This is the second in a three-part series on the radicalism of the Declaration of Independence. Part one featured a conversation with historians Sean Wilentz and Jim Oakes.
The Declaration of Independence contains the most recognizable words in American history, a source of egalitarianism that transcends time. But at the time they were written, the revolutionaries attending the Continental Congress were absorbed with more earthly matters than debating Enlightenment philosophy for the ages.
They had a war effort to oversee, a national government to cobble together, and politics to deal with. Public opinion was split, though starting to tilt ever more toward independence. Inflation began soaring. The British were landing thousands of troops in New York. The revolutionaries had no way to know, should they make a complete break with Great Britain, if their revolt could succeed.
In this episode of History As It Happens, historian Jack Rakove discusses both the pragmatic and ideological considerations that drove the colonists to formally renounce their connection to the mother country.
“The real purpose of the Declaration was to say we’re going ahead with the project of political independence. To secure that project we need an alliance and support from foreign nations, France being far and away the most important. We need to organize new governments including not just constitutions at the state level but articles of confederation to give the national government a framework of union,” said Mr. Rakove, the author of “The Beginnings of National Politics.”
“So the right of equality that was first and foremost on the mind of Thomas Jefferson and all his colleagues was the collective right of Americans as a people, having been subjected to a long train of abuses of their liberties, to finally throw off the yoke of obedience to King George III and the British Empire and to secure among the nations of the earth the lawful place to which Americans were entitled,” Mr. Rakove said.
History As It Happens is available at washingtontimes.com or wherever you find your podcasts.
