Historically High - The Declaration of Independence

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

You know why we celebrate Independence Day right? You sure...? Do you know what the Declaration of Independence actually says? How did 13 colonies come together to make this decision and who are the men that drafted The Ultimate Break Up Letter to King George? Get higher than a bottle rocket and let us explode all over you with knowledge on this Proclamation of Freedom. Support the show Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Oh, no way. They started out in Australia. Golden Doodles? Labardoodles. Labardoodles. They have... They've literally been around for like hundreds of years, and then they just got fashionable like everything else. What about Ligers? Ligers has to be strictly American, right?

Yeah, because Tigers and Lions never, you know, unless it was a long, long, long, long time ago, tigers and lions don't exist on the same continent. So that had to have been human interference of being like, let's make these two things fuck. That's America. Okay, yeah. There you go.

Ooh, that could be like a Middle Eastern thing, though, too. They fucking love big cats. And at some point, some sheik was probably like, what if we get these two, put these two in the same? Do you think they just try to kill each other? Or if one's in heat, it's just like, oh, you're close enough. I think cat horny's probably cat horny. Yeah, I could think, I could see that.

Lion walks into a female tiger. He's like, you're not what I'm used to. too, but all right. Yeah, I mean, it's still sort of the same you're both cats. Mm-hmm.

It's just probably like getting with a Hispanic chick instead of a white chick or something. Yeah. No, that's probably what it... She's got a little bit more flare to her. Mm-hmm. Ooh, I wasn't aware that this was a possibility. Same whole, same setup.

I'm just trying to think of where to start with this because the more I feel I don't know how to say this or how to describe this I feel like there was this time when everything had to be so filtered

and how you learn about history as a kid and everything everything is very filtered to show with the exception of something like huge like actual slavery which is rooted in our country Huh?

You want a Ricola? No, I'm good. I was just thinking about how with the exception of those areas that you just absolutely can't skip or gloss over that you have to address. Like if it wasn't addressed in a school book, people would be like, hey, wait a minute. But there's these other things like the Declaration of Independence, which if you think about, did you know that that covers both an event and the document if you think about it? Wouldn't the event be like the American Revolution? No, no, no. What I mean is...

Oh, they're making a declaration and it's a... Yeah, yeah. So, you get to the Declaration of Independence, and whenever you read about that, you know, in school, I don't think it really... They don't break down enough exactly what each document did, because I think there's this huge confusion between the Declaration of Independence.

independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. I'm not saying everyone thinks they do the exact same thing, but I feel like people believe that they were drafted kind of at the same time and for the same purpose, maybe just to cover different bases, and it's not. Well, not to cut you off, but we had the Articles of Confederation before that. You did cut me off. You knew what you were doing. Yeah, but you didn't mention it.

Did you learn about the Articles of Confederation? No. You didn't learn about the Articles of Confederation? Wait, yes, I probably did. Yeah. You had to them. It's small town education, man. It's horseshit.

That was still our first form of government in America. Okay. So, which seems weird because then we had the Confederate states in the south, so maybe they took the Articles of Confederation a little too far. Mm-hmm. But they had something else, didn't they? Yeah, because the articles, the original articles of Confederation were well before the Civil War, before even this.

Uh, they actually, the Articles of Confederation were drafted a war. along with the Declaration of Independence. So the articles didn't, okay, so the articles weren't in play to establish the type of government prior to the Declaration of Independence. What I'm trying to think of here, maybe you have a better answer on this, and this kind of can also set the stage. So when the 13 colonies were in operation, from what I read in this,

almost each colony had almost a different form of local government or government within itself. Yeah. Different parties. It wasn't a two-party system or anything like that. There were all these little parties. And what's crazy is how quickly these parties could go into power and out of power. Or be the primary party within these colonies.

And so being that they were under British rule, was it that the colonies were each under, like a governor, loyal to Britain? and then they kind of assigned the roles, and that's how they kind of kept, like, overwatch on the colonies? In a way, basically the colonies had their own congresses that they had set up in their territories, and they would elect governors. They weren't called governors at the time.

They were called... Was it like magistrates or something? I know that's like a legal, like a court term, but... Oh, they had presidents of colonies, which later became governors. But the shitty thing about it was England had representation in every one of these states or every one of these colonies. So when these congresses... It wasn't just representation.

It was normally the people that were in the highest position of powers in these colonies were loyal to Britain. Because that's who was paying them. Well, they actually had like Englishmen that were over there that would rule over these congresses or the congresses that when they would come up with something as far as like what they wanted to do about taxation or anything like that. Then the English people would send it back to King George. King George would give the thumb up, thumb down, and whatever he decided he'd come back. Well, at this point, too, in Britain, there was parliament. And that's, and then I think is also kind of where it can get confusing

just as someone coming in and looking at it. God damn it. Hold on. I'm going to wet my wist a little bit. Some water. Liquid IV, Pena Colotta. It's actually pretty good. Also, we're still looking for sponsorship.

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Okay, so getting back to the task at hand, Britain had King George, but they also had a parliament. Yeah. Parliament is their version of Congress. Mm-hmm. Okay. So a lot of these... decisions too that were being put on the colonies made with made um through parliament so basically if

the colonies wanted to do something didn't they have to vote in their local congresses it had to go up the chain it had to go to parliament but then didn't have to come back with their approval before it could be enacted the way that i understood how most of this was was parliament did play a part in what the colonies had to do with like as far as setting up taxation and things like that. But ultimately, the monarchy of the king was who had like final say over what raw interials, what raw goods were brought over. And that's really what the colonies were at this point for like countries like Britain that were essential colonial like powerhouses. You know, you have Britain, how do you say that? You have British, like British influences still in so many

countries, India and China, did they have anything like in, well, Australia, obviously, as well. So, you know, they use these countries as basically just supply chains, just getting raw materials back and forth. Pretty much. And even to a degree where before the Declaration of Independence, they were sending materials from the colonies, from the United, what would become the United States,

but from the colonies, to Britain, where it would then be processed, manufactured into goods, and then sent back to the colonies to be bought and taxed at that point. So instead of being able to just invest in infrastructure or let the colonies develop their own stuff, they were forcing them to ship goods just so they could ship them back and be charged for them. And a little foreshadowing towards some of the airing of the grievances that we get into, not only were they taxing anything coming back, they were taxing the raw goods

as they were coming back to England. So there was a tax on the sales that they were selling to England. Because that's how the colonies were making some of their money is because England wasn't just taking this stuff. They were paying for the goods because obviously there would be no financial infrastructure if they weren't, but they were taxing almost the sale of the goods.

Yeah. So if you were to say like I'll buy this for a thousand dollars, but we're going to tax you back 6% on that thousand dollars. You're paying the tax to send the raw goods there, and then you're also paying the tax to them to buy it back from them. Yeah. Which, so you're getting taxed both ways. You're getting taxed six ways to Sunday. And that's the thing is that, you know, people have probably heard the term taxation without representation. That's what, you know, a good chunk of the grievances were on this is that they never had a hand or, you know, as saying these taxes. The taxes just appeared and they were set.

And the colonies would try to fight back and try to shut down the taxes. And of course, England at that time would be like, we're not going to let you do that. Yeah. And what's kind of crazy to think is every one of these players that we're going to discuss, you know, with the exception, of course, like King George and everything, like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, all those guys, you forget because those are the founding fathers of America, those guys are British. They talked with British accents and everything. It's weird to think because if you kind of close your eyes, mental eyes, you would see

those people's faces and you would instantly associate American. And then I think if you even think of how they talked in your head, they would have no accent. But these guys were all British. For the most part, yeah. There were some of the younger of the generation, some of the younger signers of the Declaration, of independence were from America, but most of them... So they were first generation, basically first generation kind of... Yep.

Oh, that's right, because John Adams, didn't he come from... He was like, was it Adams or Franklin? They were descended from one of like the Puritan families that came in. John Adams might have been. Okay. I didn't know that Samuel Adams is a real person and John Adams... John Adams' cousin or brother? Brother, right?

