What caused the american Revolution how's it one and how should we consider it now discuss all this and more on the special July Fourth Edition of the editors onrush clarity and were delighted to be joined by two marvellous historians for this episode. Alan Kelso Princeton University, author of the forthcoming Robert E Lee Alive and Ripper Keyser of National View, author of give me liberty, as well as exceptional biography of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. You are, of course, listening to an azure. You podcast are rigorously

Programming will return soon, but today it's all America, my friends, the perfect compliment to your period of fireworks and your gatherings with friends first will hit the causes of the revolution, then discuss the decoration, follow up with some George Washington and finally get to Lincoln and how to think about the country since so out, and let me start with you and, let's start very beginning, causes of the revolution so no prior to one thousand seven hundred and seventy six. We are a well governed. People were quite a free people, quite a prosperous people, so. What goes wrong and what causes this breach with the british the immediate issue was the matter of Taxation and connected to that was who had the same levying taxes. Was it parliament, or should Parliament taken into account

the wishes and desires of the colonies themselves. From that, the question begins to bleed out to still more questions should the colonies have some kind of representation in parliament when discussing taxation, because is taxation than legitimate? If there's no colonial voice in parliament itself, then as disagreement between Great Britain and America festers over these issues. They began to include and reach out to other issues, issues about control of the domestic economy of the colonies, prohibitions on colonial trade? All of these begin to multiply. They begin to generate confrontations with british authorities and finally, it blows up in the confrontations at Lexington and conquered and role of seventeen. Seventy five shows really along string of things. Starting

this issue out, who gets to tax home, who gets to represent an omen who gets to have say about somebody else's future that really becomes than other than others. say that there is one other factor that it's easy to miss in all of us, and that is three thousand miles. Emotion between people. Men and between the north american colonies, their stretched, this great Atlantic Ocean and the time that was necessary to cross back and forth between it. that presented a problem that aggravated the whole question of who is going to be represented and how parliament was a deliberate. It also work the other way because it made an extremely difficult for parliament to have its way with the colony is to be respected, to be obeyed and finally proves to be absolutely fatal to british plant to suppress colonial resistance. Those three thousand Elsa. Beauchamp were formidable.

When you, when you read about how long people took to get across that can be really jawdropping. An average trip is One way is twenty days autonomous pain at one. At one point he took eighty day is to get across the Atlantic. Has he got involved and storms in the North Atlantic a mirror icebergs? I mean it was was a quite quite a big deal. Even today, the North Atlantic is no fund assailant evident, even if here and one of these is enormous layer, cake kind of crews type vessels, even if here and the queen, married to The storms of the North Atlantic are formidable, there's just no way to predict and in the eighteenth century in the eighteenth century in wooden sailing vessels, you were very much at the mercy of the elements that was a problem for communication and communication, of course, is vital. When we talk about legislation, it also becomes an absolute proof.

Long for the British, when they're trying to supply their forces in North America so raked. The reason taxation had become more prominent correct is the victory in the french Indian WAR, which, which was with smashing that's for the british, but also an expensive one, and they wanted us to to help Tony up and that helped make this this much more of a friction point yes, and it also took away one of the main reasons for having an empire which was France's rivalry you know when France is kicked up. North american continent there no longer a threat which should then a great force key the empire and North America together and the front and indian WAR was justly the latest in a string of angle

french wars that have been going on since the late seventeenth century and periodically threatens Britain's colonies in North America threatened them from from from cap? from french fleet, and so after you know, after the fall of Quebec and after the treaty of Paris in seventeen, sixty three there's, no more french threaten so a threat, gonna then be we have this quarrel, over how do we pay for this great victory so I'll? What's what? What are that? What's the breaking point or what are the breaking It's because, obviously most people they weren't eager to break with Britain Britain. So how do we get to the point where this is something that has to happen Well, as replacing money was the first breaking point, because at the end of the french and indian wars, There are the seven years war as they were known in Europe, the british

you're. Looking at a deficit of a hundred and forty six million pounds sterling up in seventeen Sixty uses a colossal amount of money. May the costs just of servicing. The debt was Sir something close to five million pounds a year and that an even touch the ordinary cost of government, which were about eight million parent year, in fact, a price tag just for retaining seventy five hundred british soldiers and North America as a protective garrison and ran out to about now about three hundred thousand pounds per year. and the answer and listen, seven hundred men. Some thousand five hundred soldiers really didn't go far towards projecting a lot of British North America, so the british one to tax to recover the cost, the French in indian war. They want taxation to support the true.

Who are, after all, protecting the colonists on their borders, especially from depredations by the NATO crimes of their the northwest but Americans. what did this because they had been running their own shows in America for a very long time. Most of the time, the british North american colonies had not been founded as any kind of intelligent effort on the bar, of the british government. Basically, the british government used its north american colonies as a place to dump all the unwanted of our society, and it was you, go off and listen hear from you ever again. Thank you. So the colonists created their own ad hoc assemblies which were technically speaking, illegal. But they created their own ad hoc assemblies, the did their own job of taxing and they have been running their show for an awfully long time.

and now for the British suddenly to step in and say, whilst all going to be done differently, we're going to take charge of running things, that's stock in Colonial cross and it comes first to political pamphlet. Hearing when it comes to confrontations, overtax agents, agents representing stamp tax agents representing various other kinds of taxes who get tar In feathered who get intimidated, who get mobbed, then it extends by the seventeen seventy eight to these crowd actions in the streets and in the case of the Boston, Tea party, crowd, actions on board English owned ships and then finally, it comes to shooting, When british troops confront colonial militia are projecting the sources of their arms and supplies,

and by seventeen seventy five. We have now come to an open breach in which colonial militia british soldiers are in fact in a state of de facto war, with each other, so random hush now what would happen to you and your tartan feathered rate with nothing? Nothing good. Your clothes were ripped off you, liquid, char was poured over, you charge had been liquefied and then later yeah you'd, not not hardened pot after scald, but not enough for it today liquid and then pockets or barrels of feathers within dumped on you, which were stuck to the top. Are and not only where you almost literally naked in front of the people who are doing us,

