 Greetings from the National Archives Flagship Building in Washington, D.C., which sits on the ancestral lands of the Nacotch Tank Peoples. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to today's virtual panel discussion on the Declaration of Independence and Diversity, then and now. Our very special guests are Edna Green-Medford, Gloria J. Brown Marshall, Rosemary Zagree, and Woody Holton. Before we begin, I'd like to let you know about some upcoming programs you can view on our YouTube channel. We invite you to join the National Archives on Sunday for its traditional Fourth of July program both in person and online. We'll have our traditional reading of the Declaration of Independence, a variety of educational and family-friendly programs, and more. The full schedule can be found online at archivesjuly4.org. And on Tuesday, July 6th at noon, Zachary M. Schrag will tell us about his new book, The Fires of Philadelphia, a study of anti-immigrant riots in 1844 Philadelphia. On Sunday, July 4th, we will commemorate the 245th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress. Across the nation, people will celebrate the birth of the United States, and over the holiday weekend, thousands of visitors will come to the recently reopened National Archives rotunda to view the original Declaration. One of the most famous phrases in the Declaration is the assertion that all men are created equal. At the time of its writings, the word all did not include women, enslaved persons, or indigenous peoples. And even today, that promise has yet to be fully realized. Those words, however, have a universal quality that has inspired Americans throughout our history and encourage us to strive toward freedom and justice for all. Today's panel will discuss important questions such as what was diversity like in 1776, and who made up our country during that time, how did it affect the founders and the writing of the Declaration of Independence, and how do the ideals and words of the Declaration relate to issues of race, gender, and diversity today? Our moderator for today's discussion is Dr. Edna Green Medford. Dr. Medford is a professor of history at Howard University who specializes in 19th century African American history. She has degrees from Hampton University and the University of Illinois and holds a PhD in history from the University of Maryland. She served as chair of the Department of History at Howard University for nearly eight years, and in July 2018, she became the interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of Howard University. She is the author of Lincoln and Emancipation and co-author of the Emancipation Proclamation, Three Views. She compiled and wrote introductions to the price of freedom, slavery, and the Civil War. Now let's hear from Dr. Medford and the panel. Thank you for joining us. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. We would like to thank the National Archives, especially US Archivist David Ferriero and Tom Nasek for hosting this event in a very important time in the nation's history. It is my pleasure to introduce our distinguished panel for the afternoon. Joining us is Gloria Brown Marshall, J.D. She is a professor of constitutional law at John Jay College and a civil rights attorney. She's the author as well of numerous articles and five books, including the most recent She Took Justice, The Black Woman, Law and Power, 1619 to 1969. Professor Brown Marshall is a legal correspondent covering the US Supreme Court as well. And she's a playwright whose most recent play is Dreams of Emmett Till, about the accusations of Carolyn Bryant that led to the brutal murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till. And she's a member of the Executive Council of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, something we share. I am also a member of the Executive Council of that organization. Secondly, we have with us Woody Holton, who is a McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches colonial and revolutionary America with a focus on women, Native Americans, and African Americans. Professor Holton is the winner of the 2010 Bancroft Prize for his book Abigail Adams, A Life. And in October, Liberty is Sweet, the Hidden History of the American Revolution will be on the shelves. So we're truly looking forward to that. And finally, we have with us Rose Marie Zagari, who received her doctorate from Yale University and is currently University Professor and Professor of History at George Mason University, just up the road of peace. She is the author of several books and many articles on early American political history, women and politics, and the American Revolution. She is also past president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. Her most recent book is Revolutionary Backlash, Women and Politics, and the Early American Republic. And at the end of our program, if I can remember, we will take a brief look at those wonderful books that they have already authored. And we know that there will be many more coming from all of them. So let's get started. Abraham Lincoln, someone that I have studied for the last 20 or more years, thought that the Declaration of Independence was the most important founding document. In fact, he was fond of quoting passages from the Declaration. And I'd like to just read just briefly something that he said when he spoke at Independence Hall in February of 1861. He said in talking about why the document was important, he said it was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the motherland, but something in that declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time, the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. And so although we think we know what's in the Declaration of Independence, we know it's about the justification of why the American colonists are breaking with the British Empire. We know that a significant amount of it is devoted to sort of listing all of the charges against King George, all of the abuses that he was involved in that gave the colonists the right to reject the government that oppressed them. But the clause that is most