Yeah, and he was a dick. Oh, yeah. He was not a good person. why a Boston he's appropriately appropriate for a Boston brewery. Mass trash, I get it. So,

we totally win another direction from where I was trying to go, what was I saying? From when? Let me try to look at it. Oh my God. Let's see. I guess it was just the taxes and the grievances.

Yeah, we'll get into that. We've got a long way to go to get that because we have to talk about the fact that this is the whole reason for the declaration of independence i feel like kind of comes right that's where i was trying to go sorry it comes from just every single time that the colonies would turn around they had no not only independence but they just had no identity they weren't they weren't their own people all they were was just basically puppets of England that were doing everything for England and producing different raw goods. Everything that they did, the crown had a hand in somehow making it an English thing,

which after a while, that's just going to piss you off to the point to where George Washington fought for England before he started his campaign against him. He was a red coat. He was somebody that led multiple platoons in wars. I'm trying to remember who his commanding officer was, but his claim to fame was it was during this battle. And was the battle during the French and Indian

War? I think it was because it took place before this. That's right. So French and Indian War, so Washington is number two, essentially to whoever is in charge during this battle. And this guy, the leader or commander for the

Brits, he ends up getting killed. and so Wachshund left in command, and they were getting pretty well beaten by the French and Indian forces. So he's trying to get them into a retreat to pull them back, and he ends up, like, running down the line, getting all of his men on the same, kind of the same idea, and then issuing the command to kind of fall back. He saves a bunch of men.

They don't win the battle, but he's able to go ahead and strategically retreat. And they were saying, like, afterward, looked at his jacket, and there were just musket holes all in his jacket. that was kind of his trial by fire, I guess. And at that point, then he was promoted or something. But he was famous in the colonies for that. I guess also kind of the precursor of all this is how many different, like, forces were fighting within the United States, like prior to this? So you had the French siting with the Native Americans who went to war with what you consider the British in America at that point,

because everyone was still considered British in America. You had the French and Indians lose that battle. As that tapers off and that's no longer occurring, you then have the American Revolution that starts getting popped off. And that's the American Revolution been going on an entire year prior to even the drafting of the Declaration. So it wasn't like this is what caused that. And I think that might be a common misconception is that the Declaration of Independence, is actually what led to the American Revolution.

It's not. No, there are many other precursors. And it's funny that you talk about the natives being kind of at war with England. Because at this point, now that America is starting to fight back against England, England is coming into these native tribes and basically trying to work their way into getting the natives to go over. a war with the Americans, the colonies. So let's go to the technical terms they were caused. It was the colonies were the revolutionaries.

Yeah. And the loyalists were British and the British still in the colonies. Okay, so the revolution, they were trying to get the Indians on the side of the loyalists to have them fight against the revolutionaries. And just more boots on the ground, causing more issues for the patriots, because at the Patriots are fighting against the natives and they're fighting against the English. They're going to be spread even more thin. Well, did you see that Britain was also attempting to make partnerships with, like,

other countries to go in and fight on their behalf? And not only that, there were also in the South trying to actively turn the slaves against their masters and saying, they had almost their own form of an emancipation proclamation that they had sent over as England saying, if you fight with them. this we will free you which I'm sure was going to be the ultimate double cross at the end of it had it been effective so the Patriots at this point were just getting it from all sides and they had to finally make a declaration they finally had to do something to separate themselves because

they weren't going to go any further being under English rule because they had already decided that freedom and independence were at the top of their list so the declaration of independence It's basically to me what it comes off as. It's like almost a breakup slash resignation letter. And like you said, it's Festivus 1776. It's the airing of grievances. So the Declaration of Independence, basically what it is is it's a, this is who we are and the first part of it is like the Second Continental Congress

of the United States of America. It's what's happening, what we're declaring. we're declaring our independence from British rule. We will no longer owe any taxes to Britain. We're going to operate as our own entity. And, you know, we're the United States. Then it was the reason why they're declaring their independence. Because this is something that hadn't really been done.

A colony like this basically growing enough and growing, I guess, I don't know if it powerful is the world. but they were getting powerful. Obviously, they were able to fight against Britain, but there wasn't really a precursor for anyone else doing this. And so declaring your independence when your people are direct descendants to Britain, that's kind of crazy if you sit there and think about it. Because a lot of these people, like I was saying, were British,

but they were just like, man, like this guy making these decisions for us is, what is it, like 3,000 miles away? Yeah, it's a way. Yeah. It's a world away. It's literally an ocean away. They're not here. We're being subject to all of these decisions and rules that are basically meant to just use this as a factory and a farm.

And we're getting taxed and we're not having, you know, we don't have a say in how these things are occurring. So it listed out basically, was it 27 grievances? Yeah. So the document was basically broken into four parts, which you had the preamble, which is what you were talking. about as far as this is our statement this is what we're doing this is what we believe in then it had the statement of human rights which we'll use that term a little bit loosely because it wasn't for all humans but it was basically an outline of this is what we believe all humans are entitled to this is what we believe as it sounds real good yeah yeah life liberty the pursuit of happiness

which there was some wording changed in there from what thomas jefferson who wrote it. This is where it does describe them as inalienable rights. Yep. Yep. And then we have the grievances portion which like you said was 27. There were more that did get edited out for other reasons we'll talk about. And then

finally the last part of it was the resolution as to how we're going to take care of this. Which I'm sure probably when King George read that he probably just got matter and matter and matter until he got to the resolution. He was like, all right bitch. Let's see what you guys

got. Let's get this on. Well, basically it was just like, hey, George, you've been fucking up for a long time. You've been doing stuff without our permission. This is the reason, you know, this is what we're going to be doing. This is the reason we're breaking up with your ass.

And here's what's going to happen. Let's see what you're going to do about it. You weren't treating us right. We're going to find somebody else that's going to love us more than you. You never paid for anything. Uh-uh. Yeah. We don't even go Dutch on meals. You just make us pay every single time. So did you read through the 27

grievances? Yeah, they there's... All hit a couple and you hit a couple that stand out. Because there were about, there were groups of them like four or five of them almost sounded like they had the same topic and were almost kind of repeating themselves but they were individual instances or examples. So I could see why

they would put that in. The flowery language that they used back then is very frustrating. For being as tough and as rough and tumble as these guys were. Well, I think there was a huge a huge social gap between people that were educated and could read and write and everything, and then the people that

could. I think that you had fewer people in between there. Like in kind of in the middle ground, I think it was either all or nothing, kind of, just depended on where you lived and how the education system was. Yeah, but lay it out for everybody the same way. If you're trying to make revolution happen. I know, but they did. They went through. Okay, so the big five that

actually wrote that were that were chosen to actually draft and put together the Declaration of Independence there were 56 guys that actually what we consider 56 founding fathers they were a part of the second continental congress correct that had a had a hand in drafting it so they picked essentially the committee of five which are like the big five um john adams Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Franklin and then who were the other two guys they were Roger and Robert R. Livingston. That's right. So they were chosen to actually write it.

Thomas Jefferson. John Adams convinced Thomas Jefferson to actually be the one who wrote it. They didn't want Benjamin Franklin doing it. He was a little bit of a jokester and a perv, and they were afraid that he was going to slip a joke in, whereas they needed this to be as serious as possible. Did you hear how John Adams convinced Thomas Jefferson to do it

because he was so nervous? I know that TJ was really young. He was like 33, I want to say, when he did this. That's the other thing that's so fucking crazy about this, man, is you start looking at the ages of some of these guys. So they're all depicted, like, they're in their fucking 50s. And every type of, like, reenactment and portrait. These guys are literally, like, some of them are in their 20s.

And some of them are old as shit. Benjamin Franklin was very old, like, to the point of, like, needing people to carry him around places. Yeah. But, so John Adams actually convinces Thomas Jefferson. He just has some drinks with him. and get to relax and then finally he does it. And then they go through, you know, it wasn't just written and it was one and done.

