Dr. Bell has presented many topics related to American History and early revolution period over the past of the last several years. He received phd from harvard and ba from university of cambridge in england. Hes associate professor history in maryland in college park where he specialize in american early history and cultural history and has been honored with more than half dozen teaching awards. The American Society of 18th century studies bestowed his award on topic of ordinary lives in the American Revolution. And his book stolen, five free boys kidnapped into slavery into their astonishing journey which tells the true story of five boys smuggled into slavery in the deep south and dairy escape to bring their captors to justice is being published by simon and schuster in october. Thank you once again for joining us, please join me in welcoming dr. Rick bell. [ applause ] all right, folks, thanks to heather. Thanks to cspan for covering this. Those who might have been here before and heard me give other programs wont be surprised to hear my strange accent, which is not exactly a marylandnative accent. I was born and raised in england yet find myself teaching about the American Revolution as part of my job right now which is a blessing and curse in an under graduate classroom to teach with an accent like this. Im very proud where i grew up. I often carry in my back pocket on occasions like this, a giant british flag which i might drape for cspan to drink in. But i was also naturalized as a u. S. Citizen couple years ago, something im incredibly proud of. Its wonderful to be part of the programming here as we move into the july 4th weekend. When you hear me say our declaration as i go forward im talking about us americans, okay. The down side of cspan being here unfortunately is that i dont get to swear. At least i will try not to. Also means i dont get to show cute videos of my kids or anything from hamilton the musical for copyright reasons. That still leaves us with a lot. Lets get started. Wo theres a lot of microphones here. Okay. The document on display in the National Archives which we call the declaration of independence has lived an interesting life. Has only been on display in that massive building since 1952 before that in the life of Congress Though for two years in world war ii it hunker down in a deep vault in fort knox in kentucky. Before that it bounce bounced back and forth. In 1876 it did briefly return to philadelphia the city of its birth. There a grandson of one of its original signers red it publicly as part of this countrys 100th Birthday Celebration and reports tell us the massive crowd of people there that day burst into cheers at the site of it. In its first 50 years it travelled more frequently when the british burned down washington, d. C. In 1812 the document we thought of as the declaration of independence was hiding in lees pburg, virginia and you may know it spent years earlier rolled up and stuffed in a bag from one city to the other. Folks, i have shobing news. The document our government has gone to such length to preserve and protect over the centuries, that one, is not actually the declaration of independence. Or at least that document is not the first declaration of independence or the last declaration of independence and it is far from being the only declaration of independence. The document on display at the National Archive, the one this gentleman is peering at is in fact a special commemorative edition that congress ordered up at the end of july, 1776 to memorial the independence the delegates declared in a simple vote weeks earlier on july 2nd and who would formalize that vote in writing on july 4th. The document on display in the National Archives really a souvenir, a beautiful souvenir, made after the fact. It was engrossed on parchment in the hand of a junior clerk named timothy mattlack and was later signed by 56 of the delegates of the congress including several who had not been present for the actual vote and at least one delegate who had voted against the resolution for independence. Now this is all interesting stuff. This is solid Cocktail Party trivia im giving you so far. But to borrow a word from the declaration itself, all of what i said so far is just my preamble. My talk tonight is not actually about this matt lack poiarchmep. Instead it is about all of the other declaration of independence. That the prominence that this lovely keepsake has obscured over the past 2. 5 centuries. Im thinking of jeffersons own drafts. We have seven copies in his handwriting. S of and of the final version approved by congress on july 4able, the one that was disseminated in print across america and across the world. Im also thinking of several other sets of declarations. Some that predate july 4th by several months. Others that were written much more recently. Some written here. Others written far away. Some written by property elite men like jefferson. Others written by people who couldnt be more different to him. Put in all these declaration of independence into conversation with one another this evening, will, i hope give us some fresh perspective on the famous matt lack parchment that peeks out from behind bullet proof glass in the National Archive rotunda. We can be reminded perhaps for all its relic, this honors something unambiguously momentous. It commemorates the creation, adoption and dese min ation of 1310 word statement that forged the american union, and justified their rebellion and certified their independence and announced this countrys appearance on the world stage. That famous statement, the declaration of independence is our mid wife, it is our birth certificate, it is our promise to ourselves. There is much to admire about it and therefore much to discuss. Because i want to have time for questions and comments we need to get going. As the founding moment in our history, declaring independence from Great Britain can seem to us today like this countrys first date with destiny, but it didnt seem like that at the time. And declaring independence, the decision to do it was a long, long time in coming. Open rebellion was treason, remember. And in april 1775 when new england militia took pot shot at the british army in lexington at concord in april 1775 the number of americans contemplating unambiguous revolution could probably still have been counted on the fingers of a couple hands. When the Second Continental Congress assembled in philadelphia a month after these events at lexington and concord in may 1775, the delegates to that Second Congress were under instruction from their colonial legislatures to find a way to patch things up with britain. Thats what they were sent to philadelphia to do, to patch things up, reconciliation, and redress the order of the day. Few at that point, may, 1775, few at that point were thinking of using this congress to cement insurrection against the monarchy or use it to break against the empire upon which the colonists obviously depended for trade and security. In fact, it was actually king george iii who first declared the colonists independence for them. Heres how we did it. On august 23, 1775, the king in london issued a proclamation. The word of the king. Saying that the colonists had proceeded to open an avowed rebellion and because of that they were now outside his protection and because of that they should now be punished as traitors. Thats august, 1775. And in december of that year the British Parliament acted on the kings proclamation and declared war on the colonists maritime commerce beginning a series of stop and search raids on american shipping up and down the coast. Brita britains belligerent was one of the things to nudge philadelphia towards their written declaration. Another thing was the appearance of a pungent new political pamphlet in january 1776. It was the work of