familiar to us today declares that all men are created equal and have a right to enjoy all that America had to offer. Now, at that time when the document was written, America was anything but an equal society. So let's talk just a bit about what America was in the era of the revolution. How diverse was it? How inclusive was it of these diverse elements? How did women fear? What about the common folk? What about Native Americans? And what about people who were of African descent who were either enslaved or free? This is a question that anyone can start with. Woody, would you like to begin discussion? Sure, sure. Just to get started with the demographics, there were about two million souls in the 13 British colonies that rebelled in 1776. It's worth remembering that Britain had 26 colonies in America in that year, most of the in the Caribbean. And the trade with the Caribbean was really crucial to the 13 that did rebel. But about two million people, about one in five of those people were African-American. East of the Mississippi River, there were about 100,000 Native Americans at that time. So it was a very diverse society because even within each of the three groups I've mentioned, Native Americans, African-Americans and Europeans, there was tremendous diversity within any of those groups. If you just take African-Americans, many were dragged here in chains. Many of those who were dragged here in chains were Muslims. A lot of had local religions that we don't know as much about today. As people did then, many were Christians because they were coming from the Congo, which had been a Christian nation for centuries by 1776. So and we can say the same thing about Native Americans and Europeans, if they were, it was a very diverse society. And so Rose-Marie, can you tell us a little bit about what's happening with women at this time? Well, the assumption was that, you know, the idea or the ideal of the society was based on hierarchy. It wasn't an assumption that all people are equal. And there were all sorts of hierarchies in this society. You know, women were supposed to be subordinate to men, lower-class people were supposed to be subordinate to upper-class people, black people, enslaved people were supposed to be subordinate to their masters. And so it was a society permeated with inequalities. And so women in particular did not have what we would call political rights. Married women were not allowed to sue or be sued in court to testify in court. Married women could not own property. And I should add, single women were allowed to own property. But married women were not allowed to do so. And then there were the social norms that perpetuated these inequalities as well. That is that women were not supposed to speak in mixed groups of men and women. And women did not own their own wages that they might earn in any sort of domestic job. Women's job really was to be wives and mothers when they grew up. And again, that was a system based on subordination to men. And I should add that, in many ways, African-American women were assumed to be doubly subordinate because they were assumed to be subordinate to males and to be subordinate to white people, all white people. And so Gloria, what was the legal status of people of African descent? And what was their position in society in general, not just socially, but politically and economically as well? Well, that's the thing about the diversity of what became this United States. There was diversity going all the way back to the 1600s. When the 29 Africans arrived in 1619, you had a colony in Virginia that had the members of the United Kingdom, as well as later on the Dutch and so in the Palatine Native Americans. So there was diversity from the very beginning. The legal issue then becomes what is the status of the Africans? And that status of the Africans, even in the colony, was up for debate. You had some who were enslaved, some who were servants, some who were semi-indentured servants like the Europeans who were too poor to have freedom outright. And you had some who were generationally free because Mary and Anthony Johnson, the family from Angola, Africa, who married and had their own farms in the 1600s, were free Africans. And so if they're free Africans in the 1600s, that means that they're generationally free Africans in the 1700s and into 1776. And so you begin to see in Massachusetts in places where they had large populations of free Africans that their sense of political being, that they had a certain status. And the question then becomes, for example, Wentworth Cheswell of New Hampshire, who became a constable. He ran for office. And in 1768, he is in New Hampshire and new market as a constable. So you had him in a political sphere. So it was very diverse as far as the level of political rights, the level of freedom. And even for women of African descent, you had some very fiery women who gained their freedom and went on to establish themselves in society. So when you have the idea of who the Africans are, it depends on each jurisdiction, each generation. And by 1776, you have a sense that some Africans are ready for full freedom and inclusion. So diversity has always been there. It's the inclusion that becomes the issue. And I think that's across the board for all of these groups that we've named. So then what is going on with these men who are pending the Declaration of Independence when they say all men are created equal? What do they mean by equal and equality during this period? Anyone? Wow, OK. I'm going to have to call on somebody, will I? Well, I'm just going to start. And I'm sure Woody has talked about this many, many times. I look back in my area, as I've said before, as the law. And you've noted that. But looking at legal history and looking at from the prism of the Dred Scott decision, and we're going to talk about that a little later. But many of these cases then go back to interpret what equality meant. What did it mean all men were created equal? And so the legal cases that arise based on people of color, in particular African-Americans who are challenging their status based on that phrase in the Declaration