what is the thesis in 1776

David Mccullough: Summary and Themes in “1776” Essay (Book Review)

Themes in 1776 by david mccullough, 1776 book summary, david mccullough’s 1776: analysis & criticism.

1776, which adds a new scholarship and a fresh perspective to events that took place at the start of the American Revolution, is a historical book written by David McCullough that is considered a companion to his earlier biography of John Adams. This 1776 book review essay shall analyze the story by McCullough.

The period was one of the turbulent and confusing times in the history of the U.S. as the British and the American politicians made drastic efforts to reach a compromise.

However, the situation on the ground worsened until the war was unavoidable. As much as the book mainly revolves around George Washington, there is also considerable attention given to “King George III, General Howe, Henry Knox, and Nathanael Greene, and the main key revolutionary conflicts portrayed in the book include the Battle of Dorchester Heights, the Battle of Long Island, and the Battle of Trenton” (McCullough 1).

1776 is a book about the significant events that took place when the thirteen American colonies were fighting the world’s most notable power, Great Britain, in order to gain freedom from its oppressive rule.

In illustrating how America got its freedom from Great Britain, the author starts by pointing the readers to the theme of oppression that was propagated by the colonialists. The British wanted the Americans to pay taxes even though there was not even one parliamentary representative for all the thirteen colonies. First, they needed to impose the stamp act. The colonies, led by Samuel Adams, successfully forced the British to repeal these taxes by threatening the tax collectors.

Besides, the British continued their oppression by imposing a tax on essential imported goods such as tea and paper. Although there were spirited attempts from the Americans to gain freedom, the British used forceful means to continue their oppressive rule, for example, the violent killing of five people during the Boston Massacre and the enactment of the Tea Act that forced locals to purchase tea only from accredited British companies.

The major theme detailed in the book is the theme of leadership portrayed by George Washington. His essential role is depicted by the thesis of the book, which states that without the Continental troops led by George Washington, the fight for American independence would never have been achieved (McCullough).

As much as the British troops were well equipped and experienced, Washington led an army of Americans from various backgrounds and ages that lacked adequate training in military combat. The American Revolution, which was basically a chess game played out between the two great Georges of the eighteenth century, involved King George III of England and Washington, the second player in the chess game.

King George III, who was only thirty-three years of age when the battle with the American colonies started in 1774, was tall for the times, handsome, and had strong leadership skills that drew individuals to him. On the other hand, Washington, at forty-four years of age, was charismatic and had equally strong leadership skills due to his engagement in the French and Indian wars. Although the British defeated Washington several times, he successfully managed to keep his army together and was eventually victorious.

Another theme portrayed in the story is hypocrisy. The fighting began at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Even though the Americans lost that war, the British army had many casualties. When the Americans recovered, they surprisingly attacked the British in Boston, forcing them to retreat to England on their ships. Even though the American spirit went higher at this moment, it was going to be thwarted by some hypocritical soldiers who were more loyal to George III than to Washington.

On returning, the British had even a stronger army who were full of expectations of defeating their enemies by a landslide. As the combat ensued, Washington’s army was forced to retreat, and they lost precious territories along the way. One of the factors that led to their defeat was the presence of traitors within the inexperienced American army. These people, who were called “loyalists,” chose to show their loyalty to Britain than to their motherland.

Lastly, the book portrays the theme of ingenuity. In spite of the many losses at the beginning of the historic twelve months in the struggle for America’s freedom, what made a group of inexperienced soldiers conquer the world’s most influential nation at that time? As the author dramatically shows it, it was a complex combination of dedication amidst countless sufferings, determination, and above all, ingenuity.

All through the book, the author vividly captures the events that were taking place. The British commander, Lord General Howe, maybe not perceiving that the revolution would be successful, underrated the ingenuity of the Americans.

In turn, the outnumbered American army employed the cover of night, surprise, and an abiding hunger to defeat the oppressive regime, for instance, Henry Knox, walked three hundred miles each way over the harsh winter terrain to deliver 120,000 pounds of weapons from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston. This made the Americans, in a cautious nighttime attack, to seize Dorchester Heights and reclaim the whole city.

McCullough did to me what I had thought could never be done: he finally made history interesting to me. 1776 is a book that if an individual starts to read, it would be impossible for him or her to put away simply. Even though the title gives a hint about the contents of the book, its full benefits are only reaped by reading the book.

It is evident that 1776 marks one of the most critical years in the history of the United States, if not the most significant year in the history of the country. However, since I am rather a novice in the area of history, at first glance, I did not fully fathom the meaning of this until I decided to find out by myself by reading, of course.

I expected the book to be divided by major military battles that took place prior to independence. However, the author shares the text by small events, which have significant impacts on the major military actions. The three main divisions of the book are The Siege, Fateful Summer, and the Long Retreat. The first category, titled “The Siege,” following the reinforcements undertaken at Dorchester Heights, gave me a vivid account of the military aspects of any battle.

The chapter begins with a quotation, “God save our King, Long live our noble King, God save the King! Send him victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign o’er us; God save the King!” (McCullough 1). The quotation was taken from a British newspaper.

I was surprised to learn that the battle was a widespread occurrence for the British. The author made me realize the experiences of the soldiers on each side of the war. The excerpts from the many letters written by ordinary soldiers indicated that the soldiers on both sides had a good reason to continue fighting.

I find in the book that McCullough is not a very good prose writer since some of the events happen without the reader noticing. However, this perceived weakness is the strength of the book since he carefully culls facts to make a compelling story. The author begins the first part of the book by detailing the overconfident speech given by King George III, and as the book ends, George gives a more disciplined speech, whereas in between, the American army and the British army are engaged in bloody battles.

It is a fascinating history, indeed. However, I think that the author (or his publisher) could have included more maps to make the story easier to understand. The three facsimiles maps, drawn in 1776, included in the book did not make any difference. All the same, I enjoyed reading the book.

It is somehow true that the path to America’s independence has never gained the same interest that has been accorded to the events that transpired during the Civil War, the First World War, or the Second World War. Even though 1776 will not alter that fact, the most interesting thing about McCullough’s work is that it motivates readers to look even more in-depth at the events that surrounded the road to America’s independence. Even currently, as the U.S. is struggling with serious issues regarding freedom, democratic rights, homeland security, as well as the intricate balance between those issues, it is of the essence to commemorate America’s birth. As the 1776 book review essay showed, in the book, McCullough seeks to achieve this by giving an analysis of the times, the spirit, and the struggles that triggered the U.S. on its path to present greatness.

McCullough, David. 1776. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. Print.

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Summary and Study Guide

1776 is a biography of the American Revolutionary War written by historian David McCullough. Published in 2006, the book is a companion piece to John Adams (2001), a biography McCullough wrote about the second US president. Though the Revolutionary War did not officially end until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, the text follows George Washington , King George III , Nathanael Greene , Henry Knox , and other key figures as it examines crucial military events.

