December 7, 2025 • 27 mins
Newt talks with Walter Isaacson, bestselling author and historian, about his new book, "The Greatest Sentence Ever Written," which explores the creation and significance of one of history’s most powerful sentences: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” from the Declaration of Independence. Isaacson emphasizes the importance of this sentence as a unifying mission statement for America, especially as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary. The book delves into the historical context and the collaborative efforts of figures like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams in crafting this foundational sentence. Isaacson argues that understanding and reflecting on this sentence can help bridge current political divides and foster a renewed sense of patriotism. Their discussion also touches on the broader impact of the Declaration of Independence as a universal document advocating for individual rights and democratic governance. Isaacson's work aims to inspire dialogue and reflection on America's founding principles as the country prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
On this episode of News World. I'm very pleased to
walk as my guest, my good friend, and somebody I've
worked with, I think for thirty years. He is the
best selling author of biographies of Elon Musk, Jennifer Dudna,
Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein. He's
a professor of history at Tulane and was the CEO
(00:28):
of the Aspen Institute, the chair of CNN, and the
editor of Time magazine. And he was awarded the National
Humanities Medal in twenty twenty three. I'm really delighted that
he's joining me today to discuss his new book, a
New York Times bestseller, The Greatest Sentence ever written, which
is so appropriate for this time as we look at
(00:51):
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. This is a book
that should be central to how we approach this It
takes readers on a fascinating deep dive into the creation
of one of history's most powerful sentences. Quote. We hold
these truths to be self evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with
(01:12):
certain unfiable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. Quarter. Welcome and thank you in
(01:34):
the middle of your business schedule for joining me again
on news World.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know it's great to be with you, and I
know how much of a historian you are like me.
You taught history at Tulane, and you know the importance
of a sentence like that of being our mission statement
as we in our two hundred and fiftieth year.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Your timing could hardly be better. And it's such a
break from the biographies that you've been doing. And yet
when I read it, I was fascinated with how you
took it apart. What made you decide to take this
one sentence and turn it into a book.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
I think it's important that we celebrate our two hundred
and fiftieth in a way that unifies us and brings
us together rather than divides us, because we've had such
a poisonous period in our politics. Well, we're so divided,
and sometimes history has been used to divide us. I
picked this topic because we're going into the two hundred
(02:31):
and fiftieth and I don't think we've made enough plans
to say, how can we use this as a mechanism
for understanding what our common values are you? And I
can remember after the horrible periods of Vietnam and Watergate
and the assassinations of Kennedy's and Kings and the riots,
we came together under Gerald Ford to do the bi centennial.
(02:53):
We need to get a movement going to say let's
do that again for the two fiftieth.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
This is really the year to celebrate patriotism and to
have everybody, whatever your ideology or your background, they have
everybody understand that at its heart America is a romantic
idea and that patriotism is what binds us together. And
I think this book is a real contribution. But it
(03:18):
fascinates me because you know, you can approach this from
one hundred angles. You decided to dive in, go past
everything else, and pick one sentence. How did that come
to you?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, when I was doing Benjamin Franklin about twenty years ago,
I noticed that he had done an edit of the
first draft of the Declaration of Independence that Jefferson wrote
in late June of seventeen seventy six. And that edit
was totally fascinating, especially of what I think of as
the mission statement, the aspiration statement of our country. And
(03:53):
Jefferson had written, we hold these truths to be sacred,
And there's Franklin's printer spin crossing out sacred in putting
self evidence. He wanted to say our rights come from rationality,
not that dictates of religion. But the sentence goes on
to talk about being endowed with rights and John Adams
rights endowed by their creator with rights. And so I
(04:15):
was amazed at how just in crafting this sentence that
becomes our creed is a nation. They were balancing things,
and you've talked about we need to all come together
in times of patriotism, especially like this. It's not simply
about everybody being centrist. You have a very strong ideology,
(04:36):
but you work in a civil way with people with
different ideologies. We have to regain that ability to work
across different ideologies. But saying well one nation, that sentence
and its editing stuck with me for twenty years, and
I said, if we parse this sentence, what do we
mean by we, what do we mean by created equal?
(04:58):
What do we mean by the suit of happiness? Then
the sentence wouldn't be just like something we chant along
without thinking about it, like him or prayer we've said
too much in church or synagogue. But we could think
about the deep, profound meaning of this beautiful sentence.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
By the way, put in a brief plug. My daughter,
Jackie Cushman, chairs the Commission on John Adams. She was
thrilled by your book. In fact, she was waiting. We
did FaceTime earlier today and she was waving it. I'd
be I said, I was going to talk to you
later other day.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, you know, Congress created in June of seventy six
a committee to declare why we're having the revolution, And
with all due respect to your time as speakership, it
maybe the last time Congress created a really good committee.