But then you had the tar all over your disfiguring. You, you had to get that off at some point and the feathers of it was a spectacularly miserable business so Rick will ended up being scarred, some people were killed, no gap are, was they did other stuff? You can rolled and dot magician. This was not ass, so who are the most compelling voices in favour of independence and what were the most compelling arguments while you have, you have read it rules are SAM. Atoms has been beating the drums in Boston for a decade there there was a riot indirectly instigated by his polemics in seventeen sixty five. They they stormed the house of the governor of

Province of Massachusetts, who was a native Thomas Hutchinson. His family had done there since the sixteen thirties, but he worked in the imperial system. Man, so all the grievances attached to him on a mob of Boston, and one night invaded. His house chased him and his family out of it are broke up. All the furniture stole all the cash tore, the wainscoting off the walls and toppled the pupil of from the roof was a complete trashing of his house, so that this kind of stuff, was, was either happening or Laden in Boston for a long time. In Virginia you. Had local planters, local grandees there there's there, certainly a quiver said, the gentry we read about in Jane Austen accept there

they're off on the edges of the world, and they of their own plantations in their own bond. bond women, I e slaves and they have a very high pension of themselves and they kept there are more proper can be easily ruffled by by what they consider You now have become answer that they don't like that cut to tee. So so these are two local sources also said Carolina has particularly Charleston. It's like a are there and caribbean colony. very wealthy, again very self important, and so These are some of the engines of what's going on. I think we should. We should note that not everybody in the Future United States is is for this revolutionary movements, the famous

Johnny items is- is that a third were forward. A third were against it in the third were indifferent. Now he he obviously had taken a pole. He was just guessing and and those percentages they shift depending on what colony, what colony year in one ethnic group, what political ropes you're looking at. They also shift over time as well as the resolution goes on. The british map, the regular troops so much, but the british auxiliaries behave very badly, and this turns a lot of the indifferent into patriots. But we should wish we shouldn't forget that there were. There were american loyalists I'll, just give you one chase my favorite governor Morris from a very prominent New York family. He has one half brother who signed the declaration of independence.

Another half brother was a general on the british Army, his mouth, There is a loyal as the whole war. All his sisters are loyalists He visits as mother during warriors to get passes from both sides to go, see her so these. These divisions sometimes divided single families so wreck. How do we think about you described in and details on Sundays, mob actions? How do we think about that as servitors and let the legitimacy or how just viable it was because in the contemporary debate you know this has been going on for forty or fifty Whenever we complain about some Unwrast riding somewhere, people are well look. You know that the the idea that the early Americans during the Revolutionary WAR did it too so what's wrong with it. Well, it gets back to to an almost talking about representation,

Americans do vote, and so they have some say whoever attenuated in the policies of the United States or of their their states of their communities. The colonists had, you know some input into their own affairs, but they had no import. in the parliament. Now you know there were counter arguments. Samuel Johnson wrote a pamphlet taxation, no rep. You know trying to convey this argument, and- and he was saying, though, he made the point that allow, People in England were not represented in parliament either at sight. Like two wrongs make a right, and it is also true that that the colonies head had agents in England to represent their interests. Lobbyists, basically Ben Benjamin Franklin

who spent the years of the run up to the war or living in London and considered moving their permanently, and one of the things he was doing was acting as an agent for a handful of them can colony. So he you know he knew everybody he was unlike flan uneven. He would present their gripes complaints to the relevant authorities. But the problem. You know the problem there is that, so what? If the authorities were inclined to listen, then too bad in an you really had no recourse, you couldn't form a coalition, and parliament now too, were to help yourself, because you weren't in their yourself and again, there always were Englishman in parliament and were sympathetic to us. a man like Edmund Burke, Charles Fox Wilkes,

but they were in a minority, so they never. They were never able to effect government policy so so you could say of the riots in the rioters. Well, you know tat people, the people, do mob actions. Are they shouldn't they shouldn't hurt? standards or even in a culpable officials, harm them or destroy their prey pretty, but on the other hand, what other recourse was there? There was no representation, so eloquently get Lexington Concord

and that is that that inevitably set us on the course to independence and and how do we get from there to the declaration? No it doesn't. This is because the colonists themselves remains as as rigorous as the colonists rip themselves remain very much in two minds about what they want to do. They are looking at the situation in terms of british imperial policy which they really don't like, but at the same time, what real alternative do they have? The british empire was protecting them from the spanish Empire to the West, its protecting them from any kind of renewed Energy on the part of the French to re, establish an empire in the new world, and let it let's face it. The british empire is creating a very comfortable trade zone,

within which american shipping and american goods are projected by the royal navy. So the path that Americans are treading towards in The- That is actually every zigzagging path in brief It begins in seventeen. Seventy four: when the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, an ad hoc body was not the legal body. Legal legislature of the colony is proposed, start raising troops and in Time Massachusetts appeals to the Continental Congress, which has delegates from all the colonies meeting. To take charge of an army to authorize invasion of Canada, to authorize new governments in a variety of the colony, even even a continental. stop it, and there is some discussion of independence as early as May of seventeen. Seventy five, when

Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson are authorized to draw up a statement of cars, as for taking up arms, which they put into the hands of George Washington in Washington to set off to Boston, to take charge of this ad hoc continental army, that is created, and yet even with all that which looks very much like dramatic steps towards independence. People in the car, it'll Congress were still emphasising their desire for reconciliation because not sure what further steps they can possibly take. Many of them were were happy to let great Britain, for instance, regulate trade. The external trade, the colonies so long as the British did not in fact start setting tax policy inside the car,

many of them even Thomas Jefferson, almost right up to the end, would have been perfectly happy with what we might call a commonwealth model for America and Britain, the character, the one individual who pushes the colonists, the most towards independence, the one who pushes the whole situation right off the edge of the cliff and probably judge war to make independence a reality than any other person is king, George, the third, because George, the third made it very clear from the get go that he regarded the colonists and the colonists protest and their activities area, art of them as a rebellion on a at a rebellion to be suppressed militarily. He says in one thousand seven hundred and seventy four, and he says this to his prime minister, Lord North,