In recounting Revolutionary War losses and retreats as well as major successes, the book centers primarily on George Washington. Unlike other histories that focus on narrating the Continental Congress’s development of the ideas of “freedom” and “liberty” as they applied to the colonies, this book takes the reader into the trenches, following each of Washington’s battles with his New England militiamen, who were completely untrained and, according to some, unfit for battle.

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The book also paints objective, detailed portraits of some of the most important American and British participants of the war. It opens with King George III, the king of England and a villain by most American accounts, seen as having less in common with other royalty than with many commoners. His desire to bring the colonies back into the fold seems sincere, but McCullough allows readers to decide for themselves.

In addition to chronicling George Washington’s heroic battles, it also gives a thorough report of his early life, his educational background, his marriage to Martha Custis, his life as a wealthy Virginia planter, and his love of architecture and home decor. His staid personality comes through, not just in his war exploits but also in his personal dealings with his officers and his men.

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Chapter 1 opens in London after the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, as King George III and Parliament grappled with how to respond to the potential war with the colonies. Chapter 2 shifts to the colonies, tracking Washington’s personal history and recounting how he came to command the Continental Army .

Chapter 3 centers around the battle for Boston, as British forces sieged the city. This chapter also explores how the conflict affected everyday citizens and how this campaign affected Washington’s leadership style . Chapters 4 and 5 recount the armies’ southern advance toward New York, focusing on the Continental Army’s many failures and losses during the New York and New Jersey campaigns.

Chapter 6 describes the Continental Army’s disorganized retreat from New York, the disastrous Battle of Fort Washington, and Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River, which pushed the British back northward. Chapter 7, the final chapter, recounts the continued fighting in New Jersey, especially the battles fought around Christmas Day 1776, which secured two key victories for the Americans. The book ends by examining George Washington, Henry Knox, and Nathanael Greene at the end of the war, to explain why they were so important to the revolution’s success.

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The first amendment, historic document, the declaration of independence.

Second Continental Congress | 1776

On July 4, 1776, the United States officially declared its independence from the British Empire when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.  The Declaration was authored by a “Committee of Five”—John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman—with Jefferson as the main drafter.  But Jefferson himself later admitted that he was merely looking to reflect the “mind of Americans”—bringing together the core principles at the heart of the American Revolution.  The Declaration also included a list of grievances against King George III, explaining to the world why the American colonies were separating from Great Britain.  The American Revolution ended with the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 and the Treaty of Paris in 1783.  A little over two decades after King George III took the throne, the American people had broken from Great Britain and begun a new experiment in republican government.

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In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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• Smith's Primary Thesis

The Invisible Hand

• Government Interference
• Elements of Prosperity
• Overthrow of Mercantilism
• Faults of "The Wealth of Nations"

The Bottom Line

Adam smith and "the wealth of nations".

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

What was the most important document published in 1776? Most Americans would probably say "The Declaration of Independence." However, many would argue that Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations had a bigger and more global impact. 

On March 9, 1776, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations —commonly referred to simply as The Wealth of Nations —was first published. Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher by trade, wrote the book to describe the industrialized capitalist system that was upending the mercantilist system.

Mercantilism held that wealth was fixed and finite. The only way to prosper was to hoard gold and place tariffs on products from abroad. According to this theory, nations should sell their goods to other countries while buying nothing in return. Predictably, countries fell into rounds of retaliatory tariffs that choked off international trade .

Key Takeaways

• The central thesis of Smith's The Wealth of Nations is that our individual need to fulfill self-interest results in societal benefit.
• He called the force behind this fulfillment the invisible hand.
• Self-interest and the division of labor in an economy result in mutual interdependencies that promote stability and prosperity through the market mechanism.
• Smith rejected government interference in market activities.
• He believed that a government's three functions should be to protect national borders, enforce civil law, and engage in public works (e.g., education).

Smith's Primary Thesis

The core of Smith's thesis was that humans' natural tendency for self-interest (or in modern terms, looking out for yourself) results in prosperity.

Smith argued that by giving everyone the freedom to produce and exchange goods as they pleased (free trade) and opening the markets up to domestic and foreign competition, people's natural self-interest would promote greater prosperity than could stringent government regulations.

Smith believed humans ultimately promote public interest through their everyday economic choices. In The Wealth of Nations he wrote:

He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

This free-market force which Adam Smith called the invisible hand needed support to bring about its magic. In particular, the market that emerged from an increasing division of labor, both within production processes and throughout society, created a series of mutual interdependencies. These relationships promoted social welfare through individual profit motives.

In other words, if you specialize as a baker and produce only bread, you must rely on somebody else for your clothes, your meat, and your beer. Meanwhile, the people that specialize in clothes must rely on you for their bread, and so on. Prosperity emanates from the market that develops when people need goods and services that they can't create themselves.

Adam Smith is generally regarded as the father of modern economics.

The automatic pricing and distribution mechanisms in the economy (Smith's invisible hand) interact directly and indirectly with centralized, top-down planning authorities.

Human Nature vs. Government Policy

The invisible hand is not an actual, distinguishable entity. Instead, it is the sum of many phenomena that occur naturally when consumers and producers engage in commerce. Smith's insight was one of the most important in the history of economics. It remains one of the chief justifications for free-market ideologies.

Modern interpretations of the invisible hand theorem suggest that the means of production and distribution should be privately owned and that if trade occurs unfettered by regulation, in turn, society will flourish organically. These interpretations compete with the concept and function of government.

Government is not serendipitous. It is prescriptive and intentional. Politicians, regulators, and those who exercise legal force (such as the courts, police, and military) pursue defined goals through coercion.

In contrast, macroeconomic forces—supply and demand, buying and selling, profit and loss—occur voluntarily until government policy inhibits or overrides them. In this sense, it is accurate to conclude that government affects the invisible hand, not the other way around.

Government Interference in Free Markets

The absence of market mechanisms frustrates government planning. Some economists refer to this as the economic calculation problem.

When people and businesses make decisions based on their willingness to pay money for a good or service, that information is captured dynamically in the price mechanism. This, in turn, allocates resources automatically toward the most valued ends.

When governments interfere with this process, unwanted shortages and surpluses tend to occur. Consider the massive gas shortages in the United States during the 1970s. The then newly formed Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut production to raise oil prices. The Nixon and Ford administrations responded by introducing price controls to limit the cost of gasoline to American consumers. The goal was to make cheap gas available to the public.

Instead, gas stations had no incentive to stay open for more than a few hours. Oil companies had no incentive to increase production domestically. Consumers had every incentive to buy more gasoline than they needed. Large-scale shortages and gas lines resulted. Those gas lines disappeared almost immediately after controls were eliminated and prices were allowed to rise.

While some might be tempted to say that the invisible hand limits government, that wouldn't necessarily be correct. Rather, the forces that guide voluntary economic activity toward large societal benefit are the same forces that limit the effectiveness of government intervention.

Enlightened self-interest refers to the concept that regard for one's own good prompts a person to assist in promoting the good of others.

