of the Committee of Five's Declaration of Independence was approved. Now, they needed to let the world know about it.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

So July 4th, it goes to printer John Dunlap, who prints up 200 copies. And this Is not. One of the things about the Declaration of Independence is we think there's that one really pretty copy with the great handwriting that everybody signed. That's not the case. Not all the pretty, nothing fancy, straight up typeset.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

The day they write the Declaration, parchment copies go out and they ride from Philadelphia to the southern tip of Manhattan in New York.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Continental army headquarters is in New York City at this time.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

That's where George Washington and his troops are.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

George Washington says, I want the Declaration of Independence to be read aloud to the troops.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

They're still trying to convince people in the colonies.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Estimates range. But it's believed that at no time did more than 45% of colonists support the war. And around a third of colonists fought for the British.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

So you gotta unify the country. You gotta get Europe on our side. And maybe you have to explain to yourselves this isn't just about taxes on tea or a Boston Tea Party or problem we're having with Parliament over stamp Acts or something. We now are on a larger mission. We're creating a new type of nation.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

And this document is telling the troops and the world what that new nation is going to be.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Everybody has to show up.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

As Washington's colonels begin reading the Declaration out loud, the soldiers are taking it in calmly.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

And then it starts getting into, hey, we're really mad about X, Y and Z.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Which really riles them up.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

A massive riot erupts in lower Manhattan, what is now Lower Manhattan, that becomes very focused on this huge statue of King George III in Bowling Green, this little tiny park in lower Manhattan. They've got ropes. People managed to topple it and tear it down. It was gilt over lead, so it wasn't solid gold. And in those days, people were interested in the lead because that was used to make ammunition. One of the eventual signers of the Declaration of Independence, Oliver Walcott of Connecticut, who was also serving in the military as an officer, he's like, we need to get this to Connecticut. So they get as many chunks of the statue as they can. They get it out of Manhattan, they get it across across the Sound. They get it overland in Connecticut to his backyard in Litchfield. And behind Walcott's house, Walcott's wife, Laura and his daughter Marianne, and people they gathered from the community begin melting down King George's statue into bullets.

[Reader of Declaration Excerpts]

Wow.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

And Oliver Walcott keeps meticulous records of who did what. And in the end, there were more than 40,000 bullets made from this statue that was toppled in Bowling Green because George Washington said, we need to Read this document aloud to the troops and to the people. A chunk of those bullets ended up being used. And they later referred to those bullets as Melted Majesty because they had melted down King George.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

I mean, talk about heavy handed symbolism, right? The Declaration of Independence leads to this statue being melted down into bullets that would return backwards, that would go.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Right.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

The King's army.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Yeah.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

It's interesting because it gets at something, right, that the Declaration, even then, even, you know, within a couple weeks of it being drafted and approved by Congress, begins to take on a life of

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

its own and have an impact. I mean, we were already fighting, right. We already had a standing army. There had already been battles, there had already been death. Yeah. We'd already had naval ships from Britain ravaging our seacoast, as they say. It is something else to put in writing. Hey, this is who we are. This is what we stand for and this is what we're not going to stand for anymore.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

By the end of 1776, the tide was slowly beginning to turn. Washington and his troops were having more luck on the battlefield. But most people in the colonies still had no real sense of who had signed on to this declaration. The copies that had been passed around were unsigned. And in some ways, the anonymity was an obstacle to unity. Because how could a farmer in South Carolina or a cobbler in Massachusetts know for sure if their colony was a part of this vision of a new nation? Coming up, Congress decides to let their constituents and the British crown know exactly who is behind those words.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Hi, this is Rob from Arlington, Virginia. You're listening to Throughline from npr.

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[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Part 3 the Commons

[Rand Abdelfattah]

in January 1777. A printer in Baltimore named Mary Catherine Goddard was tasked with printing a new version of the Declaration that features individual

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

colonies and the names of the people who signed on.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

55 names in total. Well, 56 if you include Mary's name at the bottom.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

The first female postmaster of the United Colonies and the only woman to have her name on the Declaration of Independence, Mary Catherine Goddard.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

It's heightened risk for everyone, including her. Right. Anyone whose name is public at that point suddenly has potentially a target on

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

their backs if the war goes wrong. Oh, yeah, yeah. If it goes terribly wrong. That's not a name you would want out in the public.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

When you're talking about unity as a concept, like, if I'm someone sitting in South Carolina or in Virginia and I'm just like a regular person, seeing my representative there is different than a kind of vague, like, we're all unified now.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Absolutely.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

So that does seem really significant in terms of selling the idea to the people that we are actually one united country.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

That's right. Absolutely. 100%. It's not just a handful of guys in Philadelphia who are making this decision. It is representatives from throughout all 13 colonies, including Georgia, including South Carolina. They can look and say, oh, Edward Rutledge is on board with this, you know, or, you know, Richard Henry Lee or George Walton from Georgia, you know, who's off fighting and gets, you know, injured in the Battle of Savannah. These were guys out there leading troops and representing their colonies, melting bullets in their backyard. I mean, they had a real stake in what was going on. They had a personal stake. They were not detached from the ills and the struggles of what was happening.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

The Revolutionary War would continue for another six years. There were countless battles and moments before and after the Declaration was announced that helped shape the course of the country. And yet it was July 4th that stood out as the pivotal moment when the nation became a Nation.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

We celebrate July 4th, and we started celebrating it pretty soon after the founding. Within 10, 15 years, the fourth becomes a holiday.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

It's a touchstone for what the signers aspired for America to be. In a sense.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

