American History Hit - Declaration of Independence

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

While the Revolutionary War was being fought in July 1776, the 13 British colonies in America came together to approve their Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the United States of America.Shaped by the Enlightenment ideas of liberty, happiness and reason, the document has since influenced many causes in America and around the world.In this episode, Don speaks to Reverend Byron Williams about how the Declaration of Independence came about, its meaning and endurance.You can find out more about Byron's book here.Produced and mixed by Benjie Guy. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts, and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. It's June 1776, and we're in the Statehouse in Philadelphia. Even as the Second Continental Congress meets to debate the merits of independence from the British,

a committee of five men has been tasked with writing a declaration of independence. The initial effort fell to a certain delegate from Virginia, Thomas Jefferson. Just a few blocks from the State House. In a quieter part of town, Jefferson works on a first draft of what would become one of the most influential, influential documents in the world. As he writes, he has in mind the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written one month earlier, which states that all men are by nature equally free and independent. But in the final version of the Declaration of Independence, slavery and violence against

indigenous people do not get a mention. In fact, Native Americans are dehumanized, and anti-slavery sentiments that Jefferson had included are removed by Congress to appease the southern states. While the Declaration sets out the principle that everyone, or rather all men, have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the founding fathers were creating a country where that was by no means the case. Hi there, I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hit. Welcome to the podcast. Today, I'm discussing the founding document of America, the Declaration of Independence. approved by the Second Continental Congress in early July 1776, the United States were no longer colonies of Britain, and every year since, the 4th of July has been celebrated as America's Independence Day.

With me to discuss the Declaration, its meaning, its history, and endurance, as America approaches its 250th anniversary, is a nationally recognized theologian, pastor, and author of a book called Radical Declaration, Reverend Byron Williams. Welcome. It is indeed by honor and pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me, sir. The declaration is so full of ideas, precepts, and inherent nuance. Why do you call it radical? Simple because it was unprecedented in human history that to form a country based on an idea,

based on an idea of liberty and equality. We're going to take these two concepts which historically have been treated as antithesis, but actually, in my view, are fraternal twins. And we're going to form a country around these concepts. I mean, that in and of itself is radical. It was radical because the people can govern themselves. That was a radical concept. That was unprecedented. And the way I hold the Declaration of Independence, that there was something called the Enlightenment Museum. And you went through and you studied Rousseau. And you said, you studied Hobbes and you studied Kant and Voltaire and Montesquieu, the final exhibit, in my view, would be the Declaration of Independence Under Glass because it crystallized this Enlightenment

thinking into the creation of a nation. And to show it's important, I'll just point out two things. If you're in Paris and you're walking down the Champs of Izay, there is a plaque where Thomas Jefferson lived while he was a minister of France. At the bottom of that, that plaque, it says he was the author of the Declaration of Independence. And then, if you look at Ho Chi Men's first speech in 1945 to United Vietnam right after the Second World War, he begins that speech by saying, we hold these troops to be self-evident that all men are created equal, and doubt that are created with certain a noble rights and amonges of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

So it's a document that really transcends global thinking. And I think for all of those reasons, that makes it radical. For someone who didn't understand what the Declaration of Independence is or means, what exactly was this document? Why was it necessary? When did it come along? Well, it was necessary. There's an evolution here.

When you figure that what, the Boston Tea Party was 1774, when a number of people in America were feeling like they were British subjects, would not give it the rights of British subjects. when you factor in that the first shots were fired in Lexington, Belle of Lexington, 1775. I mean, none of this is really causing people to say, you know, let's separate. At that moment, we are British subjects and want to be treated with all the rights and dignity of British subjects. Around January 1776, Thomas Payne writes common sense. he starts talking about these natural rights. And then that forms the Second Continental Congress to meet in Philadelphia.

And then in June of 1776, Richard Lee of Virginia introduced legislation at the Philadelphia Convention. And I'm going to quote these words, that these United colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states. So I think that's when all of these things start to crystallize. And moreover, in 1775, King George sends additional troops to put down the rebellion. So all of these things will coalesce, you know, between 73 up to 76. And so they reached the conclusion, well, the only option we have is secession. It's almost like the cart had gotten in front of the horse for these thinkers who were creating this country. You had the sort of mob reaction to things like the Stamp Act and

other controversial moves on the part of the British government that seemed and were indeed very despotically created. They were just laying out taxes on the colonists almost as punishment from time to time. And this was generating a huge groundswell in the public that was a fury. And meanwhile, you had Thomas Jefferson, all the thinkers of the time, saying, wait, wait, wait, if we're going to create a nation, it has to be based on ideals. It has to be based on articulated ideas, which they knew were connected to the larger world of ideas that were going on at least 100 years before. Absolutely.