are actually being rebuked by law and saying that you were not included. That equality did not mean to include you. And I'm sure Rose Marie is going to speak to where women might have looked at this just using the word men. Is this the universal men or man? Or is this the physical actual man that they're talking to when they're talking about it being created equal? Rose Marie? I think it's important to understand, and I really appreciate your comments, Gloria. But I think that you're exactly right. And I think that it's important to understand the purposes for which the Declaration was written. And really, there are three audiences. There are, of course, the people of the United States. There's great written from whom the United States is declaring their separation or independence. And then there's the world. And to some extent, the phrases that we latch onto in the preamble about all men being created equal were rhetoric, that is to inspire the people of the United States to defend their rights. And it was also strategic because for a long time, the colonists had argued that they were resisting British taxes and British policies on the basis of their rights as subjects of Great Britain, the rights of English people. But when they were rebelling against Great Britain in 1776, they declared that the basis of their rebellion was on a deeper foundation. They were declaring their rights as human beings. Now, what they didn't think through was who are the people? Who do we mean by the people? And as Gloria says, who are the all men? And so in one sense, Thomas Jefferson could have just been being rhetorical. But in the other sense, the phrase and the phrases that he used in that preamble about all men being created equal are subject to multiple interpretations. And that's what we have been grappling with for the past over 200 years. Who are the people? Who is included in those promises of equality and rights, and how do you define those rights? This is Woody, and I have to apologize to everybody. I now have two buses parked next to me, the only place I could find Wi-Fi here in Wyoming. I apologize. We can hear you. Look at this trip. OK, thank you. It's fine, you can hear me. Thank you. But I want to go back to my two fellow panelists, if you don't mind, Edna, on this question of all men. Did when they said all men, did they mean all humans, or did they mean all men, or did they mean all white men? And I want to raise a question that I'd never thought of before, but it came up as I was listening to Gloria's response. And that is, we all agree that we disagree. We historians and law professors, and as well as journalists and others, about the meaning of the declaration. And you pointed out, Edna, you quoted Lincoln. You had a very liberal reading of Declaration of Independence as meaning much more than you would expect from a slaveholder like Thomas Jefferson and Roger Tawny, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, who wrote the Dred Scott decision. He went to the opposite extreme of the Declaration of Independence. So here's my point. We are still debating what they meant by all men. That was being debated in the 1850s and 60s by people like Lincoln. I wonder whether there was ambiguity even at the time, whether there was a debate clipped into the Declaration of Independence that of the people at the convention, I mean, at the Second Continent of Congress, they may have disagreed among themselves about that to some extent. Probably they all agree, you know, on the same day that they declared independence in Philadelphia, New Jersey passed a constitution that allowed some women to vote, July 2nd, 1776. And so that kind of shows, now that may have been an accident. Some people think that was an accident. They were in a hurry because the British had just landed that same day on Staten Island. They didn't have time to exclude women. So we don't know what it was, but I want to open up the possibility that there was ambiguity and ambivalence even at the time on that question of who we mean by all men. And so in the Declaration, in the original draft of the Declaration, there was a clause about King George being responsible for the continuation of slavery in the American colonies. And of course, it was taken out in the final draft. Why would someone like Thomas Jefferson include a statement like that? Was he simply being a hypocrite? Was he just simply trying to distinguish the American colonists from the British? Is there some other reason that he would have done that? What can we surmise from it? Well, I truly believe that hypocrisy is the core of the problems we have in America today. Was the hypocrisy of that time, that Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder, and his relationship we know later on with Sally Hemings who bore his children. And that there was this whole sense of liberty in this document, Declaration of Independence, written in the presence of enslaved Africans, talking about freedom and liberty and the cruelty of King George and why it was necessary to break from him. Speaking also of Native Americans as savages. And these are the things that are being said. That's what's left in. So when we talk about Thomas Jefferson's paragraph that he wanted included, and just like the US Constitution, and I teach constitutional law, just like the US Constitution is a compromised document, I believe the Declaration of Independence is a compromised document. It went through committees and went through vetting. They had this paragraph, they discussed it, the committee of five met and then they vetted it and then they passed it on to the whole body. So I think that it was a matter of a symbolic gesture and it was one that actually the language of it is very tough. And it makes me wonder how he's writing this language and maybe is this one way to absolve his guilt over what he himself is doing because they're trying to make a country out of colonies. And so that means that they need an economic engine and for them slavery is that economic engine directly or indirectly. And so they then give that economic engine slavery, the room it needs for the