July 4 History Guys

backstory with us the american history guys on bureau of the century and then there's a nineteenth century guy and ryan elliott twentieth century american history nineteen eighty eight mostly center shall we put the topic from the headlines airwaves for the historical context of has been a palace coup back story here only if our eighteenth century guys taken over the studio is holding us hostage and we talk about fourth of july the entire hour he said it's only right that here on our nation's birthday that we take some time to honor the founders and i don't know about you but i really don't quite understand how you spend the whole show talking about the fourth of july yawn now i have deep misgivings to brian you know maybe one day guys hold of yours is i am going to read the entire declaration of independence a lot of activity and there's a lot of great managers took it wouldn't be there and sells about

attaching that image it well there is a lot of interesting stuff in the declaration and they get past the early that's about all men are created equal wait it it only part i know but well you were you coming from you hugo twentieth century you read it backwards yeah or arabic what's the opening more like the white album by the beatles on the head of a backwards seriously are you ready weezer is i am that there is great stuff in the body of the declaration about all things again americans upset about all the ways in which they've been betrayed all their grievances against george he dissolves and pro wrote these assemblies so that we can't govern ourselves or provincial liberties are being destroyed he moves capitals from here to there shuts down chords it's george the third is supposed to be your father that's what a sovereign has exposed to protect us how you feel protected when you got your dad there are sending mercenaries the boston

but you know you're ok ok slowdown peter mercenaries boston want to give some of us who live in the twenty first century a little more context set the scene for us summer of seventeen seventy six well the fear of the war has shifted from boston were all began at lexington concord and its fifteen months later at somerset nineteen seventy six the british are in new york and they're trying to stop that this rebellion meanwhile representatives from different colonies including thomas jefferson from virginia have gathered in philadelphia they have congress they have to work something out because this war's been going on for fifteen months how we gonna wanna now what was it that you are going on about a minute ago was something about the declaration the sections of the declaration that really mattered well brian i could try and explain but better yet ive figured i'd got my friend polly mayor do the honors she's a story about mit you published a wonderful book some years back called america scripture

making the declaration of independence but when i sat down with her recently she told me that that book came this close to never being written at all when i was first asked to write a quote modern history of the declaration of independence i turned it down i said that document is hyped out of all proportion to its real significance i mean obviously the declaration of independence was important but it was what was its important and you know we all think of it is important for the first couple phrases of the second paragraph of the dance party of the later life of the document the most important part of the document in the summer of seventy and seventy six was the last paragraph of people said the last paragraph that's the part that got better that that i declared independence and that was what was know there's this state than seven like them and principals in the second paragraph that we all remember were not at all unique to the documented appeared other places most notably in the virginia declaration of rights which

had been drafted by george mason and was adapted didn't in june so the important parts of the declaration at the time for all those grievances and complaints culminating in the declaration with a fanfare that you indicated parks that we remember most horrific boilerplate pardon shorter comradely i think that's pretty much the way it looked initially the question is how attention turned from the last paragraph to the second paragraph and now it takes about twenty years but is clear is that there is nothing in either the constitution or the first ten amendments that repeats those assertions in the second paragraph the declaration of independence as though statement about equality there's nothing about the natural rights that god gave all man now as the children of englishman and we i hadn't quite stuck at

a seventy nine people felt the need of the document to sell it to the ground those beliefs and the declaration was made to serve that function because it was the only national the argument that prof willett that friendship falling nothing is all about your book is that you ask us to think about the declaration is a people's declaration other people identified with these principles is it still a people's documents same way it was during those decades of early american history when abolitionist and women's center vols making forty years i think it is still a people's documents in that people often justify whatever cause they're defending however flaky ii in terms of the declaration of independence i mean i have people send me clippings all the time and i remember there was somebody in off the coast of maine who

i was having great trouble they use to a dig plants in a neighboring beach in the town decided to make their beach residents early and he argued that he had the constitution on his side because it said he had a right to pursue happiness happiness is digging clams on the neighboring republic the problem is of course it's about better things it wasn't the constitution and then in the end it wasn't all clear that referred to digging clams up again essentially a fundamental contradiction or tension if you think about the declaration in its own context and it makes a kind of federal state that's recognized by other powers of the earth that's the whole point of the decoration is to get recognition but as you were just saying about your clam digger the declaration really has a libertarian cost now and a documentary the state isn't it the statists text right now so it suggests in a way that these