The new England governments any second, particularly because so much of the resistance was was occurring into the New England governments he says, are in a state of rebellion and deal with that. He said blows have to decide are there going to be subject to great Britain or independent and from that flows, probably the most provocative of the imperial restrictions on America. The prohibitory act which suspends british trade with North America. It's behind the attack of the british Navy on Falmouth in October, one thousand seven hundred and seventy the burning of Norfolk and January seventeen. Seventy six. All this has really done at the kings direction, so Given the signals the king is giving too is north american subjects

Those are the american subjects sake. Well, look you notice! Where you want us to go, I guess we're going to have to go there so where for independence, and that, in fact, is what results here, we can see Alan and respected. That was a mistake. I mistaken policy on on the part of of King George, but was it was crazy. It's time well, Vermeer's perspective, not omit. The british empire had just one this astounding international struggle against France in seventeen fifty or something Ecstasy, and the idea that you would free with the Americans might in fact give rise to a great deal of dissension. and resistance within the british Isles themselves under while the American Revolution is going on there. There is more than a little a political unrest. Going on in the british Isles in Ireland in school, Poland and in other parts of England,

In a sense if the king sends a propitiatory signal to the Americans. That could easily be taken by no resistors. Oh sir, to London, as a signal for them to wreak what have they want on british rule. At this point, George, the third believes what's sauce for the british Gander is going to be sauce for the American Goops and what you're going to have to do in order to preserve order in England is what you're going to have to do to reduce the colonists, to obedience to into imperial rule. So reckless talk a lot about that. The declaration John John Adams said later Well, of course they assigned it to Jefferson is cuz. We are, we are all the rest of us were so busy doing other important business. You know we don't have time for this, this mere draftsmanship and you had Jefferson some point

again. It in a letter say why I just I just wrote down what were the common sentiments of the the time so was is Adams. What Adam said is that two sliding is what Jefferson said too modest, or what what's the truth? There. Why out and is being atoms you know and with glee. We love him, but boy he's difficult, Jefferson's statement at the end of his life. He was just reflecting. The common sentiments of the day is a humble because, if, if that's what he was doing, when he's not just Thomas Jefferson expressing his little fancies, he's an oracular profit. You know he's a speaking whole nation and he wants the ideas that he was reflecting were in general currency

Ah, he had on his desk as he was writing the declaration in Philadelphia. He had the Virginia declaration rights which had been produced a month before in his home state and a lot of his language tracks. The language of that document. Most of the declaration. I mean we focus on the on the opening paragraphs as they have the most paternal relevance to all political situations and they're, both our London and amazingly concise, but the bulk of the declaration is a bit. The indictment against George, the third and against parliament for the various offences that they have committed. It's like a legal effect document and that's the one that the Cardinal Congress Addison tussles over the loves they come

May I add Jefferson than my Gandia this there's. This is wonderful story with he tells you have too crowded in his he's telling IRAN himself He described him himself when, when the declarations being Blue Council than his yes, there squirming and Benjamin Franklin Is this an says? You know I I I however, right doc documents for public bodies, because this always happens happen. It reminds me of a man I knew back when I was granted. and I want to open a storm. So he designed to sign and for his hat, storing was a picture of a hat, and it said John Thompson makes themselves ass, ready money at this sight at that,

march giant around with brains, and then one friend says: will you don't need at this site right? Because the sign is on store or somewhere else. Would it be so he cut that out and then someone else's you don't need for ready money, because that's the way business is done here. People thereby sullen credit. So he cuts that out and then friend after friends objects to ask them, that finally decide answer being John Thompson had a picture of a hat. answer this. This is pure frank them. It's like, like you know, just drafting people by tying them a funny story. and here the person whose tender you. Go has to be sued. This Thomas Jefferson and I do have to give Jefferson credit for telling the story on himself years later, so he had some. You know some self awareness of his own authority hundred

but TAT yeah. I think the ideas were general, but the challenge was projected had already written, very eloquent, pamphlets and and and pieces on the political struggled. So the drafting committee, which there were there, are five man, Roger Sherman, Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, a Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania, John Adams, Massachusetts and job offers Virginia Sherman on Livingston. Don't do anything on the three who Do all the worker Franklin Atoms, Jefferson and they decide the Jefferson should be the guy to do it because he's just got the best pan and there the two of them do make some small corrections before its given the Congress, which which really takes a meat we were departing, the mouse, the most prominent one is that Jefferson had written, that our rights are sacred,

The and Franklin change that is self evident that the truth, rather that we hold or not sacred, in their self evident, which is a little more scientific, a little more philosophical, but but then you know. Maybe impressing thing is that one Congress gets to editing. They don't touch the opening this, this very densely, packed idealized. You call statement all these delegates think yeah, that's fine! We're cool with that will sign and so they do and they commit they commit their their colonies. To this statement of of rights of right are ours. By name

sure that are not being created by Thomas Jefferson WAR by the Continental Congress. We have them, we have them because were born. We have them because were men and they say you know, there's no dispute about them. And so, and so it goes down to us in the history, so Alan Point Mare her book about it. The decoration says that this was a wasn't really. Philosophical document with a constitutional document was making this very important statement about the fundamental authority of government and the main event

for a very long for least somebody a time around. The declaration was the fact that was a declaration of independence and that it was only subsequently in and in various political back and forth that the preamble and kind of ownership of that became became the most most prominent thing about the declaration. That is at a correct reading of the directive. In history, but I think it's an attempt were released. It wasn't attempt on one part to try to balance a lot of the ways in which the declaration had been written about, as though it was a purely abstract document. And especially as though it was simply one very long footnote to John LOTS to treatises on government. other. There has been a lot of examination of the sources of the preamble of the declaration of independence, and some people have tried to point two

their potential sources, especially to the scottish enlightenment. There has been debate back and forth about where Jefferson gets. One idea were Jefferson pulls up. Another idea, I think fundamentally, that there's no easy way to draw a line between. practical and the philosophical, because there wasn't an easy way to find that line in Thomas Jefferson himself. If you look at the documents that Jefferson Composers were the Continental Congress in the run up to one thousand seven hundred and seventy six the the declaration of a why Americans are taking up arms. The summary of the rights of British America is there's a visit, very potent mix of practical considerations and philosophical, and I think that it is safe to say that Jefferson himself is very much a man of the political will,

lighten, but very much a man of John Locke of the Baron Mont Askew, Zira Back Korea, the other major thinkers of the political enlightened. and that is what is reflected in the preamble. It ended and really, I dont think of the end of the day, it's much of an exaggeration to say that the most important hand at work in the creation of that preamble in Jefferson's mine really is John Locke. Much of this really goes back to end his own to lock as a political philosopher, and I don't think we should diminish that and I don't think it diminishes Jefferson to say that. At the same time, though, he is also running this document based on, experience that he has closer to home. The english declaration of Rights

from sixty. Eighty nine, for instance, forms the basis for a preamble that he writes for a new Virginia state constitution. and then when the motion for independence has finally made man it's made by Richard Henry Lee on June, seventh, seventeen, seventy six in Continental Congress. It takes only four days for the Congress to appoint a drafting committee unless the committee that includes atoms and Franklin and the others Jefferson works, add at high speed to pull this together pulls material from their dreams

