Hello, I'm Forrest Sawyer. Welcome to Program 2 of Liberty. Looking back at our history, the break with England seems so inevitable. But in the 1770s, it wasn't at all obvious to the three million British colonists living in what is now the United States. They loved England.
Even after the shooting war had begun, the vast majority of the people in America were extremely reluctant to make the final break with their mother country. Back in 1774, as Ben Franklin put it, nobody drunk or sober was even talking about war or independence. On the other side of the Atlantic, however, positions had hardened. The British had an empire around the world to control. If the unruly colonists in America got their way, the other colonies might also be encouraged to rebel.
British authority must be enforced by British military might. Spring 1774. News of the Boston Tea Party has outraged Parliament. The dumping of British tea into Boston Harbour is seen as an unforgivable provocation.
As far as the British government was concerned, what they had seen happen was a total defiance of the authority of the British state, not in some frontier backwoods area, but a total defiance of the authority of the British state in Boston. How could they deal with that? They could either have let things be.
And there were some people who said, that may be the way to do it. You know, the Americans are wrong, let it be. That's what I would have advised them to do. In an angry mood, Parliament passes a series of acts designed to restore royal authority in Boston.
They install a military governor, General Thomas Gage, and send 2,000 soldiers to back him up. They close the Port of Boston. Parliament calls these the coercive acts.
The Americans call them the intolerable acts. If you could close the port of Boston, you could close the port of New York or Philadelphia. If you could undo the Massachusetts Charter, you could undo any of the charters. Any of the colonists could have their rights taken away.
This was simply intolerable as far as the Americans concerned, that these coercive acts could apply to them as easily as they had applied to Massachusetts. Up and down the continent, delegates are chosen for what will become known as the First Continental Congress. In many ways, the First Continental Congress is a delayed reaction.
It's, it, what do you do when you have to respond to something and you don't know how to respond? You call a committee meeting. John Dickinson of Philadelphia is in the forefront of the growing protest movement. I'd be very sorry if we did anything which would justly displease our sovereign. But if your neighbor's house is burning, you wouldn't just fold your hands and watch.
Let the colonies unite with one spirit in one cause. In August of 1774, John Adams leaves Boston for Philadelphia. He is to be a Massachusetts delegate to the First Continental Congress.
At age 39, Adams has never traveled more than a hundred miles from the town where he was born. On the narrow... Dirt paths of the day, the trip to Philadelphia takes at least two weeks.
For this country lawyer, it's a big adventure, and he notes all the stops along the way in his diary. With all its money, there is very little good breeding in New York. Nobody has any manners here.
They all talk very fast, very loud, and all together without paying the least attention to one another. If they ask you a question, before you can get three words out, they interrupt and go on talking again. The son of a Braintree farmer, Adams has always resented the rigid system of class and privilege of the day.
The first of his family to go to college, he came face to face with this social reality at Harvard. Harvard students were ranked by their social standing, not by their grades. And Jonathan Sewell, for instance, though he was not a very good student, was ranked higher than a John Adams would be because he came from a distinguished family in Massachusetts.
Adams resented claims of kin and family and blood. He wanted an aristocracy of talent, of merit. And he certainly came into this society with a kind of chip on his shoulder. In 1775, 1776, Adams was in the vanguard of the revolutionary movement and full of the future of America.
He saw the whole thing in... providential terms as a movement that would transform history. And when the revolution broke out, he knew he was going to be at the center of it.
What's about to happen is almost too big for my grasp. We don't have men fit for these times. We lack education, experience in the world, money, everything.
I feel an unutterable anxiety. God grant us wisdom and strength in the coming months. For Adams, what happens in Philadelphia will be crucial. He must convince the other colonies to back Massachusetts with deeds as well as words.
Without their active support, his colony will be left to face England's military might alone. On September 5th, 1774, 56 delegates to the First Continental Congress gather at Carpenter's Hall. They are the leaders of the colonies, the political bosses, the merchants, the wealthy landowners.
