Massachusetts vs. Virginia, with Bob Gross and Woody Holton

Was it the embattled farmers and Sons of Liberty, or the indebted planters shouting "Give me Liberty or give me Death!" that brought on the Revolution? Who held the first Provincial Convention or Congress? Who was first to resist the Crown's troops?  Join us for a debate between Robert A. Gross, author of The Minutemen and their World, and Woody Holton, author of Forced Founders, and hear what lead these two very different places to revolution.  Moderated by the ever-impartial Robert Allison.

Transcript

WEBVTT
 
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 If I was in popular movies, I would,
 
 00:00:02.492 --> 00:00:03.353
 but I'm trying to up the
 
 00:00:03.432 --> 00:00:04.334
 audience numbers.
 
 00:00:04.375 --> 00:00:05.476
 Hello, everyone.
 
 00:00:05.535 --> 00:00:06.698
 Welcome to the Revolution
 
 00:00:06.738 --> 00:00:08.019
 Two Fifty podcast.
 
 00:00:08.179 --> 00:00:09.121
 I am Bob Allison.
 
 00:00:09.180 --> 00:00:10.942
 I chair the Rev Two Fifty Advisory Group.
 
 00:00:10.983 --> 00:00:12.464
 We're a consortium of
 
 00:00:12.544 --> 00:00:13.446
 seventy five plus
 
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 organizations in
 
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 Massachusetts looking at
 
 00:00:15.288 --> 00:00:16.149
 ways to commemorate the
 
 00:00:16.170 --> 00:00:18.312
 beginnings of American independence.
 
 00:00:18.812 --> 00:00:19.871
 And our guests today are two
 
 00:00:19.911 --> 00:00:21.172
 distinguished historians.
 
 00:00:21.672 --> 00:00:22.593
 Woody Holton is the
 
 00:00:22.632 --> 00:00:23.853
 McCausland Professor of
 
 00:00:23.873 --> 00:00:24.913
 History at the University
 
 00:00:24.932 --> 00:00:26.794
 of South Carolina, author of,
 
 00:00:26.833 --> 00:00:28.814
 among other books, Forced Founders,
 
 00:00:28.954 --> 00:00:30.135
 Indians, Debtors, Slaves,
 
 00:00:30.155 --> 00:00:31.114
 and Making the American
 
 00:00:31.155 --> 00:00:32.295
 Revolution in Virginia.
 
 00:00:32.734 --> 00:00:34.375
 More recently, Liberty is Sweet,
 
 00:00:34.396 --> 00:00:35.375
 The Hidden History of the
 
 00:00:35.396 --> 00:00:36.576
 American Revolution,
 
 00:00:36.975 --> 00:00:39.076
 as well as other books on
 
 00:00:39.116 --> 00:00:40.476
 the beginnings of the revolution,
 
 00:00:40.517 --> 00:00:41.976
 the formation of the Constitution,
 
 00:00:42.017 --> 00:00:42.917
 as well as a biography of
 
 00:00:42.957 --> 00:00:44.398
 Abigail Adams that received
 
 00:00:44.417 --> 00:00:45.497
 the Bancroft Prize.
 
 00:00:46.192 --> 00:00:48.012
 And also Robert Gross.
 
 00:00:48.052 --> 00:00:49.594
 Robert A. Gross is the James
 
 00:00:49.814 --> 00:00:50.935
 L. and Shirley A. Draper
 
 00:00:50.994 --> 00:00:52.215
 Professor of Early American
 
 00:00:52.255 --> 00:00:53.415
 History at the University
 
 00:00:53.435 --> 00:00:55.116
 of Connecticut emeritus,
 
 00:00:55.616 --> 00:00:58.058
 author of The Minutemen and Their World,
 
 00:00:58.158 --> 00:00:59.399
 first published at the time
 
 00:00:59.418 --> 00:01:00.539
 of the bicentennial,
 
 00:01:00.579 --> 00:01:02.220
 republished twenty five years later,
 
 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:03.621
 and now a two hundred
 
 00:01:03.642 --> 00:01:04.742
 fiftieth anniversary
 
 00:01:04.781 --> 00:01:06.362
 edition of The Revolution
 
 00:01:06.442 --> 00:01:07.864
 out of the book has just appeared.
 
 00:01:08.504 --> 00:01:10.745
 and also that received the
 
 00:01:10.805 --> 00:01:12.447
 Bancroft Prize when it appeared.
 
 00:01:12.527 --> 00:01:13.727
 And his more recent book is
 
 00:01:13.748 --> 00:01:15.948
 The Transcendentalists and Their World.
 
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 And what we're gonna talk
 
 00:01:18.609 --> 00:01:19.370
 about today is something
 
 00:01:19.409 --> 00:01:20.751
 that you two gentlemen have talked about,
 
 00:01:20.971 --> 00:01:21.691
 the revolution.
 
 00:01:21.751 --> 00:01:23.191
 Did it begin in Massachusetts?
 
 00:01:23.212 --> 00:01:24.492
 Did it begin in Virginia?
 
 00:01:25.033 --> 00:01:26.114
 What's the difference?
 
 00:01:26.353 --> 00:01:28.314
 Who should be taking credit for this?
 
 00:01:28.614 --> 00:01:30.135
 And why did it happen?
 
 00:01:30.176 --> 00:01:32.456
 So, Woody, why don't you start us off?
 
 00:01:33.319 --> 00:01:34.599
 I was going to let Bob go first,
 
 00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:37.042
 because I think in the early phases,
 
 00:01:37.102 --> 00:01:38.703
 it's really Massachusetts
 
 00:01:38.783 --> 00:01:39.462
 more than Virginia.
 
 00:01:39.503 --> 00:01:41.885
 But I'm happy to go first
 
 00:01:42.125 --> 00:01:44.266
 and appreciate the chance
 
 00:01:44.287 --> 00:01:45.527
 to be here with my,
 
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 I won't say my old friend, Bob,
 
 00:01:47.709 --> 00:01:50.671
 but my long-term friend, Bob Gross,
 
 00:01:50.790 --> 00:01:51.792
 author of that amazing
 
 00:01:51.852 --> 00:01:52.691
 Minutemen in the World,
 
 00:01:52.712 --> 00:01:53.712
 which I recommend to the
 
 00:01:53.733 --> 00:01:56.034
 Revolution Two-Fifty audiences.
 
 00:01:56.515 --> 00:01:57.635
 Most of you have probably already read it,
 
 00:01:57.656 --> 00:01:58.495
 but those who haven't,
 
 00:01:59.936 --> 00:02:00.757
 get the new edition.
 
 00:02:00.778 --> 00:02:01.078
 Read it again.
 
 00:02:02.704 --> 00:02:03.989
 And read it again, exactly.
 
 00:02:04.569 --> 00:02:05.433
 Read it again for the first
 
 00:02:05.472 --> 00:02:07.599
 time with a new preface and everything.
 
 00:02:08.913 --> 00:02:12.075
 I would say that the biggest
 
 00:02:12.096 --> 00:02:12.836
 thing I would say at the
 
 00:02:12.915 --> 00:02:14.417
 outset is how different the
 
 00:02:14.497 --> 00:02:15.538
 origins of the revolution
 
 00:02:15.777 --> 00:02:17.778
 are in those two places.
 
 00:02:19.759 --> 00:02:21.080
 There's a lot of commonalities,
 
 00:02:21.419 --> 00:02:22.480
 and you get books like
 
 00:02:22.760 --> 00:02:24.081
 Bernard Bailyn's amazing
 
 00:02:24.542 --> 00:02:25.542
 Ideological Origins of the
 
 00:02:25.562 --> 00:02:26.282
 American Revolution,
 
 00:02:26.323 --> 00:02:28.443
 which talks about America,
 
 00:02:28.723 --> 00:02:29.683
 the thirteen colonies that
 
 00:02:29.723 --> 00:02:31.645
 rebelled as one place.
 
 00:02:32.325 --> 00:02:33.286
 Most of the books that talk
 
 00:02:33.306 --> 00:02:34.627
 about the revolution
 
 00:02:35.306 --> 00:02:36.867
 talk about it as a single place.
 
 00:02:36.888 --> 00:02:37.848
 There'll be variations,
 
 00:02:37.868 --> 00:02:38.490
 maybe a chapter on
 
 00:02:38.550 --> 00:02:39.330
 African-Americans and a
 
 00:02:39.350 --> 00:02:41.072
 chapter on women or whatever.
 
 00:02:42.052 --> 00:02:42.272
 But
 
 00:02:44.993 --> 00:02:46.515
 And in fact, I don't know,
 
 00:02:46.536 --> 00:02:47.516
 it's occurred to me that my
 
 00:02:47.556 --> 00:02:48.657
 own book about the
 
 00:02:48.777 --> 00:02:51.159
 revolution was sort of said, hey,
 
 00:02:51.199 --> 00:02:53.322
 we can talk about it as a general thing.
 
 00:02:53.542 --> 00:02:54.802
 But I'm thinking I may be
 
 00:02:54.862 --> 00:02:55.644
 mistaken about that.
 
 00:02:55.704 --> 00:02:57.405
 I think the origins are so
 
 00:02:58.066 --> 00:03:00.187
 different in New England
 
 00:03:00.268 --> 00:03:01.408
 from what they are in
 
 00:03:01.429 --> 00:03:02.629
 Virginia that maybe we
 
 00:03:02.669 --> 00:03:04.031
 ought to be stressing the differences.
 
 00:03:04.312 --> 00:03:05.673
 That's one new thing we can do.
 
 00:03:06.454 --> 00:03:06.574
 Yeah.
 
 00:03:08.873 --> 00:03:10.435
 Well,
 
 00:03:10.455 --> 00:03:13.895
 the cavaliers go first and they
 
 00:03:13.955 --> 00:03:15.016
 provoke impurity.
 
 00:03:15.037 --> 00:03:22.479
 And I went back today and
 
 00:03:22.540 --> 00:03:25.241
 reread the very long essay
 
 00:03:25.301 --> 00:03:27.723
 review I wrote of Forrest's founders.
 
 00:03:29.383 --> 00:03:30.663
 And in that,
 
 00:03:31.164 --> 00:03:35.706
 I noted that initially from
 
 00:03:35.747 --> 00:03:38.048
 the stand back protest,
 
 00:03:39.337 --> 00:03:41.740
 well into the early,
 
 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:44.262
 into the seventeen seventies,
 
 00:03:44.961 --> 00:03:46.522
 Virginia and Massachusetts
 
 00:03:46.643 --> 00:03:49.425
 actually pretty much hand
 
 00:03:49.485 --> 00:03:52.326
 in hand in opposing British
 
 00:03:52.366 --> 00:03:54.368
 taxes and enforcement measures.
 
 00:03:55.770 --> 00:03:56.991
 And in that sense,
 
 00:03:57.510 --> 00:03:59.151
 you might well see the two
 
 00:03:59.592 --> 00:04:04.436
 largest colonies joining in
 
 00:04:05.068 --> 00:04:06.449
 common ideology,
 
 00:04:06.509 --> 00:04:08.390
 a common political culture,
 
 00:04:08.911 --> 00:04:11.132
 a common set of economic
 
 00:04:11.192 --> 00:04:13.052
 interests broadly in the
 
 00:04:13.073 --> 00:04:14.112
 coming of the revolution.
 
 00:04:15.554 --> 00:04:17.053
 But I think the big change
 
 00:04:17.093 --> 00:04:19.254
 really comes when Britain
 
 00:04:20.396 --> 00:04:22.817
 punishes Massachusetts with
 
 00:04:22.857 --> 00:04:26.259
 the series of measures we
 
 00:04:26.298 --> 00:04:28.278
 call the coercive or the
 
 00:04:28.298 --> 00:04:29.279
 intolerable acts.
 
 00:04:29.980 --> 00:04:31.600
 And most important in this
 
 00:04:32.100 --> 00:04:33.942
 is the Massachusetts government act.
 
 00:04:34.803 --> 00:04:37.904
 MAGA, as I call it, the first MAGA.
 
 00:04:39.105 --> 00:04:40.725
 And the Massachusetts
 
 00:04:40.805 --> 00:04:43.247
 Government Act revokes the
 
 00:04:43.286 --> 00:04:44.947
 charter of the colony from
 
 00:04:44.987 --> 00:04:47.829
 sixteen ninety one, the Massachusetts day,
 
 00:04:48.728 --> 00:04:51.470
 and it turns the judiciary
 
 00:04:51.949 --> 00:04:54.850
 into an arm of government.
 
 00:04:55.975 --> 00:04:57.235
 It makes the council,
 
 00:04:57.896 --> 00:05:00.976
 once elected by the lower
 
 00:05:01.016 --> 00:05:04.278
 house of Massachusetts General Court,
 
 00:05:04.658 --> 00:05:06.338
 into an appointive body.
 