founding texture documents or subject to multiple infinite interpretations of course the constitution has and that every generation finds its own equilibrium ways to read those text together you never wanted to be a dad mean it was this is what it said you bought when people were saying oh well i'm a douglas as stephen douglas the declaration was meant to declare independence and it historically of course stephen douglas was right morally it is the protector of of of personal liberty said if it wasn't that if it is declared independence it's at its history and the bad science that is it's buried in the past and you have to find you meaning in it that was relevant to your life to the lives of people at a later time or are ways to sort of you know some archival piece of far left over junk from the past two decades thank you so much calling for

helping us understand better the declaration of independence a great business model ali mayer is a professor of history at the massachusetts institute of technology she's the author of among many other things americans are for making the declaration of independence was a great educator and i like the clam digger part of it was an interesting is the way that history just refuses to stay still you know that it meant very clearly one thing at that time and today it means always exactly the opposite and dad but it is also we should have a radio show about this the biggest thing is a ok but it is something i still don't understand how did this become a national holiday and now we go from this yup he's a paper to this celebration of great nation on focus there a lot of reasons for the us there's always a lot of reasonable heavy patient and the reason yeah yes radio the fourth enjoy it became clear really big deal

in the seventeen nineties when believe it or not just resumed thomas jefferson james madison and other so called republicans were mobilizing against the federalist administrations of george washington yeah i guess what the jeffersonian republican styled themselves the party of the people in this world comes together yeah you know the great holiday in the first years of american hotel i hold onto your paycheck her shoes are underpaid breaches that with a great holiday as george washington's birthday rock band george as you might think about there's a really strange coincidence your drawers thirty was the gang torture georgia resident father's country kinzer father's father washington happily had no children of his own world his children are weak but that's the principle patriarchy monarchy and republicans like jefferson's i know know know what's great about this country worst

is that we're all equal we're all equal you know what i mean and so when the republicans say down with washington up with jefferson but jefferson because jefferson was channeling the american people a declaration and so what you're saying is the reason this holiday is built around this piece of paper is we were trying to replace king worship with this republican ideal that notion of fraternity between man who are equal at least in their status says citizens of this really it's a new form of male bonding guys have a parade and walk around and feel good about each other but fraternity as opposed to this kind of patriarchal ideas high are promoting right right you know just totally shifts my conception of the holiday because frankly when i think about the symbolism of patriotism when i think about nationalism it's something that today's associated with the right but you're saying that

actually the origins of the fourth of july this great patriotic moment comes from the jeffersonian republicans event in today's terms these were the men of the people these are people that we would say are on the left is that several leading opposition jewel in polls it's a self consciously democratic impulse with a small d that is on behalf of the people against elites so period what you're really saying here is the left hand the flag and had the symbols of national jefferson's innovative and the big mistake of left the toy section they started burning the flag right and those are the things that people still remember and still infuriates that i had you know i could i can see a show you have valid reasons we are told apart i want to find out about it was celebrated as bright let's take a quick break that a heart the ray around the room to get yourself in the mood to slowly come back within it here of what you listeners

have to say about our nation's birthday we'll be back in a minute this is a show that looks to explain you were killed today

i made errors and i'm brian balogh were talking today about the origins of independence day in iowa say based on what i've heard at least in the first fifteen minutes of the show guys i'm officially withdrawing my skepticism i actually think this is going to be a pretty interesting show will get on the bus brian let's celebrate so peter before the break you were talking about how jefferson and his fellow republicans basically invented the fourth of july and seventeen ninety three say it was an alternative to the county can worship that took place on washington's birthday can you can you go a little farther out on the what what happens down the road what happens at how generous and now i think is interesting though is that telling for that joy becomes an opportunity for a peace loving people to be able to restrict their opinion out those of like fireworks and hotdogs a mattress or fireworks fireworks fireworks what is that suggest you explosions you know right now we're most people likely to encounter explosions and four that a lot