It's got John Adams, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
It's pretty hard to argue that any other three people
would outweigh them in terms of wisdom and knowledge. But
I'm curious you take this sentence and you get us
to understand I think this process thing is important. This
wasn't automatically coming out of a rock or lightning. These
(06:10):
were three really smart people who had thought about this
for a long time, and they're evolving even in writing
this one sentence. They're evolving what is going to become America?
And it takes conversation, it takes compromise, it takes creativity.
(06:32):
And I think that's part of what people don't understand,
that the legislative political process inevitably has to involve people
finding a common ground to do this stuff. But I
think your experience in going through this and looking at
it has to have in a sense, stunned you with
just how really wise these people were, how remarkable we
(06:55):
were to have them.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
What they understood was the concept of balance, which is
that they're contending forces, contending values that we have to
deal with. And they were scientists. Ben Franklin was the
best experimental scientist of the time. Jefferson was a great scientist,
and they studied Newton and the idea that forces can
be contending, but you find an equilibrium. Just as I
(07:17):
said about them putting in truth being self evident, but
putting in creator. That's creating a balance between the role
of divine providence and the role of rationality. Ben Franklin
said at the time of the Constitution, compromisers may not
make great heroes, but they do make great democracies. So
we have to learn how to balance our contending values.
(07:40):
The sentence shows us how to do it because it's
a living, breathing sentence. It's something we have to aspire
to each new generation to make it more true.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
There's Gary Willis who makes the argument that what Lincoln
does is resurrects the Declaration, which in many ways had
been surpassed by the Constitution as the central organizing document.
And Lincoln goes back and basically re educates us into
(08:11):
the moral framework of the founding Fathers and the degree
to which this was really a call to an astonishingly
different world than the world.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And Gary Wills does it very well, many many years ago,
because what happens four score and seven years after they
write that sentence. Lincoln invokes it at the Gettysburg Cemetery
and he said, we created a new type of nation,
conceived in liberty and dedicated the proposition that all men
are created equal. Well, it wasn't actually true at the
(08:47):
time of that sentence. Jefferson writes it. He's enslaving four
hundred people. But what Lincoln is doing on that battlefield
cemetery is using the sentence as a forcing mechanism, because
he's bare carrying more than seven thousand people who had
died to make that sentence more true. And that's the
(09:07):
arc of American history is each generation saying can we
get closer to that?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Aspiration fits exactly the concern you're expressing about coming together
as patriots. Again, could you point out that the declaration's
opening word we reappear as in the Constitution as we
the people. In your mind, what was the significance of
this dual recognition of the word wei?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
That is so crucial.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
That's the most important word there, Because up until that time,
nations on Earth were formed by the divine right of
kings or the governance came from conquerors or swords. What
they did is they pick up the notion of social
contract theory, which I think you taught and you know
so well it comes from Hobbes and John Locke others,
(10:00):
which is a true governance of society comes from a
social contract. Will we all agree to enter into a government,
give up some of our rights in order to have
a civil society. No nation had been created that way
as a constitutional, democratic republic that was based on the
(10:22):
consent of the govern So when they start we hold
these truths, or eleven years later, when they say we
the people, we doesn't just mean fifty or sixty people
hanging around in Philadelphia. It means a social contract that
was the basis for a moral, governing society.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Wasn't this a universalistic document. It's not actually aimed at
the Americans. It is defining for the Americans a universal truth.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It's defining for the world because in the previous sentence,
the first sentence, it says, with a decent respect for
the opinions of mankind, they're explaining how we're creating a
new type of nation. And back then we were the
only one that.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Was that way.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
But over the course of two hundred years or so,
most nations on Earth began to resemble this notion where
we defend individual rights, the rights of liberty of each individual,
and yet we come together in a civil society to
govern ourselves as a representative democracy.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
You've covered the news. You've had remarkable exposure to most
of the major media that we've used in our lifetime
to communicate the news. How do we get the country
to understanding these kind of simple, basic truths. This isn't
exactly TikTok, it's not even X or truth social it's
(12:10):
not the daily news put out in three minute bites
but yet somehow this sentence and the document that is
in is at the very core of whether or not
this country.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Will survive precisely. That's why I wrote it. That's why
I think our two hundred and fiftieth is a great opportunity.
I worry that we're not really using it. I know,
back when you were in government, we probably would have
had a bi centennial commission, as we did fifty years ago,
that were people of all parties and community leaders, and
(12:44):
we'd have bi centennial moments on TV and tall ships
in our ports and fireworks.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
I think we need.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
To quickly get movie so that we use this two
hundred and fiftieth birthday as our nation to reassert the
patriotism that most of us feel, to reassert the values
that underlie our nation, and those values are embodied in
the sentence.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
But I'm hoping many people can do it. You can
do it.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
You're doing it on this podcast, John Meacha, my friend
is doing it bringing out a book. Ken Burns is
doing it by bringing out a documentary. I don't think Washington,
the government right now, is paying much attention to it.
