[applause] >> so, it is such a pleasure to be a politics and prose, driving in depended more less an oxymoron in these times, but here we are coming and it is happening so it is such a tree. i am going to start by taking it through a journey that i have taken into the 18th century. people say i sort of entered the

18th century about 15 airs 16 years ago at the age of 50 and people say in the revolutionary community that once you enter the 18th century you pretty much never fully return. much to my wife's sure grann that has happened to me too. i started out by investigating common people. i was working on curriculum for schools and wanted to bring to the floor the contributions and real-life experiences of common people during the revolutionary era and in the under reporting people come up for farmers, fighting men and boys, women, african-americans and native americans and i compiled the great wealth of scholarly literature into a form that i think was accessible to the general public and that is with the people's history of the american revolution was. within that, when i was researching that i came across a peculiar reference, people occasionally would refer to as,

rural hun rest in massachusetts a bit of rural and soi said that sounds interesting. what was actually that the unrest? berry keyes sources said anything about it so that sammy backed the archives and what i found and can describe some of the rural under arrest. what happened is in the wake of the tea party, the boston tea tea party, the british imperial government, we know a lot about the boston act because supposedly everybody helped boston and somehow that act of generosity lead to a revolution. that this kind of the official story and i am not quite sure of the plausibility of that story. there was another act that parliament passed which was much more harsh. we actually revoked the 1691 charter or the constitution of massachusetts. new england town meetings in place for more than a century al laude. you could meet once a year and

that one time all agenda items had to be approved by the royal government. your representatives had absolutely no power. the people who they used to appoint appointed by the king. basically it was total disenfranchisement. the revoking of the constitution triggered the rural and res. here is what happened. in every local county seat, they called them shier towne paulsen 1774 resendiz the local government was slated to convene, the local government under british authority, the people would gather and they would actually in the town of worcester for instance the people said we are not going to let this government happened because as soon as they meet under the new government, this new act kind of sanctions it, so in the town of worcester there are only 300 actual citizens and they sent outward to the committees of correspondence throughout the county and on the appointed day 4,622 militiamen

from inner militia companies from 37 township throughout worcester county all the way from new hampshire to the connecticut border. this represents fully half the adult male population of worcester county at the time convenes at one time in one place writing up to 60 miles each to get their and unseat british authority and how they do it is this. there are 25 court-appointed officials and the patriots takeover the courthouse and the 25 officials are forced to huddle in they would's tavern and after the work of the details of what is going to happen they force each one of these won it it's time to come out of the tavern, hat in hand and start walking the gauntlet between these militiamen lined up in their companies reciting his resignation, first ones for this group and there is no microphone so then they were

cited again and each one of these people had to do this over 30 times. not content with the officials they gathered all the tories in town and made them do the same thing, i will never support this british authority. that was the end of british authority in worcester. this happened in every shier town. and plymouth the people got so pumped up after doing a similar event they went down to plymouth rock and said we can move this thing and they all gathered around and lifted and they were going to bring it to the court house. they probably have the brute strength but did not get the logistics' out so plymouth rock is where it is. beckett steve the idea of the power here. in the wake of this in the town of worcester they instruct their representatives to the new provincial congress which is taking the place of the old assembly. this by the way is before lexington so they instruct him, they instruct him to say it is time to form a new government as

from the ashes of the phoenix of the old. and no matter what our enemies might say about its of labor ready to take this step. this is to the day 21 months before the congressional declaration of independence. the longer version is in my second book, the first american revolution but now that obviously people are kind of like what is going on? the first thing everyone is thinking, how come i don't know this? how can you tell the story of the revolution without not only not just not featuring but not even mentioning the actual overthrow of political and military authority? it makes absolutely no sense. i was wondering what happened to that story. who decides the stories that have filtered down? who is the gatekeeper here because we have this grand wealth of history in the

resolution very time that generation after generation after generation has narrowed it down until we get to seven people and that is it, and that is it. the founders and that is what we have. so i'd ask that and they say who is the gatekeeper? that found to my third book, "founding myths." ki-taek 13 of the myths that we know, valley forge, paul revere's ride and i say when did this story really developed in the sense in the way we hear it and it turned out in all cases they developed during the 19th century, not at the time. they were added afterward inherit the danger. lipsik palfrey gears ride. the writer we accept the saleeby guide farmers and they kind of, there awoken and then they go with their shotguns and take potshots at the british and that is the beginning of the war. the saleeby i farmers, i have just told you about who these farmers were and they were not