The preamble to the Virginia constitution pulls it from George Masons Declaration of Rights, which had just been adopted on twelve June. Seventeen, seventy six levies and and he's is drawing on a number of sources that way to assert the right of revolution and produces the document there is in the blue line and the girl that takes place and finally, Congress takes up a consideration of this. Of the original resolution. Of four generally and of the declaration of Congress did, of course they they work over the draft that declaration that evidence provided them for for two days and they caught and day eliminate. but some of the more extreme language they toned down some of the accusation, language,

they eliminate a long passage on the slave trade, in which Jefferson was trying to hang the responsibility for the slave trade around the neck of a king. But at the same time they also include some items. The Jefferson had not expanded in detail, especially about the responsibility of the king for domestic direction. And, finally, what happens is. Richard and release motion comes up for consideration and for a vote on July second and is adopted, In this case are virtually unanimously, the only delegation which didn't agree to it was the New York delegation, and that was because their conclusion was still in process. They would eventually endorse that they then turn true Jefferson's declaration and they spent two days working on Jefferson's declaration and they adopt that. Laid on the morning of July, fourth,.

which is why we have this curious situation in which we actually we actually adopt the resolute for independence. On July second, shortly July, second secondary independence day John Adams fixed on that and predicted that that was everybody would celebrate and should all firecrackers, and so can. I love that court I use a couple times every July. Fourth, but I have to bolder rise. It not include the data. To begin express right here is really big a day and John Adams in one of those or one of those marvellously perverse moments. When Adams firmly puts his foot down and makes a declaration and just happens to be a little bit off it had. No, it's it's! It's two days later cheats, two days after that that the Continental Congress

late in the morning of July? Fourth adopts the declaration, which also contains Richard and release resolution, and that becomes the day that Remember too, and that is the day when that becomes the official statement of one american independence is all about. Oddly enough, when we think of the declaration, we often think of it as well, Jefferson's text plus the signatures, John Hancock Charles Thomson, and then all the delegations, actually most of their signatures, were added right. That moment the declaration of independence gets signed. So, to speak

I'm serious, I'm all the way through that summer and later so, you show you. Actually you actually have people who are elected to take seats in the Continental Congress who come to Philadelphia, who actually didn't vote for they are the independence motion or for the declaration. Nevertheless, they are invited to come up and sign. The declaration. Matthews Thornton, for instance, didn't have any. all in either the vote, The resolution on July Second WAR, the declaration on July. Fourth, but when he shows up in Congress for the first time in August, is invited to sign the declaration of independence, so his name appears is actually an odd document when used considerate me this, a legal declaration. This is the kind of thing, but a lawyer would draw up at the beginning of May kind of war shoot it sunlight.

really no particular reason for it to have been shot. And by anybody except Hancock, as the President of the Congress and Thomson as it Secretary and yet it is signed in and it's a signal that the delegations to the Congress are there really committing in a very visible way, their committing our constituents, their states to the support of independence. So there's no turning back to a couple of other things are: depression is really quickly. Don't get ended. The George Washington and fighting so Alan is the image we we see of Jefferson when his depicted working decoration needed with a queer on his hand, at an elephant SK, as that is accurate, and how difficult was it to write with a queer like that? Well, I've written with oil before them

An efficient auto of fountain pen as it is a quill is actually a wonderful instrument for writing because its easily sharpened very flexible, if you ever used a fountain pen which has a gold nib than has alot reflection at you know how comfortable that is the right way, in writing with the Quilp Energy, especially if it's a goose girl, very easy and very painless way of writing. You can shop, usually with a little penknife. Just my almost everyone carried a penknife was one of those times and it's it's a very fine writing instrument and I almost want to stay In this era of keyboards and computer screens, I'd recommend people try the experiment, I think the new pleased with neighbouring etc. Trail media keep noted the goosequill there. You go food supply

school every measure, you'd order them from the pudding so wreck, what's more important declaration or the constitution, or is that a completely meaningless question? it's completely meaningless. Yeah. There's a famous note that that Lincoln wrote to himself after he was elected, but before he was inaugurated in that four month period and then he's he said, he uses a bible verse, but a word we spoke them is like apples and old and pictures of silver right when he says that the declaration is the apple of gold and the constitution is the pictured silver. Now, what did what was what the Hebrew was talking about was jewel

so picture is like of spraying around saying your rang or something in the stone age, being held, as is the apple of gold. That's that's the image and people have I'm thinking of the late Harry Jasper, not unlike Johnny atoms in certain respects, in our great man but TAT S. Bill said you know, if you think it's top disagreeing with very Java tried three hundred ha ha ha ha and- and he knows he took this note of Lincoln's, this private note, blankets and really and was at an end, and, I would say, maybe devalue the constitution, thereby of debts. One perhaps more than Lincoln himself would have done. Lincoln Lincoln clung to both of those

this is. Its claim was that he was the day, the correct exponent of them and that Stephen Dogma, Son and the southern rebels laid. They got them long. You now and all sorts various ways Cooper Union Speeches Brill Ninety minute speech that checks office first presidential campaign is all about the constitution. Thought about the declarations about the seiners to the constitution, the framers, what they thought of the federal government's power over slavery in the territory. So so that's Lincoln Lex! institutions, but is also a great in our great declarations. Now this this is. This is from the point of view of all of us who come after Us the writing of both those dark and coarse and seventeen on July. Fifth, seventeen. Seventy six! There is no council