I'm trying to get the National Archives to take the
first draft of the Declaration, which isn't the Library of
Congress and display them together, and that can all be
(13:34):
a way that each of us in each community.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
I've gone around. I just came back from Dallas.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I've been in San Antonio and Austin and then Nashville.
I'm trying to encourage each community to say, how are
we going to celebrate.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Who we are as a nation for our big birthday.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
I felt that it almost has to be looking to
the past and looking into the future. I mean, while
we're want to celebrate two hundred and fifty years, we
also want to say and what we have learned from
that gives us a chance to create an even better
two hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Especially coming out of what I think is our biggest
problem today, which is the polarization that's been caused by
everything from social media and talk radio to the way
we do our politics. How are we going to come
out of this very divisive period which is similar to
the one we went through a little bit more than
fifty years ago with Vietnam, Watergate and the assassinations. And
(14:32):
we can remember the lines when they sign that declaration.
John Hancock says, as he puts his big signature on it.
With all the forces contending to divide us, how do
we hang together? And Franklin, who's very witty, refers to
what's going to happen to him if they don't do it.
He said, yes, assuredly, we must all hang together, or
(14:55):
must assuredly we'll all hang separately. How do we use
this event to take some of the poison out of
our discourse and say, get rid of that poison that
comes from social media sometimes in the politics, the politicians
who are trying to enrage us and play on our resentments.
Let's all remember when one nation with a really great
(15:17):
mission statement, and that's the Declaration, how.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Do you explain to people when they do raise the
legitimate fact that for example, here's Jefferson writing about freedom
and about being given to us by our creator, Well
he does own slaves.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, I mean, this is the thing we have to
wrestle with American history, and we have to look at
the narrative of the history, the arc of the history,
because no, that sentence was not actually true when they
wrote it, and Jefferson knew it, as you know.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
He writes in the.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Declaration a lot of words decrying slavery and they have
to take it out in order that Southern votes. And yes,
people are complicated. I've written about Elon Musk, I've written
about Steve Jobs. I've written about people, and Shakespeare teaches
us people are complex. Even our heroes have dark strands.
(16:15):
Henry the Fifth kills all the prisoners from France. So
we have to realize that we weren't born perfect, but
we were given an aspirational statement. And so whether it's
at Gettysburg when Lincoln uses that statement to move forward
so that we can end slavery, or whether it's in
the nineteen twenties when the suffragettes use that statement, this
(16:37):
sentence to move us forward to women get to be
included in all manner created equal. We have to look
at the narrative of history, how in fits and start.
Sometimes we go forward, sometimes we go back. But the
general arc of history, as Thaddeus Stevens, the Abolitionist said,
and doctor King quoted him as saying, the arc of
(17:00):
history bends towards justice, but only if we bend it.
And that's what this sentence helps us to do.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Hopefully this book will help create a dialogue. People have
got to come out of their shells, and instead of
just yelling things at each other, they have to have
a genuine mutual curiosity and getting them I think to
take seriously the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary and to
ask why has this system been so amazing? Why has
(17:30):
it been able to absorb so many different people? Why
has it been possible for people to rise in ways
that would have been impossible in much of the world.
I think that this kind of book we get people
to slow down and realize the folks who put this
together were very wise, and they had spent a long
(17:51):
time thinking about it, and they had studied a lot
of history. And if we will sort of steal from
their wisdom, we can have a dramatically better country.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Right, we all have to dedicate ourselves to it.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
You've done a lot of documentaries, documentaries about what makes
America work, whether it's a documentary is about immigration, or
about our founding or about our history. I'm so glad
you're saying that this is this opportunity to get everybody
discussing it in a civil way, because despite all of
our divides, I think most Americans, eighty percent of Americans
(18:31):
can basically agree on the fundamental values, even if they
disagree on how to approach it, and they can have
civil discussion about what's in commons? What do we share
in commons? And I write about common ground in the
book because that's what this sentence is. But common ground
is also the goods and services that we keep in commons,
(18:52):
whether it be having a good K through twelve education system,
or good libraries, or fire or police protection. And then
we have to debate on the edges how much should
healthcare be in the commons?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Like that?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Well, those are good debates to have. But if you
frame it the way the founders did, as this is
a question of what we want to have in commons,
then I think our debates could be more civil and
we could show the balance and wisdom that they showed.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So I have to ask you, you know so many
different things, and you have sort of had a knack
of picking very interesting people to I biographies about it,
and given the authoritative and deep books that you write,
in order to deal with these brilliant people, you've had
to learn an enormous amount. Is there any common lesson
(20:03):
or common observation as you look back on all these
personalities that you've now spent your life with.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yes, it's not the ability to be smart, because you
and I know a lot of smart people, they often
don't amount to much. It's the ability to think out
of the box, to be creative, to be imaginative, to
do things at AI won't do. And that's what Einstein does.