an outcast english man named tom payne who had come to philadelphia to start again and told reader thats it was common sense for the colonists to respond to georges bullying by walking away and starting afresh. Tom paynes chief 46 page pamphlet sold like hot cakes and quickly made its way into the pockets, homes and minds of perhaps 100,000 americans in the spring of 1776 and it changed people. It worked to bind people throughout the colonies into a common struggle giving southerners a sense of a common cause of new englanders for the first time. And gave them all a common enemy too. By laying the blame of all of the chaos and trauma for past ten years directly at one mans feet, the feet of king george iii. In these ways, this flimsy plain spoken familiar threat, common sense, in many ways it was the American Peoples declaration of independence, the fact that readers across the colonies made pretty of this over the following months. As the historian pauline mare demonstrate in american is scripture thousands of local government officials in towns, counties and provinceal legislatures spent months after common sense was published, spent the spring of 1776 issuing their own mini declaration of independence, formal statements to claim commitment to separate nationhood and summarizing the chain of events that pushed them to make that decision. Some of these local declaration of independence were short and in your hand outs theres one short, one paragraph version, an example from the town of ashby, massachuset massachusetts. But others, among the local group of declaration of independence were much longer, one running much longer from Buckingham County virginia. But all the local deck larition as said the same, in justifying their support for independence they came back again and again to the kings contempt for the colonists petitions, and they came back again and again to the now escalating rumors that the British Government had recently dispatched a large, invading force of german hessian mercenaries to the colonies. Pauline identified 90 of theater state an local declaration of independence. She wreckon there were many more undiscovered. They were written to put pressure on the often cautious delegates of the Second Continental Congress so those delegates in philadelphia might find the courage to embrace the cause of independence and sever all ties with britain and they soon began getting attention. Was john adams one of those in philadelphia observed on may 20th. Every post and every day rolls in upon us. Independence, like a torrent. They are writing to the dell gants about independence and the delegates are starting to get the message. It wasnt just john adams. Other delegates too were starting to get this message from their own constituents and on friday, june 7, 1776 1776, this man Richard Henry lee, a member of the virginia delegation, introduced to the Continental Congress the first formal proposal for americans independence for that bodys history, a resolution to declare that these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states, that they are ab solved of all allegiance to the british claim and all political connection between them and the state of britain ought to be finally dissolved. Two days of intense debate followed Richard Henry lees resolution. Though the outcome of that debate may not be the result you are expecting. Richard henry lee, john adams and other delegate its in favor of independence didnt have the votes to carry the day. At least not yet. So the members did what congress has always done best, they kicked the can the road. They delayed a final vote and they agreed instead to set up a committee. To study the issue. This is what they agreed. Resolved that that first resolution be postponed to this day three weeks or so from now and that in the meantime, lest any time be lost, in case the congress does agree to that resolution a committee be appointed to prepare a declaration to the effect of the said first resolution. This is hardly the rousing nationbirthing moment that patriots might have been hoping for. Still, it was enough to keep things moving, to keep things moving forward, and john adams himself vowed to spend those next three weeks or so lobbying his fellow delegates to vote yes when the vote for independence finally came along. John adams also agreed to serve on this new committee. A fiveperson team tasked to draft a declaration of independence that congress could quickly roll out in the event that lees original revolution did somehow later pass. We ever vote yes we better have a declaration to show people. We better get cracking on it. So a committee of five. The other delegates assigned to this committee which by the way was not a plum assignment. There was probably some armtwisting involved, were Benjamin Franklin, among the five members, what was the last guys name maybe a picture will help, Thomas Jefferson of virginia. Now all of these guys, all of them, were busy with other committee assignments. So it made sense for just one of them to take the lead. Drafting the little document that they had been tasked to prepare. Now Benjamin Franklin, a gifted stylist and zealous supporter of independence by this time, he might seem to us like the obvious joyce to be the obvious choice to be the lead draft man. He was a good brigwriter but he also plagued by gout and he was exhausted. Robert livingston was on the committee as the token conservative. He was not there to do actual work. He had been urging reconciliation. He had been urging patching things up, not pends. He was there to make sure things didnt get too crazy and didnt run out of hand. Roger sherman, the guy in the middle, was largely window dressing. He was a good man. John adams once described him as being as honest as an angel but he shrm an wrote like he was in the 17th century. His colleagues found him strange if not weird. That left john adams, the short lawyer who was an outspoken advocate for independence and Thomas Jefferson, the tall, sandyhaired planter who had a reputation as a writer but who had barely said a word on the Congress Floor so far. Now john adams later recalled that these two men actually bickered and argued about which one of them shouldnt do the work. And who the other person should be. Who should lead the drafting. Who should be the lead drafts man and to reconstruct that exciting conversation we are going to do some theater. Live on cspan. Im going to call up two randomly selected volunteers. Chuck, can you come around. Catherine, could you come around. Yes give them a round of applause as they come up. Now, adams later wrote a reconstruction of the conversation, the bickering, the argument that supposedly happened between Thomas Jefferson, say hello Thomas Jefferson. Hello Thomas Jefferson. And between youre fine why dont we move you around, you were right the first time. The conversation between Thomas Jefferson and john adams and if i believe if i am remembering correctly the conversation began like this. Will you write . I will not. You should write it. Oh, no. Well, why not . You ought to do it i will not why reason is enough. What can be your reasons . Reason one, you reason three, you can write ten times better than i can. Well, if youre decided i will do as well as i can. Very well. When you have drawn it up we will have a meeting. Thank you. [ applause ] that took 30 minutes of rehearsal before we got started. I want to thank chuck and catherine, just fabulous, the rehearsal was for technical reasons. [ applause ] now, thats the conversation according to john adam s about the bickering. When jefferson was asked is that how it happened, he said absolutely not. So jefferson is lead drafts man. The five men met a few times over the next few days to outline what exactly this document should contain. But they left it to jefferson to write