fusion we're not gonna get one after another. eighteen years, so so Initially America has has started itself the declarations is the document the flag, if you will but but but we're already up and running and on we go and and we have, we been fighting a war for a little over a year and it's gonna go after more than seven years, more pollution just just remember: this back revolution is eight and a half years and during the civil war and who are part of a war to put together, that's the longest war. We will fight until Vietnam and endless is all being done before the constitution is written, so wreck, let let's let's get to Washington, so he shows up that Congress. It shows up with us his Virginia militia

uniform. Yes, you were you uses uniform there. I I don't think that was that was directly lobbying for the job. That was a statement that it'll come to us now, that's a statement of his room. Globalism, if you like of his realism, if you like, is Israel, recognition that that, yes, this is what we're involved in and we have to. We have to face that back and it comes to picking a commander and chief and he ends up getting job, so you mention the length of the war with sometimes in our popular imagination, when we just your folks on the highlight

just forget about that- the sheer length of it so so this is a in a becomes a long grinding struggle where the imperative is, as Washington realized, is to preserve the army, but, above all, any sort has to reign himself in Does he he naturally has an aggressive data right. If you, if you looked at the Washington involved and the French in indian WAR, you say what the hot head. Who's gonna, create a huge mess evoke these lay confident of aggressive. How does Washington change? Has a discipline himself? How does he look at the at the war? Well, Washington, was a very good learner. My friend, the keel Amar just just wrote a book out America's constitutional conversation, and he said Washington's role in that conversation was the great listener So he's a great listener and he's a great learner and

He learns over the course of this war. I've let at the beginning when he's the he has sent by Congress to go up to Boston, to take charge of the seizure of Boston after Lexington Unconquered Bunker Hill, ah the British or in Boston and the american troops first off from New England than from from from all America there their sins surrounding Boston besieging Washington's in command. and one of his ideas as the siege stretches in the winter he thinks. Well, maybe we can put our troops on ice gates and sketch skate over the water tat, reddish embossed in that way, and his other generals. You know talk him out of that. Fortunately, so you know it's a combination of the advice of other men of his own experience in the field I mean he thinks early on, that he can fight for wars, posts

in other words, defending the expanding fortified positions against british tax. This is partly a mistake them lessons drawn from Bunker Hill. Where, where we inflicted tremendous casualties on the british trying to take, you know an entrenched position. The british win, but it's a pyrrhic victory, because there was a thousand. Their soldiers were killed, ass against three hundred of ours, and so we early on thank and washing them. Thanks well, let's just keep repeating this. Ah, but his experience in the back Austrian for New York and a man hat and teaches them. This isn't gonna work by their side.

Huge Deborah CALL Northern Manhattan sport ball. Sport washing centres which falls to the British with you now over. A thousand prisoners taken on these. These men will be held. The prisoners and Phil the prison ships and most of them will die there. It's it's just the debacle and you know. So Washington begins to learn. No, we can't win the war by sitting unfortified posts and letting the british press their heads against the bunker Hill was a unique situation. There are other ways to take fortify person. British didn't do those in different circumstances and have done it. So we ve got to have a different strategy. You ve got to be more fluid. You ve got to be more flexible its if you have to have an aggressive defensive, but you have to be more mobile them none. I originally thought so so this is an example of Washington learned.

is he goes on and then I would say The final one really is the Yorktown campaign, because Washington was determined in the last years of the war to retake New York and others was both a strategic objective, because the harbour was so so that's one so important. I was also, I think, a personal thing Washington lost in New York City once he wants to be the one Wins it back at the french chalk him out of that, because their fleet is not going to come from the Caribbean. The way up to New York, they're gonna go to the shapes of Virginia. So therefore, the goal has to be picking off this This british southern army, that under Cornwallis that ends up being marooned in Virginia and Washington, has to be talked into their life and he is, he accepts. Hee hee,

CS. He sees what the reality is, that they have a large army than he hasn't that point. They have two fleets and he has zero sweets. they're calling the shots, and he knew and he finally goes along with their mix up such an but but one of the ironic benefits of his stubbornness was that the British believed until past the last moment that New York was the real object Ah, so they they tried to reinforce porn all is down in Virginia from New York too late, because they could see these movements of troops, but they live in the sun, Thank you. I, what they really want to do is take New York

the reason they thought. That is because Washington been so stubborn about doing now for so long, so his is some early stubbornness reaped the benefits as the Yorktown campaign proceeds. Yet this is why the grey areas in american history, if you You told North Americans time the french Indian WAR we get bailed out and when our independence, on the basis of this alliance and thanks the navy of this hateful catholic Monarchy papers, it what you will do your crazy. But Alan seems to me like the Battle New York. I would think that's the way. King George would think you would go right. You send this fleet, the just smashes. These provincial sends them running, decimate them several times over and then you have one sees me. I'm one of the great hinge points of american history at you have threatened, and in Princeton and this this sir, the painting of

washing crossing the delawares I've sleeve very idealized knew you can nit picking various historical details, but but the sense of it that here's this band, that with enormous stakes. You know at risk is just completely accurate, will surely convinces the overall british commander in North America that trying to suppress the American rebel is going to be beyond the powers even of the british Empire, Sir William. How to that point had assumed that the American Revolution was collapsing in of its own way them at the end Dickens had really lost control of New York they pushed Crossing Jersey winter was setting in the Americans, had retreated to the far side of the Delaware and british garrisons were all over New Jersey and

logging themselves down to the winter and how really expected this was simply one more step towards a happy conclusion for Great Britain, then out of nowhere right after Christmas day. Suddenly the Americans strike across the Delaware they hit Trenton they hit Princeton. It is just unbelievable that point: how begins to entertain serious doubts as to whether this or can really be won. The innocence is because the logistical tether between Britain and Erika is so long that it is difficult for the british to supply is difficult for the british to replace care for these and they eventually realise that they can win a number of victories and still lose this war siblings the Americans have their resources equally at hand, close at hand for them to replenish. The Americans can weigh them out and