 00:05:07.117 --> 00:05:09.139
 And then bars town meetings,
 
 00:05:09.439 --> 00:05:10.579
 which have once a year to
 
 00:05:10.639 --> 00:05:13.218
 choose selectmen and municipal officers.
 
 00:05:14.660 --> 00:05:16.519
 And if you want to have any other meeting,
 
 00:05:16.879 --> 00:05:17.800
 you've got to ask the
 
 00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:19.860
 governor for permission to
 
 00:05:19.901 --> 00:05:21.620
 show the agenda in advance.
 
 00:05:22.961 --> 00:05:25.903
 That is a remarkable act in
 
 00:05:26.144 --> 00:05:28.927
 provoking fury in Massachusetts.
 
 00:05:29.767 --> 00:05:30.709
 But it poses some
 
 00:05:30.769 --> 00:05:32.069
 interesting questions about
 
 00:05:32.471 --> 00:05:33.791
 why the other colonies
 
 00:05:33.851 --> 00:05:36.213
 respond the way they do.
 
 00:05:36.233 --> 00:05:37.435
 Because the changes that
 
 00:05:37.495 --> 00:05:39.317
 Britain introduced in the
 
 00:05:39.416 --> 00:05:41.418
 judiciary and the council
 
 00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:44.843
 make Massachusetts a more normal,
 
 00:05:45.062 --> 00:05:46.964
 royal government.
 
 00:05:48.728 --> 00:05:51.449
 Why should other colonies
 
 00:05:51.750 --> 00:05:54.031
 that had precisely those
 
 00:05:54.091 --> 00:05:56.692
 arrangements for a point of
 
 00:05:56.713 --> 00:05:59.915
 office holders not have
 
 00:05:59.954 --> 00:06:01.355
 responded to Massachusetts?
 
 00:06:01.836 --> 00:06:02.995
 What's your problem?
 
 00:06:05.298 --> 00:06:06.937
 That's how we've been living all along.
 
 00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:14.382
 So the surprise here is that Massachusetts,
 
 00:06:14.882 --> 00:06:16.702
 in its refusal to go along
 
 00:06:16.723 --> 00:06:17.723
 with the MAGA Act,
 
 00:06:19.641 --> 00:06:22.624
 puts itself far out there in
 
 00:06:22.663 --> 00:06:24.004
 opposing British policy
 
 00:06:25.944 --> 00:06:28.105
 when it would have had good
 
 00:06:28.165 --> 00:06:30.307
 reason to doubt that it
 
 00:06:30.326 --> 00:06:32.187
 could get such support from
 
 00:06:32.208 --> 00:06:32.988
 the other counties.
 
 00:06:33.309 --> 00:06:34.889
 Maybe Woody would like to talk about this.
 
 00:06:34.910 --> 00:06:38.011
 Yeah, unless you wanted to end there, Bob,
 
 00:06:38.031 --> 00:06:38.732
 it looks like you wanted to
 
 00:06:38.752 --> 00:06:39.492
 say something yourself.
 
 00:06:39.711 --> 00:06:43.774
 No, no, I'll let you answer.
 
 00:06:43.793 --> 00:06:45.415
 I'll answer, Woody.
 
 00:06:46.817 --> 00:06:47.057
 Well,
 
 00:06:47.197 --> 00:06:50.439
 I do think that the timing was just
 
 00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:53.261
 lucky for Massachusetts in
 
 00:06:53.321 --> 00:06:55.641
 that Virginia and Maryland,
 
 00:06:55.682 --> 00:06:57.781
 the primary tobacco colonies,
 
 00:06:58.202 --> 00:07:00.083
 were going through a terrible recession.
 
 00:07:00.684 --> 00:07:00.903
 I mean,
 
 00:07:01.103 --> 00:07:03.485
 it was an international recession
 
 00:07:04.464 --> 00:07:06.266
 started in Britain,
 
 00:07:07.206 --> 00:07:08.305
 but affected all through
 
 00:07:08.326 --> 00:07:09.127
 the British Empire.
 
 00:07:09.987 --> 00:07:11.168
 And one of the things that
 
 00:07:11.187 --> 00:07:12.807
 affected was the price of tobacco,
 
 00:07:12.827 --> 00:07:15.769
 which was everything in the Chesapeake.
 
 00:07:16.369 --> 00:07:18.009
 And it had fallen by about
 
 00:07:18.069 --> 00:07:19.911
 forty percent between
 
 00:07:19.930 --> 00:07:20.990
 seventeen seventy two and
 
 00:07:21.011 --> 00:07:22.290
 seventeen seventy four.
 
 00:07:22.971 --> 00:07:24.492
 And where that's relevant to
 
 00:07:24.512 --> 00:07:25.612
 the revolution is that it
 
 00:07:25.653 --> 00:07:28.132
 made one of the forms of
 
 00:07:28.192 --> 00:07:29.894
 protesting parliament that
 
 00:07:29.934 --> 00:07:30.754
 Massachusetts was
 
 00:07:30.814 --> 00:07:32.975
 suggesting very attractive.
 
 00:07:33.095 --> 00:07:35.216
 And that was to withhold our crops.
 
 00:07:35.959 --> 00:07:36.980
 from Britain,
 
 00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:39.822
 but to delay the withholding for a year.
 
 00:07:40.221 --> 00:07:41.923
 Actually, Virginia insisted on that part.
 
 00:07:42.764 --> 00:07:45.766
 And the effect of doing that, of saying,
 
 00:07:45.826 --> 00:07:47.288
 okay, starting a year from now,
 
 00:07:47.307 --> 00:07:48.007
 we're not going to send you
 
 00:07:48.028 --> 00:07:50.490
 new tobacco to Europe.
 
 00:07:50.930 --> 00:07:51.091
 Well,
 
 00:07:51.151 --> 00:07:53.132
 European tobacco purchasers pushed
 
 00:07:53.211 --> 00:07:56.355
 the price way up to try to stock up,
 
 00:07:56.995 --> 00:07:58.797
 lay in for the lean years, as they say.
 
 00:07:59.617 --> 00:08:01.658
 And and so Virginia and
 
 00:08:01.697 --> 00:08:03.057
 Maryland got to sell one of
 
 00:08:03.077 --> 00:08:04.838
 their second largest crop
 
 00:08:04.858 --> 00:08:06.038
 they ever sold was the
 
 00:08:06.619 --> 00:08:08.019
 seventeen seventy five crop.
 
 00:08:08.319 --> 00:08:09.439
 And they sold it at an
 
 00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:11.521
 astronomical price because
 
 00:08:11.540 --> 00:08:13.802
 the merchants were so hot
 
 00:08:14.221 --> 00:08:15.322
 to stock up on it.
 
 00:08:15.401 --> 00:08:17.362
 And so we could also talk
 
 00:08:17.382 --> 00:08:18.502
 about non importation.
 
 00:08:18.543 --> 00:08:19.463
 But I think this non
 
 00:08:19.584 --> 00:08:22.225
 exportation really made the difference.
 
 00:08:22.264 --> 00:08:23.024
 And Bob, of course,
 
 00:08:23.045 --> 00:08:24.064
 I remember that review
 
 00:08:24.125 --> 00:08:24.845
 essay you wrote in the
 
 00:08:24.865 --> 00:08:26.446
 Virginia Quarterly Review of my book.
 
 00:08:26.966 --> 00:08:28.286
 And Bob made the best point.
 
 00:08:28.326 --> 00:08:28.586
 Actually,
 
 00:08:28.607 --> 00:08:29.406
 I think you may have said this
 
 00:08:29.447 --> 00:08:32.307
 previously in reviewing an
 
 00:08:32.528 --> 00:08:33.208
 article of mine.
 
 00:08:33.229 --> 00:08:33.948
 But the point is,
 
 00:08:35.389 --> 00:08:36.590
 I was trying to explain
 
 00:08:36.669 --> 00:08:39.652
 that this recession led in Virginia,
 
 00:08:40.192 --> 00:08:40.672
 in Maryland,
 
 00:08:40.692 --> 00:08:42.673
 to all these local efforts to
 
 00:08:42.692 --> 00:08:44.553
 withhold tobacco from the market.
 
 00:08:45.094 --> 00:08:46.535
 And then that was all before
 
 00:08:47.197 --> 00:08:49.880
 the MAGA and the Boston Port Act,
 
 00:08:49.900 --> 00:08:50.721
 which closed the Port of
 
 00:08:50.761 --> 00:08:51.943
 Boston and all the other
 
 00:08:51.964 --> 00:08:55.288
 things that Britain did to Massachusetts.
 
 00:08:55.708 --> 00:08:57.051
 The Virginians were already
 
 00:08:57.091 --> 00:08:57.892
 trying to figure out how to
 
 00:08:57.932 --> 00:08:58.852
 withhold their tobacco.
 
 00:08:58.873 --> 00:08:59.995
 They weren't doing very well at it,
 
 00:09:00.014 --> 00:09:00.775
 but they were trying.
 
 00:09:01.734 --> 00:09:03.556
 And Bob proposed what I wish
 
 00:09:03.676 --> 00:09:05.618
 I had had when I was writing my book,
 
 00:09:06.057 --> 00:09:07.720
 a name for these organizations.
 
 00:09:08.440 --> 00:09:09.441
 He wanted to call it the
 
 00:09:09.520 --> 00:09:11.003
 Organization of Tobacco
 
 00:09:11.123 --> 00:09:13.504
 Exporting Colonies or OTEC.
 
 00:09:13.904 --> 00:09:15.706
 And it's completely relevant
 
 00:09:15.726 --> 00:09:17.288
 to this because, you know,
 
 00:09:17.368 --> 00:09:18.610
 when OPEC was started in
 
 00:09:18.629 --> 00:09:19.529
 the nineteen seventies,
 
 00:09:19.590 --> 00:09:21.491
 it was partly an Israel thing,
 
 00:09:22.552 --> 00:09:25.355
 but also a way of driving
 
 00:09:25.395 --> 00:09:26.777
 up the price of the price
 
 00:09:26.836 --> 00:09:27.817
 of their commodity.
 
 00:09:28.217 --> 00:09:29.298
 of the oil exporting
 
 00:09:29.618 --> 00:09:31.058
 countries you know only
 
 00:09:31.658 --> 00:09:33.759
 major export of oil and so
 
 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:35.039
 so you can see with his
 
 00:09:35.100 --> 00:09:37.039
 maga with my otech he and I
 
 00:09:37.059 --> 00:09:38.681
 are very much alive in
 
 00:09:38.721 --> 00:09:40.020
 twenty twenty four and make
 
 00:09:40.081 --> 00:09:41.782
 making those analogies but
 
 00:09:41.841 --> 00:09:43.241
 but but this goes to my
 
 00:09:43.282 --> 00:09:43.942
 point about it's a
 
 00:09:44.001 --> 00:09:44.962
 different revolution in
 
 00:09:44.982 --> 00:09:46.163
 massachusetts it's about
 
 00:09:46.663 --> 00:09:48.043
 how dare you take away our
 
 00:09:48.082 --> 00:09:49.464
 charter imagine if they'd
 
 00:09:49.484 --> 00:09:50.744
 done the same thing bob to
 
 00:09:50.844 --> 00:09:52.144
 uh connecticut or rhode
 
 00:09:52.264 --> 00:09:53.845
 island which had um
 
 00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:56.841
 They elected their lower house,
 
 00:09:56.942 --> 00:09:58.703
 their upper house, and their governor.
 
 00:09:59.563 --> 00:10:01.924
 All Massachusetts did was elected.
 
 00:10:02.466 --> 00:10:04.226
 All they could elect was their lower house,
 
 00:10:04.746 --> 00:10:07.288
 and then it chose the upper house,
 
 00:10:08.028 --> 00:10:09.089
 and the old upper house
 
 00:10:09.129 --> 00:10:10.009
 chose the upper house,
 
 00:10:10.029 --> 00:10:12.932
 and the king chose the
 
 00:10:13.272 --> 00:10:14.972
 governor both before and after.
 
 00:10:16.092 --> 00:10:17.274
 the Massachusetts Governor
 
 00:10:17.354 --> 00:10:19.575
 Act of Massachusetts, as they did,
 
 00:10:19.634 --> 00:10:20.955
 as he did in Virginia.
 
 00:10:21.635 --> 00:10:25.037
 But it does show that tyranny is relative.
 
 00:10:25.537 --> 00:10:25.917
 That is,
 
 00:10:26.758 --> 00:10:29.379
 just making Massachusetts a little
 
 00:10:29.418 --> 00:10:31.479
 bit as bad off as Virginia was,
 
 00:10:31.960 --> 00:10:33.519
 was enough to make them go nuts.
 