it up on his own. And he did as he was told. He wrote quickly. He used a portable writing desk that he brought with him from virginia and he had a first draft done within perhaps two days. Wow. Jefferson later claimed that he lent only no other sources while he was scribbling away for those two days. Still jefferson was already deeply versed in enlightened political philosophy. And that fact is evident in the draft he came up with. The draft he came up with owes a considerably debt to several texts including englands 1689 declaration of rights. Including second treaty of civil government published that same year. Including Thomas Jefferson own 1774 pamphlet a summary view of the rights of british america. And his more recent draft of a constitution for virginia. And george masons virginia declaration of rights. An early copy of which jefferson received just days earlier. The powerful opening lines of jeffersons draft drew directly from this well spring of ideas and language. Though, as you can see on screen, jeffersons language jeffersons language was decidedly simpler, and more forceful. So heres john locke saying, let me give you two examples here. But if a long train of abuses, and artiveaces all the same way make the design influence to the blam [ reading ]. You can see a sort of borrowing of language and ideas there. We can debate which is better. Heres jefferson apparently borrowing from george mason. George mason had written all men are created equally free and independent and have certain inhernant naturale rights [ reading ] [ reading ]. Jeffersons version of his first draft reads [ reading ]. Now thats all im going to say for the moment about jeffersons opening paragraph. Well return to it later on. For more of the philosophies that form the first two paragraphs of the declaration. I recommend these wonderfully learned books if you want to learn more. I want to keep going, because instead, i want us to think about his declarations long middle section. The least quotable bit. The paragraphs that everyone skips over between the famous opening and the rousing conclusion. Im talking about jeffersons list of grievances. They are hugely important. Because without the grievances theres no motive for the declaration. Without a motive theres no declaration. Lets take a look. There were more than two dozen grievances in jeffersons draft and 27 will end up in the final version, by the way. The first roughly 12 all assail king georges abuses of executive power over the 12 years since the 1765 the next 10 or so grievances describe georges conspiracies with parliament to abuse legislative powers. And final grievances about five of them, they highlight the kings capacity for cruelty in the war that he has been waging against his own people over the previous 12 months. Now the tone of this long list of charges grows more and more urgent, belligerent, and accuse torrey as it goes on and on. As if jefferson were a prosecution attorney making a closing in a murder trial. The verbs that jefferson uses in the first group of grievances, verbs like, what have we got here, verbs like dissolved, refused, affected, those verbs are relatively eventempered, but the verbs become much more evocative in the last group of grievances. One of those grievances charges the king as having plundered at seas, ravaged at coasts, burned our towns and destroyed the lives of our people. Another raises the spectre of those arriving soldiers dispatched, jefferson says, to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny. You can hear the emotional pitch rising here as we move through the list of grievances. And one of those final charges in that long list deserves our particular attention for an extra moment, its the clause in which jefferson denounces the king for seeking out native American Allies and for encouraging them to make war against the patriots. In the same charge jefferson also condemns king george for the actions taken by one of his commanders, a man named lord dunnmore, the british general who famously promised freedom to any black man enslaved by patriot masters who were willing to desert their patriot slave owners and fight for the british. That made jefferson furious. In these lines, you see them here up on the screen, jefferson was channeling many patriots anxieties about the threats posed to their security by run away slaves and by warring native americans. But to our modern ears theres still something distasteful here about the way hes reacting to dunmores encouraging to slaves to free themselves, how angry it makes jefferson, and there is, of course, something willful about jeffersons refusal to acknowledge the decades of colonial incursions on native land are the true source of tension between patriots and natives. Rather than acknowledge that truth, jeffersons declaration portrays native americans and im about to quote the historian Robert Parkinson the declaration portrays native americans as passive, mindless, bloodthirsty buy barians too naive to know theyre duped by a tyrant. Jefferson leaves no doubt as to who that tyrant is. That tyrant is not the british people, it is not parliament, either, it is not even the monarchy, it is one specific monarch and he looks like this. Its king george iii. Look at the way that most of the crisp brief sentences in the middle section of his draft begin, they begin he has. He has refused. He has forbidden. He has combined. He has incited. The he is he. The he is george. George is rendered here not as a puppet of parliament or as a gaffeprone bumbler making one bad decision after another, he is rendered here instead as a villain who enacted an intentional program of harm. This is george as nero. This is george as richard iii. This is george as attila the hun. Its a rhetorical decision jefferson has made to personify the enemy. To give readers someone to root against, someone to hate. Given that goal it should not surprise us to find that jeffersons list of grievances is full of hyperbole. He exaggerates. He guilds the lily. He tells readers that there were swarms of tax collectors in the colonies when there were really just 50. He tells readers that tax collectors posed the same sort of threat as occupying soldiers, when thats hardly true. He blames american slavery and the slave trade on king george, a man who came to the thrown 16 years earlier, not 160 years earlier. What im saying is simple, and i hope uncontroversial. What im saying is dont look to this list of grievances for just the facts objectivity. This is not journalism. This is not the lists job. The lists job is to be polemical. Its job is to fire up readers. Its job is to give them a story in john adams words shall make their ears to tingle. As a catalog of i cant say the word as a catalog of prosecutable crimes its actually surprisingly vague. Theres lots of emotion, but not much detail. Notice that jefferson includes no places, no dates in this list of injuries and ucipations and he names no other names except the king. As a result if you dont know your revolutionary history inside and out you may not be able to place each of the kings alleged atrocities on a timeline or know precisely what they refer to, but that abstraction is, again, intentional. It marks jeffersons efforts to universalize the colonists dilemmas and to frame the kings transgressions in such a way that they could spark general outrage no matter where they are being read and no matter who is reading them. Now, following his list of grievances jeffersons draft concludes, and it does so by insisting that despite these extraordinary provocations the american colonists have been patient. They have been patient sufferers who have sought peace at every opportunity, in every stage of these oppressions jefferson wrote our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. It is king georges fault that things