February 5, 2026 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, war had already broken out in the American colonies, but declaring independence meant crossing a line from which there could be no return. In this episode of our ongoing Story of America Series, Hillsdale College professor and author of Land of Hope, Bill McClay, shares the story of how the Continental Congress arrived at that momentous decision and why the Declaration of Independence became one of the most consequential documents in human history.
Drawing on the words of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, McClay explains how the Declaration was meant as both a justification to the world and a solemn pledge among its signers, men who knew they were committing treason and were willing to risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Up next, another story from our series about Us, the
Story of America. You're to tell it as Hillsdale College
professor Bill McLay, author of the terrific book Land of Hope.
(00:30):
If you know or have young people in your life,
check out his remarkable young readers edition too. When we
last left off, war had broken out in the colonies
and independence was about to come. Let's get into the story.
Take it away, Bill.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
With the colonity of Government's blessing and urging, the Continental
Congress introduced a motion or resolution directed towards independence. The
resolution passes on you by second, which John Adams declared
would be a na a day that would live in
the world's memory everything we do. On the fourth of July,
(01:09):
he thought would be able the second of fly How
did that happen? Well, because the fourth of July was
the day that the Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas
Jefferson with the aid of Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Well,
it was promulgated. This document that is really an explanation
(01:30):
to the world what we are doing and why we
were doing it. The Declaration of Independence was a document
whose momentous character was clear to everyone at the time.
The gentlemen who signed it, they say, we mutually pledge
(01:52):
to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Very powerful words. You can almost feel in them electricity
in the room as the document was being signed, first
of all with John Hancock's old signatures, of the King
could read it without his glasses. They were defiant, but
(02:17):
they were well aware of the fact that they were
committing treason. This was not going to end well for
one party or another. They were on a collision course
with destiny. Now they had to show great courage. They
must have felt trepidation. Maybe we can't really prevail in this.
(02:39):
I think an objective observer would have had to say
that the chances were very poor. So when they say, well,
you pledged to one another, our lives, are fortunes, and
our sacred honor, they're really saying that they're willing to
die together for this cause. It was a long time
(03:00):
building towards this. People are surprised that do you have
Lexington and conquered and yet Declaration of Independence isn't or
over a year later. It took that long for the
momentous decision that had to be made to crystallize, and
so to the declaration. The masterpiece, a masterpiece of political writing,
(03:20):
manifesto writing. Even it is regarded by most Americans as foundational.
The first part of it, which is probably the most
famous part, is Jefferson's effort to justify why a separation
of this kind is perfectly reasonable. He says, in the
(03:40):
course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands who connected them with another.
It almost is being presented as a child grows up.
A child grows up, and at a point becomes necessary
and good and healthy even for the son to leave
the father, for the child to leave the home and
(04:02):
make his or her own way in the world and
assume among the powers of the earth. Now back to
the nation, the separate and equal station to which the
laws of nature and Nature's God entitle them. Well, there
you have the introduction of God and nature. That's an
important element here, that that what we're doing is something
(04:23):
that accords with both natural law and divine will, and
that we're writing this because we want to explain ourselves.
A decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires they
should declare the causes which impeld them to the separation.
We're doing a press release here, with a press release
to the world, and he gets to a part of
(04:46):
the declaration that's often neglected, but the actual itemizing the
grievances against the mother country. But before we get to that,
Jefferson has a long paragraph which is famous. He says,
we hold these truths to be self evident, that all
(05:07):
men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain
unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happens. To
stop there for a second. He's saying that these rights
exist independent of governments. They're given to us by God.
They're unalienable rights. That means they're not given to us.
(05:29):
They can't be taken away. Legitimately, we can't even give
them away. These rights are part of cool in what
we are from the very beginning. That's a bold statement.
We have these rights inherent in our being. And then
when a government becomes destructive of the protection of these rights.
That's what governments are for. It's the right of the
(05:50):
people to alter or abolish it an institute new government.
This isn't just a matter of the sun growing up
and leaving the household. An injustice has been perpetrated, a
profounded justice. We have these rights. They're from the Creator,
They're from nature, they are our rights as englishmen. Taxation
(06:11):
without representation is inconsistent with the principles of English law.
We don't do this lightly. But when a long train
of abuses and use of patients pursuing this same object
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it's
their duty to throw off such government. And that's our situation.