 00:10:34.100 --> 00:10:36.861
 And so I might even go so far as to say,
 
 00:10:37.981 --> 00:10:39.363
 while it was an ecological, I'm sorry,
 
 00:10:39.403 --> 00:10:40.322
 ecological, while it was an
 
 00:10:40.883 --> 00:10:42.465
 an ideological Revolution in
 
 00:10:42.504 --> 00:10:44.546
 both places it was more
 
 00:10:44.605 --> 00:10:45.807
 ideological in
 
 00:10:45.847 --> 00:10:48.350
 Massachusetts as of and
 
 00:10:48.370 --> 00:10:49.370
 while it was an economic
 
 00:10:49.410 --> 00:10:50.552
 Revolution in both places
 
 00:10:51.072 --> 00:10:52.113
 it was almost all well it
 
 00:10:52.133 --> 00:10:53.313
 was it was it was more
 
 00:10:53.354 --> 00:10:55.775
 economic goal in Virginia
 
 00:10:56.777 --> 00:10:58.138
 in that key year that we're
 
 00:10:58.437 --> 00:10:59.399
 living through the the
 
 00:10:59.458 --> 00:11:00.379
 anniversary of right now
 
 00:11:00.938 --> 00:11:01.899
 of seventeen seventy four,
 
 00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:03.400
 although I hasten to add
 
 00:11:03.421 --> 00:11:04.761
 there's a wonderful book by
 
 00:11:04.802 --> 00:11:06.423
 John W. Tyler called
 
 00:11:06.482 --> 00:11:08.443
 Smugglers and Patriots that
 
 00:11:08.464 --> 00:11:09.365
 says there's an economic
 
 00:11:09.404 --> 00:11:11.225
 origin to the revolution in
 
 00:11:11.245 --> 00:11:11.765
 Massachusetts.
 
 00:11:11.865 --> 00:11:13.307
 But that's really about the
 
 00:11:13.366 --> 00:11:15.688
 about Boston and the other ports.
 
 00:11:15.729 --> 00:11:17.029
 It's not about Concord,
 
 00:11:17.070 --> 00:11:17.971
 which Bob wrote about.
 
 00:11:18.051 --> 00:11:19.351
 And I think Bob, isn't it correct?
 
 00:11:19.451 --> 00:11:20.572
 Who wouldn't be accurate to
 
 00:11:20.611 --> 00:11:21.312
 say something like
 
 00:11:21.832 --> 00:11:22.413
 When you were trying to
 
 00:11:22.452 --> 00:11:23.854
 write about the origins of
 
 00:11:23.913 --> 00:11:27.235
 the revolution in Concord before,
 
 00:11:27.715 --> 00:11:30.014
 it was hard because there
 
 00:11:30.034 --> 00:11:32.235
 was no revolution in Concord before.
 
 00:11:32.275 --> 00:11:37.476
 Let me just broaden this in
 
 00:11:37.496 --> 00:11:40.097
 a seeming digression.
 
 00:11:42.844 --> 00:11:46.008
 Concord was once seen,
 
 00:11:46.528 --> 00:11:48.110
 as many men broadly were,
 
 00:11:48.751 --> 00:11:51.014
 as a radical place ready to
 
 00:11:51.134 --> 00:11:52.517
 spring up and fight the
 
 00:11:52.557 --> 00:11:54.259
 British the moment taxes
 
 00:11:54.278 --> 00:11:55.039
 were imposed upon them.
 
 00:11:56.297 --> 00:11:58.317
 And that was long thought to be the story.
 
 00:11:58.618 --> 00:12:00.038
 And there wasn't that much to reason.
 
 00:12:00.678 --> 00:12:01.379
 We just knew.
 
 00:12:02.200 --> 00:12:03.841
 They meant to touch us.
 
 00:12:03.921 --> 00:12:04.941
 We meant to stop them.
 
 00:12:05.701 --> 00:12:06.302
 But in fact,
 
 00:12:06.341 --> 00:12:09.043
 Concord was pretty slow to
 
 00:12:09.143 --> 00:12:11.745
 respond to British measures
 
 00:12:12.365 --> 00:12:13.706
 with radical gesture.
 
 00:12:15.567 --> 00:12:17.548
 And without going through all the details,
 
 00:12:20.168 --> 00:12:22.149
 it was an unlikely play.
 
 00:12:23.268 --> 00:12:24.889
 to put the provincial
 
 00:12:24.928 --> 00:12:26.591
 Congress and to be the
 
 00:12:26.931 --> 00:12:29.293
 depot of supplies for
 
 00:12:29.673 --> 00:12:31.235
 organizing military resistance.
 
 00:12:31.754 --> 00:12:36.038
 Unlikely that is that it wasn't, you know,
 
 00:12:36.198 --> 00:12:39.061
 a seedbed of hot militancy
 
 00:12:39.461 --> 00:12:40.302
 against Britain.
 
 00:12:41.702 --> 00:12:42.604
 On the other hand,
 
 00:12:43.365 --> 00:12:45.066
 a place that was opposed to
 
 00:12:45.086 --> 00:12:46.086
 British policy,
 
 00:12:46.726 --> 00:12:48.908
 but quite considered in the
 
 00:12:48.989 --> 00:12:50.230
 measures that it would
 
 00:12:50.269 --> 00:12:51.951
 adopt to oppose this policy,
 
 00:12:52.807 --> 00:12:54.328
 might in fact be a really
 
 00:12:54.349 --> 00:12:57.750
 good place to base your resistance.
 
 00:12:58.190 --> 00:12:59.389
 Because you wouldn't have to
 
 00:12:59.450 --> 00:13:01.831
 worry about radicals in
 
 00:13:01.870 --> 00:13:03.791
 Concord launching an attack
 
 00:13:03.850 --> 00:13:06.351
 on British forces without authorization.
 
 00:13:08.033 --> 00:13:10.573
 So in that sense,
 
 00:13:10.673 --> 00:13:13.173
 Concord could be a moderate
 
 00:13:13.193 --> 00:13:15.414
 place to be a base.
 
 00:13:16.215 --> 00:13:17.235
 And it turns out,
 
 00:13:17.956 --> 00:13:19.096
 it's surprisingly
 
 00:13:19.155 --> 00:13:21.836
 representative of many towns
 
 00:13:22.616 --> 00:13:24.477
 Weston, for example,
 
 00:13:24.498 --> 00:13:26.577
 not far away from Massachusetts,
 
 00:13:26.878 --> 00:13:30.179
 was another place that took
 
 00:13:30.279 --> 00:13:32.279
 until the end of September
 
 00:13:32.340 --> 00:13:33.921
 of seventeen seventy-four
 
 00:13:34.400 --> 00:13:36.601
 to appoint a committee of correspondents,
 
 00:13:37.162 --> 00:13:38.361
 conquered the same thing.
 
 00:13:38.802 --> 00:13:39.903
 Acton didn't appoint a
 
 00:13:39.923 --> 00:13:40.783
 committee of correspondents
 
 00:13:40.923 --> 00:13:42.344
 until a week after Concord,
 
 00:13:42.484 --> 00:13:45.544
 ten days before the Provincial Congress.
 
 00:13:46.649 --> 00:13:48.809
 So what you had here was a
 
 00:13:48.909 --> 00:13:51.730
 countryside with a kind of
 
 00:13:51.831 --> 00:13:56.272
 spotty movement towards resistance.
 
 00:13:56.851 --> 00:13:58.312
 And in that sense, it's quite,
 
 00:13:58.572 --> 00:13:59.672
 I would suggest,
 
 00:14:00.932 --> 00:14:02.232
 what's at the heart of this
 
 00:14:02.832 --> 00:14:04.352
 is that people are furious
 
 00:14:04.552 --> 00:14:07.494
 at Britain's assault on self-government,
 
 00:14:08.793 --> 00:14:10.114
 but they're not entirely
 
 00:14:10.254 --> 00:14:12.854
 sure how to resist it.
 
 00:14:16.465 --> 00:14:20.048
 The royalists, soon to become loyalists,
 
 00:14:21.568 --> 00:14:23.311
 denounce Sons of Liberty
 
 00:14:23.350 --> 00:14:24.292
 and Samuel Adams.
 
 00:14:24.871 --> 00:14:25.972
 For the longest time,
 
 00:14:26.173 --> 00:14:27.934
 and this is in Mary Beth Norton,
 
 00:14:28.315 --> 00:14:33.658
 in the year of the Patriots,
 
 00:14:34.220 --> 00:14:35.681
 because they claim that
 
 00:14:35.701 --> 00:14:37.482
 they're for the Constitution,
 
 00:14:38.283 --> 00:14:40.684
 as of Britain, and yet,
 
 00:14:41.566 --> 00:14:43.347
 and they say they want to
 
 00:14:43.427 --> 00:14:44.989
 uphold the old institutions.
 
 00:14:45.839 --> 00:14:47.059
 And yet they're inventing
 
 00:14:47.080 --> 00:14:47.679
 committees of
 
 00:14:47.720 --> 00:14:50.581
 correspondence and circular
 
 00:14:50.662 --> 00:14:52.464
 letters between colonies,
 
 00:14:52.943 --> 00:14:54.825
 which is no precedent anyway.
 
 00:14:56.606 --> 00:14:59.808
 And so how do you resist the
 
 00:14:59.849 --> 00:15:03.211
 attack on self-government
 
 00:15:03.250 --> 00:15:06.874
 with forms that can justify
 
 00:15:07.875 --> 00:15:09.054
 when there's no
 
 00:15:09.095 --> 00:15:11.017
 constitutional basis for
 
 00:15:11.037 --> 00:15:12.057
 the forms you're inventing?
 
 00:15:12.077 --> 00:15:12.298
 Interesting.
 
 00:15:15.952 --> 00:15:17.655
 I'm just wondering, we had,
 
 00:15:17.937 --> 00:15:19.960
 at the end of last year,
 
 00:15:19.980 --> 00:15:21.322
 a big reenactment of the
 
 00:15:21.363 --> 00:15:22.725
 destruction of the tea.
 
 00:15:22.804 --> 00:15:24.307
 I'm wondering if there could
 
 00:15:24.327 --> 00:15:25.590
 be a similar reenactment of
 
 00:15:25.610 --> 00:15:26.993
 the withholding of tobacco,
 
 00:15:27.072 --> 00:15:28.895
 if that's something Virginia is planning.
 
 00:15:31.114 --> 00:15:32.514
 and how you would go about doing that.
 
 00:15:32.533 --> 00:15:34.335
 No, because nobody in Virginia is read by,
 
 00:15:34.635 --> 00:15:35.436
 no, that's exactly right.
 
 00:15:37.216 --> 00:15:38.357
 It is more of a,
 
 00:15:38.437 --> 00:15:39.258
 it's the kind of book you
 
 00:15:39.278 --> 00:15:40.719
 get assigned to read rather
 
 00:15:40.759 --> 00:15:42.659
 than pick up on purpose at
 
 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:43.541
 Barnes & Noble.
 
 00:15:43.581 --> 00:15:45.162
 So I don't think there's
 
 00:15:45.182 --> 00:15:47.503
 going to be a reenactment of tobacco.
 
 00:15:48.023 --> 00:15:48.823
 But like I said,
 
 00:15:48.864 --> 00:15:50.845
 it's being reenacted right now.
 
 00:15:51.985 --> 00:15:52.706
 Even down here,
 
 00:15:52.725 --> 00:15:53.485
 we're having to pay three
 
 00:15:53.505 --> 00:15:55.167
 dollars a gallon again for gas.
 
 00:15:55.206 --> 00:15:56.488
 That's right.
 
 00:15:56.587 --> 00:15:57.589
 It's the same process.
 
 00:15:58.188 --> 00:15:58.989
 it's interesting you know
 
 00:15:59.009 --> 00:16:00.110
 it's interesting how one
 
 00:16:00.169 --> 00:16:01.009
 thing captures the
 
 00:16:01.029 --> 00:16:02.770
 imagination and the other
 
 00:16:03.631 --> 00:16:07.072
 doesn't and what it is well
 
 00:16:07.092 --> 00:16:07.633
 uh I I have to mention
 
 00:16:07.653 --> 00:16:08.494
 since you mentioned that
 
 00:16:08.514 --> 00:16:09.653
 that one of my great I
 
 00:16:09.693 --> 00:16:10.815
 thought great discoveries
 
 00:16:10.875 --> 00:16:12.556
 as I was researching my
 
 00:16:12.576 --> 00:16:13.456
 first book called forest
 
 00:16:13.475 --> 00:16:15.376
 founders was that thomas
 
 00:16:15.397 --> 00:16:17.158
 jefferson swore in the the
 
 00:16:17.317 --> 00:16:18.958
 he'd never speculated in
 
 00:16:19.019 --> 00:16:21.000
 western land and I found
 
 00:16:21.100 --> 00:16:22.259
 five different land
 
 00:16:22.299 --> 00:16:23.480
 speculation ventures that
 
 00:16:23.500 --> 00:16:24.541
 he was part of so he just
 
 00:16:26.001 --> 00:16:26.682
 I'm probably going to get
 
 00:16:26.702 --> 00:16:27.903
 struck dead for saying that
 
 00:16:28.123 --> 00:16:30.465
 Jefferson simply lied about that.
 