that saleeby i. they did not need one man from boston to weaken them and as a matter of fact the whole right, the story we know was invented by a fellow in 1861, which is 86 years after the fact and he is trying to arouse the people in the beginning of the civil war but to do so he wants to tell the children story and as a matter of fact a lot of the early histories of the revolution are all about telling childrens stories to give models that the people can then, the children can emulate some of these stories reduced these grand wealth of information into a single individual tales of heroism as in paul revere. of course paul revere, he never waited for the signal lanterns. that was another fellow. that other fellow was never heard of again. oneth by man come to it by sea, the threat of the story in actual fact leads nowhere.

paul revere by the time he started on his ride the people in lexington had been alerted and already gathered at the tavern there so-- is not the paul revere was not important. he was one of many people involved in this amazing patriot network because after that revolution i told you about the previous summer, all of the accounts in massachusetts, they came together in a provincial congress, they raised taxes. they said no longer do taxes it paid to the british, pay it to us. they have a shopping list. they started cashing counter artillery weapons. they trained. that is where the minutemen started. the minutemen started in worcester two weeks after the overthrow because they knew the british would counter attack. the work on this great intelligence network. so revere is a part of. that is the full story. it is an amazing story and it is not told.

i threw 13 of such derivations showing not only how the story was created but the deeper story that it hides. but that naturally suggest-- each one of these books leads to another one and that's just in my mind, i see why these stories are created. they are created to build a certain version of nationalism in the 19th century and they stick because they are good stories. that is the neat thing. it is a great story and all of these stories are great stories. even down to george washington and the cherry tree. that sticks because it works. it has no basis in anything but kids like it so you played to the market in the market likes a good story so i am thinking, wait a second. the nature of the could story is like individual heroes, maybe david and goliath but this mask the true nature of an actual evolution. evolution scan by definition never be made by individual he

was. that could be may be a coup or something but it is certainly not of revolution. the american revolution was the greatest and most successful social movement in political movement in the term the movement. it is the most successful one in our nation's history and certainly the only one that on seated and government and put in a new one yet we don't treat it as a movement. we don't treat it that way, so i am saying caney treated as a movement with all the intricacies and literally thousands of committees that are meeting and all the interwoven web of communication and kind of internal bickering that goes on, all of it ridge texture of history, can you do that in simultaneously tell a good, clean story that has the same in motive power is the simplistic stories? that is the challenge. i say, oh my gosh, how am i going to do this?

i think we need to do, people like their history in terms of biography. they like to identify with people and for good reason because ultimately in the long run it is individual mode of action that has to be the atomic block of everything for the without individual choosing to do this as opposed to that nothing happens, so can we break it down and she is represented that individuals that are not only coming from a certain kind of 5% of society but really represent the great the powers that be of revolutionary america and it's so, who would those individuals be and can they kind of tell the whole story? so i have this idea come my ticket to my agent and he says hey that is a great idea so choose three people. i said you know i don't think i can get three people to kind of get that far so i talked him into five and i delivered seven and once i have the book, what could i say?

so i did, i chose seven people endwise seven? i figured seven wars, right? supposedly we can all remember, presumably related night when you try to remember the seven dwarves you can never quite give them. but then there are seven deadly sins, seven wonders of the world, how about seven brides for seven brothers? i like that because you can get up to 14 and actually i do that in "founders." in other words one of my characters, his son comes in for the ride, and it is really kind of one story because it is really about the relationship but they bring in other people and in fact each of these characters i bring in, they come with their entourages. with this-- because they come with the people they are acting with you see, so you are following their story but anytime you follow an individual story you are following lots of people stories so it is a 6

degrees of separation thing going on. the characters that they chose, i-- these are my parameters. first of all you need a written record. obviously can't do anything else. i don't trust oral history. annie oral history that it's gone to the 19th century, the distortion filter, probably any time but that is where i notice it is when i see them, the stories getting twic's in the 19th century. i need a written record and that bryd record has to follow this person from a good portion of this whole amazing founding hero which i in my book cover from basically 1761 to the beginnings of unrest in 91, the passage of the bill of rights, and so if i want them to anchor the story they have to appear over and over in the written record and they have to appear kind of ad kia vince because i want this book to actually touch all the