in large measure. This becomes a lot of what Washington strategy is he willed I too take on the British when he has opportunity, but most of the time he is going to wait. The British out he's gonna wait for french aid here, going to let it finally dawn on the british that they might be able to control certain places. Certain major points, New York for one. For short, I'm Philadelphia, Savannah Charleston but Anywhere beyond that pictures just really have no control of what's happening in the hinterland. Why? How is in fact going to surrender control the british Army is, is going too far, under the hands. You shouldn T Clinton, inclined, is going to wage what really amounts to a gradually losing strategy sure Britain never really does regain any kind of meaningful control over most of them out the american colonies. Finally, when Cornwallis his army is trapped, add Yorktown

compelled to surrender the news of that finally takes the flooring out from under british any british confidence that the war could be one Lord North Roshes hands in the air and says: oh god, it is all over and for all practical purposes. It was. It would take months after that of negotiation. Until then, one thousand seven hundred and eighty three, a peace treaty is signed, but in large measure the war was being carried on simply beyond the capacity of the british Empire to to wage it at so great a distance. What they had been able to do in the pledges in seventeen sixty is simply was no longer possible, especially once the French got into the picture from in seventy eight onwards. That point the best the British could hope to do: would be to hold onto their really valuable american colonies, which

not the north american watch. I noticed, the blow to our respect. What rich? I'm afraid that the thirteen north american colonies were not the jewel of the british burial ground, the real jewel deck round with a british wished indian islands, the ones that produce sugar and after seventeen seventy eight, the british concentrate most of their resources in protecting the West Indian, ones from being seized by the French and gradually they just simply have to let go what happens on the north american continent. So wreck is George Washington

American, he was the one we needed that dispensable man well and he you know he he wins the war. He goes on to be a first president and then the third thing he does is he leaves both those jobs. The I love the circumstances of his returning as commission to Congress. At the end of the war December, seventeen eighty three, the peace treaty has been signed, a british beef finally evacuated New York. Washington is retaken up and then he did. He writes to Congress Annapolis and he says ok, it's all over. How do you want me to give my commission back and so Congress at that time being presided over by Thomas Mann, one

formerly on Washington staff and major fallen out little one like Washington anymore. So muslin arranges the advocate of this ceremony to put Washington in his place in Washington is the time to them. He has to come to an apples when he comes in the room, they will be he did he will stand. He will. My hands is dimensions of President Congress. He will handle the someone at the presence of Congress sends to him to take- and I mean all this is me

say we. We are more important than you now than when it when it happens. Of course, Washington accepts all these conditions because he believes it himself is, has arriving at a cost of Congress. So fine, of course he will do all this goes with the ceremony. He gives a little speech. Everyone is simple tears. And Muslim was probably thinking and cursing spoiled again, maybe he's more now than it was such a thing, I'd, never focused on the details of confiscate seated or might we're just listening something about Caesar, and that this was one of the the extremely disturbing thing, that centre showed up once and seas. instead, so they say: oh he's a can't, you think see the king, so it was at requisite sort of a statement of of

pre eminence yours or sovereignty, if you're, if you're seated, no one else, Hester, oh yeah, yeah, you're, you're ease sooner or later, they gotta be it attention and it is. It is correct that the debt Congress, had fled or a condom Annapolis instead of Philadelphia, because they are afraid that that the army prior to Washington, talking it down a number of good, will go up in Philadelphia. Will the army already had there were some disorderly, probably drunken soldiers had surrounded What we now call Independence Hall, where grandsons meeting and tat. You know young officer, Alexander Hamilton, rode up to warn Congress to say, look guy, you know. got a problem on our hands and then they decamped late. They went to various other places,

You know I forget the order now that they were in Princeton for a while and then they then they move to an apple us, but they got chased out of Philadelphia. So Alan Scotty were taken as read. An action have seen. Aid credible for full use of the declaration was spoken and the founders you're a great lake, Anne Schuyler records written, wonderful book about him as well, so I have not looked up out of I'm just gonna get somebody Lincoln books of erecting a say, eight that overcrowded will have far too many. They count a capital.

You read it out, but I'm sorry, I'm, unlike the mountain climber who climbs a mountain peak and then looked around for the next round and picked apply I'm a half hour. I write a programme that was the next one, so talk about Lincoln and and the founding. What use did he make of it? How did he refine it were telling us of some some folks in Gary Wells, others redefined. It is curious because Lincoln actually shows comparatively little interest in the declaration of independence before eighteen. And that's because he doesn't feel like asked her. He thinks the principles in the propositions of the declaration are simply what everybody assumes and accepts and within those propositions, any application. They have this labor It is something which is militating against the continuation of slavery. Slavery is far

is concerned, something which is on the road to what he called ultimate extinction and ass, simple written into the DNA of the american experiment. In terms about the declaration, the constitution all of the visible act of Congress in the the years of the republic so before. Eighteen. Fifty is not really a huge issue. Joy It begins to show up first in a memorial address. He delivers in eighteen. Fifty two after the death of Henry Clay are the great quid later the man whom Lincoln described as his bow ideal of a statesman and by that point, Lincoln starting to hear things that he does not like, he does not like what he hears from pro slavery. Taters, principally John Calhoun, but a lot of Calhoun acolytes.

Who are beginning to suggest to the declaration of independence, comments about all men are created, equal was really wrong. It was a mistake. All men are not created equal, their created with different capacities and therefore they have different levels of eligibility for for equality and further It should go with equality and whispering that from pro slavery, people, but he's also hearing from anti slavery. People comments, While the founders were really dead wrong, they had the whole business about ultimate extinction wrong. The constitution is a flawed document. The founders were flawed founders, they were too soft on slavery and too accommodating of it, and therefore we have to do something new, dramatic and revolutionary but the founders and around and Mine and Lincoln Lincoln agrees with neither one of those and that shows up in this memorial address he gives to Henry Clay because, on the one hand, he condemns

anti slavery, agitators who say- we're just gonna tear up the constitution, we're gonna chair of the declaration of independence, because it doesn't really serve the purposes of the anti slavery movement and he said These are, these are people who would tear up they tear up the Bible if they had a chance, because all counts for them is their particular political agenda, but at the same time he condemns the people who want to abandon the declaration and it's it's. embrace of this notion that all men are created equal. This is what are we reducing the fourth of July to that we're reducing to an opportunity to burn firecrackers so he's very dismissive of people who want to either tear down the declaration on the constitution to go in one direction or, due to the very same thing, so they get no in the other direction. It is not until eighteen, fifty four with the passage of the Kansas Nebraska ACT and the the disappearance,