country to grow, which means taking out that paragraph that could be used against the colonists. But the idea that England made them do it, which is the way he's trying to construct this, I think is a deep form of hypocrisy, which is another question that goes to the Dred Scott decision, which asks basically how could these people then believe that Africans were human beings if the founders were enslaving them, then they couldn't be the great men we know them to be. So they could not have believed these people were human beings. So therefore in Thomas Jefferson, as we know, did not release his enslaved Africans at the end. So it's very confusing. This is what he said. There are so many things that were left debating even to this day. Including the motivation for the quest for independence as well. And I think Woody, you've written about that, that the fear that there will be this very strong alliance between people of African descent and the native population and the British. I'm one of many people written about that. Before I get to that, let me say one last thing about your last question. It is amazing to see as both you and Gloria pointed out, Thomas Jefferson, the owner of hundreds of slaves saying, and I liked your way of putting it, remind me of an old flip Wilson live, Gloria, the devil made me do it. The British made us have these slaves. And it looks ridiculous. There is actually a grain of truth in it though. And it opens up a window into the agency of African Americans. That is that when I was in school, we were taught to feel sorry for enslaved people, but we never thought of them as people who could sometimes be to use that loaded word, the masters of their own destiny, but here's where they were. Inslave people often rebelled against their owners and owners convinced themselves rightly or wrongly that Africans were especially likely to rebel. And so seven colonies had actually tried to halt the slave trade either temporarily or permanently. And most of those cases the British had not allowed them or many of those cases, the British had not allowed them to do so because of course slavery is very profitable for the British as for whites in Britain as much as it is for whites in North America. So there was a grain of truth in not in blaming the British for slavery, but in blaming the British for continuing the slave trade because some white Americans like Jefferson who owned hundreds of slaves, he really did want to stop bringing in more slaves. He didn't, you can see by his actions, they didn't wanna get rid of slavery, but he did truly sincerely I think wanna get rid of the slave trade because for one thing, as I mentioned, they are more dangerous to him, the Africans are more likely to slay his throat. And as a fear he discussed often. And for another thing economically, if you enjoy a lot, owning a lot of people, you wanna be able to sell them at a higher price, if you've got to compete with the slave traders from Africa, then that's a problem for you. But on the issue that you asked, if I could tell the people watching today, one thing about the Declaration of Independence that many of them probably already know because people have been writing about this since Benjamin Carls in 1961, a beautiful book called The Negro and the American Revolution. He pointed out that really the only word you can use is an alliance. There was an alliance before the Declaration of Independence and it continued afterwards as well between people of color, both Native Americans and African Americans and the British. And I had to stress that it was an alliance of convenience because it's not like the British were anti-slavery or that the British wanted Native Americans to be treated well, but those two groups as victims of oppression here were constantly looking for opportunities, enslaved people to become free, Native American people to protect their land. And so we know that as early as November 1774, African Americans in my home state of Virginia were reaching out to the British and saying, look, you're outnumbered. Most white colonists are supporting this rebellion. There are very few, there are loyalists, but there may be one-fifth of the white population. African Americans were saying in essence to the British, we'll help you defeat the rebellion of Jefferson and Washington and other slaveholders if you will give us our freedom in return for that. And finally, a year later, in November 1775, Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, said yes to that alliance and he issued an emancipation proclamation very similar to Lincoln's emancipation proclamation. Hugh Edna, no better than anybody in this group, the differences, but also the similarities between Lincoln's emancipation and this other lesser known one issued by Governor Dunmore on, well, forescored seven years earlier in 1775 confirming this alliance that enslaved people had initiated and once the British were in it, white Americans were furious at the British for joining up with their slaves against them. And I would argue that in the South, that's one of the major, if not the major reason that people like Jefferson and Washington as well as South Carolinians, like Henry Lawrence and the pink knees went from merely rebelling against the British, oh, we're mad about the Stamp Act, we're mad about the T-Tex. It's a big step from rebelling to actually wanting to declare independence and the real straw that broke the camel's back, but it wasn't a straw. It was another camel on the camel's back was this alliance between enslaved people and the British government. That's what made a lot of white Southerners want out. Absolutely. And I want to thank you for mentioning Benjamin Corals who was a real pioneer in this work in African-American history, especially. And does not always get the credit that he's due. So thank you so much for that. Well, and while he was off doing his research, and he's staying in segregated hotels, and a lot of these archivists wouldn't even let him, we all think, oh, it's so hard. My students don't want to look at microfils, you know? You don't know how good you've got. Absolutely. So we have