He's sitting there. Anything's out of the box that maybe
time is relative depending on your state of motion or
(20:32):
Elon must does.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
So.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I think that ability to have a reality distortion field,
to think different, as Steve Jobs said, that is what
humans bring to it is this intuitive creativity that allows
you to just come with an out of the box idea. Leonardo,
one of my other favorite subjects, did it well. And
(20:53):
to get back to the greatest sentence ever written, that's
what Ben Franklin, when I was writing his biography talk
about innovation. Look, rocket ships that can land on their
own platform, or iPods, those are innovations. But the greatest
innovation ever is to take the social contract theory and
to create a democratic republic that depends on we the people.
(21:17):
And that innovation is what we're going to be celebrating
next year.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, I think in that sense, if you think of
America as an invention.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Bingo, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
You know, you begin to realize what an astonishing gift
we've been given, you know, the yuk and I, our children,
our grandchildren, our friends and neighbors have been given this
gift of self government, and this gift of mutual acceptance
that our rights come from a divine basis, can't be
taken away by politicians, by lobbyists, by bureaucrats, by billionaires,
(21:52):
because every single person of every background has been endowed
by their creator. And of course what you do in
this book is you take us deep into this miraculous
belief that these handful of extraordinary people put together in
a single document that's available to anybody on the entire planet.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I think we should all read the declaration often in
this coming year, and we should all read this particular
sentence and think of the profound wisdom in it, because,
as I said, they weren't necessarily just smart. They were innovative.
They realized they could film a new type of government,
(22:34):
and they were wise, which is what you mentioned earlier
in the show, meaning even though they had strong beliefs,
they knew how to do the balances that were necessary
to keep a democratic republic alive, and I think we've
lost a lot of their talent of balance, of tolerance,
(22:58):
of respect of civility. Your show is about that, Our
country is about that. And I'll say one thing about
Benjamin Franklin near the inn now we talk about being
a nation of respect for individual rights. During his lifetime,
Benjamin Franklin donated to the building fund of each and
(23:20):
every church built in Philadelphia. And at one point they
were creating a new hall for preachers that were coming
around from the First Great Awakening, and he wrote the
fundraising document he said, even if the muff Tie of
Constantinople were to send somebody to teach us Islam and
about the prophet Mohammed, we should listen and we might learn.
(23:41):
And on his deathbed, he's the largest individual contributor to
the congregation Mick the israel For Synagogue in Philadelphia. So
when he dies, instead of his minister accompany his casket
to the grave, all thirty five ministers, preachers and priests
link arms with the Rabbi of the Jews and march
with him to the grave. That's the type of civil society,
(24:02):
that's the type of respect for individual liberty. They were
creating back then, and that's what next year, in our
two hundred and fiftieth we have to remember, we're still
trying to hang on to today.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
You have done an extraordinary civic service by writing this,
and I hesitate to come down from the moral high ground,
but I can't resist. Do you have a new book,
come mined?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I actually do.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I love science, I love invention and how science helps humanity,
and I'm doing a book now. I'm totally immersed in
on Marie Curie because she is the only person to
win the Nobel in two different sciences, physics and chemistry.
She basically shows that physics and chemistry are actually the same.
And I'm going through all of her notebooks to find
(24:52):
out exactly how did she make the leaps of the
imagination and then how did she apply it. She comes
up with the notion of radioi activity, and we now
use it to cure cancer and of course for power
and weapons, so that notion of moving from theory into practice,
she and Einstein set the stage for the twentieth century.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
I'm doing her next.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
That's amazing. I look forward and hope you'll come back
and help educate us even more. But in the interim,
I just want to remind everyone that the greatest sentence
ever written is available now in Amazon, in bookstores everywhere.
It's already a New York Times bestseller. It's a perfect
set piece, I think for entering into the two hundred
(25:37):
and fiftieth birthday. And by the way, I want to
tell folks, you will be at Politics and Prose the
bookstore in Washington on December seventh. You'll be at Melbour's
in New Orleans on December twelfth. So anybody's looking for
an amazing holiday gift for friends or family, I encourage
them to come and see you and buy several copies.
And if they can't get to the two bookstores, go
(25:58):
to one of the online places. But knowing you as
a genuine honor.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Hey, I feel the same back at you. Thank you
everything over so many years, Nut.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I look forward to it. I appreciate very much your
joining me today.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Thank you, and happy birthday to our country.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Thank you to my guests. Walter Isaac Summer Newtsworld is
produced by Ganingrish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer
is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork
for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks
to the team of Gaingrish three sixty. If you've been
enjoying Nuts World, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts
(26:39):
and both rate us with five stars and give us
a review so others can learn what it's all about.
