Every week, Hillsdale College President Larry Arne joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss great books,

great men, and great ideas. This is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College

Podcast Network. More episodes at podcast.com.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio.

Morning and glory and evening, Grace, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. That music means, as always,

it's the last radio and video hour of the week. That means the Hillsdale Dialogue,

sponsored by Hillsdale College. And this week we are joined by Dean Matt Spalding, who runs the

Graduate School of Statesmanship in Washington, D.C. This is part five of a series that Dean

Spalding and I are doing on the 250th anniversary of the founding of America, that we began

long and far away in a different place, but we've come up to the conflict's really about to begin.

Dean, why don't you set the scene for us? Well, so last time we left off at the Continental Congress,

and there had been a petition to the king,

a last petition, and they had written an important paper about why they considered a necessity

to take up arms against the British. But also at that same moment is when they recognized

the army and sent Washington off to Boston, that significant moment was a turn

because that was precisely when they started hearing about Bunker Hill, at which point,

what was previously a kind of preparation or possible hostilities, at that point, it really became

a war preparation. And so you start, the way the action turns,

if you will, to Washington, the Continental Army, to Boston, and what is going on there. And you

now have two points of two theaters, I guess, of main operations for the American Revolution. One is still in the

Continental Congress, which will be brewing in the 1775, 1776, and we know where that's going.

But the other one really is Washington, and he becomes essentially the de facto head of state.

He is the head of the army. He is strategic commander.

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