Smith's Elements of Prosperity

Smith believed a nation needed the following three elements to bring about universal prosperity.

1. Enlightened Self-Interest

Smith wanted people to practice thrift , hard work, and enlightened self-interest. He thought the practice of enlightened self-interest was natural for the majority of people.

In his famous example, a butcher does not supply meat based on good-hearted intentions, but because he profits by selling meat. If the meat he sells is poor, he will not have repeat customers and, thus, no profit.

Therefore, it's in the butcher's interest to sell good meat at a price that customers are willing to pay, so that both parties benefit in every transaction.

Smith believed that a long term point of view would keep most businesses from abusing customers. When that wasn't enough, he looked to government to enforce laws.

Likewise, Smith saw thrift and savings as important virtues, especially when savings were invested. Through investment, industry would have the capital to buy more labor-saving machinery and encourage innovation. This technological leap forward would increase returns on invested capital and raise the overall standard of living .

2. Limited Government

Smith saw the responsibilities of the government as being limited to the defense of the nation, universal education, public works (infrastructure such as roads and bridges), the enforcement of legal rights (property rights and contracts), and the punishment of crime.

The government should step in when people acted on their short-term interests. It should make and enforce laws against robbery, fraud, and other, similar crimes. Smith cautioned against larger, bureaucratic governments, writing, "there is no art which one government sooner learns of another, than that of draining money from the pockets of the people."

Smith believed that the role of universal education was to counteract the negative and dulling effects of the division of labor that was a necessary part of industrialization. 

3. Solid Currency and Free-Market Economy

The third element Smith proposed was a solid currency twinned with free-market principles. By backing currency with hard metals, Smith hoped to curtail the government's ability to depreciate currency by circulating more of it. In turn, this could curb wasteful expenditures (such as spending on wars).

With hard currency acting as a check on spending, Smith wanted the government to follow free-market principles. These included keeping taxes low and eliminating tariffs to allow for free trade across borders. He pointed out that tariffs and other taxes only succeeded in making life more expensive for the people while stifling industry and trade abroad.

Smith’s Theories Overthrow Mercantilism

To drive home his point about the damaging nature of tariffs, Smith used the example of making wine in Scotland. He pointed out that good grapes could be grown in Scotland in hothouses. Yet the extra costs of heating would make Scottish wine 30 times more expensive than French wines. It would be far better, he reasoned, to trade something Scotland had in abundance, such as wool, for French wine.

France may have had a competitive advantage in producing wine. However, tariffs aimed at creating and protecting a Scottish wine industry would just waste resources and cost the public money.

Faults of "The Wealth of Nations"

The Wealth of Nations is a seminal book that represents the birth of free-market economics, but it's not without faults. It lacks proper explanations for pricing or a theory of value. Also, Smith failed to see the importance of the entrepreneur in breaking up inefficiencies and creating new markets.

Both the opponents of and believers in Adam Smith's free-market capitalism have added to the thesis of The Wealth of Nations . Like any good theory, free-market capitalism gets stronger with each reformulation, whether prompted by friend or foe.

Marginal utility , comparative advantage , entrepreneurship, the time-preference theory of interest, monetary theory , and many other pieces have been added to the whole since 1776.

There is still work to be done as the size and interconnectedness of the world's economies spur new and unexpected challenges to free-market capitalism.

Who Was Adam Smith?

Adam Smith was a philosopher and economic theorist born in Scotland in 1723. He's known primarily for his groundbreaking 1776 book on economics called An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations . Smith introduced the concept that free trade would benefit individuals and society as a whole. He believed that governments should not impose policies that interfered with free trade, domestically and abroad.

What Was Smith's Invisible Hand?

Adam Smith referred to the natural forces that guided self-interest to fulfill people's and society's needs on its own, without government intervention, as the invisible hand.

What Does Free-Market Capitalism Mean?

Free-market capitalism is an economic system that supports the free flow of capital and exchange of goods between individuals and nations without governments intervening to control that flow. In a free market, people in the market will price goods and services more effectively than a government.

The publishing of The Wealth of Nations marked the birth of modern capitalism as well as modern economics. Oddly enough, Adam Smith, the champion of the free market, spent the last years of his life as the Commissioner of Customs, responsible for enforcing all the tariffs. He took his work to heart and burned many of his clothes when he discovered they had been smuggled into shops from abroad.

Historical irony aside, his invisible hand continues to be a powerful force today. Smith overturned the miserly view of mercantilism and gave us a vision of plenty and freedom for all.

The free market he envisioned, though not yet fully realized, may have done more to raise the global standard of living than any other single idea in history.

Christie's. " The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith, 1776 ."

Project Gutenberg. " An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations ."

The University of Chicago Press Journals. " The Political Economy of Gasoline Taxes: Lessons from the Oil Embargo ," Pages 104-108.

Ian Simpson Ross. "The Life of Adam Smith," Page 6. Oxford University Press, 2010.

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03 Nov 2001 Samuel Adams Advocates American Independence – 1776

Samuel Adams Advocates American Independence

Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

August 1, 1776

Samuel Adams, one of the most ardent of the Founding Fathers in his desire for independence from England, delivered this speech to a numerous audience at the State House in Philadelphia on August 1, 1776. Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, also served as Delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1794.

Our forefathers, ’tis said, consented to be subject to the laws of Great Britain. I will not at the present time dispute it, nor mark out the limits and conditions of their submission; but will it be denied that they contracted to pay obedience and to be under the control of Great Britain because it appeared to them most beneficial in their then present circumstances and situations? We, my countrymen, have the same right to consult and provide for our happiness which they had to promote theirs. If they had a view to posterity in their contracts, it must have been to advance the felicity of their descendants. If they erred in their expectations and prospects, we can never be condemned for a conduct which they would have recommended had they foreseen our present condition.

Ye darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, lives, and religion of millions depend on the evasive interpretations of musty parchments; who would send us to antiquated charters of uncertain and contradictory meaning, to prove that the present generation are not bound to be victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism,–tell us whether our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the miserable privilege of having the rewards of our honesty, industry, the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled for, wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have no check. Did they contract for us that, with folded arms, we should expect that justice and mercy from brutal and inflamed invaders which have been denied to our supplications at the foot of the throne? Were we to hear our character as a people ridiculed with indifference? Did they promise for us that our meekness and patience should be insulted, our coasts harassed, our towns demolished and plundered, and our wives and offspring exposed to nakedness, hunger, and death, without our feeling the resentment of men, and exerting those powers of self-preservation which God has given us?

No man had once a greater veneration for Englishmen than I entertained. They were dear to me as branches of the same parental trunk, and partakers of the same religion and laws; I still view with respect the remains of the Constitution as I would a lifeless body which had once been animated by a great and heroic soul. But when I am aroused by the din of arms; when I behold legions of foreign assassins paid by Englishmen to imbrue their hands in our blood; when I tread over the uncoffined bodies of my countrymen, neighbors, and friends; when I see the locks of a venerable father torn by savage hands, and a feeble mother, clasping her infants to her bosom, and on her knees imploring their lives from her own slaves, whom Englishmen have allured to treachery and murder; when I behold my country, once the seat of industry, peace, and plenty, changed by Englishmen to a theater of blood and misery, Heaven forgive me if I can not root out those passions which it has implanted in my bosom, and detest submission to a people who have either ceased to be human, or have not virtue enough to feel their own wretchedness and servitude!