Like, hey, we're going to write this down. Then it's going to call it good. They write it. They put it before the Continental Congress. And for an entire, I think an entire day, everyone reads over it and everybody makes suggestions. They start removing certain words, certain phrases. They get rid of like some of the flowery. It was more flowery than how it reads.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So they're getting rid of stuff and just trying to make it succinct. I think they said they, got it, they removed about a quarter of what was in there and got it down to where it was. Which, in and of itself, the document's only like a thousand words. So it's not like a long, drawn out deal. It's not.

It just looks that way because it's, some of it's bigger print. Yeah. You know, recursive and... They cut it down to about as short as it could be. And I... The amount of weird kind of infighting and different things that happened between the guys to me is very funny because if you get 56 guys in a room, which there's argument that there was never all 56 of them in a room at the same time, people were coming and going.

But one of John Adams deals that he held throughout his entire life was he believed that the 4th of July should have been the 2nd of July. Because on the 2nd of July, two days before was actually when they passed the what they called the Lee Resolution for Independence, which Richard Henry Lee came from Virginia, and he was like the first guy to propose, we need 13 free and independent colonies, we need to make this all happen. And being from Virginia, which I believe was the, probably one of the first colonies, the oldest colonies. And I think we're going to kind of jump around with the timing on this, so I apologize if anyone is hoping to keep this chronological. But a lot of people we talk to are

going to make us jump back to kind of explain either events that they took part in or frankly i'm going to forget where we're at so i'm just going to talk about stuff but so one of the things too is before this could even be drafted they had to get all 13 colonies on the same page which sounds you know when you just kind of gloss over the declaration of dependence you just assume everybody was like yeah independence go it wasn't like that there were holdouts and people came along came on board i'm not going to even say slowly because this is what was kind of shocking to me too. So within the month of, within the year of 1776, like a lot of shit goes down in 1776.

The American Revolution is going on. But from what I read, when they actually start getting together the idea, and like you said, I think Richard Henry Lee was the one that proposed that they'd be free and independent. As soon as that got proposed, they started getting all the other colonies to try to get on board with this. And I think there were four or five whole whole. holdouts on it that when they finally got the majority of them together, the four or five holdouts were some major ones. It was like New York, Pennsylvania, which is weird that you would think Pennsylvania would be a holdout because a lot of this was done in Philadelphia. Yeah.

But then you had, I think, Delaware and a couple other states. And what ended up happening in order to get those states on board, the congresses in those states and the political parties in power had to, be removed and changed over and voted, new ones voted in. This happened in the course of like two months, were within two months, it just shows you how almost small and isolated the colonies were, that you could just like change political parties like that. Well, they absolutely had to be at that point because they,

there was no overarching government for anybody besides England to do it. So if you're going to be doing it, you have to do it kind of tongue in cheek to make sure that England's not like, whoa, what's going on here, which I'm sure they. had some rumblings of it. It seemed like so much of it at some point was kind of like herding cats because

when you say free and independent, everybody gets on board with that like you said. But then when you start trying to put things in and one colony says, hey, we want this. The other colony's like, fuck, no, we're not doing that, we're out. And so you have to figure out some sort of a compromise to get everybody on board

all while knowing that if you do this with 11 people or 11 colonies or if you do this with eight colonies, you can't. You have to have all 13, all locked up at the exact same time. Well, what's going to happen too is this thing, like, people act like this was just like going to be

hey George, you know, we're going to be our own thing now and he's just going to be like, cool, okay, no, there's serious repercussions to this. They will send in the military, they will send in their Navy, they will send in their troops and they're going to remove the rebels and they're going to remove the revolutionaries and they're

going to go ahead and keep it as a colony. So if you don't get all 13 colonies on board with this together, what's going to happen if two of those colonies or three of those colonies, coastal colonies, are going to stay with Britain, give safe harbor for them to go ahead and land all their troops, you're going to have a buildup and it's going to be fighting from within. You're not going to win. It had to be everybody.

So they were able to get through kind of the maneuvering of getting these different political parties in charge of these states. because the people did want to be free and independent. They just had to get people into office that were of representation of what the people's will was. They finally got, I think, 12 on board with the 13th, just abstaining from the vote. Not saying no, not saying yes. They just, I think, didn't have the ability to actually, like, say yes. So they, when they passed a resolution, it was 12 to 9 thing unopposed.

New York had to abstain from the voting. they said because they wanted their local government to agree to it first, and they hadn't had that decision in that vote yet. They came to that decision like a month later, though, right? Yeah. And also, being in New York, there were about 1,000 English red coats that were stationed in the colony. So the last thing that you want to do has been like, yeah, we're all going to go against you while you're occupying us with 10,000 troops because there would have been a massacre at that point in New York

jumped on board. Well, I forgot about that too being one of the grievances. So do you have the grievances pulled up? Oh, yeah. Okay, I'm going to pick out. You go ahead and do yours if you already have it picked out. Keep in mind, 27 of these. Some of them are kind of repetitive, but I'm going to try to, we're going to try to hit on some of the ones that might not be kind of.

Grievance 18 for depriving us in many cases of the benefit of a jury trial. After these functionaries were driven from Boston in 1768, an act was. passed which placed violations of revenue laws under the jurisdiction of the admiralty courts. Admiralty. That's that what I said? Admiralty. Whatever.

Fucking flowery language, like I said. Where the offenders were tried, but the prosecutors were biased towards a crown. So basically, if you had done something that angered the courts as far as, like, you weren't sharing your revenue or something like that, they would take you to court, but it wasn't ever like a jury of your own peers. It was always the crown was going to be the one that prosecutes you. Your defense lawyer was basically null and void at that

point and they were just going to hammer you. I'm just going to go with some of the ones that are just very apparent and shouldn't even need to be said but grievance 25. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death,

desolation, and tyranny. Already began with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy? Perfity? again flowery language scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous barbarous ages and unworthy

the head oh and unworthy the head of a civilized nation so they were bringing in German soldiers during the American Revolution to fight against the revolutionaries yeah that's and the simple fact that and this ties into another

one of the grievances sorry I'm just going to get this one out of the way don't take 11 from me I'm not I'm doing 23 He is abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. So that right there. So again, keep in mind that the American Revolution is going on at this time and has been for a year when they're drafting this. So one of the grievances is like, dude, like you're currently at war with us right now. You're not protecting us as one of your colonies.

You're trying to actively kill our citizens. And to piggyback off that with grievance number 11, He's kept among us in many times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. So not only are they attacking, they are also basically actively having their muscle around at all times. They've had an occupying force in their keeping law. Which you can't rule over your own people if you don't have a little bit of a force in there. But at the same time, if the people want to be free, you are actively going to feel intimidated by just a million redcoats running around there. Well, and apparently, you know, a lot of these grievances just cover the simple fact that, so the United States or the colonies, have tried to go ahead and kind of piecemeal together the best way of governance that they know how.

That's most appropriate for the colonies. And at several points, King George has either blatantly disregarded the legislature that the colonies have, you know, provided to rule themselves. He's been a detriment to it. Or in general, he hasn't even, you know, been responsive to anything. No. And that's where you get grievance number five. He's resolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness, his invasions of the rights of our people. So all these things are listed out as they know exactly what he did.

I'm sure when they were writing this, they were probably, everybody was sitting around reading them and people were cheering. People were excited for things that they were. they had felt like was something that was just more personal to them. Where's the grievance? I'm going through the list here. There is one about the, you know, anyone living in America could be forced at any time to room and board British soldiers. They weren't given a choice in it.

That was one of the grievances, right? I could have sworn it was. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coast, burnt her town, destroyed the lives of our people. That one just sounds like we wanted to throw an extra one in there to make things a little bit more... There's a couple in here that are like that. But I want to say that there is one...