From Virginia come lawyer Patrick Henry and planter George Washington. From Massachusetts, political activist and former brewer Samuel Adams, John Adams'cousin, and merchant John Hancock, one of the richest men in America. The initial confrontation of these people was like seeing foreigners.
They spoke the same language or a reasonable facsimile of the same language, but they were very different people. There was no sense, I think, of unity against the British as yet. I think they saw themselves as Englishmen, and for the most part, people from Massachusetts and people from Virginia were more in touch with people in London than they were with each other.
It is not in any way certain how the other colonies will respond to the British occupation of Boston. There is the strong suspicion among some of the delegates that the leaders of Massachusetts are hotheads and troublemakers. I am discovering that this continent is a vast, unwieldy machine. We are 13 colonies, strangers, largely unacquainted with each other, now rushing together in one great mass. It's not surprising that we are jealous of each other's designs.
Fearful, timid, skittish. The Congress debates for two months. The delegates agree to fully support Massachusetts.
They also pass a resolution that the colonies should arm and prepare to defend themselves, if necessary, against any future British aggression. They send a petition to the king. affirming their loyalty and asking for the end of military rule in Boston.
What happens in 1774 is that 13 clocks suddenly begin to strike as one. That's what John Adams said. That's the most important fact of the First Continental Congress.
Up to 1774, you have 13 different movements, very different, independent. We won't even call them independence movements. We'll call them protest movements to British authority. But in 1774, 13 different countries, that's the way they thought of themselves, suddenly come together and begin to speak or attempt to speak with one voice.
Before parting for what they believe will be the last time, the delegates gather at the city tavern for a final dinner and a toast of loyalty to England. To His Majesty, King George. May the sword of the parent never be stained by the blood of his children.
London, February 1775. Parliament has just received word of Congress's resolution that Americans should arm themselves. They do not see this as a gesture of loyalty. A report is sent to King George.
If the rabble in Boston is committed to open rebellion, then the king's honor and the safety of the empire require that force be met with force. They are a disorganized mob, which cannot present a very great opposition to our regular troops. Perhaps it is better to bring on a small conflict now rather than later, when a rebellious spirit has had a chance to ripen.
Proper. Very proper. The Continental Congress was regarded as an illegitimate body, a body that should not be negotiated with.
There is a bitterness in Britain, a bitterness about being, in their eyes, let down. And again, we've got to remember, we're talking about 1775, 12 years before, as far as the British were concerned, they'd been at war with France, a war... as far as they were concerned, and they were right, as a war that had developed because of North America, there is this great sense that they are being betrayed. They don't think they're taking part in some abstract constitutional debate.
They see this as a crucial, a crucial betrayal. They see this as a rebellion within the family. Indeed, an interesting point there, a lot of the British literature about the war is of a son who is rebelling against his father.
Parliament is running out of patience. They send another thousand soldiers to Boston, along with three new generals, Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe. Throughout the colonies, people are preparing to defend themselves. Since the founding of the colonies, each province has had a militia to deal with local emergencies.
Leaders of the protest now gain control of these militia and seize stores of guns and ammunition. Nicholas Cresswell, an English traveler, finds himself inconvenienced by the turmoil. The people here are ripe for revolt.
I hear nothing but oaths against England and her friends. The king is cursed in public. Everywhere the talk is of raising men and of war.
Oh, at dinner I had a long argument with Mr. Jackson about the cause of all these troubles. I got the better of him, but I now realize he was simply trying to draw out my opinions. Now I'm going to have to go to the hospital.
Now they all suspect me of being what they call a Tory spy. They watch my every move and I'm threatened with tar and feathers and the devil knows what else. To add to my troubles, I have found that moths have eaten large holes in two of my suits. I have a violent pain.
I must take a dose of salts. I vow never to talk politics again until I leave these cursed provinces. In Massachusetts, where General Gage's troops still occupy Boston, the citizens are becoming increasingly defiant.
The Americans reacted stronger and stronger. It was a step of degree by degree. They would yell at the British on the street.
They would walk up to the British at night in the taverns and give them their opinion of what they thought. It was getting worse and worse. And the British reacted. The British government told Gage, go out and show these local farmers what it's all about.