Men who content themselves with the semblance of truth, and a display of words talk much of our obligations to Great Britain for protection. Had she a single eye to our advantage? A nation of shopkeepers are very seldom so interested. Let us not be so amused with words! the extension of her commerce was her object. When she defended our coasts, she fought for her customers, and convoyed ourships loaded with wealth, which we had acquired for her by our industry. She has treated us as beasts of burden, whom the lordly masters cherish that they may carry a greater load. Let us inquire also against whom she has protected us? Against her own enemies with whom we had no quarrel, or only on her account, and against whom we always readily exerted our wealth and strength when they were required. Were these Colonies backward in giving assistance to Great Britain, when they were called upon in 1739 to aid the expedition against Cartagena? They at that time sent three thousand men to join the British army, altho the war commenced without their consent.

But the last war, ’tis said, was purely American. This is a vulgar error, which, like many others, has gained credit by being confidently repeated. The dispute between the courts of Great Britain and France related to the limits of Canada and Nova Scotia. The controverted territory was not claimed by any in the Colonies, but by the crown of Great Britain. It was therefore their own quarrel. The infringement of a right which England had, by the treaty of Utrecht, of trading in the Indian country of Ohio, was another cause of the war. The French seized large quantities of British manufactures and took possession of a fort which a company of British merchants and factors had erected for the security of their commerce. The war was therefore waged in defense of lands claimed by the Crown, and for the protection of British property. The French at that time had no quarrel with America, and, as appears by letters sent from their commander-in-chief to some of the Colonies, wished to remain in peace with us.

The part, therefore, which we then took, and the miseries to which we exposed ourselves ought to be charged to our affection to Britain. These Colonies granted more than their proportion to the support of the war. They raised, clothed, and maintained nearly twenty-five thousand men, and so sensible were the people of England of our great exertions that a message was annually sent to the House of Commons purporting “that his majesty, being highly satisfied with the zeal and vigor with which his faithful subjects in North America had exerted themselves in defense of his majesty’s just rights and possessions, recommends it to the House to take the same into consideration and enable him to give them a proper compensation.”

But what purpose can arguments of this kind answer? Did the protection we received annul our rights as men, and lay us under an obligation of being miserable?

Who among you, my countrymen, that is a father, would claim authority to make your child a slave because you had nourished him in infancy?

‘Tis a strange species of generosity which requires a return infinitely more valuable than anything it could have bestowed; that demands as a reward for a defense of our property a surrender of those inestimable privileges to the arbitrary will of vindictive tyrants, which alone give value to that very property.

Courage, then, my countrymen; our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. Dismissing, therefore, the justice of our cause as incontestable, the only question is, What is best for us to pursue in our present circumstances?

The doctrine of dependence on Great Britain is, I believe, generally exploded; but as I would attend to the honest weakness of the simplest of men, you will pardon me if I offer a few words on that subject.

We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one cause. We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances. There are instances of, I would say, an almost astonishing providence in our favor; our success has staggered our enemies, and almost given faith to infidels; so we may truly say it is not our own arm which has saved us.

The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world. For can we ever expect more unanimity and a better preparation for defense; more infatuation of counsel among our enemies, and more valor and zeal among ourselves? The same force and resistance which are sufficient to procure us our liberties will secure us a glorious independence and support us in the dignity of free imperial States. We can not suppose that our opposition has made a corrupt and dissipated nation more friendly to America, or created in them a greater respect for the rights of mankind. We can therefore expect a restoration and establishment of our privileges, and a compensation for the injuries we have received from their want of power, from their fears, and not from their virtues. The unanimity and valor which will effect an honorable peace can render a future contest for our liberties unnecessary. He who has strength to chain down the wolf is a madman if he let him loose without drawing his teeth and paring his nails.

From the day on which an accommodation takes place between England and America, on any other terms than as independent States, I shall date the ruin of this country. a politic minister will study to lull us into security by granting us the full extent of our petitions. The warm sunshine of influence would melt down the virtue which the violence of the storm rendered more firm and unyielding. In a state of tranquillity, wealth, and luxury, our descendants would forget the arts of war and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors invincible. Every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union which renders our resistance formidable. When the spirit of liberty, which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms, is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye abandoned minions of an infatuated ministry, if peradventure any should yet remain among us, remember that a Warren and Montgomery are numbered among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plow, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom–go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!

To unite the supremacy of Great Britain and the liberty of America is utterly impossible. so vast a continent and of such a distance from the seat of empire will every day grow more unmanageable. The motion of so unwieldy a body can not be directed with any despatch and uniformity without committing to the Parliament of Great Britain powers inconsistent with our freedom. The authority and force which would be absolutely necessary for the preservation of the peace and good order of this continent would put all our valuable rights within the reach of that nation.

As the administration of government requires firmer and more numerous supports in proportion to its extent, the burdens imposed on us would be excessive, and we should have the melancholy prospect of their increasing on our posterity. The scale of officers, from the rapacious and needy commissioner to the haughty governor, and from the governor, with his hungry train, to perhaps a licentious and prodigal viceroy, must be upheld by you and your children. The fleets and armies which will be employed to silence your murmurs and complaints must be supported by the fruits of your industry.

Britain is now, I will suppose, the seat of liberty and virtue, and its legislature consists of a body of able and independent men who govern with wisdom and justice. The time may come when all will be reversed; when its excellent constitution of government will be subverted; when, pressed by debts and taxes, it will be greedy to draw to itself an increase of revenue from every distant province in order to ease its own burdens; when the influence of the crown, strengthened by luxury and a universal profligacy of manners, will have tainted every heart, broken down every fence of liberty and rendered us a nation of tame and contented vassals; when a general election will be nothing but a general auction of boroughs, and when the Parliament, the grand council of the nation, and once the faithful guardian of the State, and a terror to evil ministers, will be degenerated into a body if sycophants, dependent and venal, always ready to confirm any measures, and little more than a public court for registering royal edicts.

Such, it is possible, may some time or other be the state of Great Britain. What will, at that period, be the duty of the Colonies? Will they be still bound to unconditional submission? Must they always continue an appendage to our government and follow it implicitly through every change that can happen to it? Wretched condition, indeed, of millions of freemen as good as ourselves! Will you say that we now govern equitably, and that there is no danger of such revolution? Would to God that this were true! But you will not always say the same. Who shall judge whether we govern equitably or not? Can you give the Colonies any security that such a period will never come? No. The period, countrymen, is already come! The calamities were at our door. The rod of oppression was raised over us. We were roused from our slumbers, and may we never sink into repose until we can convey a clear and undisputed inheritance to our posterity! This day we are called upon to give a glorious example of what the wisest and best of men were rejoiced to view only in speculation. This day presents the world with the most august spectacle that its annals ever unfolded–millions of freemen, deliberately and voluntarily forming themselves into a society for their common defense and common happiness. Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and Sidney, will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your systems, and in the actual enjoyment of that equal liberty, which you were happy when on earth in delineating and recommending to mankind?