have come to this. Independence is his doing, the colonists have no other choice. Now, we know jefferson showed his draft to franklin and to adams. Its not reported whether he bothered to show it to livingston or roger sherman, but he did show it to franklin and adams because, as he later explained, they were the two members of whose judgment and amendments i wished most to have the benefit before presenting it, and both made adams and franklin read the jefferson draft carefully but according to jefferson they thought it was genius. According to jefferson their alterations were two or three only and merely verbal. He made the requested changes happily and the committee of five then submitted their combined work to congress on june the 28th. This is a portrait by John Turnbell of that moment. Committee of five turning in their draft, their work, homework to the larger congress. Its not the july 4th signing or anything like that which didnt happen, but what it is is them turning in their homework. I just want to draw your attention for one hot second, this is john adams on the left, look at that mans hand on his hip. Once you see it you really cant stop looking at it. Hes very proud of his work. Okay. And why not . Delegates have three days to read over the draft the committee had turned in and on july i will start that again. Delegates had three days to read it over because on july the 1st the debate in Congress Finally began on Richard Henry lees original resolution. That resolution was, you recall that these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states. It had been several weeks since lees june 7th motion had been tabled and in the meantime there had been lots of arm twisting and lobbying. Several colonial governments that had previously taken reconciliationis positions, places like delaware, pennsylvania and new jersey had since sent in new directions giving their delegates in philadelphia permission to vote however they saw fit. Other colonial legislatures, notably maryland, had sent along strict instructions that their delegates in philadelphia must vote for independence. By july 1st most mens minds were made up and news that a british fleet had just been sighted off the coast of new york only added to the momentum for independence. John dickinson, a brilliant lawyer from pennsylvania, did stand up and speak in opposition to independence, but he was answered point for point by another brilliant lawyer, john adams. On the morning of july 2nd after some drama involving the delaware delegation, and i would show you that clip from the musical 1776 now if we had the rights but we dont so i cant, imagine it in your head, mrs. music playing, after some drama involving the delaware delegation on july 2nd everyone voted. Several delegates voted no, though John Dickinson himself stayed home. But the no votes were massively outnumbered and the majority of delegates from every voting colony asserted their support for independence and it was how many colonies that voted yes and how many voted no that mattered. This is good enough to be considered unanimous. Congress adopted lees resolution and by the end of that momentous day, july the 2nd, 1776, a philadelphia newspaper printer had the news and he squeezed that news into the last free spot in his late edition. The announcement in the Pennsylvania Evening post, it was two lines long. This day the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies free and independent states. That was it. You just witnessed history. Now, congress had not yet touched the committee of fives draft of the public declaration, so they took up that task the following morning on july the 3rd. To edit the draft the delegates ordered up a batch of printed copies of the committees language. Now, all of those copies, printed copies, of the committees language must have been destroyed afterwards because none of those printed copies of the committees draft survive today. Then they started scribbling on those printed copies. They added two new appeals to god because they thought the American People might like that, but they deleted most of jeffersons conclusion in favor of concluding language cribbed directly from Richard Henry lees original june 7th resolution. The delegates worked for two days on all of this and debated hundreds of changes, eventually making no less than 86 alterations and ultimately scrapping almost one quarter of the committee of fives text. The more changes that were made the more miserable jefferson got. Franklin apparently tried to tell him to clear up by telling him a story, a story about a hat maker, a hat maker who had come up with a great new idea for a sign to put outside his shop. The sign was supposed to read this, John Thompson, hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money, but John Thompson the hat maker made the mistake of asking his friends for feedback and those friends were not shy in giving it to him. One suggested that hatter was redundant. Byebye. As who else sells hats but a hatter . Another had suggested that makes was irrelevant because customers only come into a shop to buy something, not to see how its made. Byebye. A third friend thought the phrase for ready money was equally unnecessary. Byeb byebye. When they were finally finished editing, they were left with this. That was franklins story. It was supposed to cheer him up. Whether it did or not goes unrecorded. But jefferson was certainly no fan of all the editors he had in congress. He called them his critics and he did not mean that in a nice way, but like that hat makers friends, his editors in congress were actually doing good work. The raft of changes the delegates made, reigned in, tightened and focused some of the excesses of jeffersons draft. See what you think. Here is the jefferson version of a sentence, the history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of unremitting injuries and use operations among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest but all have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. Thats the committees draft. Here is what the delegates finally end up with. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and ucipations all having in direct object the absolute tyranny over these states. As poorly mayor has put it this is no hack editing job. The delegates who labored over the declaration had a splendid ear for language. They made it better. The result was to be sure a leaner more powerful piece of writing. Now, a quick question for you. Why do you think they were in such a hurry to get a printed proclamation out following that vote on july 2nd . As ive written it up here why do you think the delegates worked so hard and so quickly to get this written declaration finished, signed off on and out the door . Whats the hurry . Raise your hand and tell me what you think. Yes, sir. They wanted to go to the beach. I love this man. Okay. Yes, sir. [ inaudible ]. They might have their eyes abroad, thats great. Thank you. Anyone else . [ inaudible ]. Fearful of their necks. So announcing they had done something treasonous as quickly as possible is a good move . [ inaudible ]. Because there werent enough people at their backs if someone is coming for them. Thank you for that. Was there another hand . [ inaudible ] maybe they wanted to do it while the getting was good, so to speak, while the public was with them. We have the momentum, the public is with us, we dont know how long the public is going to be with us and it has moved us along. One more hand. Balcony, i can never see, there is a giant pot light in my face. Yell it out. [ inaudible ]. Its hot and they didnt want to stay anymore, they would rather be at the beach and, catherine . [ inaudible ]. The british are coming. The british are coming. Right. Is there one more hand at the back maybe . Yes. [ inaudible ]. Oh, right, they want to get peoples signatures down quickly, perhaps thats a possibility as well. I like that. I will take many of those. Let me move on and try to answer at least part of this. Because i want to favor one of the argument weve heard over the others. We tend to assume that the motive for all their hard work on this Public Statement was so that it could be promptly circulated to the American People. To up the stakes in the escalating military conflict, to give soldiers something to fight for or perhaps it was aimed at king george, a retaliation, a very public retaliation for his previous contempt. Now, those explanations and most though not all of the explanations you offered, the one about the beach is questionable, they are all compelling, but i do not think theyre even half the story. In truth as one gentleman said the delegates had their eyes on france. Their new declaration of independence was their hail mary, their best hope of securing foreign assistance. They desperately needed to resume trading with europe. They urgently needed to borrow lots of money. They needed hard currency and boat loads of it. And they needed french soldiers, sailors and ships to join them in the fight to push the british back into the sea. To earn this critical foreign assistance the colonies had to prove to the world that they were rebels against the crown and the best way to do so, tom payne had argued in the pages of common sense back in january, the best way to prove to the world that they are real rebels was to announce that fact in writing, in a manifesto that the delegates could dispatch, this is payne, dispatch to foreign courts setting forth the miseries we have endured and the peaceable methods we have ineffectually used for address declaring at the same time that not being able any longer to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the british court. We have been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connections with her. At the same time assuring all such courts of our peaceable disposition towards them and our desire of entering into trade with them. Every delegate who had voted on july 2nd knew tom paynes arguments backwards and forwards. Richard henry lee certainly did and he wrote that april of 76 that no state in europe will either treat or trade with us so long as we consider ourselves subjects of Great Britain. You want me to make treaties, you want trade with anyone in europe except britain if we are still subjects of Great Britain. Indeed two months later when Richard Henry lee wrote his june 7th resolutions he didnt just propose independence in that resolution, he actually proposed two other things in the larger language. He also proposed to prepare and digest the form of a confederation and offered a third resolution to draw up a plan for forming foreign alliances. So in the same breath that we say how about independence were saying how about foreign alliances. These two things are the same thought. Seen in that context, then, the declaration itself is a means to an end. Everyone at the time understood this, even if today we sometimes do not. On its own Congress Proclamation could not make the colonies free and independent, but maybe with frances help it could. This is why the delegates had their declaration translated into french immediately, its why they sent copies addressed to king louie 16th of france and king carlos and 2nd of spain on the first ship bound to europe four days later on july 8th. Why they had them published in european newspapers. Why the congress authorized john adams to draw up a list of talking points for negotiations with france within days. Its why congress dispatched Benjamin AdamsBenjamin Adams . Its why congress dispatched Benjamin Franklin to paris later that fall. But before we get to paris or london or any other european capital, before we travel with the declaration over the sea lets pause for a moment longer in the american colonies or should i say now the United States. Congress proclaimed the official text of its declaration on monday, july 8th, 1776 issuing it as a printed poster known as a broadside prepared by john dunlap their official printer. Broad size were the perfect size to paste up everywhere and their typeface was just large enough to be legible outdoors and to be easily read aloud in public settings. And so they were read aloud outside these broad sides, these dunlap declarations. First in philadelphia that same day, july 8th when colonel john nixon read the declaration, read the printed dunlap broadside from a wooden platform outside the state house. When nixon reached its conclusion the gathered crowd erupted, then members of the committee of inspection took down the kings coat of arms from the courtroom inside the state house and threw them on to a bonfire. The celebration continued on for hours afterwards as john adams remembered the citys bells rang all day and almost all night. Congress ordered other copies of dunlaps broadside to be sent far and wide to committees of safety, councils, conventions and state assemblies with the request that it be proclaimed in such a mode as the people may be universally informed of it. Over the following days these declarations, dozens and dozens of them were read in churches, in public squares and to the troops of the Continental Army. When one of these dunlap declarations was read in baltimore just up the road from here a band of jubilant patriots marked the occasion by dragging a dummy of our late king through the town in a cart and then setting it on fire in front of a large crowd. While only 25 copies of dunlaps broadside still survive today historians believe that he churned out more than 200 of them in the first july 8 printing and that there were many other later printings and dozen of newspaper transcriptions of the text so far that summer. The london papers the london papers, they printed the text of Congress Declaration in the second week of august and you might expect it to have caused uproar over there, but a calculated shrug might be more accurate. Parliament was on summer recess, by the way. Most ministers were out of town and there was no immediate official public reaction, not even a press release or the 18th century equivalent thereof. This strategy, i think, was to try to starve the colonists of attention, to deny the legitimacy of their declaration and in so doing refuse to recognize the rights of britains enemies and france to interfere in the british empires internal business. Clever, right . In london at least the document only generated two public rebuttals, one was by thomas hutchinson, the exiled former governor of massachusetts, the other was by a young larry named john lind who it turns out was secretly in the pay of the British Government. Lind published a pamphlet taking the american declaration to task, point by point, and as you might imagine its a pretty fascinating read. Lind wasnt much interested in the now famous opening paragraphs of the american declaration, all men are created equal, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, lind didnt care. Of the preamble i have taken little or no notice, the truth is little or none does it deserve. Instead lind spoke used his energy on trying to pick apart the list of 27 grievances in the final text and doing that took lind a while. Congress declaration was 1,310 words long. John linds rebuttal to it was 130 pages. Which is to say no one read it. And what about the rest of europe . Copies reached, ireland, and copenhagen, basil and florence in early september. Ironically given the delegates focus on france the declaration turned up there belated there. The dunlap broad sides that congress had sent to cilus dean, its representative in paris, they had been lost in transit. They had been lost in transit and replacements didnt arrive until early november. By