Join me on subseet at Gingrich three sixty dot net.
I'm Nut Gingrich. This is newts World.
On this episode of News World. I'm very pleased to
walk as my guest, my good friend, and somebody I've
worked with, I think for thirty years. He is the
best selling author of biographies of Elon Musk, Jennifer Dudna,
Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein. He's
a professor of history at Tulane and was the CEO
(00:28):
of the Aspen Institute, the chair of CNN, and the
editor of Time magazine. And he was awarded the National
Humanities Medal in twenty twenty three. I'm really delighted that
he's joining me today to discuss his new book, a
New York Times bestseller, The Greatest Sentence ever written, which
is so appropriate for this time as we look at
(00:51):
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. This is a book
that should be central to how we approach this It
takes readers on a fascinating deep dive into the creation
of one of history's most powerful sentences. Quote. We hold
these truths to be self evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with
(01:12):
certain unfiable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. Quarter. Welcome and thank you in
(01:34):
the middle of your business schedule for joining me again
on news World.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know it's great to be with you, and I
know how much of a historian you are like me.
You taught history at Tulane, and you know the importance
of a sentence like that of being our mission statement
as we in our two hundred and fiftieth year.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Your timing could hardly be better. And it's such a
break from the biographies that you've been doing. And yet
when I read it, I was fascinated with how you
took it apart. What made you decide to take this
one sentence and turn it into a book.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
I think it's important that we celebrate our two hundred
and fiftieth in a way that unifies us and brings
us together rather than divides us, because we've had such
a poisonous period in our politics. Well, we're so divided,
and sometimes history has been used to divide us. I
picked this topic because we're going into the two hundred
(02:31):
and fiftieth and I don't think we've made enough plans
to say, how can we use this as a mechanism
for understanding what our common values are you? And I
can remember after the horrible periods of Vietnam and Watergate
and the assassinations of Kennedy's and Kings and the riots,
we came together under Gerald Ford to do the bi centennial.
(02:53):
We need to get a movement going to say let's
do that again for the two fiftieth.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
This is really the year to celebrate patriotism and to
have everybody, whatever your ideology or your background, they have
everybody understand that at its heart America is a romantic
idea and that patriotism is what binds us together. And
I think this book is a real contribution. But it
(03:18):
fascinates me because you know, you can approach this from
one hundred angles. You decided to dive in, go past
everything else, and pick one sentence. How did that come
to you?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, when I was doing Benjamin Franklin about twenty years ago,
I noticed that he had done an edit of the
first draft of the Declaration of Independence that Jefferson wrote
in late June of seventeen seventy six. And that edit
was totally fascinating, especially of what I think of as
the mission statement, the aspiration statement of our country. And
(03:53):
Jefferson had written, we hold these truths to be sacred,
And there's Franklin's printer spin crossing out sacred in putting
self evidence. He wanted to say our rights come from rationality,
not that dictates of religion. But the sentence goes on
to talk about being endowed with rights and John Adams
rights endowed by their creator with rights. And so I
(04:15):
was amazed at how just in crafting this sentence that
becomes our creed is a nation. They were balancing things,
and you've talked about we need to all come together
in times of patriotism, especially like this. It's not simply
about everybody being centrist. You have a very strong ideology,
(04:36):
but you work in a civil way with people with
different ideologies. We have to regain that ability to work
across different ideologies. But saying well one nation, that sentence
and its editing stuck with me for twenty years, and
I said, if we parse this sentence, what do we
mean by we, what do we mean by created equal?
(04:58):
What do we mean by the suit of happiness? Then
the sentence wouldn't be just like something we chant along
without thinking about it, like him or prayer we've said
too much in church or synagogue. But we could think
about the deep, profound meaning of this beautiful sentence.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
By the way, put in a brief plug. My daughter,
Jackie Cushman, chairs the Commission on John Adams. She was
thrilled by your book. In fact, she was waiting. We
did FaceTime earlier today and she was waving it. I'd
be I said, I was going to talk to you
later other day.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, you know, Congress created in June of seventy six
a committee to declare why we're having the revolution, And
with all due respect to your time as speakership, it
maybe the last time Congress created a really good committee.
It's got John Adams, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
It's pretty hard to argue that any other three people
would outweigh them in terms of wisdom and knowledge. But
I'm curious you take this sentence and you get us
to understand I think this process thing is important. This
wasn't automatically coming out of a rock or lightning. These
(06:10):
were three really smart people who had thought about this
for a long time, and they're evolving even in writing
this one sentence. They're evolving what is going to become America?