The King's troops enforce the King's law. Get out there beyond Boston and show them what it's like. April 19th, 1775. General Gage decides to send 700 soldiers into the countryside to capture a cache of arms. It is to be a minor operation. Their destination?
Concord. A Boston silversmith, Paul Revere, and others hear of it and spread the word to the surrounding communities. On Lexington Green, the rebel militia under Captain Parker turns out to meet the British troops.
British officers came up and went forward to Parker and they said, disperse ye rebels. Parker looked at his measly lineup of men versus this royal line with bayonets that were facing him. He turned to his troops and said, disperse.
And they turned and started to disperse and walk away. And then someone fired the shot. No one to this day knows who fired the first shot at Lexington, but perhaps a farmer tripped over his musket in retreating.
Clearly the colonials were giving ground. A gun went off, and then the British troops began firing. Their officers lost control of them. Some of the British line fired, the Americans fired back, men dropped on both sides, and the battle had begun. The Americans ran, the British advanced with a bayonet, and the battle was all over.
No one had given orders for the attack. No one had given orders for the reply. But on this day, on Lexington Green, a political argument among members of the same family has become a blood feud.
The British continue on to Concord to complete their work of capturing the store of munitions. By this time, word is out. The British are coming.
The colonists swarm in around them. For the first time, the British are faced with a problem central to the entire revolution. How to subdue not just another army, but a population in rebellion.
Even the women had rifles. The enthusiastic zeal with which those people have behaved must convince every reasonable man what a difficult and unpleasant task we have before us. Arms will never enforce obedience. And only God in his infinite mercy can restore peace to this country again.
269 British soldiers are killed or wounded. The remains of their forces limp back to Boston. Lexington Conger need not, I suppose, have been as major event as it was, but it came to be that. At the time, everyone understood that it was a major change.
Well, it's... it initiated the revolution. There was no turning back from that moment on, it seemed.
Once you had bloodshed, the thing just started escalating. The suspicion, the anger, it couldn't be stopped, it seemed. Although there were efforts made, of course, still. Throughout the colonies, news of Lexington and Concord spreads like wildfire.
From all over New England, volunteers assemble. They march towards Boston and build camps across the river from the city. At Mount Vernon, George Washington writes to a close friend in England. The brother's sword has been sheathed in the brother's breast.
We now have a sad choice. Either we are to live as slaves, or the once happy plains of America are to be drenched in blood. In May 1775, a second Continental Congress meets in emergency session. The delegates that come to Philadelphia again are in a state of agitation and anxiety. It's much different than a year ago for them.
A die is being cast and the game is getting much more dangerous than anyone ever anticipated. It is becoming clear that England will not back down. Congress decides that it must form a national army. It adopts the ragtag collection of volunteers camped around Boston.
The choice of a general to lead this new army is crucial. John Hancock, as one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, feels he is the obvious choice. He is pleased when his fellow New Englander, John Adams, rises to nominate a candidate.
I told them that I had but one gentleman in mind. Someone whose skill and experience, whose independent fortune, great talents, and excellent character would win the approval of all of America and unite the colonies better than any other person in the Union. As I spoke, I watched Hancock's face as he listened to me with visible pleasure.
When I announced that this gentleman was from Virginia... His expression suddenly changed from pleasure to mortification and resentment. His mood was not helped when Samuel Adams seconded the motion.
John Adams would tell you that he made George Washington, but John Adams would tell you he made the Revolution as well. John Adams, very adroitly, knowing that it was necessary to bring Virginia enthusiastically into the war, stood up. up and proposed a Virginian to command this New England army on Cambridge Common.
And of course, everyone knew who that was. It was George Washington, who was conveniently enough standing there wearing his Virginia colonel's uniform, almost as a billboard of his availability. George Washington certainly looks the part.
At 6 foot 3, he towers over the other delegates. Unfortunately, his record as an officer leaves much to be desired. Certainly he had served in the military.
He has defeated Fort Necessity, began the French and Indian War for all practical purposes. He was there at... Braddock's defeat, 1755, I mean, it wasn't a—he'd never commanded a successful operation of a major scale.