then two french translations had appeared in the paris newspapers but its not certain if senior members of the french court had yet read them or acknowledged them. What is certain is that when they did the french were unimpressed. Dean was under instructions to obtain as early as possible a public acknowledgment of the independency of these states from the french king. But no such acknowledgment was forthcoming. Weeks passed, then months. The french court said nothing. John dickinson, the lawyer from pennsylvania, had predicted this would happen. In his speech against independence back on july 1st dickinson had stood up to ridicule the notion that a written declaration would somehow be sufficient on its own to convince foreign powers of our strength and unanimity. What rubbish John Dickinson had said in that speech. What rubbish. Before taking sides, before wading in, the french the french would surely wait for us to start winning on the battlefield. The event of the military campaign, dickinson said, the event of the military campaign will be the best evidence of our strength, not some piece of paper you guys write today. Now, dismissed at the time John Dickinson proved to be press yent as it was only when the Continental Army routed British Forces at the battle of saratoga more than a year later in october of 1777 that france finally began the formal negotiations that would culminate in the treaty of commerce with the United States signed in february 1778. And it was only then when france finally got off the sidelines that britains other european rivals agreed to do the same. The dutch republic and spain were the next to sign on to the war effort against the british. In so doing they recognized the United States as a free and independent country. After britains defeat at yorktown britain, too, would have to do the same. And in article i of the treaty of paris signed in october 1783 to mark the end of the war and the coming of the peace britains peace commissioners grudgingly endorsed an agreement in which his britain nick majesty acknowledges the said United States to be free, sovereign and independent states. As i start to wrap up i want to move past the dunlap broad sides and the newspaper transitions and the Foreign Language translations and turn now to another set of declarations that have been hiding in plain sight. Im thinking here about all the subsequent declarations of independence. More than 100 of them that rebels, separatists and state makers have crafted in other parts of the orlando since 1776 in direct imitation of ours. That practice began quite quickly. By the time Thomas Jefferson and john adams passed away can someone raise their hand and tell me on what date and what year they passed away. Yes, sir. July 4th, 1826. 50 years to the day since that little since they finished their work. By the time Thomas Jefferson and john adams passed away july 4th, 1826, people in flounders, haiti, colombia, venezuela, new grenada, mexico, chile, peru, nicaragua, costa rica, panama, the united provinces, bolivia and uruguay had all written their own declarations of independence. All of them modeled on ours. We know, in fact, that american travelers in chile and mexico actually distributed translations of our declaration there in the years before the chileans and the mexicans liberated themselves and multiple translations of our declaration also made their way to colombia, venezuela and ecuador over the course of the 50year period after 1776. A half century known to scholars as the age of revolutions. So you could call it the age of declarations, too. As the harvard historian David Armitage has shoern and im drawing on his work here, that age of revolutions was just the first of four great waves of declaration making in global history since 1776. A second wave swept around the world in the immediate aftermath of the first and second first world war. Between 1918 and 1939 declarations of independence were central features of the demands for selfdetermination that marked the destruction of the ottoman empire, the romanoff empire and the happensburg empire. The debt to our own American Revolution was obvious at every turn. When the czech nationalist mazaric signed a declaration of independence of the mideuropean union in october 1918, mazaric did so with ink from an ink well from philadelphias independence hall. Two more great waves of declaration making have remade our modern world since the end of world war ii. One began immediately at that wars end and maintained momentum for the next 30 years. Historians regard those three decades from 1945 to 1975 as the golden age of decolonization. A tumultuous, chaotic period in which some 70 new states, most of them former colonies of the british, french and portuguese empires in africa and asia declared their independence. And a fourth wave of declarations crashed ashore much more recently in the early 1990s following the collapse of the soviet union as one former soviet socialist republic after another regained its independence. Now in 2019 the majority of the countries on this planet have their own declarations of independence. Among them bangladesh, belgium, finland, ireland, israel, korea, liberia, malaysia, new zealand, the philippines, singapore, syria and taiwan. Some of these declarations like the republic of vietnams 1945 declaration, quote our declaration wordforword as you can see on your handout which ive included that one. Others simply express their debt to our declaration with a bit more subtlety. In june of 1826, two weeks before he died, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to a friend in which he called americas 1776 declaration an instrument pregnant with the fate of the world. How right he turned out to be. Over the past two and a half centuries peoples around the world have used jeffersons declaration, our declaration, as one of their weapons of choice to try to extinguish and obliterate empires. Our declarations pithy pointed assertion of sovereignty and statehood is its most important global legacy and its significance can hardly be overstated. In our lifetimes, ladies and gentlemen, decolonization movements empowered by the original american declaration have continued to sweep this globe. Continuing to mark the unmistakable emergence of a world of states from the wreckage of a world of empires. Here in the United States our declaration has spawned hundreds of american imitations. Other declarations devoted to other causes that draw on the 1776 original to advance their own claims to freedom from other types of tyranny. The most famous of these is up on the screen, is the declaration of rights and sentiments written by Elizabeth Katie stanton of the 1848 Womens Rights Convention in seneca falls, new york, a document which holds that all men and women are created equal and it goes on like that, replicating the language and moderating it and adapting it throughout the entire document. And its not alone. Brilliance is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many, many more american adaptations. In 1829 the utopian activist robert owen wrote a declaration of mental independence designed to free americans from private property, from organized religion and the tyranny, ladies and gentlemen, of monogomous marriage. The tyranny, ladies and gentlemen, of monogomous marriage. That same year George Henry Edwards authored the working mans declaration of independence which did exactly what you think it did. The list goes on and on. If we skip forward in 1970 africanamerican Church Leaders published the black declaration of independence. Here is a quick excerpt from it. The history of the treatment of black people in the United States is a history having in direct object the establishment and maintenance of racist tyranny over this people to prove this let facts be submitted to a candid