Whether it is a grievance or not, I know it was actually covered under another reason if it's not that one. But yeah, so just normal people were required to house British soldiers, whether they wanted to or not. So just completely, you know, ignoring, you know, rights of privacy property, anything like that. So this is, you know, they draft all of these grievances and they, after it's been edited and everything like that, did you see about the, what they did with the Dunlop broadsides, which is a fancy name for like, kinkos and copies. Yeah, he was a young German kid, who was it?

It was John Dunlap, where they sent the declaration to be printed, and they said that it was about 200 copies that became known as the Dunlap Bronze Sides, or Broad Sides. And to this day, there's still only 26 that are in existence. The fact that there's 26 in existence is crazy. Well, it just seems like something, which they did keep a lot of them around to, like, be passed around to different colonies and to be read like in the streets and

everything like that so there would be a lot of stuff that way George Washington got one and I think required it to be read out loud to all of the soldiers well and I think it was it was like 2004 or 2009 somebody was at a garage sale and they had

purchased just a picture that was just a shitty picture and a cool frame and they Four bucks wasn't it. Yeah, they wanted the frame. So they ended up cutting out the picture, and underneath the picture was literally one of the broadsides that was still left over. And he sold it to like a publisher or something like that for like $11 million. Which, that's insane. But just to think that these things were such important historical documents and people were just putting pictures over them in picture frames, which I don't know if it was to hide it.

Maybe that's a good idea. Maybe that's why it was a shitty picture. But so kind of go into You were mentioning July 2nd being the actual holiday So why did they consider July 4th The actual Independence Day holiday Because that was when they had ratified it And started signing it

Okay So John Adams would I think that I think that The argument is valid there Because technically if it's not signed It's not a There's no teeth to it There's nobody backing it

But one of the committee of the five John Adams was fervent his entire life that July 2nd was supposed to be the day of celebration, the day of fireworks, to the point to where he didn't even recognize July 4th his Independence Day. He wouldn't go out and celebrate with anybody throughout his life. He would always celebrate by himself and with his family on July 2nd. That was how much he opposed that whole thought process.

Fake-ass Americans on July 4th. Well, while the Committee of the Five was going through and composing the Declaration, they had the forethought or forth thought enough to where a second committee was created to go out and start drafting treaties with all these other foreign countries because England at the time the crown was the strongest military in the world they had the most land and everything like that which is crazy because like think of the island of Great Britain not big but like you're saying they controlled the territory of Australia what they would consider at that time places in India outposts in Central Asia Africa Just everywhere that they had to be They had land

So the more treaties that you could get out To these other foreign powers And get them on your side Because eventually you know that When push comes to shove England is gonna probably beat your ass So you need as many people on your side as possible Well and here's the thing like

What else is You know King George has already sent troops over We're already at war So at this point when he receives this, I didn't get into this, so maybe you can kind of provide me some information. What else was he going to do?

He was already over there trying to, you know, root out the revolutionaries. What else was he going to do once he got this? This was our formal statement of like, hey, we know we're at war with you right now, but if we win, this is what's happening. Because we're already fighting. It was.

I think basically his reaction to it was this is where we need our focus now because the standing army and the way that they were going against America it wasn't like all their guns were appointed at America they still knew that they had enough power underneath in the colonies to where they didn't have to keep their full

focus and attention on America so the third committee that they created alongside the first two was to start drafting the Articles of Confederation because once you consider yourself a free state you're going to need way to rule over everybody else or else it's just anarchy at that point you need a set of laws

and something on the books that you can put out there to say we left we seceded we are our own people here's how we're going to do things better and treat people better that was one of also the points of I don't know who it was or what state congress he was part of but during the kind of the debates about drafting the treaties for foreign powers there was kind of an argument of like should we wait until we're recognized like as a country to request aid from foreign powers like who is this who is this coming from right now it's just 13 colonies under british rule then do they feel like they're going to be you know do they have to ask britain for permission to aid like and then they're like no let's go ahead and consider ourselves it was an all

effectively this was an all or nothing thing well i think that gets lost is like this you know what would have happened how many people were, you know, revolutionaries and in favor of independence, a vast majority. So you're, at this point, either we're all in or every revolutionary is getting hanged or beheaded however King George wants to do it. And we're still under British rule. And then at that point, there's going to be conditions or kind of, you know, safety measures put in place by Britain going forward that this isn't going to be able to happen again. So this was the chance. It was, they couldn't play just a tip with it at this point because,

George had already decreed any sort of treason was punishable by death. Yeah. So every single one of these fellas that slapped their signature on this declaration was basically marked for death at that point. Because if they were to be gotten a hold of by the English, they were getting hanged, they were getting drawn and quartered, they were getting fucked up in the public square just to scare everybody off this idea. Do you feel like that's why John Hancock signed his signature the largest?

That's what he said, because he was the, I think he was the leader of the Continental Congress and he put his on there as big as possible because he said that he wanted King George to be able to see it without his spectacles. That's a pretty, that's a power move. That's a baller move. And at the same time, what's to lose for that?

It's not like his name being any smaller is going to keep him getting hit if they lose. He's not going to be any less dead. But if they win, it's like, look at this flex. Like, look at this. Yeah, he's still, him and his cousin Herbie probably have the two hottest signatures ever made.

The other thing kind of going along with the third committee and what you were talking about with the broadsides was along with these treaties that they were writing up, every single one of these is going out with the Declaration of Independence just so that they knew

that these other foreign countries that were getting these treaties are like, oh shit, these guys, they're playing for keeps. They're legitimate. I don't know if we mentioned it, but they did send one of these broadsides, these copies to King George as well. Yep, they sent it over on a boat, which I'm sure what boat trip over there was probably a couple weeks. How many times do you think they woke up at night and they were like, we probably shouldn't have done this?

Well, it had to have been, who do you think took it over there? Okay, hold on just a second. I got to pee before we go into that. I want to actually look at it. I wonder if it was a British merchant ship that was already heading back there, loyal to Britain, or if it was like a crew? like four, like, revolutionaries are like, sorry guys, like, just kick this shit off at the dock and turn right around and get back as soon as possible. Yeah, you drop that box off and you leave. Okay, we'll be right back.

Okay. Okay, so the final determination on that is we have no clue who actually delivered it. I'm just going to say it was a group of a rag-tag team of revolutionaries picked for like an A team that was sent to deliver this. they kicked it off the boat and then they just turned around and sailed back for the states. It turns out history doesn't look kindly on shipping companies, apparently, if we're not even going to put the names of the shipping companies out there. So one thing that also really looking into these types of topics does is it kind of strips back like the polish on it. You know, the 56 guys that help draft this, you read into some of these guys.

and, you know, the founding fathers, at this point, they're kind of looked upon with reverence, which they should be for doing this and effectively, you know, given birth to our nation, but these are all flawed, if not some of them being extremely flawed individuals. Very much so. Who are also, you know, they're not doing this for altruistic ways, you know, for everybody to be free despite that being said in the declaration. there is gain monetarily, but there also is the, you know, the benefit of freedom and not being told what to do by somebody that has no idea, you know, it's 3,000 miles away or whatever it is. So a couple things that were in the original draft that had to be taken out to get everybody on board.

What are a couple of those things? So the change is made to Thomas Jefferson's draft. There were like over 80 of them in total. Just every little thing that you can think of as far as taking grievances in and out. Like you said, it's hurting cats. You have to try to get something down to where 13, this isn't 13 people. These are 13 colonies. And then it also said the representation from each colony was a separate.

You could have like two people. You could have seven people. Yeah. The representations were huge. So you had to get like a majority. So if it was two people, you could get a 50-50 split and have to make a change just to get that colony on board. Yeah, well, if you had, what, 56 signers, you said? Yeah.

So out of 13 colonies, you had 56 people who all have their own opinion showing up. Excuse me. So the two most significant, the first one was to remove the blame from the British people, which I assume a lot like we talked about. It was, this wasn't an affront to the British people and to the English people because... The British people weren't the ones that were enforcing these rules and everything like that. And plus, How many of the people, I think that was twofold.