key events but in the narration of the key events is and it's so much better to have a protagonist? the protagonist in act in various ways but once i have a protagonists i can tell the story and events and it flows into their lives so we need to have a continuous record. we need diversity. diversity means social class, geography, and little gender variation, and something that is a little more subtle and that is political, cultural orientation. people thought the resolution and try to create a new nation for many different reasons and that is what i want to bring out. the patriots wanted this, the founders one of that. there is hardly anything they all wanted. there are a couple of themes that they did bring together but they have all these diverse perspectives so i want to create this diversity and ideally i would like these diversity perspectives and the characters

themselves to actually interact with each other and so we can really see the kind of some of the dialectic of how these things, all these actions are building up and how in their own way even though they are competing they are actually all serving in general and. actually i will sort of mentioned, this is not some kind of post-modern reduction into pure chaos where everybody has their own individual revolution because honestly revolutions don't happen that way either. i have never seen a post-modern everyone doing their own thing revolution. we tried it in the '60s. and basically there is a theme. there certain common themes. there is basically it is all about popular-- it is like the people control their own government. very simple, very basic but everybody has to embrace that and everybody has to embrace that with a passion in order for the revolution to happen so when

you see all these diverse people and characters in my book, the characters by the way that i'm going to ask you to add to perhaps, they are in their own way related to that. we are creating a government of the people, for the people, by the people which by the way the traditional version doesn't really do. we created national narrative which is of the people, for the people and by a few special wise men had met once together in a broom and decided what the rest of us should do. that doesn't have the same full bank. the nation was founded by a generation of revolutionaries and revolutionaries is defined in many different ways and that is what this book is. okay, so who would i choose? now, before i go on with my choice, actually if this were a classroom, i would say take out your pencil and paper and before i say anything right done your

choices. actually in my talks we usually pause right now. we pause right now and before i say who i want to talk about, we open it up for nominations and people in nominate with a short nominating speech and then we kind of interact but the thing is, that is really fun and i would love to do it here but we are doing this in a confine network, and actually and network fortunately being c-span here tonight too. we tend to do that and we will but we will do it more in the q&a and beacon start opening up the cast of characters during that time if you wish to do that for the q&a time. for now imagine what he might want put in. and now, i will read deals who i did. there is no set, there only to people who i think are set do you have to include. one of them is george washington.

i honestly think i want this to be a full narrative of the founding moment. the moment, 30 years of the moment but it is an historic moment. i want this to be the full narrative of that and honestly if you are doing a personal treatment of biffle meredith you have to include washington. you can include people have suggested you can get by with henry knox who was there most of the time, but he would be a great addition too but washington is critical certainly in all the military years and then as an iconic force later on as well. he is also fortunately critical in the very opening of it. this is george washington who literally starts the french indian war when he attacks a french party in 1754 and that is his decision to do that. he is doing a preemptive strike and the french party and then they strike back in the british support him in the militiamen

and that leads to the french and indian war and that leads to the empire, the acquisition more than doubling british north america taking over for the french and then how did they pay for the war and how they administer that empire? of course that raises huge economic and political issues which lead seamlessly into the revolution and a certain kind of logic if you can never think of war having a logic. anyway, he is there from the start and he is also there for one main reason, which is that movement into western lands. that is his main ambition. he is like a tobacco farmer who never gets what he wants for his tobacco and his agents, his agent in england is always selling tobacco to low and charging him too much for the luxury goods that the ones. that is his motivation but then he really gets into a. washington is key in so many ways. if i have washington would it be great to have a private, general

washington, the commander of cheek and a private in the army. fortunately we have the most amazing narrative, a classic american literature joseph plumber morgan who wrote in-- and accurate narrative of his participation from literally from the ground up. he spends most of the ward trying to feed himself and it is honestly, it is kind of a laugh a minute and kind of this ironic way. he has got this way of understanding the true issues, but it is almost like it john stuart character in that way. he gets to the point but he gets to it in these ironic ways, but he is actually living within it as opposed to stuart who is commenting on it. these to balance each other and there is one other character i

think has to be in it, and he is the most powerful civilian in revolutionary america by far. if i said in 1781 at the battle of yorktown if i held a pole, okay history is going to talk about people coming and let's say they were going to choose three people. who would those three people be? who were the most powerful figures in revolutionary america? they would all say washington. a bunch might say franklin although franklin had very little power but he was a cultural icon and had a lot of influence that way. he could come or go but there was the one other that they say has to be in the narrative, robert morris, the financier. everybody here about robert morris? okay, maybe some people to come it is an educated crowd but no more than one in 100 americans know.