He had military experience, yes, but it's a measure of how little successful large-scale military experience the Americans had, at least in terms of command, that he looked relatively qualified for this position. Before setting out for Cambridge to take command of the army, the 43-year-old Washington sends a letter to his wife Martha at home in Mount Vernon. Dearest Patsy, I am embarked on a wide ocean from which no safe harbor is to be found. As life is always uncertain, and common prudence dictates to every man the necessity of settling his temporal concerns, and, while the mind is calm and undisturbed, I have gotten Colonel Pendleton to draft a will, which I now enclose. The provision made for you in case of my death will, I hope, be agreeable.
P.S. You will be happy to know that I have bought two suits of what I am told is the finest cloth. I am sure you will be pleased to hear that I paid fifty shillings a suit, which comes out to only twenty shillings a yard. As Congress deliberates, the first major battle of the American Revolution is about to begin. The New England militia forces have moved in to occupy Breeds Hill and Bunker Hill on the Charlestown Peninsula.
Their guns now threaten the British Navy, anchored in Boston Harbor. The British respond by burning nearby Charlestown. Then, 2,000 British soldiers charge uphill towards the American positions. The American forces, having the advantage of height, fire down on the advancing Redcoats. Line after line of British soldiers are mowed down.
The British charged up Bunker Hill really in defiance of their own military theory. As we know, their soldiers fought best on level surfaces where they could... maneuver into lines three deep and fire and volley.
They never had that opportunity when they were charging up Bunker Hill. I have a feeling had they not been opposed by provincials whom they didn't respect, they never would have attempted that charge, which resulted in such terrible carnage during their first two efforts to ascend the hill. The important thing was they found out these stubborn old Yankees would fight.
These stubborn old Yankees meant what they said and had the courage not only to fight that day, but to challenge the superiority and the sovereignty of the British arms. This was a major, major step, psychologically as well as militarily. When their ammunition runs out, the Americans flee.
The British finally take Bunker Hill. It is a costly victory. More than a third of their troops have been killed or wounded.
The farm of John and Abigail Adams is only nine miles from the center of the fighting. Refugees stream into the normally peaceful countryside. Abigail Adams writes to her husband in Philadelphia. This is her first taste of war. Dearest friend, our little house is now a scene of confusion.
Soldiers coming in for lodgings, exhausted refugee women and children from Boston seeking shelter. Oh, John, you cannot imagine how we're living. Not knowing what the next day the next hour will bring Until now I have managed to maintain a calmness But I cannot trust myself much longer with terrors intruding on my mind I'm not going to ask you when you're coming back the fate of our country depends on your wisdom But your absence awakens in me all the love of the years we've been together.
It breaks from my heart, and not knowing how to brook any restraint, flows through my pen. This is but the first scene of what may be a great tragedy. May heaven spare my family, and spare my most beloved friend. As both sides are recovering from Bunker Hill, General Washington arrives in Cambridge to take command of his army. Washington is a man of enormous aggressive instincts.
Washington would like nothing better than to go to Boston and charge into Boston and bayonet the British and drive them out of the city. He arrives there and he finds he has no capacity to do that. The officers are, in general, the most indifferent kind of people I ever saw.
The men, I dare say, would fight well if properly led, although they're exceedingly dirty and nasty people. He didn't find an army, he found a shantytown. Men sleeping out in the open, some of them going home for days at a time and coming back. He found a lack of powder, a lack of uniforms. Not all the men even had arms.
Many of the men coming into camp would be carrying sickles and scythes, whatever they had. So Washington had an army that wasn't an army. He was a bunch of citizens together with a common cause, but certainly none of the professionalism that he really needed to begin to build it.
It was a democratical army. It was an army that elected its own officers. And popular sovereignty has many advantages, but it's probably not a military virtue, particularly when you're about to face the greatest empire on the face of the earth.
An officer must shake every man by the hand and beg and say, pray brother, pray friend, would you kindly do this or that? When a few hearty dams to these damn people would have much better effect. Well, Washington decided he had to impose discipline.