I think that was to, I'm not going to say, garner sympathy from the British populace, but at the same time, how many people were one generation or first, like, had moved to the United States, that if they still feel like, you know, I'm kind of here in the colonies, but I'm kind of still British, putting all of it on the British people, could you lose you some support, like, at home? Not at home. I mean, at home is in the colonies. It's that, but also at the same time, I'm sure it's family. I'm sure there's still a lot of colonists who have ties back in England.

Yeah, 100%. And for the most part, between Parliament and the king, it's like, it's 100% they're doing. Yeah, which they wanted to lay all the blame at the feet of the king because he was the one that was causing all of the issues. and the second which looking into it this wasn't something where it was an all-out rejection of everything that the

English were trying to push on them they weren't trying to reject everything and just formed some new things they wanted to bring in parts of what they had been doing traditionally before that but just to sort of expound on it and do their own work on it. The second involved

blaming the English for the perpetuation of slavery, which the southern slave owners obviously fought against, and the northern merchants also argued against because southern slave owners were making products for northern merchants. Northern merchants were then selling them and

making money because they were getting their products for cheap from the south. This is where my point of everyone was dirty. I mean, not every single person owned slaves or anything like that. And during the Civil War, of course, the Union, the Northern States were looking to, again, we kind of discussed this previously. The abolishment of slavery was kind of like either do this or else.

It wasn't like, hey, this is what's going to happen if we win. It was a threat that just ended up being done. It was a bargaining chip. Correct. So you have, let me, I'm going to ask you a question. and I'll kind of see if my theory is right on this. So when you think of like the northern states like Massachusetts and New York and everything, what do you think of as their strength or exports are kind of like,

what would their economy be based on at this time? At that time, I would assume that a lot of their, the things that they were attached to were either things coming up from the south that they were selling and that they were trading or things coming over from England because they... So what would that entail though? So if they're getting stuff and sending some to England and bringing stuff in, what would that mean that they're...

Shipping? Yeah. That's what I'm trying to get at. Yeah. So when I think of like the northern colonies and I know that some were landlocked and everything, but I do think a lot of the like the Boston Harbor and stuff, I like seeing shipping merchant vessels, stuff like that.

Those merchant vessels, were involved in the slave trade. Oh, absolutely. Of bringing slaves over. They were making money. You know, to them, you know, yeah, cargo's cargo. And so they did have a part in this. And in order, so it wasn't just, that's why you get the northern states not being like,

hey, you know, maybe we just, for the time being, we get rid of that part about getting rid of slavery. Let's leave that on the table. That doesn't need to be said. That's not going to help us. Well, and any cotton or rice or any of those goods that are being traded and exported back and forth with other countries have to come from somewhere. And so the people that are making the money on them from the north are getting their supplies exclusively from the south. Yeah. So there's kind of like one hand scratching the other in that situation where they really wanted to make sure that they didn't come out and make any statements that.

that they would have to atone for later. Yeah. And some of the writers, I mean, Thomas Jefferson, slave owner that eventually freed his slaves. After he had had his ways. Yeah, I mean, there's some Jeffersons out there that are his seed, his lineage that are not white. Ben Franklin, I want to say previously owned slaves, but then had freed them at that time. had freed them at that time. He was actually...

There's some... John Adams did not believe in slavery. I don't believe. I don't think he ever... He fought against it. But again, you have to get everybody on board. I'm not excusing it whatsoever. I'm just saying that like, that's what I... That's, I guess what I'm saying.

These people were compromised, flawed people that were willing to go ahead and get dirty to get everybody on board for declaring independence. They were in the mud, but they also did have other beliefs that they felt strongly about to push this country forward. What, what's that like? Like that, I don't even know where to, like, start with that. You're signing your name and, like, all you guys are just looking around each other being like, are we, like, are we really doing this? Like, we will all be killed if this doesn't go well.

Yeah, and excuse me, you have to have a certain amount of confidence that what you're doing is something that you can back up. Because if you're just sending it over there, you're just basically effectively signing your own death warrant. You're asking, you're shaking up the beehive without having any bee spray at that point if you're doing that. So you have to have a little bit of resolution and belief in your colonies because if you don't, it's, an empty threat that you're going to have to move to Canada or start making good the natives and moving west as soon as possible so they don't find you. Well, then here's the thing too. So the American Revolutionary War, again, I keep saying, you know, it's been going on

for a year at this point, but this thing goes all the way till 1783. Well, it's... So it does ramp up at this point. You know, after this, it definitely ramps up and it goes on for another seven years. years. So I mean, this wasn't like, oh, hey,

we declared our independence, we got lucky, we won a year later, and now we're the United States. Like, there was a significant fight to do this. One of the things that I, just a dumb thing

that I was curious about, do you know what the Liberty Bell actually was? No. I assumed it was like most, was it, most bells were, okay,

I'm going to do two things, either old church bell or it was something to, I'm guessing, like, if the city was being invaded or they needed to send a message to the entire city about, like, evacuation or someone arriving, they would have a code for the bell and so it would be like a city hall type thing, like they would use to communicate. Am I close in either one? That's what I didn't know. I was wondering if you knew, because I just, I had no idea where in the world, because that's still a major thing. And the closest that I ever got to understanding what the Liberty Bell was was always

setting in Philadelphia. The purpose of the Liberty Bell, the Pennsylvania Assembly ordered the bell in 1751 to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of William Penn's 1701 Charter of Privileges, Pennsylvania's original constitution. It speaks to the rights and freedoms valued by the people the world over. So it was just basically something that they had that they had ordered to commemorate the first constitution of Pennsylvania. Oh, okay. So really doesn't, I guess, play a factor in this.

Well, still, it's a good explanation because my assumption was the Liberty Bell was something that was more relevant nationally. Yeah. Not just, I know, I know it's kept in Philadelphia and everything, but I didn't know if it was just there because that was supposed to be the original. off for the Capitol. Yeah, and it wasn't Frank and Charlie that accidentally cracked the number you know. So, you know, seven years after this occurs, the Revolutionary War

ends up being won by the United States. Thankfully. Yes, thankfully. I mean, yeah, of course. I would hate to have an accent that's worse than the ones we already have. But, yeah, I mean, that's my biggest takeaway is that these were just, you know,

they were more educated and they had had experience with legislature and everything, but still a lot of these guys were just either, you know, normal people or some were kind of scummy. Yeah. Flawed individuals can do great things. It's just what light needs to be shined on for them to do the great thing. And I guess the point to that for me is that if you're going to say that,

you know, these individuals are flawed, which it should be why they recognize that they're flawed. Their people were all flawed. Yeah, everybody is. That what they did, and I'm not saying the Declaration of Independence, well, maybe I am. It's a flawed document because it gives the impression that all men are created equal. Which obviously at that point, women couldn't vote.

Slaids were still slaves. All men. I think they considered the difference between, no, I mean, I think by that, yeah, they probably did mean all men are created. equal, but apparently that was just, they had a very specific men in mind. Well, and the all men were created equal and the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness were things that were taken by Thomas Jefferson from a philosopher named John Locke. And John Locke preached that everybody was equal and somebody that I think Jefferson looked to

when he was writing the document because he did want to bring in some of his beliefs, which John Locke is a very interesting figure who did a lot in the early American Revolution as far as sending out pamphlets and kind of trying to start to sway the general people against the tyranny that they were facing. So kind of along the theme of these 56 guys that signed this, so this is our first Fourth of July episode. So we kind of thought it would be cool that for each, either, an episode in July, for the July 4th episode, we're going to kind of explore the people that actually drafted this and had a hand in it.

And our goal this year was to find the two fuck-ups. Oh, you went low too? Oh, I went low, yeah. The other thing, though, is, you know, the big guys on this, I don't want to go and talk to, you know, talk about them for 30 minutes each or so.

Like, people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, those are the three. We heard of them. Yeah. It's an entire episode in itself Like John Adams himself, his life is insane Yeah

But I think by Kind of bringing up some of the lesser known It also does put into perspective that These were just People Common men People that found themselves It's a lot like politics today man

On both sides It's people that were able to Trick or convince their constituents That they could do this job and guess what? There were some dumb fucking people and really scummy people who are good at talking.

