Cspan. Org history. A healthy democracy does not look just like this, it looks like this. Americans can see democracy at work. Get informed straight from the source on cspan. Unfiltered, unbiased, word for word from the Nations Capital to wherever you are, to get the opinion that matters the most, is your own, this is what democracy looks like. About, thf welcome to the Washington Times for this special episode of history as it happens podcast. We are doing a special series of episodes about the declaration of independence. Why the declaration of independence again . The subject may be old, the issues are fresh. The American Revolution its current events. I got that line from our guest today. Hello denver bronfman historian from George Washington university. Thank you for being here. Thank you for asking me. You are the guy who teaches classes at George Washington at the university named after him and you teach at mount vernon as well. Tell us more. Im the professor and chair at the History Department of George Washington university. I get to teach classes on Early American History including the American Revolution, the war of 1812, and George Washington and his world which takes place in his world at mount vernon estate for gw students. On the other hand, George Washington didnt sign the declaration, what a slacker. He was getting ready to fight the british. He was in new york, welcoming, intercepting the largest armada of soldiers and sailors to ever cross the atlantic to that point prayed about 30,000 british soldiers were arriving in new york. Around this time the planning was underway, the invasion of canada as well. A lot of people do not realize we have lexington and concorde in the spring of 1775, this was a con of the war by july of 1776 it was happening up and down the east coast and all the way into canada and into the southern colonies. June the prior year was the battle of bunker hill. The war was underway for a year. Maybe i need to find a john hancock professor because he had the signature. I open the podcast by saying how the American Revolution is teaching current events, thats what you told me. What do you mean . When i talk to students, one thing that we detected today what we need to do is, i do not think there is a more relevant event in American History than the American Revolution. We live in a society and with the frame of government that it created. A lot of our politics today, a lot of the same issues go back to that. You see these patterns. If you can clue students into that, they see the past in a different way, but you see your own world in a different way. We still inhabit the political world of these 18th century views. That is why we are having this conversation and look back to this moment. Not that events were frozen in time. There was a civil war 18 years later. I often raised a question with some of my guests, why do we go back to the founders or the framers of the constitution, the revolutionaries of the 1770s for guidance and advice on how to frame legislation today, for guidance in our culture war, these premodern, predarwin men. It is not really a profound question or answer, we are still on their constitution unlike the french say who may talk about napoleon they are on their 18th or Something Like that. As americans we can point to the start of the country, these are the people that created it. They continue to influence us. Margaret thatcher, the former Prime Minister britton said the countries of europe were forged by history, meaning they formed organically over time. United states was formed by philosophy. Formed at a specific moment in time. A nation founded on ideas. Many stories are based on ethnicity, religion, culture, religion, whatever. We will get into if we can point to a single date, some say 6019 is a better date rather than 1776. For most of my relatively short life, the revolutionary era has a place in our consciousness, not necessarily a source of unity but a common story, and origin story that was a source of inspiration for all americans since, regardless of what jefferson and his pen with the editing of adams and franklin when he wrote those famous words, timeless immortal words, regardless of what they meant at the time, those words were a source of inspiration for all of us. While the civil war is the one that continues to divide us. Do you see the revolution as a source of division now too . A little bit. It is something that most americans embrace. I think everyone can find something that is inspiring. I think the job of scholars and research has shown that there are problematic things in our past, even things in our past that we embrace and i think that is true with the declaration. The declaration and the revolution of which it was a part was not complete. You can make the argument, and i do, it kicked off the anti slavery cause in this country, the first of its kind prayed it was not perfect, all wars are horrible and it affects the average people more than the elites. Something that you mentioned to me when we were preparing to get together, the declaration was part of a long progressive tradition in our country and a source of inspiration. Martin luther king, at the march in washington, that anniversary is coming up this year when the architect of our public wrote the decorative independence they were signing a promissory note to which every american was to fall error. We have come to cash this check. 