 00:16:30.965 --> 00:16:32.005
 And I thought when people
 
 00:16:32.105 --> 00:16:33.586
 read my book and saw that,
 
 00:16:33.606 --> 00:16:35.187
 they were just going to be astounded.
 
 00:16:36.248 --> 00:16:36.889
 No one was.
 
 00:16:37.688 --> 00:16:39.110
 But it was during those same
 
 00:16:39.149 --> 00:16:40.311
 years that my friend
 
 00:16:40.370 --> 00:16:41.532
 Annette Gordon-Reed was
 
 00:16:41.631 --> 00:16:42.611
 researching Thomas
 
 00:16:42.631 --> 00:16:43.793
 Jefferson and Sally Hemings.
 
 00:16:43.972 --> 00:16:45.673
 And along came the DNA.
 
 00:16:46.595 --> 00:16:47.875
 It reminded me of remember
 
 00:16:47.914 --> 00:16:49.856
 how Whitewater never got Bill Clinton,
 
 00:16:50.256 --> 00:16:51.898
 but his affair got him impeached.
 
 00:16:52.238 --> 00:16:53.519
 Sex sells better than land.
 
 00:16:53.538 --> 00:16:53.918
 Sure does.
 
 00:16:54.019 --> 00:16:55.259
 Sure does.
 
 00:16:55.894 --> 00:16:57.895
 um and just to get back to
 
 00:16:58.155 --> 00:16:59.336
 and jonathan reminds us
 
 00:16:59.356 --> 00:17:00.337
 that yorktown is going to
 
 00:17:00.378 --> 00:17:01.138
 have a tea party
 
 00:17:01.197 --> 00:17:02.700
 reenactment but apparently
 
 00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:04.181
 not a tobacco withholding
 
 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:06.442
 reenactment yeah maybe they
 
 00:17:06.462 --> 00:17:07.864
 should I'm wondering and
 
 00:17:08.124 --> 00:17:09.085
 bob when you were talking
 
 00:17:09.164 --> 00:17:10.205
 earlier you met you
 
 00:17:10.246 --> 00:17:11.287
 mentioned the old chestnut
 
 00:17:11.307 --> 00:17:12.428
 about the cavaliers versus
 
 00:17:12.448 --> 00:17:13.428
 the puritans I was thinking
 
 00:17:13.449 --> 00:17:14.769
 about the way the
 
 00:17:14.829 --> 00:17:15.609
 revolution has been
 
 00:17:15.670 --> 00:17:16.611
 remembered over the years
 
 00:17:16.631 --> 00:17:17.771
 and explained over the
 
 00:17:17.791 --> 00:17:18.833
 years and looking at kind
 
 00:17:18.893 --> 00:17:20.775
 of um the simplest
 
 00:17:20.855 --> 00:17:21.954
 explanation which sometimes
 
 00:17:21.976 --> 00:17:23.757
 does have a real element of truth to it
 
 00:17:25.070 --> 00:17:28.593
 Well, yeah, even in this conversation,
 
 00:17:30.013 --> 00:17:32.015
 we talked about economic interests.
 
 00:17:33.576 --> 00:17:34.517
 I was talking much more
 
 00:17:34.537 --> 00:17:37.337
 about ideology to a
 
 00:17:37.397 --> 00:17:39.920
 political culture of a certain sort.
 
 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:43.001
 When I taught at Amherst
 
 00:17:43.041 --> 00:17:46.604
 College in the early part of my career,
 
 00:17:47.364 --> 00:17:48.884
 I was periodically asked to
 
 00:17:49.226 --> 00:17:51.186
 lead groups and trips to conquer.
 
 00:17:52.402 --> 00:17:54.544
 And we'd be there at the North Ridge,
 
 00:17:54.983 --> 00:17:56.425
 and I ended up always
 
 00:17:56.645 --> 00:17:57.686
 somehow talking about
 
 00:17:59.028 --> 00:18:01.829
 political ideals and commitments.
 
 00:18:01.849 --> 00:18:03.311
 Then I moved to William & Mary,
 
 00:18:03.771 --> 00:18:04.913
 and I was similarly asked
 
 00:18:04.932 --> 00:18:06.615
 to take people around and
 
 00:18:07.615 --> 00:18:09.136
 often international visitors.
 
 00:18:10.178 --> 00:18:10.798
 And there,
 
 00:18:13.220 --> 00:18:15.041
 you begin America by talking
 
 00:18:15.061 --> 00:18:15.823
 about slavery.
 
 00:18:16.972 --> 00:18:18.974
 and economic interests and
 
 00:18:19.215 --> 00:18:20.997
 the dominance of certain
 
 00:18:22.018 --> 00:18:23.138
 upper class elites.
 
 00:18:24.461 --> 00:18:25.561
 At the North Bridge,
 
 00:18:26.261 --> 00:18:27.303
 you would be talking about
 
 00:18:27.383 --> 00:18:28.765
 liberty and self-government
 
 00:18:28.845 --> 00:18:29.665
 and conscience.
 
 00:18:30.846 --> 00:18:33.128
 Those are polarized views
 
 00:18:33.509 --> 00:18:36.511
 that won't hold up as a polarization,
 
 00:18:37.053 --> 00:18:38.153
 but nonetheless,
 
 00:18:39.587 --> 00:18:39.867
 You know,
 
 00:18:39.907 --> 00:18:40.949
 if we were going to talk about
 
 00:18:40.969 --> 00:18:42.410
 the revolution in terms of
 
 00:18:42.509 --> 00:18:43.550
 economic interest,
 
 00:18:43.951 --> 00:18:44.912
 we could certainly go to
 
 00:18:44.951 --> 00:18:46.792
 John Tyler's book and talk
 
 00:18:46.813 --> 00:18:47.673
 about the smugglers.
 
 00:18:47.993 --> 00:18:49.134
 We could emphasize in
 
 00:18:49.194 --> 00:18:52.557
 Marblehead all the center
 
 00:18:52.596 --> 00:18:53.498
 of the fishing fleet,
 
 00:18:53.958 --> 00:18:57.721
 almost the Fisheries Act set them off.
 
 00:18:57.740 --> 00:18:58.980
 So we could talk about all
 
 00:18:59.001 --> 00:19:00.261
 these economic interests,
 
 00:19:01.343 --> 00:19:03.565
 but it wouldn't get us at a
 
 00:19:03.664 --> 00:19:05.006
 key theme that I've been
 
 00:19:06.018 --> 00:19:07.098
 trying to think through in
 
 00:19:07.138 --> 00:19:09.039
 my own recent reading and
 
 00:19:09.119 --> 00:19:10.681
 work on revolution.
 
 00:19:11.101 --> 00:19:14.262
 It's not what provoked colonial responses.
 
 00:19:15.063 --> 00:19:17.404
 It's how the colonists responded.
 
 00:19:17.724 --> 00:19:18.704
 What's the rhetoric?
 
 00:19:18.825 --> 00:19:20.625
 What's the language of opposition?
 
 00:19:20.926 --> 00:19:22.086
 What's the discourse?
 
 00:19:22.346 --> 00:19:23.407
 What are the ways in which
 
 00:19:23.448 --> 00:19:27.049
 people put together coalitions or not?
 
 00:19:28.391 --> 00:19:29.692
 And in that perspective,
 
 00:19:29.711 --> 00:19:33.513
 I think what is striking is
 
 00:19:33.554 --> 00:19:35.255
 that loyalists
 
 00:19:36.112 --> 00:19:38.133
 and royalists often did use
 
 00:19:38.173 --> 00:19:40.453
 the language of economic interest.
 
 00:19:40.473 --> 00:19:42.775
 So did the people that Woody writes about,
 
 00:19:43.875 --> 00:19:45.615
 who see not economic
 
 00:19:45.675 --> 00:19:47.196
 interest just narrowly,
 
 00:19:47.936 --> 00:19:51.578
 but as the basis of a whole class system,
 
 00:19:52.779 --> 00:19:53.839
 which, you know,
 
 00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:55.381
 the great Virginia gentry,
 
 00:19:55.840 --> 00:19:57.301
 the slaveholding gentry,
 
 00:19:58.061 --> 00:20:00.163
 know what are the props of their power,
 
 00:20:00.643 --> 00:20:01.804
 as Woody said,
 
 00:20:02.144 --> 00:20:04.365
 land and control over slaves,
 
 00:20:04.844 --> 00:20:06.744
 and and being doing
 
 00:20:06.785 --> 00:20:08.125
 mercantile work and
 
 00:20:08.205 --> 00:20:09.886
 speculating in in the lands
 
 00:20:09.906 --> 00:20:11.547
 they see from native people
 
 00:20:13.268 --> 00:20:15.509
 those are all props but in
 
 00:20:15.569 --> 00:20:18.330
 massachusetts they're props
 
 00:20:18.411 --> 00:20:22.373
 too but what's what really
 
 00:20:22.413 --> 00:20:24.173
 drives the radical
 
 00:20:24.213 --> 00:20:27.476
 revolution is um what I
 
 00:20:27.516 --> 00:20:29.076
 call the appeal to the
 
 00:20:29.195 --> 00:20:32.077
 ancestors the sense that
 
 00:20:33.582 --> 00:20:35.782
 Our forefathers, the Puritans,
 
 00:20:36.222 --> 00:20:37.384
 led the tyranny of
 
 00:20:37.463 --> 00:20:40.105
 Archbishop Law and Charles I,
 
 00:20:40.585 --> 00:20:43.026
 risked their lives crossing the Atlantic,
 
 00:20:43.385 --> 00:20:45.287
 came to the American wilderness,
 
 00:20:46.086 --> 00:20:48.949
 carved out homes and farms
 
 00:20:49.368 --> 00:20:51.088
 only after long struggle
 
 00:20:51.169 --> 00:20:53.549
 and loss of treasure and blood,
 
 00:20:53.891 --> 00:20:55.090
 fought Native peoples,
 
 00:20:55.651 --> 00:20:57.152
 and secured for themselves
 
 00:20:57.172 --> 00:20:59.532
 and their posterity civil
 
 00:20:59.673 --> 00:21:01.094
 and religious liberty.
 
 00:21:02.357 --> 00:21:04.960
 It's our duty to pass that on,
 
 00:21:05.400 --> 00:21:06.681
 preserve it intact,
 
 00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:09.461
 and give it to the succeeding generation.
 
 00:21:10.323 --> 00:21:16.066
 That's a rhetoric that is absent, I think,
 
 00:21:16.125 --> 00:21:17.707
 from the revolution elsewhere,
 
 00:21:18.167 --> 00:21:20.469
 except in Jefferson's summary writing.
 
 00:21:21.577 --> 00:21:22.499
 of British America,
 
 00:21:22.858 --> 00:21:24.739
 which he too tells a myth
 
 00:21:25.078 --> 00:21:27.400
 of how our ancestors didn't
 
 00:21:27.420 --> 00:21:28.641
 need anything from Britain
 
 00:21:28.681 --> 00:21:30.101
 when they sailed across the
 
 00:21:30.161 --> 00:21:33.201
 oceans and established our plantation.
 
 00:21:34.001 --> 00:21:34.502
 However,
 
 00:21:35.083 --> 00:21:37.423
 he doesn't have the same rhetoric
 
 00:21:37.463 --> 00:21:40.085
 of duty and obligation and
 
 00:21:40.164 --> 00:21:41.285
 religious casting.
 
 00:21:42.768 --> 00:21:42.968
 Right.
 
 00:21:43.067 --> 00:21:44.568
 And, you know,
 
 00:21:44.868 --> 00:21:46.809
 Jefferson's emigres who went
 
 00:21:46.869 --> 00:21:48.010
 across the water for
 
 00:21:48.090 --> 00:21:50.593
 freedom were the Angles and
 
 00:21:50.633 --> 00:21:52.594
 the Saxons who fled to the
 
 00:21:52.634 --> 00:21:53.855
 place we have called England.
 
 00:21:53.894 --> 00:21:55.154
 So he had the same story,
 
 00:21:55.174 --> 00:21:56.776
 but put it further back.
 
 00:21:57.135 --> 00:21:58.877
 And I think you're right, Bob.
 