so it's we just forget this it's in battles dried as the experience of a lot of americans at one of the things the fourth joyce always does provide an opportunity for veterans to put on the old tattered uniform and to be the center of attention for a day and the rest of us and devise an opportunity to blow things up at the pilot of that hard for them to license the very beginning and it's safe to say that in general rule was going to get rid of their stuff that's especially true out west when there was all kinds of space and to make this big explosions you want a list of fourteen times he says he's the author of the four to johns aka p a better not caught up with and just in time for the big day they're began an eighteen seventy six explosions and rockets launched on tops of mountains on purpose on purpose they were planned and in nineteen oh one they have the largest explosion in the

history of the fourth of july celebration up to that date occurring on top of pikes peak when they built a giant fire a pear and let loose at least eighteen large barrels of oil and gasoline into the fire which shock caused sparks inflamed to go up hundreds of feet nearing exactly they could see it from denver out west the fireworks of choice if they didn't actually have far worse i was was dynamite and we were just like a pause here and tell any young people in that you listen to the show we're not recommending exploding dynamite to celebrate our nation's birthday so tell us about the parade did somebody figure out some brilliant genius figure if you just go all the trunks in one direction and called it a parade and him some flags that would do it maintenance worker no actually the first parades were actually very well organized and the military the militia as was the citizens would typically meet at a designated location and they would march to the

place where the ceremony was going to be held on the first the largest parade in the history of the country occurred in philadelphia and seventeen ad at that parade was more than a mile long and the idea there is to get the people organizing they would ratify the constitution you talk about this being celebrated out west about down south after the civil war was over even before the support as the port a job in a southern tradition it had it was an extremely southern tradition in fact charleston south carolina had some of the most interesting fourth of july celebrations at civil war all but putting into the fourth of july celebration of self for many years to follow the disorder that change that began to change at the centennial richmond for example that was the capital of the confederacy in eighteen seventy six that was the first time they flew the american flag over the courthouse there yet the the fast but not totally healed into war the spanish american war when the boys of the

south in the north fought once again together on the battlefield that phishing attack the south almost forty years to begin celebrating the holiday while tackling so once again that the theme of the military and patriotism being sort of the you know the engine that drives the fourth of july jam it's been wonderful talking with you had before the joint to you and thank you very much and happy fourth to you jim himes he's the author of the fourth of july encyclopedia publishing two thousand seven year a few other authorities on the holiday but these folks are a little closer to the action drake adele rules they broker here in tampa involved in the fourth of july fireworks here for fifteen years where charles elson course it's all about mr warren thomas jefferson and another is a lot of history in the old ways that moment it gets dark and we had

been really a self report we're going to go to france now because we want to know what some of you think about grief fourth of july we got a call from out there and dynamite country it's kelly in missoula montana kelly i am a welcome to the show her boss years and

we are you farmers what was it like to go to good luck right now they are our job it's the lemonade that rings and true here to tell us about the fourth of july at an early partisan eating seventies who could guess i think the major celebrations didn't change significantly over the previous fifty or seventy five years or a hundred years and that

business about drinking and lemonade might sound silly but there was much more alcohol consumption earlier on by leaking seventies you get a lot people where's opposition <unk> the temperance movement for a powerful special moment in the outskirts and the west really what you've seen there is in some ways a fourth july suitable for young women had a bit of a dozen customers false storefronts they were celebrating country another way oh you also get this notion of a of a civic celebration that you're describing you know terrible is doing the right thing it's not boisterous it's not part of some people are not beating up on each other an earlier fourth of july celebrations tend to be very contentious the idea of the declaration an end of jefferson's as its author was a part of something in the seventeen nineties and really can understand is it was jefferson's against the federalist that is the administration and then later in the party system that emerge

in the dean thirties and forties their own were a lot of counter demonstrations of democrats and waves and having alternatives celebrations trying to win over popular favor and so ford is making seventies was a time that people were looking in the wake of the score reflects and there's just no debilitating reconstruction and horrible depression any symbol of national unity and pride was drawn to welcome you and that one of questions on ask you guys is we know that by the end of the nineteenth century the nation is nick together more through railroads in the telegraph and then there is more a sense of innovation so to what extent in the early nineteenth century was a fourth of july the only time that people thought about the entire country how often did people out in the western small towns in the south said it would say the eighteen thirties a conflict how often did they even think but i'm not a major thing

