The Declaration and American History

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Del curso dictado por University of Virginia

Age of Jefferson

256 calificaciones

University of Virginia

Age of Jefferson

256 calificaciones

This course provides an overview of Thomas Jefferson's work and perspectives presented by the University of Virginia in partnership with Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Together, UVA and Monticello are recognized internationally as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence

No document is more closely associated with Jefferson than the Declaration of Independence. Listing it as the first of three achievements on his tombstone, Jefferson clearly believed the Declaration to be of profound importance. Generations of Americans have agreed, constantly quoting its phrases and invoking its ideas. But do we really understand what Jefferson was trying to do when he wrote the Declaration? In this module, we’ll explore the Revolutionary context in which Jefferson lived and worked. We’ll ask why the Declaration takes the form that it does, and also what Jefferson hoped it would accomplish. Surprisingly, the parts of the Declaration that we celebrate most frequently today may not be the ones Jefferson would have understood to be the most important.

Tour of Special Collections5:37

Declaration of Independence Preface3:04

The Declaration and American History7:09

Reluctant Revolutionaries: The Context for Writing the Declaration19:11

Conoce a los instructores

Professor Peter S. Onuf
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor, Emeritus
Corcoran Department of History

Jefferson wanted to be remembered for three things, founding this university

where we are today, his bill for religious liberty

in Virginia, and the Declaration of Independence.

And of course, that's precisely what we do remember him

for. Well, Jefferson's authorship

of the Declaration has always been controversial.

Jefferson himself was a bit schizophrenic about the Declaration.

It did get onto his tombstone.

He was proud to be known as the author. Yet at the same time when he wrote his

autobiography in 1821, he indicated an author's irritation

with his editors.

My scholarly friends will know exactly what Jefferson was concerned about.

Jefferson thought he had gotten it exactly right in his draft of the

Declaration, but his colleagues in Congress thought some changes

would be advisable, and most of us agree today that those changes were good.

There were embarrassing things in the Declaration,

such as a complaint against King George the Third for imposing slavery

on the Chesapeake. Enriching slave traders by imposing,

slaves on unwilling American planters.

It just didn't seem quite right to the many slaveholders who were in Congress.

It seemed, well,

projecting blame would be the way we describe it now in our psychobabble.

Why doesn't Jefferson simply say slavery is evil,

and we're going to do something about it.

But no it was George the Third who was responsible.

This notion of American innocence, American newness is

part of the whole idea of the founding.

So Jefferson thought we could have gotten things better.

What we see as improvements he sees as degrading his original thoughts.

Yet in 1825, just before he died in 1826,

on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration, Jefferson writes

to Henry Lee, who's interested in doing some research

for a book he's writing about his father and

about the early period, about the founding.

And he asks Jefferson about the Declaration,

and Jefferson says, oh, it's not mine.

I don't claim any originality.

It was just as if I were channeling the common sense of the day.

It was there in the air.

I didn't have to ransack through books on my shelf.

This was not a learned treatise.

This is what everybody was thinking. That idea that everybody was thinking

what the declaration says is probably the central myth of American history.

Because it means there was this moment, to use John Adams's image, in which

13 bells struck at once. He's referring to the 13 states.

And we imagine by extension that the hearts and minds

of Americans everywhere are rallying to the cause, because here at

last is a statement of what makes sense to ordinary

people about their power, about their rights, about where government comes from.

At last, we have done this thing, and

the American people were ready for this moment on

July 4th, 1776.

Well, that notion is one we're going to talk about

a little bit over the course of today's lecture.

That idea of a kind of consensus, of a convergence of views, at this

key moment, this founding moment, when we sloughed off the old and embraced the new.

We'll come back to this question of whether Americans really were united,

that there was this massive consensus in 1776.

Before we do it might be worth noting, we might think that Jefferson's a bit of

a megalomaniac to identify himself so completely with

the American people that they speak through him.

Well, that's up to your own taste

whether you take that modest view, the self-effacing

view, or the megalomaniac view. But neither one is accurate.

What I'm going to do today is to take you through the

run-up to the revolution to try to explain what the Declaration was all about.

And the big argument here is that American independence is an unintended consequence.

So if we're thinking about

independence, it could be that the people

were all agreed on the need for independence

and that spontaneously they endorsed these declarations,

because there were declarations all over the country.

It, it's just impossible.

It couldn't be, because that's not what the patriot movement was all about.

So we'll talk about the run up to

independence, and then, I think it's important to establish a context.

What was going on in 1776.

And then proceed to the idea of what kind of work does the Declaration do.

What is its function? My, radical revisionist argument

here is that you all spend too much attention on the first two paragraphs.

The ones you have committed to memory, as school children,

all about all men are created equal and government by consent.

I think you want to look at the end of the Declaration.

I think you want to look at my neck tie.

It's these signatures that are doing the work of the Declaration.

Now there's a lot in between the beginning and the end, and we'll get to that later.

It's a big argument

Jefferson's making, because this is the deal.

Jefferson has to persuade.

He has to persuade his colleagues in Congress.

He has to persuade himself.

And he has to persuade this thing that didn't

exist before, the American people, that they were a people.

That's going to lead to our conclusion.

We talk about the idea of an American people.

The real work of the Declaration of Independence is to invent a new people,

a people that did not know it had existed until this moment.

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