 00:21:59.857 --> 00:22:00.979
 and look there was certainly
 
 00:22:00.999 --> 00:22:02.700
 an ideological dimension to
 
 00:22:02.740 --> 00:22:03.740
 the revolution even in
 
 00:22:03.779 --> 00:22:04.941
 virginia and it's
 
 00:22:04.980 --> 00:22:07.061
 completely consistent with
 
 00:22:07.142 --> 00:22:08.603
 the economic interests that
 
 00:22:08.663 --> 00:22:09.643
 is life liberty and
 
 00:22:09.682 --> 00:22:10.324
 property we've got to
 
 00:22:10.344 --> 00:22:11.703
 protect your property and
 
 00:22:11.785 --> 00:22:12.444
 unless you have a certain
 
 00:22:12.464 --> 00:22:13.144
 amount of property you
 
 00:22:13.184 --> 00:22:13.766
 can't have that
 
 00:22:13.885 --> 00:22:15.046
 independence upon which
 
 00:22:15.105 --> 00:22:16.906
 virtue is based you know
 
 00:22:16.967 --> 00:22:18.387
 virtue is the big word for
 
 00:22:18.807 --> 00:22:19.868
 for balan who I mentioned
 
 00:22:20.249 --> 00:22:22.609
 and and um tim breen really
 
 00:22:22.650 --> 00:22:23.711
 made this clear in his book
 
 00:22:24.191 --> 00:22:25.432
 tobacco culture that to
 
 00:22:25.471 --> 00:22:26.311
 talk about economic
 
 00:22:26.372 --> 00:22:28.854
 interest and debt is also to talk about
 
 00:22:30.683 --> 00:22:32.964
 the genteel notion of
 
 00:22:33.285 --> 00:22:34.365
 personal independence is
 
 00:22:34.424 --> 00:22:36.684
 much more important long
 
 00:22:36.724 --> 00:22:38.145
 before political independence.
 
 00:22:38.185 --> 00:22:38.486
 Everybody,
 
 00:22:38.945 --> 00:22:39.865
 these guys want to have their
 
 00:22:39.925 --> 00:22:40.526
 personal independence.
 
 00:22:40.546 --> 00:22:41.346
 They're more scared of
 
 00:22:41.385 --> 00:22:42.645
 slavery than people in
 
 00:22:42.665 --> 00:22:43.727
 Massachusetts are because
 
 00:22:43.787 --> 00:22:44.727
 they know what slavery is
 
 00:22:44.787 --> 00:22:46.646
 like close hand because
 
 00:22:46.666 --> 00:22:47.626
 there's many more slaves
 
 00:22:47.646 --> 00:22:49.087
 there than in the five, what is it,
 
 00:22:49.127 --> 00:22:51.208
 two percent in Massachusetts.
 
 00:22:52.188 --> 00:22:52.688
 But I wanted to say
 
 00:22:52.728 --> 00:22:53.208
 something about that
 
 00:22:53.228 --> 00:22:54.209
 because you reminded me, Bob,
 
 00:22:54.588 --> 00:22:55.229
 I don't know if either of
 
 00:22:55.249 --> 00:22:55.989
 you guys knew this,
 
 00:22:56.929 --> 00:22:59.809
 We claim in Virginia that
 
 00:23:00.069 --> 00:23:01.431
 the first Thanksgiving was
 
 00:23:01.490 --> 00:23:03.671
 here in Berkeley Plantation.
 
 00:23:03.750 --> 00:23:05.832
 I remember my father's a politician.
 
 00:23:05.852 --> 00:23:07.211
 We used to go down every
 
 00:23:07.231 --> 00:23:08.932
 year for the actual first Thanksgiving.
 
 00:23:09.093 --> 00:23:09.512
 So, you know,
 
 00:23:09.553 --> 00:23:10.413
 that's just another one of
 
 00:23:10.432 --> 00:23:11.453
 those battles between
 
 00:23:12.074 --> 00:23:14.394
 in various states over who did what first.
 
 00:23:14.694 --> 00:23:16.776
 But I mentioned that as to
 
 00:23:16.816 --> 00:23:17.476
 sort of set up the
 
 00:23:17.516 --> 00:23:18.896
 opposition to the fact that
 
 00:23:19.457 --> 00:23:21.978
 there really was not, as Bob,
 
 00:23:22.018 --> 00:23:23.219
 I'm just underscoring what Bob said,
 
 00:23:23.618 --> 00:23:25.180
 there's not a historical
 
 00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:26.599
 memory that the Virginians
 
 00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:28.361
 were drawing from saying,
 
 00:23:28.401 --> 00:23:29.501
 we came over here for
 
 00:23:29.582 --> 00:23:30.961
 freedom in sixteen oh seven
 
 00:23:31.001 --> 00:23:33.022
 because we Anglican rich
 
 00:23:33.063 --> 00:23:34.624
 guys who set up the
 
 00:23:34.644 --> 00:23:35.824
 Jamestown settlement were
 
 00:23:35.884 --> 00:23:36.805
 so oppressed back at home
 
 00:23:36.825 --> 00:23:37.484
 because they didn't,
 
 00:23:37.825 --> 00:23:39.145
 they weren't oppressed.
 
 00:23:39.326 --> 00:23:40.946
 Certainly, you know,
 
 00:23:41.846 --> 00:23:43.909
 the leaders were not the way
 
 00:23:43.949 --> 00:23:45.770
 the leaders of the Puritan
 
 00:23:45.851 --> 00:23:47.051
 settlement in Massachusetts
 
 00:23:47.112 --> 00:23:48.512
 or the Massachusetts Bay or
 
 00:23:48.532 --> 00:23:49.554
 the pilgrims down in
 
 00:23:50.173 --> 00:23:51.194
 Plymouth could claim.
 
 00:23:51.635 --> 00:23:54.157
 And so I think, yeah, it's a great point,
 
 00:23:54.198 --> 00:23:54.337
 Bob,
 
 00:23:54.357 --> 00:23:57.560
 that they had a spiritual history
 
 00:23:58.040 --> 00:23:59.682
 that the Virginians didn't have.
 
 00:23:59.741 --> 00:24:01.304
 Not saying the Virginians were irreligious,
 
 00:24:01.344 --> 00:24:01.983
 but they didn't have the
 
 00:24:02.044 --> 00:24:03.265
 spiritual history of
 
 00:24:03.826 --> 00:24:05.527
 wandering this errand into
 
 00:24:05.547 --> 00:24:05.968
 the wilderness.
 
 00:24:06.307 --> 00:24:07.949
 Although I also want to add another book,
 
 00:24:07.989 --> 00:24:09.049
 John Frederick Martin's
 
 00:24:09.109 --> 00:24:10.290
 Prophets in the Wilderness
 
 00:24:10.790 --> 00:24:12.231
 is my favorite title of any
 
 00:24:12.271 --> 00:24:13.813
 book because prophets,
 
 00:24:13.833 --> 00:24:14.913
 you don't know whether to spell it.
 
 00:24:16.434 --> 00:24:17.875
 He spelled it F-I-T-S,
 
 00:24:17.915 --> 00:24:18.556
 but you're supposed to
 
 00:24:18.596 --> 00:24:21.117
 think it's P-H-E-T-S, prophets,
 
 00:24:21.157 --> 00:24:22.638
 because they were both and
 
 00:24:22.679 --> 00:24:25.240
 they were consistent with each other.
 
 00:24:25.861 --> 00:24:27.801
 And so there was an economic
 
 00:24:27.862 --> 00:24:29.482
 motive in Massachusetts.
 
 00:24:29.502 --> 00:24:30.463
 But let me say one more thing.
 
 00:24:30.923 --> 00:24:32.224
 I really would say, Bob,
 
 00:24:32.285 --> 00:24:35.527
 that your Western Massachusetts farmers,
 
 00:24:36.528 --> 00:24:38.789
 are much more ideologues.
 
 00:24:38.829 --> 00:24:40.029
 And I mean that in the best
 
 00:24:40.049 --> 00:24:40.810
 sense of the word.
 
 00:24:40.971 --> 00:24:42.372
 They were constitutionalists
 
 00:24:43.051 --> 00:24:45.032
 more so than the guys in Boston because,
 
 00:24:45.073 --> 00:24:47.654
 for instance, when they, you know,
 
 00:24:47.674 --> 00:24:48.536
 the reason that tea had to
 
 00:24:48.556 --> 00:24:50.277
 be thrown in the harbor was
 
 00:24:50.317 --> 00:24:52.018
 that the patriots were
 
 00:24:52.057 --> 00:24:52.938
 afraid people would drink
 
 00:24:52.998 --> 00:24:54.019
 it because it was going to
 
 00:24:54.058 --> 00:24:57.881
 be cheaper than the Dutch smuggled tea.
 
 00:24:58.280 --> 00:25:01.143
 And so I would say, to speak very crudely,
 
 00:25:01.182 --> 00:25:03.365
 but it advances a little bit, I would say
 
 00:25:04.065 --> 00:25:06.186
 The Revolution was primarily
 
 00:25:06.227 --> 00:25:07.788
 an economic movement in
 
 00:25:08.509 --> 00:25:10.609
 coastal Massachusetts and
 
 00:25:10.670 --> 00:25:11.830
 in all of Virginia,
 
 00:25:12.311 --> 00:25:14.553
 but not really in western Massachusetts.
 
 00:25:15.894 --> 00:25:17.476
 They really were trying to
 
 00:25:17.516 --> 00:25:18.757
 protect their town meeting.
 
 00:25:19.817 --> 00:25:21.618
 Bob mentioned correctly,
 
 00:25:21.638 --> 00:25:22.380
 there's all these things
 
 00:25:22.400 --> 00:25:23.420
 that didn't change or
 
 00:25:23.721 --> 00:25:25.261
 didn't change much in Massachusetts.
 
 00:25:25.281 --> 00:25:26.363
 But one thing that did change,
 
 00:25:27.344 --> 00:25:29.025
 and you can correct me on this, Bob,
 
 00:25:29.045 --> 00:25:29.805
 but I think you told me,
 
 00:25:30.566 --> 00:25:31.548
 People just ignored it,
 
 00:25:31.587 --> 00:25:32.489
 but it's still interesting
 
 00:25:32.509 --> 00:25:33.171
 that it was said.
 
 00:25:33.711 --> 00:25:34.593
 The Massachusetts Government
 
 00:25:34.633 --> 00:25:35.454
 Act says you can only have
 
 00:25:35.654 --> 00:25:36.977
 one town meeting a year to
 
 00:25:37.017 --> 00:25:37.919
 elect your officials.
 
 00:25:39.729 --> 00:25:41.089
 We know it from the Norman
 
 00:25:41.131 --> 00:25:42.290
 Rockwell painting of the
 
 00:25:42.311 --> 00:25:44.532
 guy standing up in the town meeting.
 
 00:25:44.573 --> 00:25:47.556
 But people love those town meetings.
 
 00:25:47.576 --> 00:25:48.936
 And they're still astounding to me.
 
 00:25:48.957 --> 00:25:49.817
 I've never been to a New
 
 00:25:49.897 --> 00:25:50.778
 England town meeting.
 
 00:25:51.038 --> 00:25:52.940
 Because they still have them in town.
 
 00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:56.482
 And they vote at that town
 
 00:25:56.502 --> 00:25:57.784
 meeting to change the name
 
 00:25:57.824 --> 00:25:59.846
 of Concord to Lollapalooza.
 
 00:25:59.885 --> 00:26:00.626
 They can do whatever they
 
 00:26:00.666 --> 00:26:02.808
 want because it's a dimension.
 
 00:26:02.848 --> 00:26:05.651
 Actually, there's a myth involved here.
 
 00:26:06.786 --> 00:26:07.826
 It's a myth that's like
 
 00:26:07.865 --> 00:26:09.946
 Thomas Paine's myth of how
 
 00:26:09.987 --> 00:26:11.247
 governments formed from the
 
 00:26:11.287 --> 00:26:12.886
 bottom up when a group of
 
 00:26:13.186 --> 00:26:15.788
 people sit around a tree
 
 00:26:15.847 --> 00:26:18.407
 and all the same thing.
 
 00:26:19.087 --> 00:26:21.868
 No town was ever chartered
 
 00:26:22.989 --> 00:26:24.469
 to hold its own government
 
 00:26:25.249 --> 00:26:29.109
 until the general court authorized it.
 
 00:26:30.930 --> 00:26:32.150
 We talk about government
 
 00:26:32.170 --> 00:26:34.931
 from the bottom up, but in fact,
 
 00:26:35.625 --> 00:26:37.646
 it was always some interplay
 
 00:26:37.967 --> 00:26:39.666
 between higher authority
 
 00:26:40.267 --> 00:26:43.087
 and then the base where people meet.
 