maybe more than you you might think brian i think the symbols of nationhood spread eagle the flag and then paige on holidays like the fourth earl washington's birthday that they would be important even if there's no real nation their i think at a point nobody is directing this thing nobody has a central director for propaganda kelly can you help us out on this question i mean you've described a scene that's very local to what extent do you see any indication that they're even aware of being part of a larger nation except through some of these symbols we're really honored it is

you really you were on her mr sanders was important terror that i was her own independence of what happens throughout american history that americans confuse their independence with the nation's independence it's interesting that she had to move back east to become free farmers are limits but it's

just it's not even clear them avoid what would those aren't as interesting now of course we think about the dakotas with a degree of nostalgia and it was once a frontier village a moment to thank you for calling kelly we were talking today about the origins of july fourth our eighteenth century guide peter earnest is just blowing our minds with all his knowledge on this topic peter who's next on the felons will guide greg from charleston west virginia home on and graham welcome back story it was a question and

there are real hello there a question you know and john adams said he said that it would be the second president of the united states he said one third of all americans during the revolution were patriots one third were loyalists and then the third we're fans centers or as tom payne called on sunshine patriots now historians quarrel with those those fractions i don't kind of think that the fence sitters were even larger in number and get the banana which way the wind was blowing otherwise known as the british army half the people were inclined to take oaths of allegiance to which every power was on the ground so peter what what happened to those fence sitters as the revolution when on your youth as details about other wars but everybody has a good war in retrospect that had good stories to tell or not to talk about how they ran home as soon as they can desertion of course was a very high rates but you know there really

wasn't that kind of a forgiveness policy anybody who could make believe that here she was a good picture your call and actually people who were loyalists were welcomed back into the fold and was celebrating independence day one of the ways they prove they're a little known lawyer that hasn't changed it and put their bodies on the line or the war itself but their bodies a monologue and on the streets or you're saying is that they serve in spain that revolutionary spirit after the fact absolutely right in there was spirit ok but the myth was that everybody had gotten and lots of people had it for a few months early in the war is a lot of fun thinking about killing people and that sounds terrible but you know it's sustaining over the greatest fillies stifled your spirit were revolutionary spirit mean to you a word or a word you know

and he wouldn't right you know the only thing wrong with our proposition is in fact it was the old provincial ruling elite who have maintained power afterwards so it's not really a new displacing old so was a revolution there the answers simply is that you have a bunch of provincial leads there and they wanted to remake the umpire in their own image that was a job that you know that all men are created equal is not a declaration of independence what patriot leaders meant was that old englishman her created equal particularly english and unlike the second class treatment they were getting so peter how did they get at least a third of the people to support that well they were resilient twentieth century historians have for this is propaganda

belly it's actually false conscious false consciousness you know what that's too big a word to use and i think that's a silly and dismissive way to put that right it taken that want to listen to a full phone call them regularly know i i would say this it's one of the hallmarks of the modern world that large numbers of people who don't know each other can imagine themselves as been members of a common community art and peter does the fourth of july reinforce that is that maybe with holiday lights all about rules are very important to remind us that whether we quarrel with the founders are we celebrate their achievement no no no that was

you and in your memory welcome to american politics and isaf i don't think there is such a thing as a real revolutionary spirit there never has been a real revolution are the ones that are real are ones that lead to massive destruction of life and property on the great things about the american revolution is that so few people were slaughtered compared to the french revolution but this is supposed to be happy discussion there we go so thank you for being so provocative he's

been taking a break we get that we'll hear more of your thoughts about the fourth of july were also to travel back in time to be eating fifties and listen to one of the most eloquent speeches about independence since well and then we'll be right back to leave and think about going to stop production support for veterans please please you're listening to that story with a history that is on kansas public radio

this is back story and peter offer i made errors and i grind out today we're bringing you a special independence day episode of our show peter believe another color which are due brian her name is pam and she's calling us from saskatoon canada so yes

do you celebrate the fourth join in til noon it's great so with the first year that a really bad oh that would be the israel is a lawyer so they can be counted so when we use only i think we all right now how many hotdogs the question does when did the eighteen twelve overture become the tradition for the fourth of july