(06:40):
That concludes, And we go on to say where the
union between the crown, political connection between the colonies and
the State of Great Britain is totally dissolved, and it's
free and independent states. The former colonies have full power
the levy, war, include peace, contract, alliances, all such things
(07:02):
which independent states. It's a quite momentous documents in small
wonder that the declaration is famous and admired and revered
all over the world. Has transcended the context of its time.
It's one of those handful of documents in human history.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And you've been listening to Hillsdale College Professor Bill McLay.
So much more to come here on our American Stories. Folks,
if you love the stories we tell about this great country,
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith are brought to us by the great
(07:45):
folks at Hillsdale College. And if you can't get to Hillsdale,
Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific
online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more.
(08:09):
And we returned to our American Stories and the story
of us. That is the story of America. Our series
will it continues with Professor Bill McLay. When we last
left off, America had declared her independence. Let's return to
the story. Here again is Bill McLay.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
The Declaration couldn't do everything. It didn't establish a government.
It suggests, and I just read this, that they United
Colonies are free and independent states. That's a plural. Does
that mean that Massachusetts was going to be a country,
Rhode Island was going to be a country, or if
(08:51):
they were going to be unified, how are they going
to be? The Declaration has nothing to say, By the way,
I don't know whether you ever think of about this,
but that's a very funny name for country, the United
States of America. There is this notion that the Declaration
itself kind of hints that that they're united, but there
are also independent states in some way, And how do
(09:15):
you get those two things both at the same time.
This was something the Declaration that didn't address in order
to address slavery. In one of Jefferson's drafts, it does
it blames the king, which was kind of ludicrous, and
perhaps for that reason, among others, was deleted. But it's
(09:36):
always been a bit of an embarrassment to have Thomas
Jefferson declaire in this document that all that are created
equal and not address himself to this institution that was
already pretty firmly established. So how do we read Jefferson's
words now? Was he pointing towards an ideal that he
(09:58):
hoped would be realized, or was he merely, as some
people argue, thinking Americans are equal to Englishmen and nothing
more than that. I don't want to be the one
to assert the definitive account of the interpretation of those words,
but I do want to quote from Larry Arne, the
(10:19):
President of Hillsdale College. It begins so universally with the
declaration of the rights that everyone has, so universally, and
its claim is that in any time people have certain
rights that cannot be violated, and those rights are established
(10:41):
in what he calls the laws of nature and of
Nature's God. It's saying that in your nature is written
your rights, that no one may govern you except by
your effective consent, that you own the government piece of it,
and that it may not do anything to you except
(11:02):
what you agree that it may do. Here are some
words of President Calvin Coolidge, speaking in nineteen twenty six
on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. There is something
(11:24):
beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that
event would be in the Declaration of Independence, which has
ever since caused it to be regarded as one of
the great charters, that not only was to liberate America
but everywhere to ennoble humanity. It was not because it
proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was
(11:46):
proposed to establish a nation on new principles first upon
the world. Unannounced. They're reached by a gradual development over
a length of time, usually proportionate to their importance. This
is especially true of the principles laid down in the
Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out
(12:08):
in It's pre mb the doctor that all men are
created equal, that they're endowed with their certain unalienable rights,
and that therefore the source of the just power of
government must be derived from the consent of the government.
He says about the Declaration, there is a finality. Is
(12:29):
often asserted, the world has made a great deal of
progress in seventeen seventy six, that we've had new thoughts
and new experiences which had given us a great advance
over the people of that day. We may therefore very
well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that
reasoning cannot be applied to this great Charter. If all
(12:49):
men are created equal, that's fine. If they're endowed with
unalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just
powers from the consent the government, that is fine. No advance,
no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone
wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only
(13:11):
direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward
but backward, backward toward the time when there was no equality,
no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.
Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient than
those of the revolutionary magnificent. And then here's what President
(13:33):
John Kennedy said about the declaration on July fourth at
Independence Hall. You and I are the executors of the
testament handed down by those who gathered in this historic
hall one hundred and eighty six years ago. For they
gathered to affix their names to a document which was
(13:54):
a ball hall else, a document not of rhetoric, but
of bold decision. It was, it's true, a document of protest,
but protests had been made before. It set forth their
grievances with eloquence. But such eloquence had been heard before.
