A SECOND LOOK AT THE EVENTS of 1776 w/ Tom McMillan, Author of "The Year That Made America"

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

Bruce Carlson

News, Politics, History

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With Tom McMillan, we take a look at some of the assumptions of 1776 in the history books. First of all, why July 4th and Not July 2nd? And what about May 15th, when Adams got delegates to move and issued his own Declaration-like preamble? And a second look at Jefferson's authorship of the Declaration: writer or draftsman? We are part of Airwave Media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:34.6	They cut in entire passages that Jefferson wrote.
0:37.0	They changed his wording.
0:38.0	They rewrote the final paragraph, which to them was the most important paragraph.
0:44.5	That's where they declared independent.
0:46.3	The 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 connections between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.
1:24.0	We today focus on that second paragraph with the liberty in the pursuit of
1:28.6	happiness, self-evident truths. They breezed over that back then. The writing style in the 18th
1:33.5	century was you built a crescendo and you made your point at the end. So they declare independence
1:38.7	at the very end. That is Thomas McMillan. He is the author of the year that made America.
1:46.0	And I'm going to be talking to him today.
1:51.9	Congress added some of their own phrases to strengthen that. They thought that was the most important paragraph.
2:13.8	Do you remember the solicitude, the labors, the fears, and sorrows, sleepless nights of the men who protected, proposed, defended, and subscribed the Declaration of Independence?
2:20.9	Benjamin Rush writes to John Adams, years after these events in 1811.
2:38.8	And the date that he's describing when they all got up from the table and signed is not July 4th, 1776.
	...

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