Other nations have received their laws from conquerors; some are indebted for a constitution to the suffering of their ancestors through revolving centuries. The people of this country, alone, have formally and deliberately chosen a government for themselves, and with open and uninfluenced consent bound themselves into a social compact. Here no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the name of hereditary authority. He who has most zeal and ability to promote public felicity, let him be the servant of the public. This is the only line of distinction drawn by nature. Leave the bird of night to the obscurity for which nature intended him, and expect only from the eagle to brush the clouds with his wings and look boldly in the face of the sun.

If there is any man so base or so weak as to prefer a dependence on Great Britain to the dignity and happiness of living a member of a free and independent nation, let me tell him that necessity now demands what the generous principle of patriotism should have dictated.

We have no other alternative than independence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude. The legions of our enemies thicken on our plains; desolation and death mark their bloody career, while the mangled corpses of our countrymen seem to cry out to us as a voice from heaven.

Our Union is now complete; our Constitution composed, established, and approved. You are now the guardians of your own liberties. We may justly address you as the decemviri did the Romans, and say: “Nothing that we propose can pass into a law without your consent. Be yourselves, O Americans, the authors of those laws on which your happiness depends.”

You have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies and their base and mercenary auxiliaries. The hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom; they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords can look up to Heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or their country. Go on, then, in your generous enterprise with gratitude to Heaven for past success, and confidence of it in the future. For my own part I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory. If I have a wish dearer to my soul than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a Warren and Montgomery, it is that these American States may never cease to be free and independent.

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The American Revolution Reader

Primary source: thomas paine calls for american independence, 1776.

Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776. The pamphlet explained the advantages of and the need for immediate independence in clear, simple language. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places.

Washington had it read to all his troops, which at the time had surrounded the British army in Boston. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. As of 2006, it remains the all-time best selling American title.

Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of whether or not to seek independence was the central issue of the day. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood. Forgoing the philosophical and Latin references used by Enlightenment era writers, he structured Common Sense as if it were a sermon, and relied on Biblical references to make his case to the people. He connected independence with common dissenting Protestant beliefs as a means to present a distinctly American political identity. Historian Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as “the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era.”

Thoughts of the present state of American Affairs

The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. ‘Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent— of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. ‘Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; The wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.

By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new æra for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, &c. prior to the nineteenth of April, i. e. to the commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacks of the last year; which, though proper then, are superceded and useless now. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the question then, terminated in one and the same point, viz. a union with Great-Britain; the only difference between the parties was the method of effecting it; the one proposing force, the other friendship; but it hath so far happened that the first hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn her influence.

As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left us as we were, it is but right, that we should examine the contrary side of the argument, and inquire into some of the many material injuries which these colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected with, and dependant on Great-Britain. To examine that connexion and dependance, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what we have to trust to, if separated, and what we are to expect, if dependant.

I have heard it asserted by some, that as America hath flourished under her former connexion with Great-Britain, that the same connexion is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true, for I answer roundly, that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power had any thing to do with her. The commerce, by which she hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.

But she has protected us, say some. That she hath engrossed us is true, and defended the continent at our expence as well as her own is admitted, and she would have defended Turkey from the same motive, viz. the sake of trade and dominion.

Alas, we have been long led away by ancient prejudices, and made large sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted the protection of Great-Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest not attachment; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account. Let Britain wave her pretensions to the continent, or the continent throw off the dependance, and we should be at peace with France and Spain were they at war with Britain. The miseries of Hanover last war ought to warn us against connexions.

It hath lately been asserted in parliament, that the colonies have no relation to each other but through the parent country, i. e. that Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and so on for the rest, are sister colonies by the way of England; this is certainly a very round-about way of proving relationship, but it is the nearest and only true way of proving enemyship, if I may so call it. France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be our enemies as Americans, but as our being the subjects of Great-Britain.

But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.

In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England) and carry our friendship on a larger scale; we claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment.

It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we surmount the force of local prejudice, as we enlarge our acquaintance with the world. A man born in any town in England divided into parishes, will naturally associate most with his fellow parishioners (because their interests in many cases will be common) and distinguish him by the name of neighbour; if he meet him but a few miles from home, he drops the narrow idea of a street, and salutes him by the name of townsman; if he travel out of the county, and meet him in any other, he forgets the minor divisions of street and town, and calls him countryman; i. e. county-man; but if in their foreign excursions they should associate in France or any other part of Europe, their local remembrance would be enlarged into that of Englishmen. And by a just parity of reasoning, all Europeans meeting in America, or any other quarter of the globe, are countrymen; for England, Holland, Germany, or Sweden, when compared with the whole, stand in the same places on the larger scale, which the divisions of street, town, and county do on the smaller ones; distinctions too limited for continental minds. Not one third of the inhabitants, even of this province, are of English descent. Wherefore I reprobate the phrase of parent or mother country applied to England only, as being false, selfish, narrow and ungenerous.

But admitting, that we were all of English descent, what does it amount to? Nothing. Britain, being now an open enemy, extinguishes every other name and title: And to say that reconciliation is our duty, is truly farcical. The first king of England, of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the Peers of England are descendants from the same country; wherefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.

Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the colonies, that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world. But this is mere presumption; the fate of war is uncertain, neither do the expressions mean any thing; for this continent would never suffer itself to be drained of inhabitants, to support the British arms in either Asia, Africa, or Europe.

Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at defiance? Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe; because, it is the interest of all Europe to have America a free port. Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders.

I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation, to shew, a single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected with Great Britain. I repeat the challenge, not a single advantage is derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for buy them where we will.

But the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that connection, are without number; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: Because, any submission to, or dependance on Great-Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we have neither anger nor complaint. As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do, while by her dependance on Britain, she is made the make-weight in the scale on British politics.

Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at peace, and whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign power, the trade of America goes to ruin, because of her connection with Britain. The next war may not turn out like the last, and should it not, the advocates for reconciliation now will be wishing for separation then, because, neutrality in that case, would be a safer convoy than a man of war. Every thing that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ‘TIS TIME TO PART. Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority of the one, over the other, was never the design of Heaven. The time likewise at which the continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument, and the manner in which it was peopled encreases the force of it. The Reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.

The authority of Great-Britain over this continent, is a form of government, which sooner or later must have an end: And a serious mind can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under the painful and positive conviction, that what he calls “the present constitution” is merely temporary. As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight.

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When Thomas Jefferson penned ‘all men are created equal,’ he did not mean individual equality, says Stanford scholar

When the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, it was a call for the right to statehood rather than individual liberties, says Stanford historian Jack Rakove. Only after the American Revolution did people interpret it as a promise for individual equality.