no word as hell and i don't think you totally stumped the american history guys so maybe the canadian history gal can tell i don't know why do i know about my parents used to play in the national symphony orchestra and they do this on the barge in and have real cannons and bryan kearney times you play this apparent for the national city we're hoping that some of our listeners we'll contact our website backstory radio dot org an answer this question for all four of us know pam i hope you enjoyed your july fourth thank you very much for this knows this is your big chance to so it's a profit of

backstory ready the telephonic the team twelve overture became the soundtrack of the city's six correct answer when you have a very special limited edition reporting dallas is a place this is the national system yet another call for us i sure do brian it's tim from hicksville york welcome to back story to him to the fourth july what is i mean do you well it's a bit of a conflict for me actually i'm a pastor in it still does have a mainline denominational church there and struggle a report july because there are some people who really much celebrated and the christian holiday and over the sunday morning worship service to it and it makes me awfully says here

we really do right but actually goes back in a big way to the nineteenth century fed chair the time of the second great awakening when the rise of the methodist baptist and evangelical throughout the country and that is the idea that a good americans we're christians became pretty normal for them in the unusual generation is the founding generation guzzles folks were not particularly religious in our sense of the word but peter i am confused because we think about the twentieth century as secular rising many holidays in fact our christian holidays or religious violence in this odd that it would be no more christian as time goes on it's a great point brian because early celebration for the dollar was really associated with a sobering thomas jefferson's roll show i'm channeling the american people and in the declaration was the great sacred scripture then that's not christian so what

kind of pressures do you face as a minister to incorporate this into the church service really in a way that we will always used to do it you know is that like what what stories did people tell what anyone they tell you they used to do only your story about two hundred people mostly when people were maybe reagan would question and vote or to remember a rating today in order to lie and all sorts of other holidays that encouraged their orlando and it and found that they were pretty safe and be ok in spite of the trouble that they were in and we went to one building and a lot of people

that's greg white but it is possible to talk about a broad inclusive patriotism that is not pro war the war we have a life and live in the ocean oh so popular real says well there's your mission you know i i've never actually invited a sermon before but do you have a particular independence day sermon know and yes well maybe it here here's a radical suggestion from a lapsed christian wouldn't the very notion of love which is central to the christian gospel be going away to do with this car ok let's work out the st louis gates it's been great talking with

you and i know we haven't solved course is that it's a i think a moment before the door for people to be thoughtful about what it means to be american innocent and concert we asked them to dig and appalled that you want because really it's not strictly speaking a sermon a rather of speech get on the occasion of the four of frederick douglass the abolitionists a former slave back at eighteen fifty two he delivered it up in rochester new york where he lived at the time eighteen fifty twos so that's almost a decade before the beginning of the civil war we got the tensions were already running high all over the country if you just lay back and just pass which decree that northerners had to help return runaway slaves and to be drafted by a local constables the part of posses uncle tom's cabin was written as a result of that so all over the country people really think about slavery abolitionism and the tensions nine states also it

or are you just going to talk about the speech old they are can we actually are little over it never asked peter we're going to do a little time travel now and we have a special guide for the trip david blight a historian at yale who's written a whole book on the douglass speech and david is going to take a straight to the source rochester's corinthian hall july fifth eighteen fifty two on his magnificent morning though when another rochester lady's anti slavery society whether new year to commemorate the glorious declaration of seventeen seventy six do this the cafe which actually become a tradition in the state of new york in particular in the african american community a kind of subtle protests singing brace me

all told nearly six hundred and forty five it was a speech that was himself said he worked as hard on in his speech he ever cry to certain shows the fact is ladies and gentleman the defense between this platform and the slave plantation from which i think is considerable i didn't always be overcome to the forum online only slight the structure is berlin it's in many ways an oratorical of symphony in three movements first movement in a way now several pages of the spin welcomes the audience he honors the founding fathers recalls he directly calling the declaration of independence he calls the declaration of an old tune that shame for american honors the founding the signers of the declaration of independence were brave men there are great man

to great about to give frame at the gradations as though he's putting his audience wasn't liane he's with a celebration of american and then a lot of the speech the hammer comes down citizens' party allowed me to ask why am i called upon to speak here today well i also was i represent to do with your national independence he changes the primaries afford a lawyer suddenly becomes yours nationalized it begins to rain and then you get down to his audience to this canon the justice liberty and prosperity in independence that revival of opposition by you but i mean this is not