Or distinguished this paper from all others was the final,
(14:15):
irrevocable decision that it took to assert the independence of
free states in place of colonies. Commit to that goal
their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Today, one
hundred eighty six years later, that declaration, whose yellowing parchment
and fading almost illegible lines I saw in the past
(14:37):
week in the National Archives in Washington, is still a
revolutionary document. To read it today is to hear a
comfort call. Its authors were highly conscious of its worldwide implications,
and George Washington declared that liberty and self government everywhere were,
(14:57):
in his words, finally date on the experiment entrusted to
the hands of the American people. The theory of independence
is as old as man himself. It was not invented
in this hall, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, But he was
in this hall that the theory became a practice, that
(15:18):
the word went out to all that the God who
gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.
But there's no better way to understand what the Declaration
of Independence meant to the people of the time than
an interview in eighteen forty three Captain Levi Preston, who
(15:39):
was ninety one at the time, fought the British in
Conquered in seventeen seventy five. Question Captain Preston, why did
you go to the Conquered fight the nineteenth of April
seventeen seventy five. The old man, bowed beneath the weight
of the years, raised himself upright and turning towards me,
the interviewer saying, why did I go? Yes, I replied
(16:04):
my histories tell me that you men of the revolution
took up arms against intolerable oppressions. What are they? Impressions?
I didn't feel them. What were you not oppressed by
the stamp at? I never saw one of those stamps?
Oh what about the T text T texts? I never
drank a drop of that stuff. The boys threw it
(16:27):
all overboard. And I suppose you've been reading Harrington or
Sydney or Locke about the eternal principles of liberty. I
never heard of them. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, Watts,
psalms and hymns, and the Almonac. Well, then, what was
the matter? What did you mean in going to fight,
(16:50):
young man? What we meant going for those Red coats
was this. We always had governed ourselves, and we always
meant to They didn't. We should. It was a revolution,
as I'd like to say, a revolution of self rule,
grounded in high principles but appealing to the weight of experience, and.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
A terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling by
our own Monty Montgomery himself a Hillsdale College graduate and
a special thanks to Bill McLay. He's a Hillsdale college
professor and his book, well, it's Land of Hope. It's terrific.
Pick it up an Amazon or the usual suspects. My goodness,
that last interview set it all. We were governing ourselves
(17:37):
and we meant to continue to do so. That's why
the war was fought, and in the end, that's why
the Declaration was signed. The story of us, the story
of America. Here on our American stories.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Up next, another story from our series about Us, the
Story of America. You're to tell it as Hillsdale College
professor Bill McLay, author of the terrific book Land of Hope.
(00:30):
If you know or have young people in your life,
check out his remarkable young readers edition too. When we
last left off, war had broken out in the colonies
and independence was about to come. Let's get into the story.
Take it away, Bill.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
With the colonity of Government's blessing and urging, the Continental
Congress introduced a motion or resolution directed towards independence. The
resolution passes on you by second, which John Adams declared
would be a na a day that would live in
the world's memory everything we do. On the fourth of July,
(01:09):
he thought would be able the second of fly How
did that happen? Well, because the fourth of July was
the day that the Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas
Jefferson with the aid of Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Well,
it was promulgated. This document that is really an explanation
(01:30):
to the world what we are doing and why we
were doing it. The Declaration of Independence was a document
whose momentous character was clear to everyone at the time.
The gentlemen who signed it, they say, we mutually pledge
(01:52):
to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Very powerful words. You can almost feel in them electricity
in the room as the document was being signed, first
of all with John Hancock's old signatures, of the King
could read it without his glasses. They were defiant, but
(02:17):
they were well aware of the fact that they were
committing treason. This was not going to end well for
one party or another. They were on a collision course
with destiny. Now they had to show great courage. They
must have felt trepidation. Maybe we can't really prevail in this.
(02:39):
I think an objective observer would have had to say
that the chances were very poor. So when they say, well,
you pledged to one another, our lives, are fortunes, and
our sacred honor, they're really saying that they're willing to
die together for this cause. It was a long time
(03:00):
building towards this. People are surprised that do you have
Lexington and conquered and yet Declaration of Independence isn't or
over a year later. It took that long for the
momentous decision that had to be made to crystallize, and
so to the declaration. The masterpiece, a masterpiece of political writing,
(03:20):
manifesto writing. Even it is regarded by most Americans as foundational.