of this theory. He had long entertained. The slavery was on on his own way out Kansas. ask, now opens up all the western territories to the possibility of legalised slavery. Now, suddenly he moved into a very different plain and he wants. As you says, it is one thousand eight hundred and fifty four speech in October of eighteen, fifty four at Peoria Illinois. What we need to do is to wash our star garments. Our garments have become soiled and he means we'll by slavery, we have to wash our garments and the blood of red the revolution we have to have, some kind of he doesn't use the word new birth of freedom, but you can almost hear that rumbling. In the background we have two reappropriate the declaration. We have two reappropriate the prom, since the revolution, and that is going to be the only way forward. Now this

grows and momentum in MECCA until finally, we get to eighteen. Fifty eight and his great contest was Stephen. I Douglas for the Illinois Senate C and there the debt racial independence, room move right to the forefront of what Lincoln has to say and and as to argue, and he shows up right at the very beginning of his campaign on July tense. Eighteen, fifty eight he gives a speech in which he he talks about this peculiar situation. The United States finds it of it. He says you look at Americans today and fully half of the population of the United States was either born someplace else or are the progeny of people who were worn someplace. In other words, they don't have an immediate connection too.

or where I descended from the veterans of the American Revolution, the foreigner snapped their immigrants have come from. Someplace else is, as they come from Scandinavia. They ve come from France or England. They ve come from other places in Europe and when you present them, he said when you present all these diverse people, whip Otherwise, absolutely nothing in common when you present them with the words of the declaration. tat. All men are created equal then he said they re that, and there is an age, distinctive reaction at instinctive recognition of the truth. he says it's like an electric cord. They read those words. They feel that they are flesh of the flesh and bone of the boat. of those old men that wrote the declaration, and so they are so the declaration in His mind has now become, and especially the preamble and that of the declaration, has now become a statement of universal

rights of universal natural law that every but he can sign onto and everybody can appropriate and there seem runs all through its debates with Douglas because he says what ever you want to say about the Rights or the civil status of black people. The one thing you cannot take away from them, is the natural equality they have with everyone uses, An individual black person may not be my equal in some respect this way or some respect that way near them. Lobbyists tall is Abraham, Lincoln Sixty four inches, but he says in their right to eat the bread which they have earned by the sweat of their brow. They are the equal of myself, of Judge Douglas and of every living man, and that seem the declaration just run straight through lack of vivid riddle.

All through those debates and into Lincoln's features in eighteen, fifty nine until finally, after his election in November baiting six, He has a very lengthy inaugural trip that he takes from his home in Springfield Illinois, starting in February, Eleventh eighteen, sixty one, and that trip rings to Philadelphia to independence. Oh and standing in independence hall. He gives a remarkable speech in which he says how much of an inspiration independence hall had always been. in a few days before, addressing the New Jersey, state, Senate and Trenton, he had talked about how much the example of the revolution had mental, how he had read: Mason, wins it biography, Washington and House. That's how much at resonate,

with an even as a boy. Well now standing and Independence Hall, he says I have never had a thought politically. That was not informed by the declaration of independence. Is the declaration of it pending is what sets the song of the american experiment, and he says rather remarkable statement rather than abandon those principles. He would rather be assassinated on the spot number twenty. Second, eighteen sixty one and, of course they really painful irony of that isn't on April twenty second eighteen, sixty five Lincoln's corpse lies in state in every building in independence. Hall

so for him that the declaration of independence just continue to inform what he does. Reg earlier referred to the analogy that aid drew the apple of gold, the picture of silver and the declaration of independence and the constitution in the EU are in this. This indissoluble relationship and the fact that he is such an ardent advocate the declaration which it has been suggested and new mention Gary Wills, and this is this is the place where it probably was most loudly articulated. When is book on Lincoln and Gettysburg, one thousand nine hundred and ninety one beywheelz comes up with this theory that up until this point, the American Republic had been governed almost entirely by the constitution is a constitution republic, but Lincoln at Gettysburg Lincoln, gets up and says that we were founded on. opposition that all men are created equal. What link

in does is to perform what wills calls a sleight of hand. He moves the constitution away, and slides into place the declaration of independence, so that the American Republic, from that point, on almost stopping a republic dedicated to constitutional liberty and will start being a republic dedicated to declaration equality and that is as artificial. I almost almost went to say, as as contrived a sanction, is one could make because Lincoln never saw a distinction between the equality promised in the declaration and the liberty promised in the constitution. In fact, is. It is a great moment in September of eighteen sixty three just a few months before, be delivers, the gettysburg addressed in which you, secretary of the Treasury Solomon shakes besiegers. Him too

The terms of the Emancipation proclamation which Lincoln had issued officially on the first of January, one thousand eight hundred and sixty three issue it so that it covers the entire nation of the original proclamation, because it was a war power proclamation only had legal effect over the states in rebellion, the confederacy an chaser sank. Yet let's go the distance, let's free all the slaves by means of emancipation, Proclamation Lincoln's responses very interesting because he says to chase look constitutionally. I can't do that. constitutionally as commander in chief, I can free slaves in zones which are in rebellion against the United States, because that's war and on the commander in chief in time of war, but not other places not in talking not Missouri, not Maryland, not Delaware. I can't do it they're just constitutional.