 00:26:43.468 --> 00:26:43.667
 You know,
 
 00:26:44.067 --> 00:26:45.888
 town meetings in Concord right now,
 
 00:26:46.249 --> 00:26:49.089
 we're still running the
 
 00:26:49.130 --> 00:26:52.451
 town through citizen input
 
 00:26:53.230 --> 00:26:54.151
 and participation,
 
 00:26:54.872 --> 00:26:59.113
 but we can only do so by
 
 00:26:59.153 --> 00:27:00.712
 having a whole lot of
 
 00:27:00.752 --> 00:27:02.453
 people who can devote
 
 00:27:03.439 --> 00:27:05.259
 forty and fifty hours a week
 
 00:27:06.019 --> 00:27:08.400
 to being on you know
 
 00:27:08.460 --> 00:27:09.340
 committees dealing with
 
 00:27:09.381 --> 00:27:11.240
 budgets and zoning and all
 
 00:27:11.340 --> 00:27:14.261
 sorts of things um so it's
 
 00:27:14.342 --> 00:27:15.902
 highly professionalized
 
 00:27:16.261 --> 00:27:17.762
 with town managers and one
 
 00:27:18.103 --> 00:27:19.303
 but let me come back to the
 
 00:27:19.482 --> 00:27:21.544
 sort of larger point here
 
 00:27:21.983 --> 00:27:26.125
 which is that um the attack
 
 00:27:26.265 --> 00:27:30.566
 on self-government is really crucial
 
 00:27:31.609 --> 00:27:34.392
 and it transcends economic interest.
 
 00:27:35.313 --> 00:27:36.894
 And I think for a reason
 
 00:27:36.913 --> 00:27:39.075
 that we might see here as
 
 00:27:39.115 --> 00:27:40.935
 connected to something that
 
 00:27:40.996 --> 00:27:42.237
 runs through your work, Woody,
 
 00:27:42.277 --> 00:27:43.417
 and went through the
 
 00:27:43.458 --> 00:27:44.778
 progressive historians.
 
 00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:46.640
 Often we'll say, oh,
 
 00:27:46.680 --> 00:27:47.681
 progressive historians
 
 00:27:47.721 --> 00:27:50.762
 thought only economics drove politics.
 
 00:27:51.383 --> 00:27:52.663
 But they were also quite
 
 00:27:52.703 --> 00:27:55.385
 aware that the political order
 
 00:27:56.819 --> 00:27:58.682
 place in it, groups place in it,
 
 00:27:59.241 --> 00:28:02.124
 is itself needing to be considered.
 
 00:28:03.105 --> 00:28:05.527
 And so when you have a revolution,
 
 00:28:05.567 --> 00:28:06.067
 they say,
 
 00:28:06.107 --> 00:28:07.709
 when people challenge British power,
 
 00:28:08.670 --> 00:28:09.570
 you have different groups
 
 00:28:09.590 --> 00:28:11.291
 then contending for power
 
 00:28:11.913 --> 00:28:13.713
 because everything's being shaken up.
 
 00:28:15.234 --> 00:28:16.076
 And I think that was
 
 00:28:16.115 --> 00:28:17.017
 certainly true in
 
 00:28:17.057 --> 00:28:18.917
 Massachusetts when people
 
 00:28:20.599 --> 00:28:23.221
 came to provincial Congress, you know,
 
 00:28:23.692 --> 00:28:24.792
 Some people were ready to
 
 00:28:24.893 --> 00:28:27.013
 argue how dare we can't
 
 00:28:27.054 --> 00:28:28.153
 betray our forefathers.
 
 00:28:28.634 --> 00:28:29.934
 We've got to have that.
 
 00:28:30.355 --> 00:28:34.357
 We're going to act as if it's in effect.
 
 00:28:35.538 --> 00:28:36.519
 And others said,
 
 00:28:36.578 --> 00:28:37.900
 like the town of Worcester
 
 00:28:37.960 --> 00:28:40.840
 and others that you've looked at, say,
 
 00:28:40.861 --> 00:28:41.682
 you've got to be kidding.
 
 00:28:42.201 --> 00:28:43.363
 We're in a state of nature.
 
 00:28:43.423 --> 00:28:44.722
 If we don't have our charter,
 
 00:28:45.364 --> 00:28:46.704
 if we're in a state of nature,
 
 00:28:47.065 --> 00:28:48.746
 then we can reconstitute
 
 00:28:48.766 --> 00:28:50.326
 government as we want.
 
 00:28:50.727 --> 00:28:53.107
 We can be a civil democracy if we want.
 
 00:28:54.082 --> 00:28:55.842
 And so in that sense,
 
 00:28:56.442 --> 00:28:58.843
 the very political struggle
 
 00:29:00.603 --> 00:29:02.523
 brings up ideological
 
 00:29:02.604 --> 00:29:04.144
 issues and principles about
 
 00:29:04.223 --> 00:29:06.244
 self-government that
 
 00:29:06.464 --> 00:29:09.365
 themselves drive conflict
 
 00:29:10.365 --> 00:29:13.586
 and cooperation in Massachusetts Bay.
 
 00:29:14.885 --> 00:29:17.926
 And I think it may be that,
 
 00:29:18.446 --> 00:29:19.507
 I'm thinking out loud here,
 
 00:29:19.547 --> 00:29:23.248
 the combination of ideology and politics
 
 00:29:24.824 --> 00:29:26.586
 can actually make for
 
 00:29:27.645 --> 00:29:29.567
 coalitions with other colonies,
 
 00:29:30.828 --> 00:29:32.431
 each of which has, after all,
 
 00:29:32.871 --> 00:29:34.511
 its own political system
 
 00:29:35.292 --> 00:29:37.255
 and its own ongoing conflict.
 
 00:29:39.737 --> 00:29:40.517
 That's certainly one of the
 
 00:29:40.557 --> 00:29:41.939
 things that General Clinton said,
 
 00:29:41.979 --> 00:29:43.880
 that these people have so
 
 00:29:43.900 --> 00:29:44.780
 many differences,
 
 00:29:44.820 --> 00:29:45.842
 they will never figure out
 
 00:29:45.882 --> 00:29:46.742
 how to get along.
 
 00:29:47.103 --> 00:29:47.943
 And maybe the best thing the
 
 00:29:47.963 --> 00:29:48.865
 British could do is pull
 
 00:29:48.904 --> 00:29:50.125
 all their forces out to
 
 00:29:50.145 --> 00:29:51.507
 Florida and Canada
 
 00:29:52.013 --> 00:29:53.075
 let these people fight it
 
 00:29:53.134 --> 00:29:54.296
 out for about ten years and
 
 00:29:54.316 --> 00:29:54.836
 they'll get tired of
 
 00:29:54.875 --> 00:29:55.936
 killing each other and ask
 
 00:29:56.017 --> 00:29:56.896
 us to come back.
 
 00:29:56.936 --> 00:29:57.198
 That is,
 
 00:29:57.637 --> 00:29:59.219
 seeing these profound differences.
 
 00:29:59.278 --> 00:30:00.339
 And each of you have talked
 
 00:30:00.380 --> 00:30:01.840
 about the real risks and
 
 00:30:02.500 --> 00:30:04.163
 how they do come together
 
 00:30:04.202 --> 00:30:05.683
 at this moment from very
 
 00:30:05.723 --> 00:30:06.564
 different places.
 
 00:30:06.804 --> 00:30:09.086
 And each of you have written
 
 00:30:09.125 --> 00:30:09.906
 about that and thought
 
 00:30:09.946 --> 00:30:12.127
 about the next step after
 
 00:30:12.167 --> 00:30:13.429
 the great moment of
 
 00:30:13.469 --> 00:30:14.910
 declaring independence and
 
 00:30:14.950 --> 00:30:16.490
 how do you create a union
 
 00:30:16.590 --> 00:30:17.311
 out of this really
 
 00:30:17.352 --> 00:30:18.833
 disparate group of colonies.
 
 00:30:20.750 --> 00:30:23.353
 Yeah, Alan Taylor says, you know,
 
 00:30:23.413 --> 00:30:24.834
 people see him as one of
 
 00:30:24.874 --> 00:30:25.713
 the neoprogressive
 
 00:30:25.753 --> 00:30:26.835
 historians who's critical,
 
 00:30:27.174 --> 00:30:28.675
 and he often is, of the founders.
 
 00:30:29.136 --> 00:30:30.136
 But he also says you've got
 
 00:30:30.156 --> 00:30:31.357
 to hand these guys credit
 
 00:30:31.718 --> 00:30:32.739
 when you look at everything
 
 00:30:32.759 --> 00:30:33.298
 they're up against.
 
 00:30:33.740 --> 00:30:35.240
 For instance, class conflict,
 
 00:30:35.941 --> 00:30:37.461
 enslaved people taking them on,
 
 00:30:37.541 --> 00:30:39.824
 women making new demands.
 
 00:30:40.243 --> 00:30:42.224
 The West, as Bob was just saying,
 
 00:30:42.625 --> 00:30:45.287
 these towns like Worcester or, you know,
 
 00:30:45.346 --> 00:30:45.827
 Boston, Boston,
 
 00:30:46.567 --> 00:30:47.528
 Boston was really being
 
 00:30:47.568 --> 00:30:48.710
 challenged by Worcester
 
 00:30:49.589 --> 00:30:50.170
 when Worcester said,
 
 00:30:50.190 --> 00:30:53.532
 we want to go back to this pre, I mean,
 
 00:30:53.573 --> 00:30:55.673
 Charles I era constitution
 
 00:30:56.295 --> 00:30:58.016
 when we got to elect the governor.
 
 00:30:58.076 --> 00:30:59.356
 And Boston didn't want
 
 00:30:59.497 --> 00:31:00.317
 Worcester electing the
 
 00:31:00.356 --> 00:31:02.378
 governor because who knows
 
 00:31:02.419 --> 00:31:03.699
 what kind of taxes Boston
 
 00:31:03.719 --> 00:31:05.661
 would pay in order to make
 
 00:31:05.721 --> 00:31:06.902
 taxes lighter on Worcester.
 
 00:31:08.342 --> 00:31:09.983
 And so, yeah, I agree.
 
 00:31:10.003 --> 00:31:13.365
 Let me add something else.
 
 00:31:13.385 --> 00:31:15.186
 People in Massachusetts had long memories
 
 00:31:15.753 --> 00:31:16.855
 You know who was the first
 
 00:31:17.454 --> 00:31:18.836
 British official to
 
 00:31:18.895 --> 00:31:19.957
 recommend that town
 
 00:31:19.977 --> 00:31:21.498
 meetings be abolished
 
 00:31:21.557 --> 00:31:22.598
 except once a year with the
 
 00:31:22.618 --> 00:31:23.779
 governor's consent?
 
 00:31:25.520 --> 00:31:26.501
 Governor Andrews.
 
 00:31:27.643 --> 00:31:28.903
 Before the overthrow.
 
 00:31:29.003 --> 00:31:34.667
 Before they threw him in jail.
 
 00:31:34.807 --> 00:31:35.028
 Yeah.
 
 00:31:35.689 --> 00:31:38.290
 Governor Andrews first thought to do that.
 
 00:31:39.311 --> 00:31:41.772
 And then Hutchinson in his
 
 00:31:41.813 --> 00:31:43.515
 letters and his analysis,
 
 00:31:43.535 --> 00:31:45.236
 we really got to do something about it.
 
 00:31:47.923 --> 00:31:49.644
 So this was, you know,
 
 00:31:49.765 --> 00:31:51.026
 the Massachusetts
 
 00:31:51.066 --> 00:31:54.670
 Government Act picked up a
 
 00:31:54.730 --> 00:31:59.153
 long-standing agenda for
 
 00:31:59.213 --> 00:32:00.454
 repressing popular
 
 00:32:00.836 --> 00:32:02.758
 dissipation in governance
 
 00:32:02.877 --> 00:32:03.979
 in Massachusetts.
 
 00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:06.882
 And people knew that.
 
 00:32:07.634 --> 00:32:07.815
 Bob,
 
 00:32:07.875 --> 00:32:09.297
 I'm going to use that as an entree to
 
 00:32:09.376 --> 00:32:09.836
 plugging.
 
 00:32:10.077 --> 00:32:11.618
 Some people will be watching
 
 00:32:11.638 --> 00:32:14.902
 this before an event that
 
 00:32:14.922 --> 00:32:16.604
 you and I are both participating in.
 
 00:32:17.084 --> 00:32:19.266
 Well, we're doing this on October eighth,
 
 00:32:19.287 --> 00:32:21.909
 but on Friday, October eleventh,
 
 00:32:23.089 --> 00:32:24.230
 that's the actual
 
 00:32:24.330 --> 00:32:25.952
 anniversary of the first
 
 00:32:26.032 --> 00:32:27.213
 meeting of the
 
 00:32:27.233 --> 00:32:28.315
 Massachusetts Provincial
 
 00:32:28.355 --> 00:32:30.176
 Congress in Concord.
 