world. The United States has evaded compliance to laws the most wholesome and necessary for our childrens education. The United States has caused us to be isolated in the most dilapidated and healthful sections of all cities. The United States has allowed election districts to be so gerrymandered that black people find the right to representation in the legislatures almost impossible of attainment. There are dozens and dozens of these alternative declarations and in 1976 the rear of the buy centennial, by the way, historian phillip fona published a wonderful collection of these alternative declarations that i urge you to find and read. Still, counting the number of times that americans have adapted the entire 1776 text, thats hardly the only way we can measure the enduring value of our declaration on these shores. A great many more americans have drawn much more selectively on the text of that declaration, focusing in, of course, on its second paragraph, the one that that british lawyer had dismissively referred to as a worthless preamble. We hold these truths to be selfevident, jefferson and the delegates had written there. That all men are created equal. Now, to be clear, jefferson was referring to the equality of peoples. Peoples plural. The American People and the british people. But most readers since then have taken him to mean that all individual people are created equal. A wonderful, powerful misreading that is imparted to our modern world a veritable golden rule for human rights. A credo that activists and rightsseekers have invoked in almost every aspirational, progressive advancement in our countrys history. Think about our declarations role in the fight against slavery here in the United States. Black americans, slave and free, heard in its ringing lines a call to arms. An invitation to turn its abstract claims about equality into vibrant reality by any means necessary. In 1829 the free black radical david walker concluded his famous appeal to the colored citizens of the world by inviting white americans to compare your own language extracted from your declaration of independence with your behavior, with your crueltiees, your murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciless fathers and by yourself on our fathers and on us. Frederick douglass drove the same point home in a famous speech in rochester, new york, on july the 5th, 1852. What to the slave is the 4th of july, douglas asked . How can black men and women enjoy that hallowed day or appreciate its significance as the birthday of this countrys Political Freedom when white people hold securely in bondage a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country. What to the slave is the 4th of july . Those are free black people ive been quoting. Slave rebels themselves also understood our declarations power. It was the ideals of our declaration, dont forget, that inspired nat turner to plan his 1831 virginia slave revolt for july 4th. White abolitionists, too, returned to the declaration time and again, finding in its famous lines their own consciouses. As virginias john cook put it in 1829, if those words meant that no one man is born with a natural right to control any other man, then a system of slavery in which men were born the subjects and indeed the property of others is profoundly wrong. No one did more to constitute our declaration as a beacon towards which the people of the United States must hue than abraham lincoln, the great emancipator. The declaration was, lincoln said, our manifest destiny, constantly looked to, constantly labored for. The assertion that all men are created equal was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain lincoln wrote in an 1857 essay denouncing the recent dred scott decision. Those lines were placed in the declaration not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be a stumbling block to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. When the war came, the civil war, lincoln stuck to that same line of argument. When he came to gettysburg, pennsylvania, to dedicate the cemetery there for the union dead the president noted that that decisive 1863 battle at gettysburg had taken place on that field on july the 4th. In his gettysburg address lincoln argues that the Union Triumph was nothing less than a vindication of the proposition that all men are created equal. The union dead, he said, had heeded the declarations challenge, bringing to this nation, under god, a new birth of freedom. We survivors, lincoln said, must finish the work the declaration had started. In lincolns hands the declaration becomes the living document that i think it remains today. A secular creed, a set of goals to be realized over time. We can hear its echo in almost every call to expand freedom, equality and civil rights in this country ever since. The declarations promise of equal rights was the touchstone for advocates of the 13th amendment that abolished slavery and the 14th amendment that guaranteed former slaves both citizenship and equal protection. The declarations language and ideas what happened there . Lets go back. The declarations language and ideas reverberate through fdrs four freedoms speech about global rights and the threat of during Martin Luther kings march on Washington King told crowds that our declaration was a promissory note to which every american was to fall err. Kings famous dream is actually the declarations dream. Kings hopes are rooted in its famous second paragraph. I still have a dream, he said, i have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed, we hold these truths to be selfevident that all men are created equal. We can find the language of the declaration in the public debate surrounding every single Civil Rights Act ever passed in American History. Here is president Lyndon Johnson sorry its such a big quote speaking of the signing ceremony for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a ceremony that took place, not coincidentally, on july the 2nd. The anniversary of the date when the Constitutional Congress had declared independence. This is Lyndon Johnson. 188 years ago a small band of valeant men began a struggle for freedom. They pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor not only to found a nation but to forge an ideal of freedom. Not only for political independence but for personal liberty. Not only to eliminate foreign rule but to establish the rules of justice in the lives of men. We believe that all men are created equal, yet many are still denied equal treatment. We believe that all men have certain unalienable rights, yet still Many Americans do not enjoy those rights. We believe that all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty yet still millions are being deprived of those blessings not because of their own failures but because of the color of their skin. In our own time numerous activists including disability advocates, labor advocates, immigration advocates and gay marriage advocates have all invoked our declaration. Even as theyve sought constitutional remedies, usually via the 14 th amendment. While our deck larg has never had the full force of law it has found its purpose as a means for rights seekers to seize the moral high ground. Our declaration is the voice of idealism and humanity. This is what pricks our american conscience and reminds us what is right. It is what shames us and stirs us to lift our heads and do better. It is what pulls us forward. And there is a beautiful paradox in all f of this isnt there . This declaration of ours is an 18th century document conceived, written and authorized by a group of white men of considerable privilege and power that has over time become a clarion call for everyone else, for americans, native americans, propertyless white men and women to claim equality as their birth right. In fact, and this is where ill