I really not particular fans of people who say we were totally conceived in evil and demonizing all the Founders or people who are sugarcoating and canonizing the Founders. We were humans when we started this country, and we are humans now. We can decry the Founders from making a compromise that allows South Carolina to sign the Declaration. But we can also say, as Franklin did, when we were young tradesmen in Philadelphia, we had a joint that didn't hold together. You'd take from one side and take from the other, and she had a joint that would hold together in centuries. And so too we here must each part with some of our demands. And his point was that compromises may not make great heroes, but they do make great democracies.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

It feels like we live in a time where compromise is a. It's a lost art.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

It's a lost art. It's partly due to people like you and me and the media. I'm not throwing NPR under the bus here, but once you get cable news networks where people have to demonize or canonize somebody in a quick sound bite or a 140 character post, you're not encouraging people to say, oh, I kind of see their point and I'm going to change my opinion a little bit. And you just get tagged as a waffler or somebody who changes their minds. And we're not good at compromise. We're not good at humility. We're good.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

But Walter says, throughout American history, people have returned to the Declaration of Independence and the second sentence in particular to find a way through the problems of their time. We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

People die on battlefields at Gettysburg fighting to get closer to a country in which all men, all people are equal.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Four score and seven years ago, our

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation. And as Lincoln will say when he's consecrating their graves, they died trying to make that sentence a little bit more true.

[Sponsor Announcer]

We hold these truths to be self

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

evident that all men and women are created equal.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Whether it's a Seneca Falls Declaration of Women in which they invoke the sentence to say it really should be all men and women are created equal. This nation will rise up, live out

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

the true meaning of its Creed.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

Whether it's Dr. Martin Luther King invoking that sentence in his speeches, we hold these truths to be self evident, that

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

all men are created equal.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. Whether it's Lyndon Johnson invoking the sentence when he signs a civil rights bill. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama, in the late 1960s. You had the assassinations of Kennedys and kings, and then you had The Vietnam War. You had Watergate, you had the urban riots, you had the resignation of a president. For our 200th anniversary, we rang the Liberty Bell. The tall ships came into our ports. We put aside some of our differences, and we kind of healed. During the bicentennial, we all watched the same fireworks. We all ate soggy hot dogs. This is not happening this time around, which is a shame, because I started writing this book a year ago, and Jon Meacham started writing American Struggle, and Ken Burns was doing his documentary. Rick Atkins, we're all doing books that maybe if they come out the year of our 250th, will cause people to rally together.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

I appreciate the spirit of what you're saying. Right. But when you think about the wars that the US Is waging, directly in the case of Iran, in the case of Gaza, indirectly with weapons, when you think about the state of the economy and the fact that so many people are struggling, when you think about all these layers of very real issues, what some might say is a kind of imperial identity that the US has taken on, is it enough to heal through something like the Declaration?

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

But do you think our challenges now are that much worse than the late 60s? I think things are very bad now. I'm just saying we've been through this before. We went through it in the McCarthy era. We certainly went through it in the Civil War. We. We went through it in the late 60s. Can America come together and heal is a good question. But as a historian, you say, well, we've certainly done it before. I'm somewhat optimistic that at some point a group of political leaders is going to emerge who are going to run on the idea that we're not a red nation or a blue nation, that we share more values than we disagree on, and that we should all heal and come together.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Heal and come together feels like a far cry from where we are right now as a nation. And it's hard not to ask a different question. What would the founders think of the system in place today, where corporations are king and where many feel a sense of injustice about how they fit into that equation?

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

We've hollowed out a middle class in America. So it's not just the extremes of the politics. It's also people got left behind by an era of globalization. And so we have to be sensitive of why are they picking up their pitchforks? Why are they voting for everybody from Donald Trump to Mom, Donnie? Well, because they're feeling the system didn't work work very well, and they have some truth to that.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

When should you choose to create a new system versus try to reform the old one? How do you compromise on matters of life and death? There's no easy answers, but Walter says, for starters, we have to find more ways to connect with each other.

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

So one of the things that has held our country together is a notion of common ground, and that's physical at times. You build Boston Common so people who don't have land, there's a place where they can graze their herds and bury their dead and plant their gardens. And John Locke in the Second Treatise teaches us, and he's a big supporter of private property. He says, you only can do that if enough is left in common for others. You have to rebuild a common ground where everybody feels they become part of the process and that their kids will do better than they did. We all go to different entrances in the stadiums now. We have VIP entrances. We have divided ourselves far too much and as John Hancock would tell us, let's see if we can try to hang together instead.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

And that's it for this week's show. I'm Rund Abdelfattah. Throughline was created by me and Ramtin Adaplooi. This episode was produced by me and Casey Miner, Devin Kadayama, Sarah Wyman, Amy Padula, Kiana Mokatta, Julia Redpath, Skyler Swenson,

[Narrator/Host (possibly Casey Miner or Devin Kadayama)]

Liana Simstrom, Irene Noguchi, Jasmine Romero.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

Thank you to Johannes Durgi, Matthew Pollack, Cheyenne Butler, Yolanda Sangweni and Tommy Evans. Thanks also to Dan o' Neill for his voiceover work. Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Voelkel. This episode was mixed by Maggie Luthar. Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band Drop Electric, which

[Historian/Expert (possibly Walter Isaacson or Denise Kiernan)]

includes Naveed, Marvi, Sho Fujiwara, Anya Mizani.

[Rand Abdelfattah]

And finally, if you have an idea or liked something you heard on the show, please write [e-mail] and if you're open to us giving you a call back, leave your number too. We might feature your idea in an upcoming episode. Also, make sure to follow us on Apple, Spotify or the NPR app. That way you'll never miss an episode. And while you're there, feel free to leave us a review. Thanks for listening.

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