I think that one of the interesting things, I don't necessarily subscribe to American Exceptionalism in the way it's often articulated. I would say, though, that America has been the beneficiary of happenstance in the sense that America tends to have, from its beginning, the right person at the right time at the most critical hour. So not only do you have this amazing committee writing this document, you have George Washington leading a rag-tag group of people. Then you have Washington as president sort of establishing, even to this day, the mores of the presidency. The country splits. And we have lo and behold, this guy named Lincoln, who nobody thinks too much of, but is, if not the greatest

president we've ever had. He's certainly in the short conversation. And then we go into depression and the Second World War. And lo and behold, we have Franklin Roosevelt. So America has benefited from, I call the happenstance of leadership that we've had the right person at the right time. And it begins with those five individuals in that room in Philadelphia. you know, before pouring over with Jefferson Road. I agree with those self-evident truths that seem to be the case with this country. It's a wacky thing that happened. So in the process of articulating this idea, the second Continental Congress,

which is meeting, I guess, in the latter spring of 1776, begins to realize that it's necessary to create this statement. Certainly after Lee's statement in Virginia, they know that they have to have a document that really teases it out, for which they create a committee, a committee, the famous committee of five. Who are those people, Thomas Jefferson being one? You have Jefferson of Virginia. Ironically, Jefferson was the only southerner. You have John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin, of Pennsylvania, and Robert Livingston of New York on the committee.

Jefferson was the primary author, not the exclusive offer, but the primary author. Why did they choose him? It's interesting, you know, a lot has been given to John Adams, who was, you know, this Massachusetts Fireball, who was really leading for separation independence. And it was Adams who reportedly said that Jefferson, you should write it, one, because you're a Virginia. You had to understand the importance of Virginia at that time in the 13 colonies. Two, you are more respected than I am.

I'm a more divisive figure. You're much more respected. Jefferson was not known to be a great speaker, somewhat quieter. And three, you're just a better writer than I am. So I think the third one really also speaks to something that a lot of people in leadership positions are to take seriously as the ability to acknowledge when someone else can just do something better than you. And so I think we should chip our hat to John Adams for that recognition. And one of the things, Benjamin Franklin was initially asked to write it and would agree to be on the committee but did not want to write it because he did not want to have people pouring over something he had written. So he didn't like the editorial process, although he was an editor.

The obvious hypocrisies of Thomas Jefferson writing about life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for all humanity, we will talk about in a moment. In the meantime, sometime in June, this man locks himself away in a room on Market Street in Philadelphia and begins to write these drafts. He's pulling on what resources to create this document? Oh, he's pulling on enlightenment. And he's also pulling on something in my view that I talk about in the Radical Declaration. Thomas Jefferson is without a doubt, not only is he a true Renaissance man, of all of the founders, he is without a doubt the most complicated. He is an enigma. So Jefferson defends a gentleman in 1770, pro bono, who is suing for his freedom in Virginia, man by the name of Samuel Howell, and he was a slave.

His grandmother was white. He was of mixed race, which is very common in Virginia, more common than we like to talk about today. Jefferson defends him in its quest for freedom pro bono. His closing remarks are that natural rights of man are to be free. So we see right there these underpinnings of all men are created equal. So I think he's drawing on his own thoughts about the Enlightenment. It is the quintessential less is more document. I mean, it's amazing what is being said with very few words, relatively speaking. Let's separate this thing into the sections it is. You really have, is it fair to say five sections? Go through those sections. Introduction and then the call to action. The introduction, I think, is the most enduring part of the document where you have, you know, the cause that impels the separation and sort of laying out the mission.

statement of America, that we're going to build a country, we're going to create a country based on liberty and equality. It is that piece, that introduction that is not only the mission statement for America, but any movement in America, and I guess in other places around the world, it is that introduction that gives a movement moral justification. So when you see in America, the civil rights movement, you see women suffering, the gay rights struggle, all of these movements when they're searching for moral justification, they are reaching for the introduction of the Declaration of Independence. Let's just read a little bit of that. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bans, which have

connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent, resource. to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. They're beginning this whole document with the justification of the document. Essentially, we owe this to the world to explain ourselves. Absolutely. You know, one of the fascinating things about not only what you just read, but further into that introduction, and I think this is something really that this unique about the American narrative. It sort of goes back to the initial piece where you ask why is it, why is it done?

and so radical. At the time of the Declaration, you had really about a third of the population, really wanting to succeed from Great Britain. You had another third that was still loyal to the British crown, and then another third, we'll just take whoever wins. We'll just go with that side. So the advocates of Declaration of Independence are looking at their situation through what I call the lens of marginalization. And that is the lens that African Americans have historically looked at in their quest for change. That is the lens that women have looked at in their quest for change. That is the lens that gay and lesbian brothers and sisters have looked at in their quest for changing.