1848, seneca falls, Elizabeth Cady stanton, her declaration of sentiments was read and adopted modeled after the declaration of independence. September two, 1945 you know where im going with this . I do pray vietnam. Chi minh declared independent republic of vietnam and hanoi in front of a massive audience. They were trying to recolonize vietnam. The first lines of his speech repeat verbatim the second paragraph of he did not change it or it. I think what jefferson writes those words and they are adopted by the Continental Congress in july of 1776, all men are created equal. Since then, into groups in American Society did not want to express inequality wanted a piece of that. Whether it was marginalized people of color, women, you mentioned seneca falls, the declarations that all men and women are created equal. It was a beacon, it was a goal for different groups. I think it is still true. It is used in different social movements. It is powerful and inspiring words. It is a fair question, referring to my somewhat tangled question what they meant versus the inspiration that came later. It is a fair, what they meant using man, all men are created equal that they mean only males are all human beings. You can get into the semantics but what is your take . I see this in two ways. This is the age of enlightenment , they talk and universals. At one level jefferson is saying, certainly all men and all humans. I think it is an abstract level. I think in reality, certainly in jeffersons reality, that phrase, if written in legalistic sense would say all white men are created equal. That was the gauge of the different groups from the revolution but they were not equal. Throughout time other folks have taken those words and thought of them in universal ways. Another one was Abraham Lincoln and the gettysburg address. When he quotes justin he sang all men, black and white, are created equal. One thing we should be grateful for is our country was born in this time of enlightenment and these ideals of universal liberty. I want to get into the philosophical underpinnings or inspiration for the writers of the declaration in a moment. The title of the series of podcast that i am doing of history as it happens is the radical declaration. Was the declaration radical . What would you mean by radical if you agree . I think it was radical. That does not mean that it was completely original. It is drawing on a lot of things. The document that is most underrated that it draws on is the virginia decoration of rights penned primarily by george mason which happened in june of 1776. It also declared all men equal and it uses the phrase happiness. They did not mean like im happy today but as in contentment, satisfying life. Satisfying, quality of opportunities, business of chance. We do not have a debate from the second Continental Congress about the words of all men are created equal. We do not know if they said that goes too far. We do have evidence discussed in the Virginia Legislature and there was blowback and discussion, what do we mean . Enslaved people . What are we saying. Certainly virginia did not into slavery, but they decided to go with this universal enlightenment. I think that was the same decision made by the second Continental Congress. Jack argued that the authors meant americans as a people were entitled to the same rights of selfgovernment as other nations of the earth. The way we talk about it today, we all have certain civil liberties, which we have discussed already but can you elaborate . You are right about the moment. I think different documents are interpreted over time, they have a life of their own and i think that happened with the declaration and that is the most exciting thing. As you teach American History the thing that is need for students is to show how over time different groups come under this umbrella of equality and we the people and these great phrases and our founding documents, which might have been limited at the time but have been more expansive. They did not have chi minh in mind. But it did inspire other nations. Maybe this has happened to you in your writings, you mean something but someone later on says i interpret this differently. That is true. Certainly today, we americans, despite what i said before but the revolution, we can talk later about it whether it was a proslavery revolution, about whether the revolution is a source of unity or division. For the most part americans see it as a common story of our origins and a source of inspiration. We tend to project our own ideas back on those men as if they were writing for the ages. Do you get the sense that they were writing for all time . They were mortal men. I think they know they are on the stage of history. They were thinking long term and a lot of the letters they were writing, i think they expected people to read them someday, they certainly saved them. I think that is true the declaration. Jefferson and the committee who puts together the declaration and the congress who approves it , they did two things. There was a shot of prosperity and rhetoric in the beginning, thats what they were going for. But there was brass knuckle politics where they wanted to persuade the American People that this was the right course. And they wanted to attract other nations, critically france, to support their cause. They are doing some pragmatic, problems there. They had been tilting towards independence for a while. We will return to that in a minute but i want to stay on this level. How do your students react to this when you talk about the declaration the way we are discussing it . Are they excited . Or do they roll their eyes and say they did not mean that . That is a good question. Young people are naturally skeptical. That is something that i enjoy, they always keep you on your toes. This is a class, when i teach the American Revolution, it never has trouble enrolling, it fills up. People are eager to learn about it. Students are hungry for the complexity. I think if they get the complexity , and if they learn the full story, even if some of it is not flattering to the country, i think it makes them appreciate the ideals that we have been talking about. Then they feel like this is honest, no one is forcing me to believe this. We have only talked about the opening third of the declaration created by the way i give you a copy of the decorative independence. I went