he was a merchant in philadelphia. he profited greatly during the french and indian war by private tiering in supplying the army and when the revolution came along he continued private tiering in supplying the army in the simultaneously started as a congressman and served on one committee and another and another until he was on all of the secret committees. at one point ben franklin said congress was wondering keying, you have got all of these committees. doesn't anybody keep track? and ben franklin says, not to worry, not to worry. robert morris is on all of the committees and he has it under control. sure enough he did and for instance when day, when washington was crossing the delaware and congress retreated to baltimore one person stayed in philadelphia to conduct all of the affairs of congress and that was robert morris.

when washington said oh, my army is about to evaporate on me after crossing the delaware, he says i need money or they are all going to leave and morris says okay i hear you, i am awake. it is 5:00 a.m. and i'm going to send you your $50,000 but i can't do it this minute because no one else is awake yet but i will arrau's shortly and he will have the money and in the future anything you want in the public or private capacity you can have. one of the ways robert morris raised money was to basically for-- so this did not make unpopular but although he was unpopular when the nation became bankrupt in the nation became bankrupt, in 1781, a dollar could not buy a penny's worth of goods literally. they said there is only one man, robert morris because they created an office for him and

everybody called him the financier. the enemies called him the dictator. he took the unprecedented powers berkley basically been in congress all by himself and he delivered the goods. he says okay, nobody will take continental currency. i will back yet, so there are notes payable by the u.s. treasury countersigned by robert morris and it worked. he was so rich that people trust it robert morris so the big question is where is robert morris today? and another question that i address we can talk about later is where it is he and our narrative? so here you have-- the notice the stories-- i just told you a great bottom of story and still here is a good top-down story and that is gone. we can talk about that in the interchange. other characters. i have this itinerant revolutionary whose spreads revolution all over the place in new york, connecticut, boston, a

long time in boston. his name is dr. thomas young. he is really into the body of people, the man of the people. he is the real sam adams when we think of adams on the street raising ruckus. first of all there was not a sam adams, he was samuel adams and he was an immensely effective politician and he was not out on the streets on a soapbox like you think but thomas young was and he was also in the adams and kind of curie, the inner circle of patriots. he was the first one to suggest dumping tea into the boston harbor, but then he flees boston because when the british takeover the town because literally the soldiers are just going to beat him up and his wife is terrified so he goes to newport and then it comes to philadelphia and he goes head-to-head with morris in constructing the new state constitution and he helps with

thomas thain and others, helps overthrow the pennsylvania assembly in a big mess meeting on may 20, 1776. the pennsylvania assembly was reluctant to vote for independence so that gave them kind of the in vogue and at a mass meeting outside the state house, they call it the state hellis er. we always think of what is in independence hall. outside a meeting of 4,000 people creates a new government. they go out and it happens in meanwhile robert morris is opposing this. we are back in 1776, by the way. in the story these guys are going head to head. another person who went against robert morris was mercy otis warren. she is the high priestess of the revolution and she is very puritanical, from new england, great,, great grandfather came on the mayflower. she is the brother of james otis

who is the first will not patriot who starts, he is the one who argues the case. she becomes the patriots in your own rights. she is very close with john adams until john adams starts in her mind betraying the revolution by getting to much into power and when mercy otis won the rights of history she this is her best friend to know and. these two older patriots go at it, this woman writer who until her history did everything anonymously. she was a very prominent and the federalist and she had to write anonymously. she wrote these eating satires and honestly. who by then had been president of the united states. she won't back down an inch. she says he betrayed the revolution, because you know by usurping too much power. anyway, she hates robert morris