The first part of it, which is probably the most
famous part, is Jefferson's effort to justify why a separation
of this kind is perfectly reasonable. He says, in the
(03:40):
course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands who connected them with another.
It almost is being presented as a child grows up.
A child grows up, and at a point becomes necessary
and good and healthy even for the son to leave
the father, for the child to leave the home and
(04:02):
make his or her own way in the world and
assume among the powers of the earth. Now back to
the nation, the separate and equal station to which the
laws of nature and Nature's God entitle them. Well, there
you have the introduction of God and nature. That's an
important element here, that that what we're doing is something
(04:23):
that accords with both natural law and divine will, and
that we're writing this because we want to explain ourselves.
A decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires they
should declare the causes which impeld them to the separation.
We're doing a press release here, with a press release
to the world, and he gets to a part of
(04:46):
the declaration that's often neglected, but the actual itemizing the
grievances against the mother country. But before we get to that,
Jefferson has a long paragraph which is famous. He says,
we hold these truths to be self evident, that all
(05:07):
men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain
unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happens. To
stop there for a second. He's saying that these rights
exist independent of governments. They're given to us by God.
They're unalienable rights. That means they're not given to us.
(05:29):
They can't be taken away. Legitimately, we can't even give
them away. These rights are part of cool in what
we are from the very beginning. That's a bold statement.
We have these rights inherent in our being. And then
when a government becomes destructive of the protection of these rights.
That's what governments are for. It's the right of the
(05:50):
people to alter or abolish it an institute new government.
This isn't just a matter of the sun growing up
and leaving the household. An injustice has been perpetrated, a
profounded justice. We have these rights. They're from the Creator,
They're from nature, they are our rights as englishmen. Taxation
(06:11):
without representation is inconsistent with the principles of English law.
We don't do this lightly. But when a long train
of abuses and use of patients pursuing this same object
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it's
their duty to throw off such government. And that's our situation.
(06:40):
That concludes, And we go on to say where the
union between the crown, political connection between the colonies and
the State of Great Britain is totally dissolved, and it's
free and independent states. The former colonies have full power
the levy, war, include peace, contract, alliances, all such things
(07:02):
which independent states. It's a quite momentous documents in small
wonder that the declaration is famous and admired and revered
all over the world. Has transcended the context of its time.
It's one of those handful of documents in human history.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And you've been listening to Hillsdale College Professor Bill McLay.
So much more to come here on our American Stories. Folks,
if you love the stories we tell about this great country,
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith are brought to us by the great
(07:45):
folks at Hillsdale College. And if you can't get to Hillsdale,
Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific
online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more.
(08:09):
And we returned to our American Stories and the story
of us. That is the story of America. Our series
will it continues with Professor Bill McLay. When we last
left off, America had declared her independence. Let's return to
the story. Here again is Bill McLay.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
The Declaration couldn't do everything. It didn't establish a government.
It suggests, and I just read this, that they United
Colonies are free and independent states. That's a plural. Does
that mean that Massachusetts was going to be a country,
Rhode Island was going to be a country, or if
(08:51):
they were going to be unified, how are they going
to be? The Declaration has nothing to say, By the way,
I don't know whether you ever think of about this,
but that's a very funny name for country, the United
States of America. There is this notion that the Declaration
itself kind of hints that that they're united, but there
are also independent states in some way, And how do
(09:15):
you get those two things both at the same time.
This was something the Declaration that didn't address in order
to address slavery. In one of Jefferson's drafts, it does
it blames the king, which was kind of ludicrous, and
perhaps for that reason, among others, was deleted. But it's
(09:36):
always been a bit of an embarrassment to have Thomas
Jefferson declaire in this document that all that are created
equal and not address himself to this institution that was
already pretty firmly established. So how do we read Jefferson's
words now? Was he pointing towards an ideal that he
(09:58):
hoped would be realized, or was he merely, as some
people argue, thinking Americans are equal to Englishmen and nothing
more than that. I don't want to be the one
to assert the definitive account of the interpretation of those words,
but I do want to quote from Larry Arne, the
(10:19):
President of Hillsdale College. It begins so universally with the
declaration of the rights that everyone has, so universally, and
its claim is that in any time people have certain
rights that cannot be violated, and those rights are established
(10:41):
in what he calls the laws of nature and of
Nature's God. It's saying that in your nature is written
your rights, that no one may govern you except by
your effective consent, that you own the government piece of it,
and that it may not do anything to you except
(11:02):
what you agree that it may do. Here are some
words of President Calvin Coolidge, speaking in nineteen twenty six
on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. There is something
(11:24):
beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that
event would be in the Declaration of Independence, which has
ever since caused it to be regarded as one of
the great charters, that not only was to liberate America
but everywhere to ennoble humanity. It was not because it
proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was
(11:46):
proposed to establish a nation on new principles first upon
the world. Unannounced. They're reached by a gradual development over
a length of time, usually proportionate to their importance. This
is especially true of the principles laid down in the
Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out
(12:08):
in It's pre mb the doctor that all men are
created equal, that they're endowed with their certain unalienable rights,
and that therefore the source of the just power of
government must be derived from the consent of the government.