a question in the chat box and it says, I wonder if there were other groups of people besides the founders who were influenced. So, and if they were attempting to implement such high-minded ideas, ideals, does the panel have any example of other people who were influenced in the way, I'm assuming in the way that Jefferson and the authors of the Declaration of Independence were. Were influenced by whom? It doesn't say, it just says founders who were, besides the founders who were influenced. I can now suggest that Rosemary, talk about some of the women's rights activists in your amazing book, Revolutionary Backlash. Well, I think it's interesting and important. Thanks for the question. To understand that, you know, I don't think you could separate the ideals from the economic interests or the political motivations or even the racial animus behind the revolution. I think they're all mixed up together and for different people, it existed in different balances. But what's clear is that the revolution, the resistance movement that became the American Revolution could not just be a group of elite white men that these political leaders needed the support of large numbers of people if the resistance movement and then the rebellion was gonna be successful. So they actually reached out to women and through newspapers and broadsides and poems in place, they encouraged women to participate in political activities. The politics of the street is what we historians call it. And so they marched in the street, they protested in the street, they refused to buy British goods, they joined together to make homemade goods instead of buying British goods. And those actions actually politicized women and made women feel not legally included. We talked about inclusiveness, but politically powerful to a certain extent. And it made them realize they have some political agency. And so with the coming of the American Revolution and certainly with the words of the declaration ringing in their ears. And I think it's important to remember that the declaration was meant to be read aloud. It was read aloud throughout the country and people gathered to hear it and it was ringing in their ears that it meant different things to different people obviously, but for many people, it was not just a cause for separating from Great Britain, but a cause for transforming their place in society. And this was true to some extent of many enslaved people who took the occasion of the war for independence to run away and for women to start thinking about what it meant for them to have rights, what it meant for them to be equal to men. And so during the revolution, you have women like Judith Sargent Murray writing for the Massachusetts magazine, an article called On the Equality of the Sexes. And this was published in 1779. And while it was limited to the idea of moral equality, spiritual equality, it also called for greater educational equality, equality of treatment and equality of status. You have women like Esther DeBurt Reed in Philadelphia in 1780 organizing a group of women who went door to door to collect money for the continental troops. And she says in a proclamation that she wrote for the Philadelphia newspaper, women are born for liberty. So women took these ideas of liberty and a political participation and applied it to themselves. And it's definitely not necessarily what most of the fathers anticipated, founding fathers anticipated or wanted, but it was one of the unintended consequences of this revolutionary movement and particularly the words of the Declaration of Independence. May I just add this one point? And that is you have these cases, for example, of mum bet and mum bet who then heard these words, not just of the Declaration of Independence, but later on of the Massachusetts Constitution and all these proclamations being read out loud because whites and many of the whites and of course many of the Africans who were enslaved as well as free Africans could not read. And so that's why these proclamations had to be read out loud in town squares. And so you had mum bet here, this reading of the Massachusetts application of constitution and she applied it in her own mind as an enslaved woman to find an attorney and sue for her freedom and actually gained her freedom in 1781. You have people like Samuel Sutvin, for example, who was enslaved African in New Jersey who was put in the place of Casper Berger who was his master and said, okay, you take my place but if you fight in a revolutionary war you can gain your freedom. And one thing I would say with Woody is like when he mentions that the enslaved Africans approached the British some enslaved Africans approached the British you had other enslaved Africans who were very loyal to the sense that once this country becomes free they too will become free. The black loyalists who are the Africans who fought with the British and then were finally after the war ended given poor land and their freedom in Canada and Nova Scotia region were those who fought for the British that was a relatively small number compared to the number of Africans who actually chose not to do that who believed that this country once free would also give them freedom. And in the case of Samuel Sutvin he was denied his freedom by the mass Jew claimed he would get it if he fought after being wounded and everything is suffering in the revolutionary war with bravery, there are all different types of bravery he was then sold by his master and then sold again he didn't receive his freedom for 20 years. So you had people who believed probably more in this country than many of the white people here and these people of African descent believe that if they did the right thing that they wouldn't get their freedom and it goes back to that same hypocrisy I talked about before because time and time again our story is very much like Samuel Sutvin if people who have given to this country as people of African descent then promise freedom even if it's a secondary freedom and not even getting that. Which brings me to the question what is the role that's played by this document in terms of influencing thought