this is the ocean are certainly struggle is our listeners' tweets to move and he remains wary of slavery i cannot hesitate to declare with all my sword that america this fall through the past and so to be told to the future therefore i will in the name of humanity which is outrageous in the name of it it was just that sense the bible would not disregarded and trampled on debt to call into question with all the emphasis i can comment that's really great let's spring fifty two early summer published plan to enormous readership time douglass

gives a speech in rochester for its possible that has more than a copy of uncle tom's cabin so this is an audience conditioned to some extent for this kind of critiquing the management poverty but i would also suggest that audience douglas is only in a speech that did not quite expect rain down on one after the americans eighties york or july i can set up their appeal to him more than all of that is really a gross injustice and cruelty to which he is not do in your senate races as sam pointed black people has to sing for yourselves of liberty and equality hello margaret your prayers sermons and thanksgiving is on to him at

me a bombastic fraud and hypocrisy are deemed deal to colorado crimes which would disgrace the nation of savages madman divergent thinking you're about two thirds of his porsche comes to an end was a horrible image it's right out of law jonathan edwards and the puritans sermons of the eighteenth century the war all are more reptile its glory of the preconditions the feminist creature business at attendant dressed until you for a republic formal got talent at the new the hideous monster and that the weight of twenty million cracks and his wife cora and after that image as a transition probably the poorest citizens hailstorm of humiliation stops notwithstanding

the dark picture i have this day presented of the state of this nation i do not to stay in this country it's as though he looks kind of web browser laugh and he says the principles principles of precious ore there forever there are natural remedies from the declaration of independence and the great principles it contains my standards also he says it's still not too late to america's young it's youthful it's available and it's still possible to save the country from a selfie the movie a wide world war god's speed the day when human blood cells sees the flow dan stevie all

the glorious some exercise a lot so he ends on this note of hope for coming days of emancipation some house side a boy what that audience had experience probably an hour and a half is hugh douglas says in iran a stage at his best and douglas the kind of jeremiah at a profit at his best it's a speech that i think frankly is the rhetorical masterpiece of american abolitionism and no one frankly you appropriated the principles of the declaration of independence quite so forcefully as good abolitionists politically black abolitionist of the natural rice tradition liberty equality the right of revolution without those principles and i think this is this is implicitly would douglas is actually arguing for since your speech without those

principles at the founding where would blacks had ever looked for a future american that it had no future that is david blight and what i had to say is remarkable construction our producers david directs the gilder lehrman center for the study of slavery resistance abolition at yale university and he's the author of frederick douglass a civil war he can rake in jubilee in the speeches were about them or sell you to listen to it all on our website backstory radio dot org you know i got i got a sick as david talking about the way this speech was was used to try to give new meaning to the decoration and ten it's just blew me why this river powerful what's interesting is for douglas was out the last african american to bring those themes that fact from the very first moments in winch the union army went into the south in the civil war and they met african americans i even people without the education and exposure the world uprooted

douglas had enjoyed you know to speak in american vernacular they would often turn to the words of decoration in the pension accounting fathers for their claim on what it meant to be americans and so the most beautiful documents i've ever read are the petitions from the the free people of the south to the union parties into the republican party's into the eye states army saying all we ask is for our share of our patrimony to be full americans well that's also coming out for today visitors online to continue this conversation with the backstory radio dot org baxter is produced by tony field rachel twenty and catherine moore our engineer is jamal miller got the altar composed our theme and back stories executive producer is andrew windham major productions backstory is provided by the baby dangerous and fun for the president's initiatives at the west virginia the national down for the

humanities the perry foundation cooperated caravan epstein and that the alliance brown jr charitable foundation uva similar center of public affairs and an anonymous donor your own as the thomas jefferson memorial foundation professor of history at the university of virginia brian balogh is an associate professor of history at the university of virginia and uva is miller center of public affairs at ayers as president and professor of history at the university of richmond back story was created by andrew wender really have a preview of the virginia foundation for the humanities you've been listening to that story with the history guys on kansas public radio and kay mcintyre from all of the city dr have a happy independence day

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