He says about the Declaration, there is a finality. Is
(12:29):
often asserted, the world has made a great deal of
progress in seventeen seventy six, that we've had new thoughts
and new experiences which had given us a great advance
over the people of that day. We may therefore very
well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that
reasoning cannot be applied to this great Charter. If all
(12:49):
men are created equal, that's fine. If they're endowed with
unalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just
powers from the consent the government, that is fine. No advance,
no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone
wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only
(13:11):
direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward
but backward, backward toward the time when there was no equality,
no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.
Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient than
those of the revolutionary magnificent. And then here's what President
(13:33):
John Kennedy said about the declaration on July fourth at
Independence Hall. You and I are the executors of the
testament handed down by those who gathered in this historic
hall one hundred and eighty six years ago. For they
gathered to affix their names to a document which was
(13:54):
a ball hall else, a document not of rhetoric, but
of bold decision. It was, it's true, a document of protest,
but protests had been made before. It set forth their
grievances with eloquence. But such eloquence had been heard before.
Or distinguished this paper from all others was the final,
(14:15):
irrevocable decision that it took to assert the independence of
free states in place of colonies. Commit to that goal
their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Today, one
hundred eighty six years later, that declaration, whose yellowing parchment
and fading almost illegible lines I saw in the past
(14:37):
week in the National Archives in Washington, is still a
revolutionary document. To read it today is to hear a
comfort call. Its authors were highly conscious of its worldwide implications,
and George Washington declared that liberty and self government everywhere were,
(14:57):
in his words, finally date on the experiment entrusted to
the hands of the American people. The theory of independence
is as old as man himself. It was not invented
in this hall, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, But he was
in this hall that the theory became a practice, that
(15:18):
the word went out to all that the God who
gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.
But there's no better way to understand what the Declaration
of Independence meant to the people of the time than
an interview in eighteen forty three Captain Levi Preston, who
(15:39):
was ninety one at the time, fought the British in
Conquered in seventeen seventy five. Question Captain Preston, why did
you go to the Conquered fight the nineteenth of April
seventeen seventy five. The old man, bowed beneath the weight
of the years, raised himself upright and turning towards me,
the interviewer saying, why did I go? Yes, I replied
(16:04):
my histories tell me that you men of the revolution
took up arms against intolerable oppressions. What are they? Impressions?
I didn't feel them. What were you not oppressed by
the stamp at? I never saw one of those stamps?
Oh what about the T text T texts? I never
drank a drop of that stuff. The boys threw it
(16:27):
all overboard. And I suppose you've been reading Harrington or
Sydney or Locke about the eternal principles of liberty. I
never heard of them. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, Watts,
psalms and hymns, and the Almonac. Well, then, what was
the matter? What did you mean in going to fight,
(16:50):
young man? What we meant going for those Red coats
was this. We always had governed ourselves, and we always
meant to They didn't. We should. It was a revolution,
as I'd like to say, a revolution of self rule,
grounded in high principles but appealing to the weight of experience, and.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
A terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling by
our own Monty Montgomery himself a Hillsdale College graduate and
a special thanks to Bill McLay. He's a Hillsdale college
professor and his book, well, it's Land of Hope. It's terrific.
Pick it up an Amazon or the usual suspects. My goodness,
that last interview set it all. We were governing ourselves
(17:37):
and we meant to continue to do so. That's why
the war was fought, and in the end, that's why
the Declaration was signed. The story of us, the story
of America. Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.