and action in the 19th century especially in the decades before the civil war when you have the women's movement very strong movement then when you have the abolitionist movement that is becoming increasingly militant. So how does that document influence how these folk who are pressing a human rights how is it influencing them? You know, we're reminded of the fact that in the last paragraph of the document it's very much about states rights it's not about human rights but there is a transition there between an emphasis well with some people certainly not with all but with some there is an emphasis on human rights versus state rights or states rights are secondary or pushed to the side how does that transformation occur and how significant is the document to that? Can I first talk in the other direction that is not how the document influenced but how the document was influenced by freedom fighters starting with abolitionists mostly black but some whites and then women's rights activists mostly women but some men that is I wanna make the case and really Professor Eric Slaughter at the University of Chicago has made this case better than anybody and first and that is that the Declaration of Independence as adopted was a state was a states rights document he was saying that if there's two countries in alliance like the 13 colonies and the mother country of England and it's one side wants to break up they can break up that's what we would call a states rights document but and Gloria I agree with you there were hundreds and perhaps thousands of African Americans who fought on the American side as Benjamin Quarrel said they weren't loyal to the Americans they were loyal to the British they were loyal to the principle of the rights of man one of those African Americans who fought on the American side was named LeMule Haynes who would later become the first African American Congregationalist minister but here's the point in 1776 just months after the Declaration of Independence was adopted he wrote an essay called Liberty Further Extended where he did something that no white person had done and that is draw attention to the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence that's the one that says all men are created equal endowed with a creator by the creator with certain inalienable rights life-liberating the pursuit of happiness he I want to say shifted the spotlight from the last paragraph that you mentioned Edna which is all about states rights he said let's shift the emphasis to what I think it was Rosemarie is that this sort of rhetoric at the beginning they kind of threw that in as the yada yada rhetoric oh all men are created equal he said whoa whoa whoa hold on a second there let's focus on them on that more and Benjamin Banneker did the same thing the famous mathematician and almanac maker in a letter to Thomas Jefferson he quoted those phrases and you could do this search electronically now and Professor Slaughter and a student of mine and others have done this search and they have found almost no white person quoting the all men are created equal the stuff that's most famous now it was abolitionists blacks and whites who said let's focus on those phrases and there's a real sense in which they made the Declaration of Independence what it is today that is they took a states rights document and transformed it into a human rights document can I build on that a little bit and modify it somewhat I would not call the Declaration of Independence a states rights document it is not about the individual states in fact it's the opposite it's a document to create national unity in the face of this common threat what it is a state building document it's a document that is meant to create a government for this new country the United States of America so I really think it's important to make that distinction it's a state building document okay and that is the if you read the last part of the Declaration of Independence the last paragraph that's what it's all about about the mechanics of building a government and that is the part of the document that actually probably was most important when the to many of the founders when the document was issued because by becoming an independent nation the United States could then solicit aid from foreign nations and most especially France it could get loans from the Dutch and all of these things were absolutely necessary if these struggling 13 colonies were going to have any chance whatsoever of fighting off the greatest military country in the world at the time so that's my first point but to your second point and about how it was changed yes it is true that many African Americans seized upon these the preamble and the promises of rights and were the ones who promoted that but it's also important to acknowledge that the French in 1789 when they had their revolution used the Declaration as a model and as a template for what they were fighting for and their slogan their rallying cry was Liberty, Equality and Eternity and this was a world in which there was a rapid transatlantic conversation of ideas and many politicians and ironically the Jeffersonians the Jeffersonian Republicans who supported Thomas Jefferson employed that rhetoric of the French Revolution and seized on that notion of liberty and equality that the French were promoting and applied it to ordinary white men and remember important a huge percentage of ordinary un-propertyed white men could not vote at this time and so that was one of the first expansions in the notion of liberty that occurred but then in the 19th century other groups including women including anti-slavery groups kept on hammering away at the ambiguities we talked about who are the people who, what does it mean all men are created equal who has rights and these people who opposed slavery said it means that all white and black people are created equal for women it was all men and women are created equal and that of course was embodied in the Seneca Falls Declaration of 1848 when they actually used the Declaration of Independence as the model it just changed the word men into women and in writing their call