And it takes conversation, it takes compromise, it takes creativity.
(06:32):
And I think that's part of what people don't understand,
that the legislative political process inevitably has to involve people
finding a common ground to do this stuff. But I
think your experience in going through this and looking at
it has to have in a sense, stunned you with
just how really wise these people were, how remarkable we
(06:55):
were to have them.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
What they understood was the concept of balance, which is
that they're contending forces, contending values that we have to
deal with. And they were scientists. Ben Franklin was the
best experimental scientist of the time. Jefferson was a great scientist,
and they studied Newton and the idea that forces can
be contending, but you find an equilibrium. Just as I
(07:17):
said about them putting in truth being self evident, but
putting in creator. That's creating a balance between the role
of divine providence and the role of rationality. Ben Franklin
said at the time of the Constitution, compromisers may not
make great heroes, but they do make great democracies. So
we have to learn how to balance our contending values.
(07:40):
The sentence shows us how to do it because it's
a living, breathing sentence. It's something we have to aspire
to each new generation to make it more true.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
There's Gary Willis who makes the argument that what Lincoln
does is resurrects the Declaration, which in many ways had
been surpassed by the Constitution as the central organizing document.
And Lincoln goes back and basically re educates us into
(08:11):
the moral framework of the founding Fathers and the degree
to which this was really a call to an astonishingly
different world than the world.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And Gary Wills does it very well, many many years ago,
because what happens four score and seven years after they
write that sentence. Lincoln invokes it at the Gettysburg Cemetery
and he said, we created a new type of nation,
conceived in liberty and dedicated the proposition that all men
are created equal. Well, it wasn't actually true at the
(08:47):
time of that sentence. Jefferson writes it. He's enslaving four
hundred people. But what Lincoln is doing on that battlefield
cemetery is using the sentence as a forcing mechanism, because
he's bare carrying more than seven thousand people who had
died to make that sentence more true. And that's the
(09:07):
arc of American history is each generation saying can we
get closer to that?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Aspiration fits exactly the concern you're expressing about coming together
as patriots. Again, could you point out that the declaration's
opening word we reappear as in the Constitution as we
the people. In your mind, what was the significance of
this dual recognition of the word wei?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
That is so crucial.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
That's the most important word there, Because up until that time,
nations on Earth were formed by the divine right of
kings or the governance came from conquerors or swords. What
they did is they pick up the notion of social
contract theory, which I think you taught and you know
so well it comes from Hobbes and John Locke others,
(10:00):
which is a true governance of society comes from a
social contract. Will we all agree to enter into a government,
give up some of our rights in order to have
a civil society. No nation had been created that way
as a constitutional, democratic republic that was based on the
(10:22):
consent of the govern So when they start we hold
these truths, or eleven years later, when they say we
the people, we doesn't just mean fifty or sixty people
hanging around in Philadelphia. It means a social contract that
was the basis for a moral, governing society.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Wasn't this a universalistic document. It's not actually aimed at
the Americans. It is defining for the Americans a universal truth.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It's defining for the world because in the previous sentence,
the first sentence, it says, with a decent respect for
the opinions of mankind, they're explaining how we're creating a
new type of nation. And back then we were the
only one that.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Was that way.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
But over the course of two hundred years or so,
most nations on Earth began to resemble this notion where
we defend individual rights, the rights of liberty of each individual,
and yet we come together in a civil society to
govern ourselves as a representative democracy.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
You've covered the news. You've had remarkable exposure to most
of the major media that we've used in our lifetime
to communicate the news. How do we get the country
to understanding these kind of simple, basic truths. This isn't
exactly TikTok, it's not even X or truth social it's
(12:10):
not the daily news put out in three minute bites
but yet somehow this sentence and the document that is
in is at the very core of whether or not
this country.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Will survive precisely. That's why I wrote it. That's why
I think our two hundred and fiftieth is a great opportunity.
I worry that we're not really using it. I know,
back when you were in government, we probably would have
had a bi centennial commission, as we did fifty years ago,
that were people of all parties and community leaders, and
(12:44):
we'd have bi centennial moments on TV and tall ships
in our ports and fireworks.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
I think we need.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
To quickly get movie so that we use this two
hundred and fiftieth birthday as our nation to reassert the
patriotism that most of us feel, to reassert the values
that underlie our nation, and those values are embodied in
the sentence.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
But I'm hoping many people can do it. You can
do it.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
You're doing it on this podcast, John Meacha, my friend
is doing it bringing out a book. Ken Burns is
doing it by bringing out a documentary. I don't think Washington,
the government right now, is paying much attention to it.