But he had officers not worthy of the name, and so he did it himself. He was his own quartermaster. But more than that, I mean, he was doing things that lieutenants and sergeants would do. in another army, he was issuing daily orders to make certain that the necessaries were emptied every week, that there was clean straw for bedding, that men did not consort with the enemy, that they in fact were the enemy and you were not to fraternize with them.
Washington is also shocked to find blacks and whites together. He is, after all, a slave owner. But he soon learns that he will need every soldier he can get. Once the Continental Army gave the states their quotas, which the states could not meet, or perhaps manpower did not want to meet, then they began to call on, very quietly at first, call on black troops.
The states declared to the slaves in the north that if they would fight then they would be given their freedom. God forgive me for doing so but I ran away from my master and I'm now enlisted in the American Army. Maybe if the Master had taught me to read the words of the Gospels, servants obey your Master, I wouldn't have done it. I might not have heard those songs of liberty that saluted my ears and thrilled through my heart. But I'm here.
I've been working horse and wagon, supplying the armies near Danbury with provisions for four months. I'm now serving my country faithfully. Over 25,000 black soldiers will fight on both sides during the American Revolution. In time, a full one-fifth of the American northern regiments will be black.
It will be the most racially integrated war fought by Americans until the 20th century. The real possibility of a full-scale war with England is beginning to sink in. Many people in the colonies are becoming desperate for reconciliation. John Dickinson, an early activist and one of John Adams personal heroes, now urges Congress to send one more petition to England. We have an excellent king.
England is a generous, sensible, and humane nation to whom we can bring our complaints. Artful men may be deceiving them, making them angry at us, but I cannot believe that they are cruel or unjust. Let us behave like dutiful children who have received undeserved blows from a beloved parent. Let us complain to our parent, but let our complaints speak in a language of affection and veneration. These petitions are a fruitless waste of time.
We should be finding supplies of gunpowder instead. While we petition the people of Boston, imprisoned within the walls of the city, suffer we know not what cruelties at the hands of His Majesty's army. John Dickinson and the gentlemen of Pennsylvania say that they are ardently with us.
But as they see the break with England approaching, they start back. I see terror in their eyes. What is the reason, Mr. Adams, that you New England men oppose our attempts at reconciliation with the British? If you don't agree with us, we are prepared to break off from you New Englanders and carry on our opposition to England in our own way. There had been no common bond among the colonies previous to the Revolutionary Movement except their common tie with England.
If you took that away, what would you have? Chaos. If there is no common authority capable of holding this miscellaneous...
of communities together, what will happen? Already Connecticut people and Pennsylvania people were at war in the western reaches of what is now western Pennsylvania over territorial wars. Borders were disputed. What would happen to Vermont?
Was Vermont going to be part of New York? Was it going to be allowed to go separately? What was going to happen?
There was one internal dispute after another that had somehow to be settled. Shouldn't we settle these first? Dickinson said, we can't agree on anything. We're in a terrible situation to try to send our ship off into the sea independently. We need Britain.
We need Britain to hold ourselves together. Dickinson drafts a petition bypassing Parliament. Addressed directly to the King, it pleads with him to intervene and settle the dispute.
Known as the Olive Branch Petition, it is seen as the last hope for peace. Attached to your majesty's person, family, and government, with all devotion that principle and affection can inspire. Despite John Adams'objections, the petition is approved by Congress on July 5th, 1775. That we most ardently desire that the former harmony between her and these colonies may be restored.
I was walking to the State House, and I met Dickinson at Chestnut Street. We came near enough to touch elbows. I took off my hat and bowed.
He passed haughtily by without moving his hat or head or hand. I suppose we'll not be on speaking terms or bowing terms for some time to come. It takes over a month for the king to receive the olive branch petition.
Attached to your majesty's person, family, and government with all devotion that principle and affection can inspire. Connected with Great Britain by the strongest ties that can unite societies. At the same time, the king is receiving other news.
