David McCullough: The Founding Fathers Were Not Like Us?

On this episode of Our American Stories, renowned historian David McCullough answers the question - about a most extraordinary group of men at a most extraordinary time in world history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories all show long.
We're celebrating the fourth of July up next to a story
from one of our great and departed historians, and we
try to keep his voice alive because it was so unique,
the great David McCullough. And we want to thank the
John Adams Institute in the Netherlands for providing and sharing

(00:32):
this audio with us. This was a speech McCullough gave
before he died in the Netherlands at the Institute on
how our founders weren't like ordinary men and why we
must know our history.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
They weren't just like we are. We can never assume
they were just They were nothing like we are in
many many ways. And one of the ways I tried
to get inside their lives was to try and read
not just what they wrote, but what they read. So
I tried to read all the writers that Abigail and
John read to follow Swift, Pope, Servante, Shakespeare. And what's

(01:14):
so fascinating is to see how often they are not
just picking up ideas or turns of phrases, but whole sentences,
whole thoughts that come word for word out of that
English literature. I think you can understand people unless you
understand where they came from, where they grew up, the vernacular,

(01:34):
the language, the things that you know, the sort of
rules to live by. Talk to them by their parents.
You know the old famous line of Harry trumans, if
you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
That's a common expression in western Missouri. That's not Harry Truman.
And you learn so far more about life. That's why

(01:54):
I think when students are not interested in history, when
history is poorly taught and turns the students away, they
are failing to have it to get the chance to
better understand how life works. The role of cause and
effect in life, for example, Well, if they don't know

(02:15):
about cause and effect in history, they might not get
the idea that happens in your own life. I'll give
you one of my favorite examples. We know that transportation
was very slow and difficult in that time, and by
our terms that means inconvenience, a nuisance, discomfort. How did
they put up with it? It must have been so

(02:36):
hard for them, Yes, it was all of that. We
think of transportation and communications two different things, two different worlds.
To them, it was one because nothing could be communicated
faster than somebody on a fast horse. And if you
were out of touch with your husband, let's say, or

(02:56):
out of touch with your government back in the States,
and you were making decisions here that were going to
affect the lives of your countrymen, your family at home,
the outcome of a deadly war. If you're going to
make a decision about whether to have your children inoculated

(03:17):
for smallpox, and you can't pick up the phone or
get on the internet, or send a fax or fed
ex to get instant communication, what does that mean. It
means it increases by geometric perforce proportions your individual burden
of responsibility. You can't spread the guilt or the responsibility.

(03:43):
Abigail Adams has to decide, I'm going to take my
children in and have them inoculated for smallpox, knowing that
at best it'll make them wretchedly ill, at worst they
might die from some of them. I can't call up
my husband say come on home on the next plane.
We've got to do this together. Just as when John
Adams is here and he decides on April nineteenth, on

(04:05):
the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Conquered to
submit his memento, his memo to the government here stating
what he is here for, against the diplomatic conventions and
timing taking a very bold, very brash, perhaps dangerous route.

(04:31):
He doesn't he can't call up the State department or
share his opinions with fellow ambassadors in France or England
or whatever. He has to assume complete responsibility for it.
That's different. That's very different. They didn't live in a
world of twenty four hours a day news coverage. They

(04:53):
didn't live in a world where one's reputation could be
made or broken in twenty four hours. They didn't have
anything like the speed of transportation or communication. It was different.
They lived with death all around them all the time.
Imagine going to the dentist in the eighteenth century. Imagine

(05:17):
sleeping in places that were filled with lice. It was
a different time. We have no idea how tough those
people were, how hard life was for them, just in
ordinary times, let alone in times of difficulty and stress.
You can't understand what happened without understanding them, and you

(05:40):
can't understand them without understanding what we would call the
culture around them. I wish there were a better word
than culture. It's too fancy, it's too precious. It means
the architecture, the newspapers, the music, what they ate. Do
you ever notice how few biographers ever could give their
subjects to chance to sit down and have something to eat?

(06:04):
Do you ever notice how few biographers ever suggest that
there were many days that were extremely boring, or to
suggest that maybe there were moments when they didn't have
the faintest idea what to do next. That's life and
it has to be understood. But you also have to
understand what's in here, just as Abigail suggested. So I

(06:26):
want to finish my remarks not by reading something to
you about history or about the United States of America,
but about living, about life, about a human being who
once was here and from whom we can learn an
immense amount. In the aftermath of September eleventh in our country,

(06:48):
there were people on television, people writing in the newspapers
who were saying, this is the darkest, most dangerous, most
uncertain time we have ever been through. And September eleventh was,
without question the worst day for our country in our history,
more so than Pearl Harbor, because Pearl Harbor was a

(07:12):
military target and there was some expectation that something of
the kind could conceivably happen. It wasn't a slaughter of
innocent people just to make a point. But it isn't
the darkest time, not by a long shot. One of
the darkest times was the year seventeen seventy six, when

(07:35):
Washington's army was down to less than four thousand men,
about five hundred six hundred of whom were too sick
almost to walk, when it looked as though the war
was over and we had lost. But there were enough
of them, and most conspicuously George Washington, who did not

(07:57):
see it that way. God. Another time was late nineteen
forty one early nineteen forty two, when Hitler's armies were
at Moscow, when Britain was on her last legs, when
we had no army. Our recruits were drilling with wooden rifles,

(08:21):
so all they had. Half of our navy had been
destroyed at Pearl Harbor. We had no air force, and
there was no guarantee whatsoever that the Nazi machine could
be stopped and destroyed. That was a far darker time,
but there were enough people who kept the faith. And

(08:41):
my message is this, we are up against a foe
all of us who believes in enforced ignorance, and we
don't and we never with And you've.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Been listening to the late great biographer David McCullough tell
the story of why storytelling matters, particularly the story of America,
imperfect people all And McCullough says that over and over again.
And then he talks about dark times, and we hear
this over and over again today. These are the toughest times.
America has never been more divided. Just read seventeen seventy six,

(09:25):
you'll feel differently. Read anything about the Civil War and
you'll know differently. Or read about nineteen forty one and
forty two as McCullough suggested. And by the way, the
new foe McCullough properly identified enforced ignorance. David McCullough on
our founders and how they were not like anybody else

(09:46):
in world history. Here on our July fourth special on
our American Stories,