for women's freedom so it was a gradual evolution in the meaning of the term equality but I mean I think some people recognize right away that the term could be applied to other groups but I do think it's important to recognize that it began changing its meaning and being applied to other groups in this way over time I wanna say something that I've been wanting to say for a long time and I thank you National Archives for giving me this platform to say that people are not looking and should be looking at the Declaration of Independence as one of the greatest reaches as a voice for the rule of law and the rule of law almost every provision here of every other provision speaks to something that's law based and they speak again and again about law and this country which is the most litigious country in the world it has more lawyers, more judges, more courts more lawsuits than any other country on the planet seriously bar none and so we have in this document this movement from this monarchy to the law in the hands of the regular people and in this document speaks time and time again of what laws were abused or what laws were not allowed or what juries were not, you know the jury system, the judges I mean they're speaking to these legal issues again and again and again and so therefore when we have in 1787 the drafting of the US Constitution people look to the US Constitution as the beginning of the rule of law and the role of law in this country but you can actually go back to the Declaration of Independence and look at its many provisions that refer to law and legal issues and find that the rule of law the role of law actually begins there. Great, so let me take a moment to remind our audience that you can get into this conversation by just submitting a question through YouTube chat and it'll get to us but let's talk just a bit about the Dred Scott decision and how the Declaration of Independence was brought into that whole discussion and the decision, the opinion written by Chief Justice Tawny about why African-Americans had no rights in the country and could not expect to be treated as equal. So Gloria, if you could. This decision pains me, it pains me because each time I reread it is just filled with such just pure animus. We know now of course that Justice Tawny was a slaveholder believed in slavery wanted to maintain slavery saw the writing on the wall when it came to the tilt toward possible war in the future and thought that he wanted to put his imprint on things. So when we hold these truths to be self-evident he makes the argument through this case and we have Dred Scott and his wife Harriet their two children who have been taken by Dr. Emerson from Missouri into the territory that contains Illinois Dr. Emerson is a physician for the army he's been moved around and then the issue when they come back to Missouri having gone into a free territory is Dred Scott and therefore his family then now free. And the problem then becomes the fact that Sanford and it says though in the opinion laid his hands on Dred Scott and the family. So Sanford was beating Dred Scott not Dr. Emerson, Sanford is now beating and then Dred Scott sues for his freedom. There have been many hundred, well over a hundred freedom cases brought before Dred Scott. Freedom cases began early and there were slave tribunals there were also other cases in which people had been brought into Illinois territory other territories that were free and then brought back or they ran away and their owner tried to bring them back and there were lawsuits brought and those many of those lawsuits are very successful and Harriet had also known of the right to be free having gone into a free territory. And I think Harriet was the one the proponent behind bringing the lawsuit the action for their freedom in the first place. Of course it would be a black woman telling Dred to do the right thing. And so what we have here is an argument made in so many different ways as to why Dred Scott should not be considered free. And they're all once again based in hypocrisy this whole idea of the public history of the European that Europeans had looked at Africans as no more than property to be sold at their profit that the slave trade in England was brought into the colonies that the legislation of within the colonies made it very clear that they are to be enslaved they could not be people they could not be citizens and therefore could not sue for their freedom in a court. The idea that the constitution itself did not include them that public opinion understood they were not civilized. I mean, it goes on and on again but it's all here of Congressy because they knew that the Quakers in Pennsylvania had abolished slavery. That Tani knew this in 1857 when this decision was written. They knew that there had been free Africans that had risen up and had their own businesses and were interacting in the world. They knew that there had been Africans who were voting and had voting rights by 1857. All these things that we know are true when they say there's beyond conception that anybody, anyone white could ever have thought of Africans as anything more than property to be used. I think it goes to the hypocrisy of that opinion. It goes to what people wanted to do to maintain slavery as Woody has pointed out. The slave trade had ended in 1808 based on the constitutional dictates but slavery had continued. And so this whole sense of going back and saying that the founders believed that Africans were property and if they hadn't, then they wouldn't be the great men that we thought they were. If they were hypocrites and did not believe people were property of African descent then these founders would not be the great people we think they are. But they are the great people we think they are. So they must have believed that Africans were property. So you have this round robin of logic that's supposed to support based on the Declaration of Independence itself that Africans were property, not people, not citizens and therefore Dred Scott could not sue for his freedom. And then the case was dismissed and there was a ruling against Dred Scott in the Supreme