The Americans have slaughtered British soldiers at Bunker Hill. They have formed a national army. Renegades have seized forts on the Hudson River and are preparing to attack British bases in Canada. King George is getting a double message from America.
That the former harmony between her and these colonies may be restored. Well, the die is now cast. These New England governments are in a state of rebellion.
Good. I am not sorry. The lines have been drawn.
Now blows must decide whether they're to be our subjects or independent. The King declares the colonists enemies, outside of his protection. The British Navy is ordered to attack New England's seaport towns.
They bombard Falmouth in what is now Maine, burning it to the ground. Congress is stunned. Benjamin Franklin writes to his closest friend in England. To William Stratham, you are a member of Parliament, one of the majority that has doomed my country to destruction.
Look at the blood on your hands. It is the blood of your family. We were once good friends.
You are now my enemy. Nobody in the colonies really knows what to do next. At this moment of hesitation, a 50-page pamphlet is published which will change the course of history. Written by Thomas Paine, an obscure journalist recently arrived from England, it is called Common Sense. It's surprising.
But nothing will clear up our situation so quickly, so efficiently, as an open and determined declaration for independence. Until this happens, we are like that man who puts off some unpleasant business day after day. He knows it has to be done.
He hates to start doing it. He wishes it were all over. And he's haunted by the fact that he knows he has no other choice. The blood of those already killed cries out for it. It is time to part.
Tom Paine was born in England in 1738. He attempted several careers, from corset maker to customs collector. He was a failure at all of them. When he came to Philadelphia in 1774, he brought with him a burning rage against the privileged classes and against the injustice of the British political system.
Paine, of course, is a political radical and a very definitely, what I suppose would probably be called a loose cannon in America, the kind of person you're embarrassed to have on your side. Paine is a subversive, you know. If you're a respectable slave-owning, plantation-owning gentleman, you're not necessarily a natural friend.
Tom Paine is not the kind of man you invite to tea at Mount Vernon. He was a common man, a labouring man. and a well-read man besides, but certainly not of the caliber of the other patriots, who were well-born merchants, planters. He was not of that socioeconomic class, and that perhaps gave him an insight into the Republican ideals as they really should have been lived, which the other patriots didn't have.
Many of the patriots consider the people rabble. For Paine, the common people were the revolution. The simplicity of the language and common sense made revolution something that was available to everyone and that everyone was a part of. Paine is not only calling for independence, he is also proposing a radical new idea. that ordinary people can understand and participate in government, that they do not need a king.
When planning for the future, let us remember King George, that sottish, stubborn, worthless, brutal man, the sceptred savage of Great Britain. Remember that virtue and ability are not hereditary. It was that transformation of government that was at the kernel of the revolutionary character of the American Revolution.
Paine would say that in later times. The independence alone would not have made much difference, but the establishment of a government in which authority was given to the people made the American Revolution an event of world significance. We have it in our power to begin the world anew.
It is the opportunity to bring forward a system of government in which the rights of all men should be preserved. That gives value to independence. O ye that love mankind, ye that dares oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! America shall make a stand, not for herself alone, but for the world. Common sense instantly becomes the greatest bestseller the country has ever known.
Parts of it are reprinted in newspapers around the country. It is read aloud after church, in taverns, and at town meetings. Officers read it to their troops.
From meeting houses in New England, to farms in Delaware, to the streets of Williamsburg, Virginia, ordinary people are making their voices heard. The tide is turning in favor of independence. Over the next months, the talk is not only about separation from king and parliament. People are beginning to imagine what form a new government might take. Abigail Adams writes to her husband.
Dearest friend, In the new laws which you will be writing, please remember the ladies. Don't put unlimited power in the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if you give them a chance. If you don't pay attention to the ladies, then you cannot expect us to obey any laws in which we don't have a voice or representation. Well, well.
We were warned that our struggle with England is going to let everyone loose. Children are going to become disobedient. Students will overthrow their teachers.
Negroes and Indians will become insolent to their masters. But now I see... a new tribe, more numerous and powerful than all the others, is beginning to rebel.