stop as the harvard political scientist Danielle Allen has explained, the declaration matters now because it helps us see that we cannot have freedom without equality. Thanks very much indeed. [ applause ] we have time for a few minutes of comments and questions. If i call on you, please wait for the gentleman with the cspan mic to come to you so you can be picked up for posteritiy, meaning forever and ever. Okay. Lady right here. So my question is [ inaudible ] so was there not an original clig raef copy of the declaration sent to england immediately after it had been signed or did it not get there until the dunlap broad sides . Im not aware that there is an original calligraphic copy sent to king george as a fancy f you. Sorry, cspan. I tried really hard. So its the dunlap broadside or Something Like it that is on that ship on july the 8th. The calligraphic thing that is in the rotunda now is ordered up at the end of july, its engrossed which is the word for some dude writing it out in his fancy handwriting the end of july, the start of august, and the signing of the name, the famous names at the bottom of the delegates begins on august the 2nd, not july 2nd as it mistakenly says in your handouts, it begins on juits wr is in the building on august 2nd. John hancock signs first and there are drips and drabs. It takes them until the early months of 1777 to get all 56 signatures that you see today on to that document because people move around and some people hadnt even been elected to that congress on july 2nd subsequently signed the calligraphy and we also know and you may know this, you may not, that theres actually a little secret pattern to the order of the signatures. Theyre sort of grouped by geography, if i think i have this right we start with if im the declaration of independence oh, dear, if John Hancocks has my knees, lets say, then the georgia delegation is to your bottom left, then we go from south to north until we end up with New Hampshire in i think the bottom right. So there is a little sort of secret there. Theres no secrets on the back of the declaration of independence like nicholas cage would tell you in National Treasure but that is one little thing. I have a feeling you have a followup. With the broadsides were the signers names put on for, you know, treasonous my understanding is only John Hancocks name was printed. No only he signed it was my understanding. Nobody knew who the other signers the gentleman down here is correcting me. And the secretary. And the secretary. His name was . Charles thompson. Charles thompson is the name of the secretary. I dfr to the expertise of my audience. The gentleman in the back in the lime shirt. Yes. I have two questions. Number one is in light of the 18291830 statement i believe you mentioned john john locke, i think, i forget the name of the person you mentioned. It was said that all men, all people are created equal at that time. How can roger tanny have the audacity to say that slaves are property . And my second question has to do with this, i always was under the impression that king george iii was not really an absolutist as most of us seem to think seem to think, but that parliament had a great deal of influence in what was going on. Thank you. Thank you for the two questions. The first one i will just point out that one of the reasons roger tawny and other members of the Supreme Court can hand down opinions like the famous dred scott opinion from 1857 is that the declaration of independence has no force of law. It is our constitution, of course, which has the overriding force of law. In fact, interestingly, some judges even today confuse the two. There was a famous case, i wont name the judges name partly because i cant remember in 2013 when a judge in virginia in her opinion quoted the constitutions famous line that all men are created equal, which of course is not in the constitution. As many generations of scholars will tell you the original 1787 constitution is at best ambivalent on the rights and liberties of black people and many scholars would say you can pin down 10 or 12 different proslavery provisions in the constitution, most famously the threefifths compromise. Thats why tawny can do that in 1857. And the second question was about the characterization of king george iii. I think you know where im going to go with this which is to say jefferson has an obvious reason to paint king george in the most diabolical authoritarian all powerful terms he can. It serves his polemical purpose. The truth is much more nuanced, the role of parliament is much more developed than jefferson allows in his charges or to put this another way, but you can see the enduring effect of the declaration has been to demonize and stigmatize king george iii who for all his many faults was just a pretty straightforward random 18th century ruler, no better or worse than any other king of england, no better or worse than many other kings or heads of europe at the time. But that impression endures. If any of you have seen the fantastic musical hamilton an american musical, king george features in several songs and theyre very funny and i hope you go see the show but he is depicted as a psychopath who to show his love, in air quotes, to the colonists will send a fully armed battalion to slaughter them all. That lingering image in the american imagination of king george as a scheming all powerful tyrant is Proof Positive of the enduring influence of jeffersons characterization of him. We will take one more, i think. Lets go to catherine down here. In the 1990s there were initiated american democratization groups sponsored by the u. S. Government, the National Democratic institute, the International Republican institute that did training in europe to countries like hung y hungary, et cetera, that were making the dictatorship to democracy, portuguese, et cetera. That was then. Now what do you see as the direction in which including in our own country the particularly in the u. S. Where the declaration does not have the force of law that there is a trend away from the or is there . Do you see a movement away from the equal rights, et cetera, that the declaration has laid out . Yeah, its hard to answer that with much specificity because its such a broad question about the role of the declaration in our modern era so i would just say very simply that the constitution is not as bad now as i made it out to be in my previous answer. There are plenty of things check look to in the institution for protection of our liberties. You know, after the original 1787 constitution was drafted to get it properly ratified required a promise of a bill of rights, for instance, which was added to the constitution, ten amendments in i think 1791. We often look to the bill of rights for modern day guarantees for our liberties and protections and so on and that continues in the american in american political life today. Id also add that in every progressive advancement that bubbles up in 2019 and that will bubble up going forward, we will continue to find activists drawing on that well spring of ideas that we have a founding document, though it does not bear or carry the force of law, which tells us that equality is important. I draw your attention again to this new book by Danielle Allen called our declaration. Came out a couple years ago. It was on a previous slide. There it is. You notice the butter book plug for my own book there. This book for Danielle Allen who teaches example of people drawing on the declarations promise of equality we have seen so far, we can hope and expect there will be just as many people drawing on it as we go forward. So if we use the declaration as our guide, i think the future is bright enough. I will stop there. applause it is a real honor introducing someone who is kind, classy, and a careful scholar and someone who has