This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, July 29th, 2011. I'm Caleb Brown.

With the struggles over debt, deficits, war, and abuses of civil liberties, it's important to remember that it's been worse in the United States.

Rob McDonald is an assistant professor of history at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

He discussed a few episodes following the Revolutionary War.

This is a portion of a speech by McDonald delivered this week at Cato University in Annapolis, Maryland.

The theme is really multiple.

It's about, in many respects, the unlikely triumph of American revolutionaries in this project of independence.

But it's also about the results of that bold experiment unto which they entered.

An experiment that had results that I think were very positive for liberty

in many respects. but an experiment that exposed them to some of the very

dangers that the members of the founding generation predicted. And of course it's easy enough to declare independence. I don't want to understate

the significance of Jefferson's achievement, the achievement of the members of the the

achievement of the members of the Continental Congress who adopted his Declaration of

Independence.

But it's one thing to say that you've thought for the revolution.

There are also those who had to fight for the revolution.

And it's worth remembering.

I was talking to someone just a few minutes ago about this,

it's worth remembering that these individuals who we nowadays see on the dollar bill or on Mount Rushmore who have you know

monuments dedicated to their honor at the title basin in Washington DC these

individuals were violent revolutionaries. These individuals, you know Washington

wooden teeth, the ultimate establishment man was a violent

...