to the National Archives today and there was a guy standing this out. As long as it was not nicholas cage. I have not seen that movie. The grievances that are listed, these do not hold up as well to scrutiny. I want to talk to you about the grievances. This is my interviewing style, i am kind of amazed you never know where you are headed. We will return to grievances in a moment, about radicalism. I think we need to remember radicalism. That is why i opened the podcast by saying the subject is old but the ideas are fresh. The idea that fundamental human quality can be the guiding principle of the nation. No one articulate is better than gordon would. I have his book here, as you know eyesight books during my podcast. I cite my sources as a journalist would and i also want to encourage people to read these books. This is the introduction of this book. The revolution did more than legally create the United States , it transformed American Society. Changes were radical and extensive. It is a focus on what we are apt to do today on what the revolution did not accomplish. To highlight the failures to abolish slavery for instance. We missed the great significance of what it did accomplish. It is possible that the anti slavery and the womens rights movements, and all of our current egalitarian thinking, erotically changed personal and social relationships of people including the position of women. It destroyed aristocracy that had been understood in the western world, it brought respectability and dominance to ordinary people long held in contempt and gave dignity to menial labor and that was undocumented in history. To sum that up, the colonists, now american citizens, viewed themselves as citizens rather than subjects. It was a revolution that reordered society. People started to think about themselves and their relationship to others and their government differently. Absolutely. I could teach a class. That is very good. I think it changed from subject to citizen, it does show the transformation and it was revolutionary. The subject and the crowns are an equal. This was in all society with different positions based on birth. A citizen, by definition, is equal periods as you say it is transforming society. I am a friend of gordon would, it is a fabulous book and an amazing scholar. I think one critique would be there is a lot happening in that. With groups that were not included in the definition of citizen who were actually radical to. I think the revolution was more radical in many respects that was not written about in that book. In terms of African Americans and their freedom of equality, women being included, it just shows how powerful these ideas were. Enslaved africans were not included, we know. Shortly after the revolution we started to see free black societies in the north where slavery starts to give away and they were putting together petitions and petitioning their local government and State Government and showing up to the First Congress saying lets get rid of slavery. It took another 80 years, at least on a national level. These radical impulses, even if they did not include them in day one, it was not like they were able to start running it immediately i think jefferson, who was probably the most democratic of all of the founders thought that they had a place in society. There was a level. This is something that wood writes about. It is kind of a pandoras box that the founders opened. They are elites and most of them are elitist and they did not envision regular people participating in government, certainly not in an equal way. That is what happens within a generation after the revolution, that is the point, white men who had no sort of equality in europe and particularly in britain, with experiences that in the United States. It is easy to fall into the trap of scrutinizing the founders personal lives and calling them hypocrites, we do lose sight of the bigger picture. Both things can be true, Thomas Jefferson was hypocritical because he was a lifelong slave owner and only freed a handful of slaves, they were his flesh and blood for the most part. We agree, the declaration was radical. It is not a long document, neither is the constitution, i think that is why it is great. It is brief, the brevity makes it powerful. I have this book over here about the enlightenment it is about 900 pages long. They fit the declaration of independence in two pages. Most people have not read the list of grievances probably since High School College history classes. I want to get into the opening line that was penned by jefferson with the help of adams and franklin. We talked about if they knew they were writing for the ages. What was their inspiration . Some people read these opening words, lets see, the separate and equal stations which natures god entitle them. Any reference to god often has some people saying that is a reference to christianity or religion and it wasnt. This was john locke. Historians have gone back and forth about how important he was in influencing the American Revolution. He seems to have made a comeback lately. What this denver bronfman say about john lockes influence . Jefferson is a master synthesis. He brings together all of these enlightenment ideas and certainly locke , that is one of the primary things he is drawing from. He is also drawing from the scottish enlightenment, people like adam smith, some of the writings of inequality comes from them. Rankling made a critical edit in the declaration, the original words said we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that is jeffersons language and franklin said no, we hold these truths to be self evident. That is straight from scottish moral sense velocity. You just know these things as a human being. Such a small edit they are introducing a whole other branch of philosophy. If it it is selfevident why do you have to say it your applying common sense. Absolutely. Lock