And I would say that you could actually draw a line from 1776 to the present that connects the founders of this country. with, say, Black Lives Matter. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to be an advocate of support for the cause of Black Lives Matter, but the motivations are there. We have a problem. We see how this problem can be resolved, and we're justified in pursuit of the problem in that manner. That is the formula for change in America. And again, another reason why that document is so radical. It is a justification of rebellion and indeed the moral responsibility of rebellion and at least of resistance and pushing back. We move on then to the preamble. Bear with me, there's a vast amount of the declaration which we can kind of step aside the indictments, the 27 grievances,

because what I'm interested in is how this document speaks to the modern age, and indeed it truly does. The preamble is the most famous words we all live with. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. I'll stop there. There's another half of it to go. But essentially they're saying that because there are certain natural rights to any man, woman, child born on this earth, any government created functions to serve those rights, to protect those rights, correct? Absolutely.

Again, I'm going to go back to your initial statement. You ask me why it's a radical? Because when those words were first written, sovereignty rested with monarchies. And this document says, no, no, no, no. Sovereignty rests with the people. it is this natural set of natural rights that we have. And that this is turning centuries, millennium, established, accepted orthodoxy on its head.

I'll be back with Byron after this short break. I'm in my 60s. I'm circling back to what this nation means at this point in my life. Indeed, in a few years, it's the 250th anniversary of this country. Hopefully, the entire country will be circling back. they truly need to circle no further or deeper than the Declaration of Independence to truly understand the spark that created this idea. These natural rights that are spoken of in the preamble, this was not Jefferson's idea or even the Committee of Five's idea. This was part of the

thinking of the day even beginning a century earlier. Fair to say? Yeah, that's why I think when I said earlier that if you were to study Locke, Hobbes, Kant, Montesquieu, Rousseau, their thinking is woven into this document. I mean, this is the apex of Enlightenment thinking. Prior to the Enlightenment was the Dark Ages. And so I sort of picture the gentleman that I mentioned previously, I pictured them once this document came out. I mean, somewhere around some word, but I just pictured them all sort of running down the street holding up this document. Like, yes, yes, this is what we are talking about. Yes, this is it. And that this little fledgling British colony has the audacity to try to do it. Thomas Jefferson is, as you say, an enigma. So is the declaration that he

creates. I mean, an incredible distillation of very, very high ideas into a pretty understandable set of sentences that really make clear all kinds of ideas. I mean, if you were a contractual lawyer, this is paradise. You know, somebody who can say with this many words, and it's just a matter of a few hundred words, because once you take out the grievances, what follows from the indictment, as a list of 27 grievances against the King of England, explaining very clearly what they find to be appalling about his leadership and why they have every right to rebel. It also then follows with failed warnings. The colonies have asked him to understand and asked the government of Britain to redress these things, but they haven't. Therefore, they denounce.

So once you pull these grievances out of there, you're talking about, I don't know, how many words? There's 500. A little over 500. 500 words. Upon which a nation is founded that lasts at least 240 some years. It's an incredible astonishing act of genius. You just articulated one more reason why this document was radical. I mean, it's one thing to be in a cafe in Paris talking about enlightenment ideas.

It's another to put pin to paper and challenge the greatest military might on the face of the planet at the time in defense of those ideals. That really becomes the strength of this country. It's a fresh document every time I hear it or read it. And that's very exciting because I feel like it presents hope. Let's get back to Jefferson and talk about the stark difference between his real life and his. ideal life. This is a man who was the owner of over 600 slaves. He had been raised by an enslaver himself. He comes from that culture and yet has an enormous problem with it. He wants to put into the declaration a paragraph that actually indicts the British for sticking us with his system.

That paragraph never makes it into the final draft. Yeah, he writes a stinging critique of King George and the slave trade. It was removed for two reasons. One, the Southern planters didn't like it. And northern merchants who were involved in the transatlantic slave trade didn't like it. So you had the requisite votes to get it removed. That's one. The other thing was the paramount issue was independence. No one wanted to be bogged down in anything that wasn't related to independence. So that's sort of the first formal step. where the slave trade, was slavery in general was kicked down the road in some way by America.