In the decades following the Declaration of Independence, Americans began reading the affirmation that “all men are created equal” in different ways than the framers intended, says Stanford historian Jack Rakove .

With each generation, the words expressed in the Declaration of Independence have expanded beyond what the founding fathers originally intended when they adopted the historic document on July 4, 1776, says Stanford historian Jack Rakove. (Image credit: Getty Images)

On July 4, 1776, when the Continental Congress adopted the historic text drafted by Thomas Jefferson, they did not intend it to mean individual equality. Rather, what they declared was that American colonists, as a people , had the same rights to self-government as other nations. Because they possessed this fundamental right, Rakove said, they could establish new governments within each of the states and collectively assume their “separate and equal station” with other nations. It was only in the decades after the American Revolutionary War that the phrase acquired its compelling reputation as a statement of individual equality.

Here, Rakove reflects on this history and how now, in a time of heightened scrutiny of the country’s founders and the legacy of slavery and racial injustices they perpetuated, Americans can better understand the limitations and failings of their past governments.

Rakove is the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and professor of political science, emeritus, in the School of Humanities and Sciences. His book, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution  (1996), won the Pulitzer Prize in History. His new book, Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience: The Radical Significance of the Free Exercise of Religion will be published next month.

With the U.S. confronting its history of systemic racism, are there any problems that Americans are reckoning with today that can be traced back to the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution?

I view the Declaration as a point of departure and a promise, and the Constitution as a set of commitments that had lasting consequences – some troubling, others transformative. The Declaration, in its remarkable concision, gives us self-evident truths that form the premises of the right to revolution and the capacity to create new governments resting on popular consent. The original Constitution, by contrast, involved a set of political commitments that recognized the legal status of slavery within the states and made the federal government partially responsible for upholding “the peculiar institution.” As my late colleague Don Fehrenbacher argued, the Constitution was deeply implicated in establishing “a slaveholders’ republic” that protected slavery in complex ways down to 1861.

But the Reconstruction amendments of 1865-1870 marked a second constitutional founding that rested on other premises. Together they made a broader definition of equality part of the constitutional order, and they gave the national government an effective basis for challenging racial inequalities within the states. It sadly took far too long for the Second Reconstruction of the 1960s to implement that commitment, but when it did, it was a fulfillment of the original vision of the 1860s.

As people critically examine the country’s founding history, what might they be surprised to learn from your research that can inform their understanding of American history today?

Two things. First, the toughest question we face in thinking about the nation’s founding pivots on whether the slaveholding South should have been part of it or not. If you think it should have been, it is difficult to imagine how the framers of the Constitution could have attained that end without making some set of “compromises” accepting the legal existence of slavery. When we discuss the Constitutional Convention, we often praise the compromise giving each state an equal vote in the Senate and condemn the Three Fifths Clause allowing the southern states to count their slaves for purposes of political representation. But where the quarrel between large and small states had nothing to do with the lasting interests of citizens – you never vote on the basis of the size of the state in which you live – slavery was a real and persisting interest that one had to accommodate for the Union to survive.

Second, the greatest tragedy of American constitutional history was not the failure of the framers to eliminate slavery in 1787. That option was simply not available to them. The real tragedy was the failure of Reconstruction and the ensuing emergence of Jim Crow segregation in the late 19th century that took many decades to overturn. That was the great constitutional opportunity that Americans failed to grasp, perhaps because four years of Civil War and a decade of the military occupation of the South simply exhausted Northern public opinion. Even now, if you look at issues of voter suppression, we are still wrestling with its consequences.

You argue that in the decades after the Declaration of Independence, Americans began understanding the Declaration of Independence’s affirmation that “all men are created equal” in a different way than the framers intended. How did the founding fathers view equality? And how did these diverging interpretations emerge?

When Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal” in the preamble to the Declaration, he was not talking about individual equality. What he really meant was that the American colonists, as a people , had the same rights of self-government as other peoples, and hence could declare independence, create new governments and assume their “separate and equal station” among other nations. But after the Revolution succeeded, Americans began reading that famous phrase another way. It now became a statement of individual equality that everyone and every member of a deprived group could claim for himself or herself. With each passing generation, our notion of who that statement covers has expanded. It is that promise of equality that has always defined our constitutional creed.

Thomas Jefferson drafted a passage in the Declaration, later struck out by Congress, that blamed the British monarchy for imposing slavery on unwilling American colonists, describing it as “the cruel war against human nature.” Why was this passage removed?

At different moments, the Virginia colonists had tried to limit the extent of the slave trade, but the British crown had blocked those efforts. But Virginians also knew that their slave system was reproducing itself naturally. They could eliminate the slave trade without eliminating slavery. That was not true in the West Indies or Brazil.

The deeper reason for the deletion of this passage was that the members of the Continental Congress were morally embarrassed about the colonies’ willing involvement in the system of chattel slavery. To make any claim of this nature would open them to charges of rank hypocrisy that were best left unstated.

If the founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, thought slavery was morally corrupt, how did they reconcile owning slaves themselves, and how was it still built into American law?

Two arguments offer the bare beginnings of an answer to this complicated question. The first is that the desire to exploit labor was a central feature of most colonizing societies in the Americas, especially those that relied on the exportation of valuable commodities like sugar, tobacco, rice and (much later) cotton. Cheap labor in large quantities was the critical factor that made these commodities profitable, and planters did not care who provided it – the indigenous population, white indentured servants and eventually African slaves – so long as they were there to be exploited.

To say that this system of exploitation was morally corrupt requires one to identify when moral arguments against slavery began to appear. One also has to recognize that there were two sources of moral opposition to slavery, and they only emerged after 1750. One came from radical Protestant sects like the Quakers and Baptists, who came to perceive that the exploitation of slaves was inherently sinful. The other came from the revolutionaries who recognized, as Jefferson argued in his Notes on the State of Virginia , that the very act of owning slaves would implant an “unremitting despotism” that would destroy the capacity of slaveowners to act as republican citizens. The moral corruption that Jefferson worried about, in other words, was what would happen to slaveowners who would become victims of their own “boisterous passions.”

But the great problem that Jefferson faced – and which many of his modern critics ignore – is that he could not imagine how black and white peoples could ever coexist as free citizens in one republic. There was, he argued in Query XIV of his Notes , already too much foul history dividing these peoples. And worse still, Jefferson hypothesized, in proto-racist terms, that the differences between the peoples would also doom this relationship. He thought that African Americans should be freed – but colonized elsewhere. This is the aspect of Jefferson’s thinking that we find so distressing and depressing, for obvious reasons. Yet we also have to recognize that he was trying to grapple, I think sincerely, with a real problem.

No historical account of the origins of American slavery would ever satisfy our moral conscience today, but as I have repeatedly tried to explain to my Stanford students, the task of thinking historically is not about making moral judgments about people in the past. That’s not hard work if you want to do it, but your condemnation, however justified, will never explain why people in the past acted as they did. That’s our real challenge as historians.

