Post Due: Tues., Oct. 10.

Thank for your insightful responses to the biographies of two great “Renaissance Men,” Benjamin Franklin and Venture Smith. As several of you pointed out, both were successful Americans and became successful through hard work. Franklin took full advantage of his access to books and taught himself how to read and write in a masterly way. Venture never learned to read.  His autobiography was copied down by someone who was interested in his story, who wrote his story for him. 

This week we turn to America’s remarkable break from British rule with the Revolutionary War (1776-1783). In some ways, it’s similar to the current fight for political independence that Ukraine is waging against an all-powerful Russian army under President Putin, who refuses to allow this claim to freedom. 

The Revolutionary War officially starts in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson (and edited by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin).  The Declaration claims that “All men are created equal,” but, ironically, Jefferson was himself a slave-holder (and had several children with his enslaved mistress Sally Hemings). 

In the original draft of the Declaration, Jefferson blames the King of England for the slave trade, but this section (see section below) was cut out. In the end, neither the Declaration of Independence nor The Constitution (1789) (which established the three branches of government and included a Bill of Rights – the first 10 Amendments) abolished slavery in America.

Section Against Slavery – Cut from the Declaration of Independence

King George III has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people [Africans] who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold […]

For this week, I ask you to (1) read the Declaration of Independence, focusing on its key message:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent & inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”

(2) Read Phyllis Wheatley’s “Biography” and her most famous poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America”  She is America’s first published poet, who wrote her poems while enslaved.

(3) Read this brief letter that Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, wrote to her husband “to remember the ladies” when he was working with Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence.

(4) Watch my Video lecture on colonial New York Print Culture and Venture Smith. I produced this talk for an academic conference held in New York in 2020.

For next week’s post (due Tues., Oct. 10), I ask you to reflect on our founding documents (Declaration of Independence and the Constitution) and the back stories of Abigail Adams, Phyllis Wheatley, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Venture Smith. In your post, discuss what you think works best (or is not working well at all) in America in regards to the workings of government or how it serves its citizens. Feel free to focus on women’s rights; human rights, election issues; the functioning of the Executive, Judiciary or Legislative Branches; the positive (or negative) legacies of the Declaration and/or Constitution; or perhaps connections to the Ukrainian fight for freedom.

To clarify the assignment a bit more. I’m asking that you reflect on the contradictions of our country as written in the documents you have been reading. A comment perhaps on how women did not get full rights in the Declaration and how they still lack full equality today (provide an example or two). You could also discuss a particular text as it relates to the Declaration or the US Constitution. You might want to focus, for example, on the notorious 3/5 clause in the Constitution (pertaining to slavery) . For those who have followed the craziness of the Republicans pushing out House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, you could speak to the dysfunction of our various gov’t branches (or the possibility of having a President who is a convicted criminal and perhaps even runs the country from jail). Is this what the framers of the Constitution intended?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.