I'm trying to get the National Archives to take the
first draft of the Declaration, which isn't the Library of
Congress and display them together, and that can all be
(13:34):
a way that each of us in each community.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
I've gone around. I just came back from Dallas.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I've been in San Antonio and Austin and then Nashville.
I'm trying to encourage each community to say, how are
we going to celebrate.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Who we are as a nation for our big birthday.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
I felt that it almost has to be looking to
the past and looking into the future. I mean, while
we're want to celebrate two hundred and fifty years, we
also want to say and what we have learned from
that gives us a chance to create an even better
two hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Especially coming out of what I think is our biggest
problem today, which is the polarization that's been caused by
everything from social media and talk radio to the way
we do our politics. How are we going to come
out of this very divisive period which is similar to
the one we went through a little bit more than
fifty years ago with Vietnam, Watergate and the assassinations. And
(14:32):
we can remember the lines when they sign that declaration.
John Hancock says, as he puts his big signature on it.
With all the forces contending to divide us, how do
we hang together? And Franklin, who's very witty, refers to
what's going to happen to him if they don't do it.
He said, yes, assuredly, we must all hang together, or
(14:55):
must assuredly we'll all hang separately. How do we use
this event to take some of the poison out of
our discourse and say, get rid of that poison that
comes from social media sometimes in the politics, the politicians
who are trying to enrage us and play on our resentments.
Let's all remember when one nation with a really great
(15:17):
mission statement, and that's the Declaration, how.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Do you explain to people when they do raise the
legitimate fact that for example, here's Jefferson writing about freedom
and about being given to us by our creator, Well
he does own slaves.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, I mean, this is the thing we have to
wrestle with American history, and we have to look at
the narrative of the history, the arc of the history,
because no, that sentence was not actually true when they
wrote it, and Jefferson knew it, as you know.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
He writes in the.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Declaration a lot of words decrying slavery and they have
to take it out in order that Southern votes. And yes,
people are complicated. I've written about Elon Musk, I've written
about Steve Jobs. I've written about people, and Shakespeare teaches
us people are complex. Even our heroes have dark strands.
(16:15):
Henry the Fifth kills all the prisoners from France. So
we have to realize that we weren't born perfect, but
we were given an aspirational statement. And so whether it's
at Gettysburg when Lincoln uses that statement to move forward
so that we can end slavery, or whether it's in
the nineteen twenties when the suffragettes use that statement, this
(16:37):
sentence to move us forward to women get to be
included in all manner created equal. We have to look
at the narrative of history, how in fits and start.
Sometimes we go forward, sometimes we go back. But the
general arc of history, as Thaddeus Stevens, the Abolitionist said,
and doctor King quoted him as saying, the arc of
(17:00):
history bends towards justice, but only if we bend it.
And that's what this sentence helps us to do.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Hopefully this book will help create a dialogue. People have
got to come out of their shells, and instead of
just yelling things at each other, they have to have
a genuine mutual curiosity and getting them I think to
take seriously the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary and to
ask why has this system been so amazing? Why has
(17:30):
it been able to absorb so many different people? Why
has it been possible for people to rise in ways
that would have been impossible in much of the world.
I think that this kind of book we get people
to slow down and realize the folks who put this
together were very wise, and they had spent a long
(17:51):
time thinking about it, and they had studied a lot
of history. And if we will sort of steal from
their wisdom, we can have a dramatically better country.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Right, we all have to dedicate ourselves to it.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
You've done a lot of documentaries, documentaries about what makes
America work, whether it's a documentary is about immigration, or
about our founding or about our history. I'm so glad
you're saying that this is this opportunity to get everybody
discussing it in a civil way, because despite all of
our divides, I think most Americans, eighty percent of Americans
(18:31):
can basically agree on the fundamental values, even if they
disagree on how to approach it, and they can have
civil discussion about what's in commons? What do we share
in commons? And I write about common ground in the
book because that's what this sentence is. But common ground
is also the goods and services that we keep in commons,
(18:52):
whether it be having a good K through twelve education system,
or good libraries, or fire or police protection. And then
we have to debate on the edges how much should
healthcare be in the commons?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Like that?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Well, those are good debates to have. But if you
frame it the way the founders did, as this is
a question of what we want to have in commons,
then I think our debates could be more civil and
we could show the balance and wisdom that they showed.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So I have to ask you, you know so many
different things, and you have sort of had a knack
of picking very interesting people to I biographies about it,
and given the authoritative and deep books that you write,
in order to deal with these brilliant people, you've had
to learn an enormous amount. Is there any common lesson
(20:03):
or common observation as you look back on all these
personalities that you've now spent your life with.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yes, it's not the ability to be smart, because you
and I know a lot of smart people, they often
don't amount to much. It's the ability to think out
of the box, to be creative, to be imaginative, to
do things at AI won't do. And that's what Einstein does.