Court. So given the varied interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, how relevant is it today? And can we or should we even draw on its principles as the nation deals with things like mass incarceration, attacks on the reproductive rights of women, bad immigration policy, are all of these things. Can we look at the Declaration and interpret it as something that is relevant to what we're trying to accomplish today? Given that we can't agree on what it was in 1776 or what it meant in 1776. I'm gonna argue that it's relevant because black and white abolitionists and male and female women's rights advocates in the 19th century made it relevant. That is, if they had done nothing to it, if they had left it alone, never quoted it, never relied on it, then it would have been simply a national separation document. As you just mentioned at the beginning, the final paragraph is all about the right of one group to separate from another. And I should clarify, Rosie, when I said states rights, I know people always get nervous when they see an old white man from South Carolina say the word states rights. But I meant in states as in Estado or in French and Spanish, national rights. And so your line was great, Rosie. It's a state building, our nation building document. But more than anything, they declared independence because they wanted French aid. And I just discovered something recently where some of the delegates were saying, we can get French ships here this summer. Imagine that. It's June 30th right now. Imagine thinking that you can get a letter across the Atlantic to Paris and then across land to Paris. And then the king say, sure, now that you're independent, we'll send you military and get ships there in American waters before the end of the summer of 1776, bringing supplies to the Americans, which they're already doing secretly but on a small scale and shooting at the British. My point is they declared independence fundamentally in order to get French aid. So it was, and Lincoln said this, didn't he, Edda? If that had all been all it was, it would have been a document of a moment. But it was actually much more than that. It was a document of all time. And I would argue, we could probably argue all day how much of that Jefferson really intended. I think Lincoln gives Jefferson a little too much credit. But somebody, it wasn't Jefferson, maybe it was Lincoln had a lot to do with it. Rosie pointed out to me recently that it was the Democratic Republicans in the 1790s had something to do with it. But the two groups I would give the most credit for based on the documentary record are African-Americans and women who shifted that spotlight from the final part, which is about national rights, or what I would call states' rights, the right of one state to separate from another. They shifted that spotlight to all men are created equal than doubt by their creator was certainly and it'll be rights, right? Liberty in the pursuit of happens. So I want to conclude, we just have a few minutes left. I want to sort of move backwards in time to 1852. And Frederick Douglass's response to a celebration of American independence. And he has this wonderful speech that he actually gives on July 5th. And it's called What to the American Slave is the 4th of July. And I just have a very short piece here, but it says, what to the American slave is your 4th of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted liberty and unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity, your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless. Nevertheless, Douglass ends his speech and he says a lot more that gets very, very negative, but he ends his speech on a hopeful note. He says that he draws encouragement from the Declaration of Independence and its great principles. Why do, why did and why do the oppressed still cling to the principles supposedly espoused in the Declaration? I would put it this way. I think that the preamble, the part that we're focusing on, that all men are created equal part of the Declaration, has provided the conscience for our nation. That doesn't mean that there haven't been many, many, many gross injustices, systemic injustices, but it means that part of the motive and the rationale and the moral impetus for change comes from calling white and black Americans, men and women to adhere to their conscience that is embodied in the principles of the Declaration of Independence. And again, without those principles, you can promote justice, but it provides a constant call to action that at least some people throughout history have recognized the value of. And I think that the challenge for the present day is to convince people that they need to adhere to their conscience, to the better angels of their nature and not to fall into cynicism. Who wrote the Seneca Falls Declaration, pattern of the Declaration. It was the slaveholders who put the words on parchment, but it was women's rights activists and abolitionists who carved those words in stone. Great. Well, we are out of time just about. I want to thank our panelists for a really interesting discussion. I'm sure that our audience has learned a lot, but before we close, I want to make sure that your books are featured. And so if the archives could run that for us. This is Gloria Brown Marshalls. She took justice. Liberty is sweet. This is the book Woody's book that's coming out in October, I believe it'll be on the shelves. And this is Rose Marie's Revolutionary Backlash. So, and I think there's one more there. Yes. So thank you panelists for a wonderful discussion. Thank you audience for tuning in to us. I hope that you have an enjoyable 4th of July, but that as you are celebrating, you reflect on why independence was pursued and what the real meaning of the declaration meant and how it changed over time. Because it's very important for us today to know why it changed and what we can do to draw on it as we move forward. I think, oh sure. I can tell you are a great teacher, a great teacher. You're really well done. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. And thank you National Archives. Thank you.