They're, not at war with the United States. So I don't have that kind of power and he adds, if I were to step over and do that if I was to extend the emancipation proclamation in unconstitutional fashion. Would I not be in the boundless field of Absolutism Would I be not setting the constitution aside, and it is interesting that phrase boundless field of absolutism is actually quoting Jefferson. Those are those are worth Jefferson. Now he doesn't say it in the letter that he writes to trace elements. though I think they did the greatest testimony to that Lincoln holds the declaration in one hand on the constitution, and the other is the fact that in eighteen, sixty four, he submits true reelection, in eighteen, sixty four. He could, I think, with some success,

Look you know we're in the middle of a civil war is a national emergency is a national crisis. We can't be destroyed By an election so we're gonna delay the schedule presidential election of eighteen sixty four and in the end you remember which attracted a lot of unhappiness but aid. It has certain reason to the state of Emergency Lincoln, we'll do that. He says we have to submit

election, he goes through the election process. He is reelected, although it looked like a close run thing for quite a while, and he says afterwards it we can have a free republic without free elections and we had cancelled the elections. It would have been basically conceding civil war to the confederacy. What does he say? He sank? I have to be a servant of the constitution, so for Lincoln it's it's a both banned as opposed to wills, creating this either or it is a both that we we are the declaration. We are people of the declaration that were also people on the constitution. They quickly, Gazed redress the greatest speech in american history, an area without question the most sublime Charles Sumner set at best when he said that Lincoln, Lincoln, was wrong at Gettysburg when he said the world

A little note nor long remember what we say here: Somerset no Lincoln was mistaken. The world took great note and we will always remember what Lincoln said there. In fact, he said what Lincoln said at Gettysburg was even more important than the battle so wreck, the Lincoln Emily some abolitionists, not all some abolition. Second, exactly opposite view argued that the constitution was in its in its logic and an anti slavery document that can an inherent in the document. That is correct in your view, it could be an anti slavery document in oh yeah. He had to push it that way. Certainly the materials were there. They deliberately did not use the words slavery.

Slavery in the writing of it and Madison claims to have have said at the time in one thousand, seven hundred and eighty seven that they do they they didn't. those words so that they wouldn't remain, and the constitution after slavery had disappeared. so yeah the potential was there. should never. We should never ignore or what post day the forces that were determined to keep to keep slavery. To hang onto, I mean you You can find rumblings and rumblings of it in the first conference when the Quakers petition for an early and long constitutionally early answer the slave trade and the high representative James Jackson of Georgia, Ribaut Centre, he comes very both sang while he says slavery disapproved of in the Bible,

what are these quakers? They know more about it than than other people. I comes very post sang slavery is a good thing that squarely what he thinks so so that strain of thought goes way back to and we should never ignore it, but what the constitution? Certainly could be made an anti slavery document, and it was so. Let me get you both on this. Before we go, we should address it s a little bit the ongoing controversy about the nature of the revolution in nature of America, how heavily r r

shall sends count against us. So our. How do you? How do you think about this question? Obviously the Atlantic Passages nauseating, but it's over, I find it almost impossible to read about it so horrifying and at the same time as these exalted words were written here, you you had of horrific crimes against humanity being committed here in tolerated here. In affirmatively defended here, so how should we think about our our national sins and what's the proper way to put them in context, but most obvious context issue and of yourself. Human beings are very complicated and often very contradictory creatures, and we can, on the one hand, espouse the most lofty principles and

time come down some of the most repugnant practices that that testifies to the fact that we are, after all, human beings, every society, as has done something of the same and no society has been exempt from it. I've I've never heard of a perfect society where everyone does everything which is right and no one does anything which is wrong. That doesn't happen and we should expect of him. This is why, in fact, we have a constitution at all I mean Madison, may the comment at the constitutional and then not have constitutional convention, but in them in the federalist papers. If men were angels There would be no need for governor, but but we're not angels and no government that has ever been put together on and in the end, the long sway of human history has ever manifested than anything we can call perfection

Today we have voices that almost demand perfection or what they do is they hold us to account for not having demonstrated reflection and in the largest context, what you have to say, as the human nature simply doesnt permit of that which human nature does permit, however, is an aspiration and Lincoln himself talked about aspiration. Lincoln, compare this to the passage in the gospels, but said be perfect, as your father in Heaven is perfect, and Lincoln, explain that people understand that not that are going to go out and do a and b as perfect as God, but really the gun to aspire to as much

they can in as many ways they can and more as they can overtime, try to practice something that approaches that kind of perfection. So what we are taking a lead in the declaration on the constitution, if we were expecting that work, some kind of miracle, when human nature and from the day of their adoption everyone was going to function like an angel, then we have a very spanned notion of human nature- is and which human history is whether what we have had laid out for us in the declaration on the constitution is an aspiration, and I take a step further and say of one of the noblest, if not the noblest aspiration that a human society has ever adopted, because when, before in human experience,

and human politics had a document ever come out and made a commitment to all. Men are created, equal and are endowed by their creator with certain natural rights and then among. These are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness damage to take a step so far out ahead of everything that human societies had seen even at their best before her, that George Washington himself said that one of the great things about living in seventeen. Eighty in seventeen eighty is was We now have an appreciation of the rights of human nature that no other society beforehand had ever enjoy. So what do we have? Is a perfect document now are the people who have managed it perfect? No. but I come back to the estimate made by Frederick Douglass, a man born of slavery, a man who, whose first thing

the nation as an anti slavery activists, I also agree with those who believed that the constitution was a covenant with Jeff and a league with Hell, but by the eighteen. Fifty years Douglas had come to a different understanding of things: and he writes about the constitution as a glorious liberty document and hearing that from the lips of Frederick Douglass Is an affirmation in its own terms that I think is as much applicable to our times as it was to his before abolition before the civil war, when this nation still legalised slavery. Those are words of Douglas that we need to hear again wreck well. If there are problems, make them better and guess what you can, because

These documents and are you're, not you're, not beholden, to the first floor of treasuries, Oxford roommate. Or the legitimate son of the Duke of whatever it's up to. You shall go ahead with that I've, I think, that's a very appropriate senator and on our Galva Recognizer. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Welcome further talk today. Ok, that's it for us. Even listening to a national park asked any re broadcast retransmission account this game without the express written permission of national amazing is strictly prohibited, despite gases and produced by incomparable Sarah should he who makes a sound better than we deserve. Thank you once again, Alan and Rick, and before we go

Gotta read the aforementioned. John Adams quote: yes, it starts with July. Second, both just pretend it starts with July. Fourth, and what he wrote is this day will be the most memorable Parker and the history of America. I am apt believe that we celebrated by succeeding generations the great anniversary festival, it ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by some acts of devotion to God almighty. It ought to be solemnize with pop in parade with shows game sport. Guns bells bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for ever more happy July. Fourth,