 00:32:31.278 --> 00:32:32.660
 And we've got a whole day.
 
 00:32:32.680 --> 00:32:33.820
 We've got a law professor.
 
 00:32:33.840 --> 00:32:36.763
 We've got an expert on on
 
 00:32:36.903 --> 00:32:37.904
 freedom and democracy
 
 00:32:37.944 --> 00:32:38.526
 coming up from the
 
 00:32:38.546 --> 00:32:39.487
 University of Connecticut.
 
 00:32:40.448 --> 00:32:42.369
 And I just saw the schedule, Bob.
 
 00:32:43.009 --> 00:32:44.571
 Governor Gage is going to be there, too.
 
 00:32:44.672 --> 00:32:46.413
 So, yeah, I'd show up.
 
 00:32:47.234 --> 00:32:48.816
 But it's going to be it's
 
 00:32:48.855 --> 00:32:50.258
 going to be a lot of fun, I think.
 
 00:32:50.357 --> 00:32:53.040
 And and, you know, all these issues, Bob,
 
 00:32:53.121 --> 00:32:53.941
 I've read your article.
 
 00:32:55.461 --> 00:32:56.522
 the talk you're going to give there.
 
 00:32:57.663 --> 00:32:58.603
 And I really like this
 
 00:32:58.643 --> 00:33:00.983
 inheritance theme because you also had,
 
 00:33:01.003 --> 00:33:01.523
 and I don't know if you
 
 00:33:01.544 --> 00:33:02.564
 have time to mention it now,
 
 00:33:02.604 --> 00:33:05.204
 but it has a dark side too, doesn't it?
 
 00:33:05.285 --> 00:33:06.664
 All of this is going to... Yeah,
 
 00:33:08.066 --> 00:33:09.506
 I need to do a lot more work on this,
 
 00:33:09.665 --> 00:33:09.986
 I think.
 
 00:33:10.086 --> 00:33:14.646
 But Americans like the
 
 00:33:14.666 --> 00:33:17.087
 revolution of Jefferson's
 
 00:33:17.167 --> 00:33:18.807
 preamble to the Declaration.
 
 00:33:19.469 --> 00:33:21.028
 We hold these truths to be self-evident.
 
 00:33:22.973 --> 00:33:24.595
 and all men are created
 
 00:33:24.634 --> 00:33:27.636
 equal and endowed with rights.
 
 00:33:29.038 --> 00:33:35.521
 But the ideology of the
 
 00:33:35.561 --> 00:33:37.222
 revolution in Massachusetts
 
 00:33:37.502 --> 00:33:41.765
 and its people to the ancestors is making,
 
 00:33:42.085 --> 00:33:45.988
 it makes the case on far narrower ground
 
 00:33:47.102 --> 00:33:48.482
 In effect, they're saying,
 
 00:33:48.883 --> 00:33:50.383
 we owe it to the ancestors
 
 00:33:50.442 --> 00:33:52.743
 and posterity to maintain
 
 00:33:52.804 --> 00:33:55.285
 this legacy of civil and
 
 00:33:55.325 --> 00:33:56.326
 religious liberty.
 
 00:33:57.205 --> 00:33:57.506
 Well,
 
 00:33:57.965 --> 00:34:01.488
 that faces rights in the charter and
 
 00:34:01.607 --> 00:34:04.669
 even more on genealogical privilege.
 
 00:34:06.089 --> 00:34:08.231
 What room is there in that
 
 00:34:09.030 --> 00:34:14.112
 vision for the Africans and
 
 00:34:14.132 --> 00:34:16.134
 their children whose
 
 00:34:16.621 --> 00:34:19.043
 were kidnapped, or as you say,
 
 00:34:19.103 --> 00:34:21.445
 sold out of Africa and
 
 00:34:21.505 --> 00:34:23.726
 forced across the Atlantic
 
 00:34:24.666 --> 00:34:27.268
 to take up lives in bondage.
 
 00:34:28.449 --> 00:34:29.731
 It's the very opposite
 
 00:34:29.811 --> 00:34:31.692
 narrative of the
 
 00:34:32.273 --> 00:34:34.114
 Massachusetts Children of
 
 00:34:34.153 --> 00:34:35.255
 Puritans narrative.
 
 00:34:37.155 --> 00:34:38.197
 And yet,
 
 00:34:39.617 --> 00:34:42.239
 hundreds and hundreds of people of
 
 00:34:42.360 --> 00:34:44.702
 African descent serve in
 
 00:34:44.722 --> 00:34:46.182
 the Massachusetts Armed Forces.
 
 00:34:48.610 --> 00:34:51.431
 And within the five
 
 00:34:52.110 --> 00:34:53.452
 Massachusetts signers of
 
 00:34:53.492 --> 00:34:54.972
 the Declaration of Independence,
 
 00:34:56.273 --> 00:34:57.333
 all first served in the
 
 00:34:57.393 --> 00:34:58.393
 Provincial Congress.
 
 00:34:59.815 --> 00:35:00.815
 So you have a kind of
 
 00:35:01.195 --> 00:35:03.637
 universalist nationalism, if you will,
 
 00:35:04.036 --> 00:35:04.757
 of Jefferson.
 
 00:35:05.757 --> 00:35:07.217
 You have an ethnic
 
 00:35:07.297 --> 00:35:10.960
 nationalism of the descendants of Purim.
 
 00:35:11.780 --> 00:35:14.282
 And yet, within a year,
 
 00:35:15.461 --> 00:35:16.882
 those ethnic nationalism
 
 00:35:18.219 --> 00:35:21.161
 and become universalist ideals.
 
 00:35:22.862 --> 00:35:24.021
 Is there a story of a
 
 00:35:24.161 --> 00:35:25.862
 mediological translation
 
 00:35:25.943 --> 00:35:26.722
 that we haven't told?
 
 00:35:26.742 --> 00:35:26.822
 Yeah.
 
 00:35:26.842 --> 00:35:26.963
 Yeah.
 
 00:35:27.003 --> 00:35:34.826
 Interesting.
 
 00:35:34.846 --> 00:35:36.887
 We've been talking with Bob Gross,
 
 00:35:36.947 --> 00:35:39.467
 the author of The Minutemen
 
 00:35:39.507 --> 00:35:41.088
 and Their World, and Woody Holton,
 
 00:35:41.288 --> 00:35:43.329
 author of Force Founders and other books.
 
 00:35:44.056 --> 00:35:45.115
 That's really a profound
 
 00:35:45.175 --> 00:35:47.036
 moment to think about that transition.
 
 00:35:47.077 --> 00:35:48.177
 And Bob's been talking about
 
 00:35:48.217 --> 00:35:49.456
 this for a couple of years,
 
 00:35:49.476 --> 00:35:50.317
 about you go from
 
 00:35:50.556 --> 00:35:51.536
 preserving our charter
 
 00:35:51.577 --> 00:35:53.858
 rights to universal freedom.
 
 00:35:53.878 --> 00:35:56.478
 And that is a big transition
 
 00:35:56.498 --> 00:35:57.577
 we see happening.
 
 00:35:58.358 --> 00:35:59.798
 Is that the story of the
 
 00:35:59.838 --> 00:36:01.498
 revolution or is there something else?
 
 00:36:03.418 --> 00:36:04.498
 You know, take it a little bit further,
 
 00:36:04.980 --> 00:36:05.800
 just as you said it.
 
 00:36:06.119 --> 00:36:11.320
 Look, the other colonies were,
 
 00:36:11.541 --> 00:36:13.481
 they rallied the Massachusetts side
 
 00:36:14.690 --> 00:36:17.530
 because Britain revoked the charter.
 
 00:36:20.050 --> 00:36:22.291
 And yet,
 
 00:36:23.291 --> 00:36:25.512
 everybody preoccupied by charter rights,
 
 00:36:25.572 --> 00:36:29.331
 you know, Dr. Joseph Warren says that,
 
 00:36:29.391 --> 00:36:30.773
 you know,
 
 00:36:30.833 --> 00:36:31.913
 let them take away charter
 
 00:36:31.952 --> 00:36:33.492
 rights and everything's gone.
 
 00:36:34.213 --> 00:36:37.034
 So they all share that point of view.
 
 00:36:37.994 --> 00:36:39.034
 And sharing that point of
 
 00:36:39.054 --> 00:36:40.293
 view about charter rights,
 
 00:36:40.954 --> 00:36:42.155
 they're all signing on to
 
 00:36:42.195 --> 00:36:43.914
 the Declaration of the Supreme.
 
 00:36:44.980 --> 00:36:45.440
 But of course,
 
 00:36:45.460 --> 00:36:46.581
 we do have to remember
 
 00:36:46.983 --> 00:36:49.847
 Pauline Meyer's emphasis
 
 00:36:50.367 --> 00:36:51.768
 that nobody really paid
 
 00:36:51.789 --> 00:36:53.552
 attention to the preamble
 
 00:36:53.771 --> 00:36:56.375
 to the Declaration until the, you know,
 
 00:36:56.434 --> 00:37:00.701
 the eighteen thirties and forties.
 
 00:37:00.820 --> 00:37:02.063
 Oh, can I tack on to that?
 
 00:37:02.123 --> 00:37:02.443
 Yes, please.
 
 00:37:04.199 --> 00:37:07.021
 If I had to say the single
 
 00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:08.882
 coolest discovery I've ever
 
 00:37:08.922 --> 00:37:10.782
 heard about the founding era,
 
 00:37:10.842 --> 00:37:11.923
 I wish I could say it's a
 
 00:37:11.963 --> 00:37:13.344
 discovery I made, it's not,
 
 00:37:13.764 --> 00:37:16.166
 but Bob gave the beginning of it.
 
 00:37:16.646 --> 00:37:19.407
 And that is that the people who wrote
 
 00:37:19.788 --> 00:37:21.230
 the Declaration of
 
 00:37:21.250 --> 00:37:23.672
 Independence did not view
 
 00:37:23.753 --> 00:37:26.014
 it as a human rights document.
 
 00:37:26.476 --> 00:37:27.876
 They viewed it as a state's
 
 00:37:27.936 --> 00:37:30.039
 rights document and not
 
 00:37:30.099 --> 00:37:32.001
 states as in we now think Virginia,
 
 00:37:32.021 --> 00:37:33.983
 Connecticut, but as a nation.
 
 00:37:36.606 --> 00:37:37.648
 Connecticut was a nation,
 
 00:37:38.248 --> 00:37:39.489
 as hard as that may be to believe.
 
 00:37:39.528 --> 00:37:40.730
 And so was Virginia and all the rest.
 
 00:37:41.190 --> 00:37:44.514
 And the way you really see
 
 00:37:44.574 --> 00:37:45.994
 it as Eric Slaughter, who really,
 
 00:37:46.034 --> 00:37:47.755
 I think he carried the ball
 
 00:37:47.896 --> 00:37:49.257
 quite a bit farther down
 
 00:37:49.297 --> 00:37:50.579
 the field than Pauline had.
 
 00:37:51.077 --> 00:37:52.478
 in pointing out that if you
 
 00:37:52.498 --> 00:37:53.940
 look at the last paragraph
 
 00:37:53.980 --> 00:37:55.820
 of the declaration you see
 
 00:37:55.840 --> 00:37:57.581
 the phrase independent
 
 00:37:57.621 --> 00:37:59.543
 states in all caps three
 
 00:37:59.563 --> 00:38:01.625
 times and a couple of those
 
 00:38:01.664 --> 00:38:02.826
 times it says free and
 
 00:38:02.846 --> 00:38:03.786
 independent states free and
 
 00:38:03.806 --> 00:38:04.847
 independent states free and
 
 00:38:04.867 --> 00:38:06.248
 independent states that's
 
 00:38:06.288 --> 00:38:09.130
 what they were all about um
 
 00:38:09.230 --> 00:38:11.130
 and so and this always
 
 00:38:11.170 --> 00:38:11.931
 scares people when they
 
 00:38:11.952 --> 00:38:13.353
 hear it coming from me
 
 00:38:13.413 --> 00:38:14.572
 coming from south carolina
 
 00:38:15.273 --> 00:38:16.735
 I think the proper term for
 
 00:38:16.755 --> 00:38:17.315
 the declaration of
 
 00:38:17.335 --> 00:38:19.717
 independence as written but stay with me
 
 00:38:20.056 --> 00:38:20.856
 If we're at the end of this,
 
 00:38:20.916 --> 00:38:21.757
 I'm going to be in trouble.
 
 00:38:23.338 --> 00:38:23.858
 As written,
 
 00:38:23.878 --> 00:38:24.878
 the Declaration of Independence
 
 00:38:24.898 --> 00:38:26.639
 was an ordinance of secession,
 
 00:38:27.420 --> 00:38:29.722
 justifying thirteen parts
 
 00:38:29.802 --> 00:38:31.762
 of the British Empire from
 
 00:38:32.483 --> 00:38:33.943
 seceding from the rest of
 
 00:38:33.963 --> 00:38:34.983
 the British Empire.
 