And especially in this time when all you had to do in some situations was convince 100 people that you were the best to represent them out of that 100. It might not have been that hard. I hate how true that statement

still rings today. I know. You just have to convince more people at this point. And you have to, you know, how many people have no desire for office. Yeah, true.

So who did you go with? I want you to go first because I feel like I found the king of the fools. Okay. You went, okay, we'll go with mine first. So I went with,

did you look at Governor Morris? I didn't. Okay, so Governor's is actual first name. So Governor Morris. So this guy, and there might not be a lot substance that I'm going to have with this guy, but just reading through, I think he is a really good representation with what you would think of a politician even today. Yeah. So he's considered

founding father of the United States. He did sign the Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution. He was the penman of the Constitution. Okay, so we had good handwriting? Yeah, well, they called him the penman. And I think because he drafted a couple documents, probably had, yeah, probably had nice handwriting. from a wealthy family in New York. So he liked he had a thing for married women. So when he was 28, he got caught banging some married chick, and he got chased outside by her husband.

He got hit with a, and it made a point to say this, he got hit with a four-wheel carriage, ran over his leg, breaking it in several places, and he had to have it amputated. So this was when he was 28. So he was on a peg leg while this was happening? He was on a peg leg event for the rest of his life, but he still, he had the reputation of just going around banging married broads with the peg leg.

Not banging them with the peg leg. Well, maybe, I don't know. Let's not try to change history. He's not a handsome man. Not at all. Even if I got rid of the peg leg, not a good looking guy. Pegleg might be endearing at some point. So he must have been a hell of an orator to be able to go ahead and talk to, and plus, I guess he was a politician, so they gave him, like, you know, kind of a position of power.

But, yeah, he, just a scumbag, man. And then, finally, like, got married at, like, 53 or something. Here's the thing, though. He did have a couple of redeeming qualities. He was one of the people, or one of the guys that was in opposition of slavery. Yeah, okay, good, good, yeah, positive. So he was an opposition of slavery, felt the United States Constitution purpose was to protect the rights of humanity, and that didn't fall in the same line that, you know, would be supported by slavery.

But I'm just kind of thinking, like, I could have told you this story, minus maybe the peg leg and used prosthetic leg, and instead of carriage, he got hit by, car and I could have passed him off as I think a member of fucking Congress too. Yeah, he could have been a senator. But I feel

I feel real good about what in this competition now. I feel like you brought a knife to a duel. Well, I understand that, but this is, you know, Hardett, I didn't go through and read all 56. Guys, I went through a few,

found a guy who lost his leg because he was banging Mary Broad. Yeah. And you know what? Oh, that was the other thing. It was how he died. So I know your guy, you had been telling me that your guy is, it's funny how he died and everything. Did he die like this? I actually think now, you might want to retract what you're going to say. Okay. I'm confident. We'll see. So he died because he had internal injuries caused by himself while he was trying to use a, piece of whalebone from one of his wife's corset as a catheter in an attempt to clear blockage in his urinary tract. Probably from some pre-revolutionary STD. Well, no. Oh, that he got the blockage?

Yeah. I don't know. Could have been something as simple as kidney stone or something. But he actually took a piece of whale bone from his wife's corset and tried to jam it in his p-hole to try to unclog it, caused himself an injury, internal injuries. man, do they even consider the inside of your penis internal, or did he have to get way up in there? Well, it depends on how long his member was, but how long his house member was. How long is this whalebone?

Yeah, very true. And how big is it? How thick is it? That's a pretty bad way to die. Yeah. I'm still, I'm going to... You're still confident. I'm going to paint you a picture.

And not only a picture of a man who had relevance back then, but a man who still to this day is, I would say, known. So I scrolled through until I found the most ridiculous name that I could find. And this gentleman's name was Button Gwinnett. That was your research tag. You were like, first, I'm going name. Yep. And I'm just going to see if the name matches up to the guy.

Yeah, it turns out, smart as a button. I, cute as a button may have been a phrase. I don't think it was attributed to him because they literally don't have any pictures of him. So this man was so ugly that they had only had like two or three artist portraits of him to go off of. Were they unattractive? Not a handsome man. So he is actually the rarest autograph on the Declaration of Independence.

There's only about, I think they said, like 30 different examples of his signature on documents. That's how just completely. forgotten this guy was and Gwinnett County in Georgia is actually named after him so Gwinnett County still gets spoken to this day all because of but in Gwinnett Was Georgia a colony? No Georgia wasn't a colony yeah wasn't so he was the representative from Georgia well he we'll get to that we're getting it out of ourselves so this guy was the king of fake it till you make it he there wasn't much that was talked about him in the younger years as far as like education or anything

but everything that I found the biggest compliment I guess was that they had said that his younger years would have been quite unremarkable so didn't do a whole lot then button was born in the UK

and he failed as a sea merchant in the UK poorly enough to where him and his family had to come over to the US to start over where he then became a merchant in the US and when bankrupt and lost that job too. Was he a land merchant in the U.S. or a sea merchant?

Sea merchant. So he was sending things back and forth and I don't know if he thought that sending from UK to U.S. was tough. So he decided to go the opposite way. Either way, didn't work out. So as they're in Georgia, he borrowed a large sum of money to buy slaves and by a large portion of St. Catherine's Island to start a rice plantation. And back in that day, there were rules against land purchases that you had to have one person for every 50 acres to till the land.

So basically it wasn't like you were buying land to try to hold it and sell it a later date. One person for 50 acres? Yeah. Jesus. So he had gathered enough money and borrowed enough money to the point to where he got 1,450 acres on credit, which he never ended up paying back because he never ever turned a profit at this and ended up losing all that land, all of his slaves and everything were taken back. At this point, he became involved with a radical political group,

much like what you were talking about. I don't think it was the Whig Party, but a group of politicians that were then installed in Georgia to be able to go up and sign the Declaration of Independence. So they got into power in support of independence. Yep. He became really good friends with a guy named Archie Bullock, who became the president.

of Georgia. And at that point, Bullock had chose Button to be a battalion commander for one of the armed forces in Georgia and just completely sucked. He was the absolute worst commander ever to the point to where he lost his position to a felon named Lockland McIntosh, which this is where a very steamy rivalry begins because he felt like Lockland wasn't as good as he was, but he ended up getting replaced by him. After he lost that position, his buddy Archie, that was the president of Georgia, still wanted to keep him around because he was somebody

that helped him get elected. So he became the representation, one of three guys that got to go to Philadelphia to send the Declaration of Independence, gets all that taken care of, comes back, and they made him the speaker of the, House in Georgia. His buddy Archie Bullock dies, Button becomes President of Georgia.

So a man that has just failed over and over becomes the president, and you would like to believe that this is where the failures stop and things start going. Well, one month into him being President of Georgia, his ass gets voted out very quickly. A month?

He was president for a month. And they launched him out office, which probably they realized how bad he was. His old buddy McIntosh that took over for him as a commander

called Button a rascal and a scoundrel in a political meeting that they had. Of course, Button didn't take too kindly to that. You are a rascal and a scoundrel. I don't know where... The clerk of gasp on the gallery. Yeah, where in the pantheon

those two insults came in, but apparently button took some big exception to it. What would be the equivalent of that today? Like, what would challenge to a duel? Like, what would it tag? Yeah, what would the words today be?

I don't know. I don't know what would get me fired up enough to... A coward and a ass? I don't know. Yeah, a coward I could see, questioning somebody's manhood, probably... I think scoundrel and rascal both

have to do with wrongdoing and, like, dirty. Well, by all accounts, the man was a scoundrel because he just never paid back any of his debts. A liar and a cheat. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. So Old Button decides to challenge Lachlan to a duel, which in that day, this is also one thing that does kind of concern me about the fact that all these documents that are very important to us. We're all written back in the day when two guys going outside and shooting at each other was the lawful way to fail.

figure out a dispute. So all these guys that wrote this, dueling was in their back pocket for a disagreement. Um, traditional duel, I guess they didn't really agree on the rules very well. Um, they decided to go from 10 feet, which I'm really concerned about this 10 feet thing. Yeah, arms out, you only got probably what, five feet between the two you? I know musket pistols are extremely like inaccurate, but like, I do believe 10 feet is a little, even still a little close. Yeah, so. And this was not a back to back, take five paces, turn and fire. Well, that's what Lachlan basically had, they had talked about it beforehand.