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Declaration of Independence

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 28, 2023 | Original: October 27, 2009

The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation’s people asserting their right to choose their own government.

When armed conflict between bands of American colonists and British soldiers began in April 1775, the Americans were ostensibly fighting only for their rights as subjects of the British crown. By the following summer, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, the movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue. In mid-June 1776, a five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson , John Adams and Benjamin Franklin was tasked with drafting a formal statement of the colonies’ intentions. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence—written largely by Jefferson—in Philadelphia on July 4 , a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence.

America Before the Declaration of Independence

Even after the initial battles in the Revolutionary War broke out, few colonists desired complete independence from Great Britain, and those who did–like John Adams– were considered radical. Things changed over the course of the next year, however, as Britain attempted to crush the rebels with all the force of its great army. In his message to Parliament in October 1775, King George III railed against the rebellious colonies and ordered the enlargement of the royal army and navy. News of his words reached America in January 1776, strengthening the radicals’ cause and leading many conservatives to abandon their hopes of reconciliation. That same month, the recent British immigrant Thomas Paine published “Common Sense,” in which he argued that independence was a “natural right” and the only possible course for the colonies; the pamphlet sold more than 150,000 copies in its first few weeks in publication.

Did you know? Most Americans did not know Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence until the 1790s; before that, the document was seen as a collective effort by the entire Continental Congress.

In March 1776, North Carolina’s revolutionary convention became the first to vote in favor of independence; seven other colonies had followed suit by mid-May. On June 7, the Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a motion calling for the colonies’ independence before the Continental Congress when it met at the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. Amid heated debate, Congress postponed the vote on Lee’s resolution and called a recess for several weeks. Before departing, however, the delegates also appointed a five-man committee–including Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York–to draft a formal statement justifying the break with Great Britain. That document would become known as the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson Writes the Declaration of Independence

Jefferson had earned a reputation as an eloquent voice for the patriotic cause after his 1774 publication of “A Summary View of the Rights of British America,” and he was given the task of producing a draft of what would become the Declaration of Independence. As he wrote in 1823, the other members of the committee “unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught [sic]. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections….I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress.”

As Jefferson drafted it, the Declaration of Independence was divided into five sections, including an introduction, a preamble, a body (divided into two sections) and a conclusion. In general terms, the introduction effectively stated that seeking independence from Britain had become “necessary” for the colonies. While the body of the document outlined a list of grievances against the British crown, the preamble includes its most famous passage: “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; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The Continental Congress Votes for Independence

The Continental Congress reconvened on July 1, and the following day 12 of the 13 colonies adopted Lee’s resolution for independence. The process of consideration and revision of Jefferson’s declaration (including Adams’ and Franklin’s corrections) continued on July 3 and into the late morning of July 4, during which Congress deleted and revised some one-fifth of its text. The delegates made no changes to that key preamble, however, and the basic document remained Jefferson’s words. Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence later on the Fourth of July (though most historians now accept that the document was not signed until August 2).

The Declaration of Independence became a significant landmark in the history of democracy. In addition to its importance in the fate of the fledgling American nation, it also exerted a tremendous influence outside the United States, most memorably in France during the French Revolution . Together with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights , the Declaration of Independence can be counted as one of the three essential founding documents of the United States government.

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Why Is 1776 a Turning Point in American History?

1776 was a crucial year for the United States of America. It was the year when the Declaration of Independence was signed, marking the beginning of a new nation that would eventually become one of the most powerful and influential countries in the world. The events leading up to this momentous occasion were complex and multifaceted, but they all culminated in what many historians consider to be a turning point in American history.

The Context: The British Colonies in America

In order to understand why 1776 was such an important year, it’s important to first understand the context in which it occurred. In the mid-18th century, Britain had established a number of colonies in North America, including Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. These colonies were primarily established for economic reasons – Britain wanted to expand its trade and commerce overseas.

Over time, however, tensions began to mount between the colonists and their British rulers. Many colonists felt that they were being unfairly taxed without representation in British Parliament. They also resented British attempts to limit their freedom and autonomy.

The Buildup: The Road to Revolution

These tensions eventually boiled over into open conflict. In 1775, a group of American colonists fought against British troops at Lexington and Concord. This skirmish marked the beginning of what would become known as the American Revolution.

Over the next year or so, both sides engaged in a series of battles and skirmishes across North America. Meanwhile, political leaders like Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin began advocating for independence from Britain.

The Turning Point: The Declaration of Independence

All this buildup culminated on July 4th, 1776 when the Continental Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence. This document, written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, declared that the American colonies were no longer subject to British rule and were now free and independent states in their own right.

The signing of the Declaration of Independence marked a major turning point in American history. It signaled the birth of a new nation founded on principles of freedom, democracy, and equality. It also set the stage for years of conflict with Britain as well as internal struggles over issues like slavery and states’ rights.

The Legacy: 1776 as a Symbol

Today, 1776 remains an important symbol in American history. It represents a moment when a group of people came together to fight for their rights and freedoms against an oppressive regime. It also serves as a reminder that America’s founding principles are still worth fighting for today.

• Conclusion:

In conclusion, 1776 was a turning point in American history because it marked the beginning of a new nation founded on principles of freedom and democracy. The signing of the Declaration of Independence represented a major shift in power from Britain to America, and set the stage for years of conflict and struggle. Today, 1776 remains an important symbol of America’s commitment to freedom and independence.

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Why 1619 should matter as much to America as 1776

At institute of politics event, journalist nikole hannah-jones discusses slavery’s impact.

Finding evidence of slavery’s impact on modern America isn’t difficult. What’s challenging, said journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, is centering that evidence within the national memory.

“Most of us aren’t taught that history,” she said, “so we don’t know it exists.”

Teaching that history was the goal of The 1619 Project , a recent special issue of The New York Times Magazine, named for the year when a slave ship first arrived on Virginia’s shores. Speaking Oct. 7 at the University of Chicago before a room packed with students, scholars and community members, Hannah-Jones discussed why she pitched the project to her editors, and how it originated from her own readings as a high schooler.

“The conceit of the magazine is that you can look across almost every aspect of American life, whether you think it has to do with slavery or not—and through very rigorous scholarship, we were going to show you that it does,” said Hannah-Jones during the event, hosted by UChicago’s Institute of Politics .

The result was an issue that featured contributions from both journalists and scholars—one that touched on everything from health care to music to a traffic jam in Atlanta . It included a selection of literary work , including a poem by Asst. Prof. Eve L. Ewing of UChicago’s School of Social Service Administration. Most of the issue’s contributors were black—a conscious decision, Hannah-Jones said, to highlight that such a group could produce the “highest-quality journalism in the most important publication.”