 00:38:35.105 --> 00:38:35.565
 And, you know,
 
 00:38:35.784 --> 00:38:36.664
 it was only half of the
 
 00:38:36.704 --> 00:38:37.666
 British Empire in America
 
 00:38:37.686 --> 00:38:38.346
 because there were thirteen
 
 00:38:38.405 --> 00:38:40.266
 other colonies that didn't rebel.
 
 00:38:40.666 --> 00:38:43.289
 And so its author saw that.
 
 00:38:43.489 --> 00:38:45.449
 But then in the same year
 
 00:38:45.489 --> 00:38:46.429
 that they published the
 
 00:38:46.469 --> 00:38:47.590
 Declaration of Independence,
 
 00:38:48.530 --> 00:38:49.972
 A guy from Massachusetts
 
 00:38:50.713 --> 00:38:51.773
 named Lemuel Haynes,
 
 00:38:51.853 --> 00:38:53.416
 who had served in the army,
 
 00:38:53.876 --> 00:38:55.438
 wrote an anti-slavery pamphlet,
 
 00:38:55.657 --> 00:38:56.599
 not for himself because he
 
 00:38:56.619 --> 00:38:57.179
 was already free.
 
 00:38:57.199 --> 00:38:58.579
 His mom was white, dad was black.
 
 00:38:59.061 --> 00:39:00.001
 But saying,
 
 00:39:01.282 --> 00:39:02.364
 call it call that liberty
 
 00:39:02.403 --> 00:39:04.865
 further extended and the
 
 00:39:05.648 --> 00:39:06.849
 epigraph of that was,
 
 00:39:06.909 --> 00:39:11.132
 we hold these truths to be self-evident.
 
 00:39:11.213 --> 00:39:14.474
 And that was the first time
 
 00:39:15.114 --> 00:39:18.657
 anybody ever quoted that part.
 
 00:39:19.838 --> 00:39:21.239
 Lots of people were already
 
 00:39:21.278 --> 00:39:22.679
 quoting free and independent states.
 
 00:39:22.739 --> 00:39:24.460
 Washington quoted that.
 
 00:39:24.800 --> 00:39:26.181
 The state legislatures quoted that.
 
 00:39:26.922 --> 00:39:28.262
 But then what Eric found was
 
 00:39:28.282 --> 00:39:30.885
 that seventy percent of all
 
 00:39:30.925 --> 00:39:32.166
 of the people who quoted
 
 00:39:33.639 --> 00:39:34.739
 created equal during the
 
 00:39:34.800 --> 00:39:36.239
 first twenty-five years of
 
 00:39:36.300 --> 00:39:38.822
 the Declaration of Independence's life,
 
 00:39:38.842 --> 00:39:39.902
 that is up until eighteen hundred.
 
 00:39:40.382 --> 00:39:41.302
 Seventy-five percent of the
 
 00:39:41.362 --> 00:39:42.842
 people who picked up about
 
 00:39:42.862 --> 00:39:44.344
 this obscure passage,
 
 00:39:44.543 --> 00:39:45.585
 all men are created equal,
 
 00:39:45.644 --> 00:39:47.786
 and decided to quote that were,
 
 00:39:48.166 --> 00:39:49.387
 like Lemuel Haynes and
 
 00:39:49.427 --> 00:39:52.228
 Benjamin Banneker and so many Quakers,
 
 00:39:52.728 --> 00:39:54.228
 anti-slavery people.
 
 00:39:54.409 --> 00:39:55.789
 So they kind of shifted the
 
 00:39:55.869 --> 00:39:57.210
 spotlight of the
 
 00:39:57.250 --> 00:39:58.471
 Declaration of Independence
 
 00:39:58.911 --> 00:40:00.692
 from free and independent states
 
 00:40:01.684 --> 00:40:03.106
 to create it equal and
 
 00:40:03.425 --> 00:40:05.327
 turned the secession document into,
 
 00:40:05.949 --> 00:40:07.090
 and then Lincoln finishes
 
 00:40:07.130 --> 00:40:08.911
 the job at Gettysburg when
 
 00:40:08.931 --> 00:40:10.693
 he says that's conceived in liberty,
 
 00:40:10.773 --> 00:40:11.815
 dedicated to the prospect
 
 00:40:11.835 --> 00:40:12.916
 that all men are created equal.
 
 00:40:13.297 --> 00:40:14.818
 They turned a secession
 
 00:40:14.858 --> 00:40:16.621
 document into a universal
 
 00:40:16.661 --> 00:40:18.623
 declaration of human rights.
 
 00:40:18.663 --> 00:40:20.425
 We could add, though,
 
 00:40:20.445 --> 00:40:21.525
 the Declaration of
 
 00:40:21.606 --> 00:40:23.128
 Independence was read aloud
 
 00:40:25.224 --> 00:40:28.405
 in town after town, church after church,
 
 00:40:28.465 --> 00:40:31.387
 and town meeting, and county gatherings.
 
 00:40:32.007 --> 00:40:33.268
 People heard that.
 
 00:40:34.489 --> 00:40:37.769
 And we don't know what they heard.
 
 00:40:38.170 --> 00:40:40.751
 But they heard it often every year,
 
 00:40:40.951 --> 00:40:43.431
 then a lot.
 
 00:40:43.632 --> 00:40:44.612
 And in that sense,
 
 00:40:44.952 --> 00:40:46.313
 those words may have gotten
 
 00:40:47.353 --> 00:40:49.335
 more of a hearing and more
 
 00:40:49.355 --> 00:40:51.456
 of a valence than we would know.
 
 00:40:55.773 --> 00:40:58.153
 And of course, on the parchment copy,
 
 00:40:58.213 --> 00:40:59.333
 States of America,
 
 00:40:59.534 --> 00:41:00.614
 States is the word
 
 00:41:00.833 --> 00:41:02.355
 capitalized in big letters.
 
 00:41:02.635 --> 00:41:03.594
 When the printed copy,
 
 00:41:03.614 --> 00:41:07.076
 it's United States of America.
 
 00:41:07.496 --> 00:41:09.416
 I wonder if each of you have
 
 00:41:09.476 --> 00:41:10.737
 final thoughts for our
 
 00:41:10.797 --> 00:41:12.956
 listeners on the fascinating discussion.
 
 00:41:13.396 --> 00:41:14.657
 Well, Woody, I want to ask you,
 
 00:41:14.998 --> 00:41:17.177
 where have we heard about
 
 00:41:17.538 --> 00:41:19.759
 all caps nationalism in our own time?
 
 00:41:22.146 --> 00:41:23.628
 You're back to MAGA again.
 
 00:41:24.148 --> 00:41:25.409
 I think I said by me,
 
 00:41:25.469 --> 00:41:27.610
 the main thing I really wanted to, well,
 
 00:41:27.630 --> 00:41:30.172
 I wanted to plug our thing on the Friday,
 
 00:41:30.273 --> 00:41:31.092
 October eleventh.
 
 00:41:31.132 --> 00:41:31.994
 Is it free, Bob?
 
 00:41:32.454 --> 00:41:34.396
 Yes, it is free and you can come.
 
 00:41:34.476 --> 00:41:36.157
 It starts at nine thirty AM
 
 00:41:36.556 --> 00:41:38.539
 at the first parish meeting
 
 00:41:38.559 --> 00:41:40.920
 house at the site of the
 
 00:41:41.199 --> 00:41:42.740
 congregation meeting house.
 
 00:41:43.621 --> 00:41:44.782
 That one stood there where
 
 00:41:44.802 --> 00:41:46.123
 the provincial congress met
 
 00:41:46.704 --> 00:41:47.784
 and it held its committee
 
 00:41:47.824 --> 00:41:49.766
 meetings in Wright Tavern,
 
 00:41:49.846 --> 00:41:50.786
 right close by.
 
 00:41:52.250 --> 00:41:52.949
 And it's going to be,
 
 00:41:52.971 --> 00:41:53.731
 I saw this going to be,
 
 00:41:53.871 --> 00:41:54.431
 not only are we going to
 
 00:41:54.452 --> 00:41:56.333
 have the reenactor, Tom Miscage,
 
 00:41:56.393 --> 00:41:58.594
 but breakout sections to
 
 00:41:58.634 --> 00:41:59.894
 talk about the issues with
 
 00:41:59.914 --> 00:42:01.315
 democracy today.
 
 00:42:01.356 --> 00:42:02.317
 It sounds like a very New
 
 00:42:02.376 --> 00:42:03.637
 England way to spend it.
 
 00:42:03.657 --> 00:42:04.557
 And members of the state
 
 00:42:04.637 --> 00:42:06.199
 legislature will be there.
 
 00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:10.001
 And descendant of Benjamin Lincoln,
 
 00:42:10.282 --> 00:42:11.503
 who was secretary and
 
 00:42:11.523 --> 00:42:13.164
 direct descendant of Benjamin Lincoln,
 
 00:42:13.503 --> 00:42:14.445
 who was secretary of the
 
 00:42:14.465 --> 00:42:15.885
 Provincial Congress will be there.
 
 00:42:16.806 --> 00:42:18.367
 And we hope members of school.
 
 00:42:18.387 --> 00:42:18.887
 Great, great.
 
 00:42:21.246 --> 00:42:22.126
 Yeah, that's it for me.
 
 00:42:22.166 --> 00:42:24.206
 Bob, do you want to say anything else?
 
 00:42:24.367 --> 00:42:24.547
 No,
 
 00:42:24.688 --> 00:42:26.467
 I think we have found a way for
 
 00:42:26.768 --> 00:42:28.248
 Virginia and Massachusetts
 
 00:42:28.588 --> 00:42:31.070
 to say to each other.
 
 00:42:32.371 --> 00:42:34.431
 This is me shaking hands with your pain,
 
 00:42:34.472 --> 00:42:35.773
 but it's very hard to do.
 
 00:42:35.893 --> 00:42:42.056
 I want to thank both of you
 
 00:42:42.076 --> 00:42:42.655
 for joining us.
 
 00:42:42.715 --> 00:42:43.996
 I want to thank Jonathan
 
 00:42:44.036 --> 00:42:47.157
 Lane and I look forward to Friday in, um,
 
 00:42:47.693 --> 00:42:49.753
 Concord and many occasions
 
 00:42:49.853 --> 00:42:50.875
 subsequently as we
 
 00:42:50.894 --> 00:42:51.815
 commemorate the beginnings
 
 00:42:51.894 --> 00:42:53.054
 of American independence.
 
 00:42:53.094 --> 00:42:54.635
 And every week we thank our
 
 00:42:54.675 --> 00:42:57.076
 listeners in and around the country.
 
 00:42:57.135 --> 00:42:58.715
 And this week I want to thank our friends.
 
 00:42:58.795 --> 00:42:59.456
 And if you're in one of
 
 00:42:59.476 --> 00:43:00.556
 these places and want some
 
 00:43:00.577 --> 00:43:02.876
 of our Revolution two fifty swag,
 
 00:43:02.896 --> 00:43:04.356
 send Jonathan Lane an email.
 
 00:43:04.677 --> 00:43:06.157
 Jay Lane at Revolution two
 
 00:43:06.177 --> 00:43:07.898
 fifty dot org or come see
 
 00:43:07.918 --> 00:43:09.197
 him in Concord on Friday
 
 00:43:09.617 --> 00:43:10.719
 for some of our magnets,
 
 00:43:10.778 --> 00:43:11.958
 playing cards or other
 
 00:43:13.666 --> 00:43:15.706
 And so this week, friends in Boston,
 
 00:43:15.987 --> 00:43:17.007
 Lowell, Arlington,
 
 00:43:17.047 --> 00:43:18.949
 here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
 
 00:43:19.449 --> 00:43:21.389
 and in Alexandria, Fredericksburg,
 
 00:43:21.429 --> 00:43:21.969
 Hampton,
 
 00:43:22.010 --> 00:43:23.150
 and Falls Church in the
 
 00:43:23.210 --> 00:43:24.371
 Commonwealth of Virginia,
 
 00:43:24.911 --> 00:43:27.052
 as well as folks in Amman, Jordan,
 
 00:43:27.132 --> 00:43:28.952
 Jerusalem, and Israel, The Hague,
 
 00:43:29.092 --> 00:43:30.393
 Edinburgh, Bangkok,
 
 00:43:30.454 --> 00:43:32.333
 and places between and beyond.
 
 00:43:32.393 --> 00:43:33.255
 Thanks for joining us.
 
 00:43:33.275 --> 00:43:34.494
 And now we will be piped out
 
 00:43:34.876 --> 00:43:35.835
 on the road to Boston.