He's sitting there. Anything's out of the box that maybe
time is relative depending on your state of motion or
(20:32):
Elon must does.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
So.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I think that ability to have a reality distortion field,
to think different, as Steve Jobs said, that is what
humans bring to it is this intuitive creativity that allows
you to just come with an out of the box idea. Leonardo,
one of my other favorite subjects, did it well. And
(20:53):
to get back to the greatest sentence ever written, that's
what Ben Franklin, when I was writing his biography talk
about innovation. Look, rocket ships that can land on their
own platform, or iPods, those are innovations. But the greatest
innovation ever is to take the social contract theory and
to create a democratic republic that depends on we the people.
(21:17):
And that innovation is what we're going to be celebrating
next year.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, I think in that sense, if you think of
America as an invention.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Bingo, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
You know, you begin to realize what an astonishing gift
we've been given, you know, the yuk and I, our children,
our grandchildren, our friends and neighbors have been given this
gift of self government, and this gift of mutual acceptance
that our rights come from a divine basis, can't be
taken away by politicians, by lobbyists, by bureaucrats, by billionaires,
(21:52):
because every single person of every background has been endowed
by their creator. And of course what you do in
this book is you take us deep into this miraculous
belief that these handful of extraordinary people put together in
a single document that's available to anybody on the entire planet.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I think we should all read the declaration often in
this coming year, and we should all read this particular
sentence and think of the profound wisdom in it, because,
as I said, they weren't necessarily just smart. They were innovative.
They realized they could film a new type of government,
(22:34):
and they were wise, which is what you mentioned earlier
in the show, meaning even though they had strong beliefs,
they knew how to do the balances that were necessary
to keep a democratic republic alive, and I think we've
lost a lot of their talent of balance, of tolerance,
(22:58):
of respect of civility. Your show is about that, Our
country is about that. And I'll say one thing about
Benjamin Franklin near the inn now we talk about being
a nation of respect for individual rights. During his lifetime,
Benjamin Franklin donated to the building fund of each and
(23:20):
every church built in Philadelphia. And at one point they
were creating a new hall for preachers that were coming
around from the First Great Awakening, and he wrote the
fundraising document he said, even if the muff Tie of
Constantinople were to send somebody to teach us Islam and
about the prophet Mohammed, we should listen and we might learn.
(23:41):
And on his deathbed, he's the largest individual contributor to
the congregation Mick the israel For Synagogue in Philadelphia. So
when he dies, instead of his minister accompany his casket
to the grave, all thirty five ministers, preachers and priests
link arms with the Rabbi of the Jews and march
with him to the grave. That's the type of civil society,
(24:02):
that's the type of respect for individual liberty. They were
creating back then, and that's what next year, in our
two hundred and fiftieth we have to remember, we're still
trying to hang on to today.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
You have done an extraordinary civic service by writing this,
and I hesitate to come down from the moral high ground,
but I can't resist. Do you have a new book,
come mined?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I actually do.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I love science, I love invention and how science helps humanity,
and I'm doing a book now. I'm totally immersed in
on Marie Curie because she is the only person to
win the Nobel in two different sciences, physics and chemistry.
She basically shows that physics and chemistry are actually the same.
And I'm going through all of her notebooks to find
(24:52):
out exactly how did she make the leaps of the
imagination and then how did she apply it. She comes
up with the notion of radioi activity, and we now
use it to cure cancer and of course for power
and weapons, so that notion of moving from theory into practice,
she and Einstein set the stage for the twentieth century.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
I'm doing her next.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
That's amazing. I look forward and hope you'll come back
and help educate us even more. But in the interim,
I just want to remind everyone that the greatest sentence
ever written is available now in Amazon, in bookstores everywhere.
It's already a New York Times bestseller. It's a perfect
set piece, I think for entering into the two hundred
(25:37):
and fiftieth birthday. And by the way, I want to
tell folks, you will be at Politics and Prose the
bookstore in Washington on December seventh. You'll be at Melbour's
in New Orleans on December twelfth. So anybody's looking for
an amazing holiday gift for friends or family, I encourage
them to come and see you and buy several copies.
And if they can't get to the two bookstores, go
(25:58):
to one of the online places. But knowing you as
a genuine honor.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Hey, I feel the same back at you. Thank you
everything over so many years, Nut.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I look forward to it. I appreciate very much your
joining me today.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Thank you, and happy birthday to our country.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Thank you to my guests. Walter Isaac Summer Newtsworld is
produced by Ganingrish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer
is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork
for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks
to the team of Gaingrish three sixty. If you've been
enjoying Nuts World, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts
(26:39):
and both rate us with five stars and give us
a review so others can learn what it's all about.
Join me on subseet at Gingrich three sixty dot net.
I'm Nut Gingrich. This is newts World.
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