Her visit to the International House was part of the IOP’s Speaker Series, a forum that invites leading thinkers to help students explore key political issues. The series’ guest list this month also features former Secretary of State John Kerry; current presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana; U.S. Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX); and Dikembe Mutombo, a former NBA All-Star who has become a humanitarian in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“Our mission is to ignite in young people a passion for politics and public service and to enrich campus discourse on critical issues,” said IOP executive director Gretchen Crosby Sims. “Hosting these events gives students a chance to think about complicated topics from a new perspective, and to ask questions of provocative speakers.”

‘Centered in the American story’

Many have lauded The 1619 Project as a necessary corrective, one that more fully considers how the institution of slavery has shaped the United States. But some conservative politicians and commentators have accused it of distorting facts in service of activism—backlash which Hannah-Jones expected.

“People are not used to those who have been treated as the bottom of caste to be actually centered in the American story,” she said.

The 1619 Project opens with an essay by Hannah-Jones, one in which she reflects on her father’s decision to proudly fly an American flag outside her family’s Iowa home—despite the discrimination he faced before, during and after his military service. During the IOP event, moderated by WBEZ’s Jennifer White, Hannah-Jones revealed that the roots of the project also stretch back to when her 10th-grade teacher assigned Before the Mayflower , introducing to her the significance of the year 1619.

The Institute of Politics hosted Hannah-Jones in partnership with the Pulitzer Center , a nonprofit which has created reading guides, activities and other resources to help the public engage with The 1619 Project . Hannah-Jones said she takes special pride in how the work has been embraced by school districts around the country. Last month, for example, Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson announced that every CPS high school would receive 200 to 400 copies of the magazine “as a resource to help reframe the institution of slavery, and how we’re still influenced by it today.”

At UChicago, one student asked Hannah-Jones about grappling with old texts, given the bigotry of their authors. The reporter said that her goal was not to erase those parts of history, but to push against the impulse to “deify these men.”

“When you teach about Thomas Jefferson, when you talk about Monticello, let’s call it what it was: It was a slave labor camp,” Hannah-Jones said. “Let’s talk about how he built his wealth, but let’s also say that he wrote some amazing words that really set the road map for who we are.

“I’m not arguing that 1776 doesn’t matter; I’m just saying that 1619 matters just as much. And we have to have the ability to teach both those things at the same time.”

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Explained: What is the 1776 Commission report released by White House?

The initiative, dubbed the ‘1776 commission’, is an apparent counter to the 1619 project, a pulitzer prize-winning collection of essays on african american history of the past four centuries, which explores the black community’s contribution in nation-building since the era of slavery to modern times..

The White House on Monday released the 1776 Commission report, just days before president-elect Joe Biden would take his oath in office. In September last year, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to set up a “national commission to promote patriotic education” in the country. The move was aimed at pleasing his conservative voter base in the run-up to the November 3 elections.

The initiative, dubbed the ‘1776 Commission’, is an apparent counter to The 1619 Project , a Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of essays on African American history of the past four centuries, which explores the Black community’s contribution in nation-building since the era of slavery to modern times.

Trump announced the move at a history conference celebrating the 233rd anniversary of the signing of the US Constitution (on September 17, 1787); the document being written in the decade after the original 13 colonies declared independence from the British Empire in 1776.

In September, Trump said that he wanted $5 billion from companies that were building the US version of TikTok for setting up the “very large fund” that would teach American children “the real history, not the fake history.”

What is The 1619 Project?

The Project is a special initiative of The New York Times Magazine, launched in 2019 to mark the completion of 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in colonial Virginia’s Jamestown in August 1619.

The project was initiated by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a MacArthur Grant-winning journalist. The collection aims “to reframe US history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year,” according to Jake Silverstein, the publication’s editor-in-chief.

What is Trump’s 1776 Commission?

When he set it up, Trump was lagging behind president-elect Biden in polls for the presidential race. With this move Trump sought to activate his right-wing supporters by doubling down on what he described as “cancel culture”, “critical race theory” and “revisionist history”.

In remarks delivered at the National Archives Museum, where original copies of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights are kept, Trump said at the time, “Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed.”

A new “1776 Commission”, Trump said, would “encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding,” and teach the youth to “love America.”

“The Left has warped, distorted, and defiled the American story. We want our sons and daughters to know they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world,” he added.

What does the report say?

According to a report in The New York Times, the 18-member commission formed by Trump “includes no professional historians but a number of conservative activists, politicians and intellectuals — in the heat of his re-election campaign in September, as he cast himself as a defender of traditional American heritage against “radical” liberals.”

“The declared purpose of the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission is to “enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.” This requires a restoration of American education, which can only be grounded on a history of those principles that is “accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.” And a rediscovery of our shared identity rooted in our founding principles is the path to a renewed American unity and a confident American future,” the report says.

What have critics said about this commission?

Critics have lambasted Trump for making false claims during the speech in September and accused him of infringing on constitutional liberties.

During his address, Trump said that the USA’s founding “set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery”, while many pointed out that the institution continued unabated for almost two-and-a-half centuries, including 89 years after American independence.

Hannah-Jones, the 1619 Project’s founder, said at the time, “These are hard days we’re in but I take great satisfaction from knowing that now even Trump’s supporters know the date 1619 and mark it as the beginning of American slavery. 1619 is part of the national lexicon. That cannot be undone, no matter how hard they try.”

Hannah-Jones has also previously criticised Trump’s opposition to teaching the 1619 Project in schools as a government attempt to infringe on the First Amendment right to free speech and press in the country. She said, “The efforts by the president of the United States to use his powers to censor a work of American journalism by dictating what schools can and cannot teach and what American children should and should not learn should be deeply alarming to all Americans who value free speech.”

Interpreting the move

By attacking The 1619 Project, Trump hoped to win the support of conservatives who oppose its central idea that US history should be reframed around the date of August 1619, and who insist that the nation’s story should be told the way it has been over the years– beginning with the year 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, or from 1788, when the US Constitution was ratified.

Last year, Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from public schools that used school syllabi based on the 1619 Project– which he said “warped” American history, adding that it claimed the US was “founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom”.

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Last Updated: Apr 01, 2024 Views: 16

What is a thesis statement.

A thesis statement is a sentence that states the main idea of your paper. It is not just a statement of fact, but a statement of position. What argument are you making about your topic? Your thesis should answer that question.

How long should my thesis statement be?

Thesis statements are often just one sentence. Keep thesis statements concise, without extra words or information. If you are having trouble keeping your thesis statement to one sentence, consider the following:

• Is your thesis is specific enough?
• Does your thesis directly supports your paper?
• Does your thesis accurately describes your purpose or argue your claim?

Can I see some example thesis statements?

The following websites have examples of thesis statements:

• Thesis Statements This link opens in a new window (UNC)
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• Writing an Effective Thesis Statement This link opens in a new window (Indiana River State College)

These web resources may be helpful if you are looking for examples. However, be sure to evaluate any sources you use! The Shapiro Library cannot vouch for the accuracy of information provided on external websites.

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Video tutorials.

• The Persuasive Thesis: How to Write an Argument This link opens in a new window (SNHU Academic Support)
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