I'm searching for the actual words because I found it so sobering to listen to this. What Jefferson wanted to put into the Declaration, he has waged cruel war against human nature itself. By he, he means the king of Britain, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere,

and to incur miserable death in their transportation hither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold. Incredibly well-articulated idea, but incredible, that a man who is enslaving 600 people is able to write that with a clear conscience. Let me give you another perspective on that.

When people look at the hypocrisy, I see it as very consistent. Here's why. At the time, Virginia had an enormous slave population. There was no need for the Transatlantic slave trade from Jefferson's perspective. In fact, the Transatlantic Slave Trade actually devaliening slave trade actually devalues the cost of his slaves. So I've always looked at that as sort of early forms of we let it recall, we out politic and it's just not in my interest to have more slaves brought to this country because I have, I have more than enough. I'm doing just fine and I don't want to saturate the market and devalue my property. That's Byron Williams spin on that. Well, that actually harkens back to the fact that the pursuit of happiness, that phrase was a controversial one as well. That was at first meant to say property. Am I right? Benjamin Franklin, who suggested that it not be property, but rather pursuit of happiness? Yes, but it was also those words, life, liberty, and property were the exact words of lock.

Those words were taken from lock. But as you sort of note and hint, that property was a euphemism for slavery. So when the piece of Jefferson about the slave trade was taken out, those who supported slaves saw that as a victory. When property was changed with something more amorphous like the pursuit of happiness, that was seen as a victory for those opposed to slavery. The word nuance is a hugely important word in understanding the Declaration of Independence, indeed in understanding Thomas Jefferson. If we're going to give him the credit that you're suggesting we do, it is because he's able to lay in so much nuance into this otherwise very precise. worded document, that rules can be changed, laws can be changed, arguments can be made later

on that develop the idea of these natural rights to include other people. And indeed, that's exactly what happens. The Declaration of Independence becomes the wedge issue, the wedge document, I should say, used by almost every generation in explaining how things should change. Absolutely. I want to start with a word you just used. I'm going to pick up on a word. You said attended. And I have students of mine who will say, well, this document doesn't matter because they didn't intend for women to have a voice. They didn't intend for blacks to be free and so on and so forth. And my response to them is always the same. If I sell you a house for $300,000, are you in California? New York. Oh, you're in New York. So depending on where you live in New York,

you probably wouldn't want to buy a house for $300,000. You might wouldn't want it. But if I sit you a house for $300,000. And it goes through escrow and closing and you move in. And then about two months later, I call you and say, you know, Don, I'm sorry. I meant to sell the house for $400,000. What are you going to say to me? Take a hike. Right. Do you care about my intention? No, the document said $300,000. And that's how we should look at the intention of the founders. I don't care what their intention was. The document said life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. The document is founded on the precepts of liberty and equality so that abolitionists could use the Declaration of Independence, notably William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, that women can use the Declaration of Independence.

So it becomes this sort of touchstone for morality and change that America created in 1776. It's almost as if he delivered the document understanding that there were loopholes. There was room for interpretation, and therefore it would be a useful document down the ages. If you read the writings that led up to the Civil War, you could make the argument that the founders created the basis for the Civil War by what they deleted and what they kicked the can down the road. They created the basis for the Civil War as a result.

as well as the civil rights movement. How's that, you know, how is that, you will put that on your CD? Exactly. I mean, and for a universal document. The Declaration of Independence stands. It stands that in the course of human events, well, let's look at that course. That course was slavery. That course was a civil war. That course was women's suffrage. That course was a depression, gay and lesbian equality, a Vietnam war. It was a civil rights. look at that course and that document still stands. Exactly. It's useful all the way through. But then so are, you know, the basic ideas of humanity, which is essentially what they were trying to, what Jefferson was trying to articulate and did. We have to wrap up, but boy, I could talk to you for hours on

this subject. I encourage anyone listening to buy this book, Radical Declaration by Byron Williams, read the declaration and skip the grievances. Because when you take it down to its, bear tax, it's a lot more understandable and a lot more relevant to today's world. So thank you, sir, for reintroducing me to that which makes America, I hate to use the phrase, but great, but it really does. Thank you, Byron. Not perfect, but great. It too can coexistent, Don, and it is certainly your work is well known to me, so I am truly honored to be on your broadcast. Thank you, sir. Well, you've reached the end of the show. Thanks for listening, and thanks so much to our guest, Reverend Byron Williams. If you liked what you heard, please review and subscribe

wherever you get your podcasts. We've got episodes on the Hollywood blacklist, Pottyax Rebellion, and the Battle of Midway, all coming up. Do make sure you don't miss those. And get in touch with History Hit on social media. If there are any stories you'd love to hear us explore. See you next time.

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