Dearest friend, I'm sorry, but I still find it odd that while you are proclaiming peace and goodwill to men... emancipating the nation, you still insist on retaining the absolute power of husbands over their wives. Remember, John, arbitrary power, like everything else that's hard and brittle, is easily broken. In spite of all your wise laws, we too have it in our power to free ourselves.
Throughout the colonies, royal governors are under attack. They can get no support from the British Army, which is concentrated in Massachusetts. Except in Boston, power is soon largely in the hands of local patriots. In one colony after another, a new flag is flying.
It has 13 stripes, but the Union Jack is still in the corner. With all that has happened, the colonists continue to see themselves as British subjects. The Continental Congress had been called as an ad hoc committee, but it has become a government almost by accident.
Its members now find themselves running a fledgling army, advising the states on setting up governments, building roads, and running the post office. But the delegates still cannot bring themselves to take the final step. Like the proverbial Mrs. Bickle, we tremble on our wedding night. But at least Mrs. Bickle realizes that there's no turning back.
She musters up her spirits, commits her soul to Jesus and her body to Mr. Bickle, and leaps into bed. In March 1776, Congress receives startling news. The British have evacuated Boston and are regrouping for a massive invasion of New York City.
General Washington rushes to New York to set up defenses. The moment cannot be put off any longer. The time has come to make a formal declaration of independence from England.
The delegates know that this is also a declaration of war. All of them felt that their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, as they said, on the record, all those were at stake. I think they meant it.
I think they thought they would probably die, and if they didn't die, that they would be disgraced in some way that made the stakes very, very high for them. To prepare the declaration, the delegates appoint a committee, including Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. One member is a man who has not spoken one word in Congress, a shy planter and sometime architect, Thomas Jefferson.
When it comes to actually writing the final document, Adams defers to Jefferson. First reason, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Second reason, I am obnoxious and unpopular.
You are well-liked. Third reason, you can write ten times better than I can. Borrowing ideas from English philosophers, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and the spirit of Tom Paine, Jefferson writes the first draft in a day.
I see my job as trying to bring together and harmonize a variety of different opinions. We are putting before all of mankind in words that are both simple and firm a justification for the stand that we're being forced to take. After long debate, Congress changes much of the document, but leaves untouched Jefferson's stirring preamble.
He has taken what was to be a simple declaration of the colony's independence from England and turned it into something that will change the world forever. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of Independence was obviously more than a simple separation of these 13 states from the British monarchy. Its preface expressed sentiments that have become the basis of all of our...
Beliefs equality lay at the heart of their endeavor It's equality of not paying attention to whom you married who your father was Who your patron was this? renunciation of this kind of hierarchical world lay at the heart of the revolution now the Implications of that they hadn't fully seen many of course had no sense that all men and women are equal, nor did they think that all white men and black men are equal. But nonetheless, they do posit this notion of equality, which turns out to be a very permissive doctrine and can be picked up by hosts of people who would use it in ways that many of these revolutionary leaders never anticipated. The war of the American Revolution was not the first war about ideas, because after all, there had been many wars of religion, and these were essentially about ideas, about philosophies.
But I think the war... The War of Independence was, I think it ended as the first truly political war. It may not have begun so.
It may have been about other things, about taxis or about indirect rules. from London. It may have been about grievances, but it became a war about ideas.
Once they declared their independence, and once they started to think about the future form that the United States would take, once they began to see America, the America that was going to be as different from the Europe that was, then it became a political war, and ended, of course, by being, I think, a completely political war. It's not. America was going to be independent, but it was going to be a new sort of organization, a new sort of state.
And there'd never been that in the world before. On July 2nd, 1776, Congress resolves that the colonies are to be independent from England. Two days later, on July 4th, the delegates adopt the Declaration of Independence. John Adams makes a prediction to his wife. The second day of July, 1776, ought to be commemorated by succeeding generations as the day of deliverance.
It ought to be celebrated by pomp and parade, with shows and games, sports, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forevermore. Now you'll think that I'm going to carry it away with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, the blood, and the treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration. Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth the means.
Posterity will triumph in this day's business, even though we may regret it. I trust in God we shall not.