What the Founders Really Meant to Say

Breaking History

The Free Press

History

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Robert Parkinson is a historian at SUNY Binghamton who has spent 25 years studying the American Revolutionary period. His new book, Tyrants and Rogues, arrives just in time for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence — and it argues that we’ve been reading that document wrong for most of those 250 years. In this episode, Parkinson explains why the 27 grievances that follow the famous preamble are the real heart of the Declaration, what Congress actually debated and deleted from Thomas Jefferson’s original draft, and why someone in that room made sure race would be the last and most explosive grievance on the list. He also explains why those grievances, written in panic and desperation in the summer of 1776, feel newly urgent today. Limited time: download Supremacy: World War 3 for free via our link and get an exclusive Elite Bomber Seasonal Unit worth $25 - but only for the next 30 days: https://con.onelink.me/kZW6/z3mcjbhb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey listeners, this is Eli. We're still working on our first kind of multi-part season of the narrative
0:05.5	stuff for breaking history, but we're still doing these interviews. And we've got a good one
0:08.7	that you're about to listen to. It's Robert Parkinson. He's got a great new book,
0:12.9	Rogues and Tyrants, which is about the Declaration of Independence and his thesis that,
0:18.0	forget the preamble. Let's look at the meat of the document. Anyway, I think you'll really enjoy this conversation.
0:23.1	And here's a remix version of an AI track that I did before we get started, all about the Declaration.
0:31.2	Enjoy.
0:31.6	We hold these troops to be self-ever.
0:36.2	We've got the right to choose our own present. They hold these guns to be self-ever. We got the right to choose our own presence.
0:39.3	They hold these guns to stop the king's medal.
0:43.3	You tax our tea and bucket our settlements.
0:47.3	Enough King George, you have no right.
0:51.3	If you don't need, we're gonna fight fight. And nothing's joy. It's over now. Your
0:59.0	tyranny is coming down. Like you, we care a lot about craftsmanship at breaking history, how things used to be made, and whether that still matters today.
1:12.8	Which raises a fair question, can you still build something well on purpose in America?
1:18.5	Today's sponsor is doing exactly that.
1:21.7	There, that's V-A-E-R, was founded in Los Angeles with a mission to revive American watchmaking, and they've actually
1:30.0	pulled it off. There is now the largest independent watch assembler in the USA, building watches
1:37.4	across California, Arizona, Rhode Island, and Alabama, with leather straps made in Illinois
1:43.1	and Florida.
1:50.9	Now, I have to tell you something, I happen to have a beautiful DS2 meridian black ver.
1:56.2	It's quartz 39 millimeter, and I get compliments on it all the time.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 5 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Free Press, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Free Press and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.