Somebody suggested that they go back to back, they take four paces, they turn around, they fire on each other. But Lachlan had decided that he wanted this to be on the merits of skill and not on the merits of luck, which I don't know either way. I mean, Button's luck wasn't great, so he probably wasn't going to come out of this either way. I don't see how even the pacing dueling even worked. I'm sure there's a process to it, but anytime I've ever seen it,

it's someone counts off one, two, so you can't take your four steps like one, two, three, four, and then turn and shoot. It has to be one, two, three, four. Then they say turn and fire. So that's still to me, still seems like, you know, there's some skill to that. I do think probably the fact that, and I don't know what McIntosh went on and did after Button was out of the military or whatnot,

but if McIntosh was in the military longer, like, why are you challenging the guy whose job it is to keep practiced at shooting to a duel? Well, and a guy that did such a better job than you did as a military commander. Why would you challenge that guy to any sort of an arms race? So they decide that the duel is going to be 10 feet away from each other, 1, 2, 3, draw type. situation. One, two, three, draw happens. I did read that Button actually did make a connection with Lockland, just a very minuscule amount of damage was done to him.

Like a flesh wound? Yeah, he was still standing after this. Lockland, of course, being more of a marksman, hits old button in the leg, ends up breaking his leg to the point to where Button's leg buckles. And he goes down to the ground, tries to fire off a second shot. At that point,

they'd realize that button wasn't gonna. How'd he fire off a second shot? Yeah, he would have had, they would have had to have reload. They were just single shot muskets. He's on the ground. Yeah, he wasn't going to give up. Bring me my powder and musket balls. That's the one redeeming quality of button.

He wasn't going to give up. So does Lachlan reload and shoot at him again? No, they decided to call it off, obviously seeing that one guy is standing and one guy is on the ground holding his leg. Can you imagine him just on the ground trying to reload and Lachlin just sitting there for, or, yeah, Lachlin's sitting there for a second.

and then just walking up and kicking the gun out of his hand and being like, no. We're not doing this. I imagine Button's got tears streaming down his face at this point. He's like, stay right there. So they get hauled off. Button being not a man of good means. His doctor doesn't do a great job. Button ends up getting gangrene in the infection and ends up dying from the infection.

So when it comes time for burial, obviously being a guy who was governor or president of Georgia which would have been a governor back then you would think that there would have been some sort of a special ceremony something like that for such a prestigious man a man who represented Georgia at the Continental

Congress to sign the Declaration of Independence apparently that didn't happen and they had lost his gravestone header which there are stories that it was taken and used as the step for a barbershop

or that it was used as a bar top in a saloon in Georgia. But to the point to where... Can you imagine if there's just some little known bar in Georgia? That still has it? It still has it. Yeah. It absolutely could be. You're just in Georgian people are constantly like...

There's just fucking gum stuck to it. Somebody throws up on it once a week. there was a little push back in the 50s. There was a history teacher that felt like he needed to find old Button's grave site. They thought that they had recovered Button's grave. They thought that they had found his bones. Turns out that they really had no idea. So this remarkable man that was a governor that signed the Declaration of Independence

was thought so highly of that they literally still don't know to this day and can't confirm where he was buried because there is no headstone and there's no way of understanding where he would have come from. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and give you the win on this one because your guy had a more substantial shitty life.

I do think my guy died better though. He definitely died better, but my guy only failed upwards. There's nobody in the history of the world, I don't think. Yes, your guy is the moron with the four-leaf clover in his back pocket. I was shocked. the fact that a guy named Button ended up signing the Declaration of Independence was my first.

Again, this is a, like, just look, don't look at the dates and kind of rearrange some stuff. This is exactly a politician, could be a politician today. Yeah. Except being born in the UK. So he could be born here. He could find himself into local politics. He could find himself then in actual Congress, get famous there, have a previous military career where he was passed over for promotion or picked from somebody else. and then get rid of the duel

and have it be a fucking Twitter war or something like that. Yeah, a Twitter duel. That fits today. And, yeah, then I don't know where it dies. But seriously, that could be... There's a football player with CTE running for a governor

or representative for Georgia. Senator. Senator for Georgia? Yeah, I mean, the man doesn't know how many kids he has, but... Have you heard him talk? Herschel? Oh, yeah.

He's not... not good. No. He never says like the... He never actually says the word of the topic that he's supposed to be discussing. He just says, well, you know, and then there's difficulties with it. And then with those difficulties, you know, we just got to get out there and really, you know, educate people. And when we educate people about that, you know, people won't be so mean.

And then if you don't get mean people, you know, then maybe the internet won't for our brainwaves. for a guy who has made up stories recently of being a I believe it was a police officer FBI agent FBI agent that immediately got shut down I wanted him to claim an astronaut so bad if you're going to do that just claim everything well it's not like you're not coming from a place of being a former USFL running back that went to the NFL and that had a fairly substantial career and then after that was a trained MMA fighter in his late 40s. I mean, you have enough on your side where you don't got to make up being an FBI agent.

Yeah, but no one's going to... Well, I shouldn't even say that now. I was going to say no one's going to elect a cage fighter. Let's not. Yep. Let's not push that. Five years. It'll happen within five years.

Yeah. Oh, man. So this is why we get to have a day off in July. Yeah. And this is why we... The wrong day off. should be the second. I agree with it.

I think it's great. I think we need a little bit of controversy around it because whether it's the second or the fourth, we're still going to shoot off Chinese-made fireworks. Hell yeah. We're still going to eat, questionably packaged hot dogs on a grill. See, if we celebrated this year on the fourth,

we'd be partying on Saturday instead of freaking Monday. Oh, if we did it on the second this year? Yeah, that sounds even better. That, to me, if we're going to do other holidays, It's like Thanksgiving is always the last Thursday in November. Do the first Saturday in July. Just every single time. Just always put it on a weekend.

Holiday should always be on weekends. Well, but then you do get observance like in some positions. You get observance like the day before. Yeah. Or the day. Or the next day after. Yeah. So I guess whatever day falls.

Whichever day, July 2nd or 4th happens to fall on that will be most advantageous to a long weekend. Let's just do that. that and there should be a national holiday after the Super Bowl. It's just that simple. Oh, 100%. Make it happen. We celebrate Easter and all these other weird things that really have questionable histories. Let's just get a post-super Bowl holiday.

Well, here's the thing. And I don't think we need to anybody that listens to our podcast or is listening to our podcast. You've probably already gotten kind of, I don't know if you've gotten a feel for, I don't think we're really, We haven't really discussed anything political, and that's the whole point is we're not really going to go in. But I am going to make comments. The whole thing is, is I, man, I love America. Like, there is so much to love. But there's a difference between, I think, it's the same thing with, like, in a relationship or falling in love.

You can be in love, but you can see things you want to work on, where the cracks are and stuff like that. And that's not why you love something. You love something because it has positives, but you understand that it can be improved. And, you know, I think if you just blindly love something, that's not love. You're not paying attention to any of the negatives or pitfalls. That's just infatuation. So I think some people mistake love of country for infatuation of country. You know, the whole thing is, is we're a young, young country,

comparatively to other countries in the world, for the most part. And we're using a system of government that is what we consider the great experiment. It's fucking work, man. Like, if anybody thinks, I was thinking about this while I was getting gas on the way over here, to be able to take this form of government and have it work and continue to have it work, the blueprint that was given to us with the separation of power, it was really, the foresight on it is pretty amazing. But I do, I am one of those people that does think that it's like a textbook, man,

with science facts in it. if the times change and new discoveries are found, you should be able to improve things. I think if the founding fathers were four thinkers, they weren't just thinking about how something should be right then and there. They designed a system of government that allowed it to be changed. That's why you have amendments. But to say that certain amendments can't be changed or amended,

they're called amendments. Yeah. They were amended to the Constitution. And when you say that, when I hear about the Bill of Rights, the first thing that my mind goes to is we were given a Bill of Rights, but we weren't given a Bill of Responsibilities. Had we been given a Bill of Responsibilities along with the Bill of Rights, I feel like things would have panned out differently. Yeah, I do think that, and that's the biggest thing we're kind of seen right now is there's a resurgence, like a Renaissance, and people understand. that government only works if they participate on it. I think there's been a long period of time where people are just like, oh, the government just works. It just runs itself.

And in a way it does. But what happens when people stop understanding that they have a role to play in that? And you get certain people who are dedicated and certain people that are lazy about it. And then you get people elected to offices who aren't an accurate or positive representation of who they're representing. They just happen to represent enough people and then drum up enough to interest that those people went and responded. It's like local, you know, local government elections.

What do they say? Like 8 to 10% of people actually vote in those. And if you're just able to drum up that 8 to 10% on your side, you get into office there and then you climb the ladder and get into other positions. And when they, a good example is this. Remember when I was talking about how. in June, it was a super busy month to get like five of the opposed colonies on board. Yeah.

In that month, five colonies were able to, and this wasn't like a, this wasn't like coups or anything like that. Five colonies were able to go ahead and process transitions of power between different political parties. That's how much of a say people had is they were able to get elected. representatives to change a policy in that amount of time. What I'm saying is those rules that they drew up were very good for management of fewer people. You can't say exponentially when our country at this point was literally just everything on the east side of the Missouri River, that that system of governance, and again, amendments have been made and, you know, we've changed things, but we have rules that I think are still outdated

and need to be re-looked at. And there doesn't need to be this, you know, don't touch my bill of rights, don't touch my Constitution or anything like that. At what point can you do that then? How broken does something have to be before you can look at fixing it? Even if it does change the wording

on a sacred document or whatever. Well, the Constitution was written, the Founding Father said that it was something called a living document. It was made to be changed. It was made to be changed. It was made to be fixed. It was made to be tweaked in certain ways.

And I feel like at some point we fell away from it supposed to be being a living, breathing document that is something that we can enhance and make better. And going along with you talking about your love of the country, and I feel it too, but my main feeling about America is just amazement. It's, it is the great. great experiment. It's something where I'm honestly shocked that it still works. I'm shocked that America is still a thing.

We come from a country that had a civil war to the point to where half of the country fought the other half of the country there was a winner, there was a loser and we still have sentiments to this day from

people on both sides that feel negatively towards each other. Yet somehow through the Constitution, I don't know, through just people in general, we've still made it work to the point to where we are a power in the world. Do you ever feel like a phrase or a word gets used so much that you completely forget its actual meaning when you break it down? Absolutely. So I think like I think the actual term, you know, what we call ourselves, the United States of America, I think a lot of people actually just kind of lose focus on the fact that, we are a collection of states that are all united under one common ideal.

I don't know what you want to call it beliefs. But I think it does get lost to a lot of people that it does take work to keep 50 states united. And we need people to do that work. We need people to stop doing work for themselves and do work for the greater good of everybody. because it's awesome to be rich, I'm sure. I'd like to be there one day. But I feel like it would be a better feeling to know that everyone around you feels as good as you do in life. Everybody around you has the same opportunities in life, which I don't know if we'll ever get to it.

But every step that we take that makes things closer. See people will be like socialism. And it's not like that. like no i'm not saying that nobody that you know anybody that works harder than others shouldn't be rewarded for that of course you should people that come up with genius ideas should be rewarded for that because those people are you know they're advancing our society our culture whatnot but at the same time i don't feel like somebody should automatically be put at a disadvantage just because they're born in a certain area or born to you know a certain race or religion or anything

like that um you just just how you get stronger overall is you just don't have any weak links. I just don't understand how, you know, that's not more widely accepted. I don't know. It's a complicated issue. We're two guys sitting in a room. Just, you know. Yeah, all we're doing is bullshit about it.

And at some point, it needs to leave rooms like this. It needs to leave bars. It needs to leave community clubs. It needs to leave golf courses. It needs to leave all that. And it needs to head where it needs to happen. Because we can talk about it until we're blue in the face, but we're never going to change anything.

Until these conversations that we have like we're having right now start happening on a national level and are supported by other people that want to see it happen, we're just going to continue to flounder. And at this point, the only enemy that, that we have that can defeat us is really ourselves. That's true. Yeah, I think there's a, there's a misconception that just America will always go on. And I would, you know, of course I'm team long term.

Yeah. United States of America. I just think that there's a belief that it just all runs itself and it's just a foregone conclusion. Man, go back in a history textbook and see how many civilizations. have been like hot and powerful and how many have crumbled and most of them crumble from within

we're not immune to it just because we have fucking super computers in our pockets and can fucking go into space and shit we're not immune to to failure no just to go back to an episode that we did the Incan civilization that was one family dispute

that split an entire civilization that was gigantic. Yeah. And that was really the impetus for the whole fall of the generation. It doesn't take much to have the tumble. That's why I say, every day that I wake up and America's still intact, there's a little bit of me that's shocked because we're doing what feels like damn near everything to shoot ourselves in the foot.

I know. All right. So how do we leave this on a positive note? It's Fourth of July. Wait, what day is this going to fall on? So this is the Fourth of July episode, being Wednesday. Day. We're getting this a day after. Yeah, so July 5th, which John Adams thought it was the second. I feel like it should be the 5th because that's when our episode releases. So I'm just going to go

and celebrate the 5th of July and sort of the 5th. I'm going to celebrate the 2nd through the 5th. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Just turn it into a weekend. All right. Well, uh, best note to leave off with, I feel like Benjamin Franklin is the most American American because when he went over to France to start peddling his wares and start being diplomatic, uh, They had a French teacher grade his reading, writing, and other skills. And they said that he was so dog shit at French that he would have failed out of third grade French class. Which, you can't be more American than speaking French that poorly. That's true.

Thomas Jefferson, very eloquent. Were we supposed to pick our top Americans? No, no, I just, I want to shoot that out there. All right. Maybe give the people a little bit of something to think about. Who's your favorite American? I think. I'm going to go, I think Teddy Roosevelt.

Do I have to stick to this time frame? Yeah, let's go this time. Washington's an easy choice. I was, yeah, I don't want to pick one. You know what? I think actually, I want to go with John Adams then. Yeah. Lawyer hothead.

Well, and I, you know, we'll get in this later, but he had to like go and meet with the king so many times. And everything, he was like a liaison or a representative that had to meet with, you know, parliament in England. I think the simple fact that, yeah, he seemed like a good dude, and he seemed like, I don't know, he seemed like he was at the top of his game. Yeah, I can go with that. All right. Hopefully you guys aren't too hungover.

If this is on July 5th, had a good, happy safe fourth. Still got all your fingers. Don't JPP yourself. And, well, that's it. We'll see you next week. Peace. All right, guys. Hey, thank you so much for making it through another episode and sticking with us.

If you want to kind of follow up on the next upcoming episodes, get some teasers, Adam, can they get us on the Twitter? You can get us on the Twitter. Our Twitter handle is historically high. That's historically H-I. Nice. And on the Instagram. Our Instagram is historically high pod.

That's historically high P-O-D. And what happens if your social media inept? If you have any issues where you can't figure out. social media. Our email is historically high podcast at gmail.com. We set up a landline. Just in case. You guys can go ahead and shoot us any question, comments, or even maybe suggestions for future episodes, something you guys want to hear. Yeah, high thoughts, questions, anything like that. We're always open. We'll always get back to you. Hell yeah, guys. See you on the next episode. Peace.