because she is in to hear republican virtue and morris is just a high liver. the hunt is to be followed by the fees so they go out in they literally go at it because morrison has to approve every single person who wants employment in the government won't approve for son so we get all of these personal things going on. timothy bigalow, a blacksmith from worcester who anchors the first revolution story is one of my characters and finally so often, really always who do we know from celt of virginia who was involved in the revolution? north carolina, south carolina and georgia, who do we know from there? south carolina was very significant. charleston among the four top cities and a huge economy. so we know no one, so why have they fellow who is really the most conservative. this guy starts out, his name is henry lawrence and he starts out

as the government mean. purely that is what they call people who supported the monarch, a government name. so, during the stand back riots for instance, the writers write his house. we think of them being the stamp back protests, they are after him. they think he is harboring stamps and he has got in eight months pregnant wife phyllis standing there shrieking and wringing her hands but the has nothing but false words to say about these people who mobbed his house and until the customs inspector, he is a rich guy. keys sells slaves, he owned slaves and it's got a fleet of boats. he is a trading partner of robert morris. until the customs inspector confiscates two of his ships, so they confiscate his ships and then morris gets very upset. the reason he confiscates them is because morris won't pay the

extortion, so morris is a man of honor and winds up literally tweaking his nose because of the first time i saw that, whether they talking about? then i see it several other times in the revolutionary era. it is like the first and salt that is supposed to be answered with a dual. once you have tweak the nose of his majesty's chief customs inspector he were by the fall that patriot because he writes all this stuff justifying it. he rises to become the president of congress and actually saves, saved george washington's job when people are trying to overthrow washington during valley forge. he is the president and congress to rallies behind them and they sure someone in common, namely henry lawrence's son, john, who was washington's aid to camp and hamiltons best friend. hamilton and john lawrence r. that type. we see this whole relationship between father and son in the

sun is full of bravado and a very reckless warrior and throws himself and to the battlefield much to the chagrin of his father says everybody should fight the still be so careless. also, henry lawrence ansley boehner john lawrence come up with a scheme to arm the slaves in the south. that is pretty radical. he is from south carolina and says we should arm the slaves in the south. we need their power. i will leave them he says and after the war for their services we will free them. this guy has an emancipation scheme. it does not taken itself, but this also, gives me access to this whole african-american experience which is huge because i tried and tried and tried to find an african-american patriot hugh actually-- i'm only dealing with people on the patriot side in their plenty of african-americans who fought with the british and some who

fought with the patriots but for none of the ones who fought with the patriots do we have extensive knowledge of where they were and how they participated in these events so i had to go about that obliquely and several african-americans appeared in any context through here as the native americans but the kind of, the of these characters almost reflected images but they are there because they have to be. those are my choices and what i have done here is try to basically-- do you see hell i have opened the inquiry? we have somebody to listen to free trade commerce. we should all get rich and it is all in free trade. that is robert morris. we have a national expansion that, washington. we have somebody who is a democrat, the body of the people, the people should rule everything and all these different perspectives and then we have somebody from the hinterlands, bigalow from worcester.

95% of the people were from the hinterlands, and yet we never hear about them. so you see your getting into these different layers. that is my experiment in my experiment actually does create a new web and personal attachment votes sweeping in intimate and that was the challenge that i had. i had to make this both sleeping and intimate and i think the way these characters interact do that. that is certainly my hope because of all has to do-- the reason a lot of us are interested in the founding, how we do the founding is so key because it is kind of our self definition and when we view ourselves as being created by this very small cadre of people, we lose the full force of what i consider very american patriotic force that we are in that the governments of for and by the people coming by the people as well and that is our history so that is the definition. so, really, until all the

stories are told everyone counts and until all the stories are told we can't get it who we are, what that meaning is. this is my attempt to get that by suggesting seven characters. we will open this up for discussion and in this discussion feel perfectly free to come up with their own nominations. like i say, i have such and such a character and here is the perspective this person would give, and because basically it is all about open inquiry. my mad issue here is open inquiry because it is just been closed off by successive layers of filtration and it is time to reverse that process. anyway, that is my appeal, open this inquiry and to nominations for other candidates for the patriot of the year, or questions, interactions, comments and i think logistically, we have a

microphone here. it is important so that the people on the television audience can actually hear the question if you could stand at the microphone and just you know, stand up and say your piece. >> okay, i will be first. i have two questions and i have only been waiting 40 years to ask them. [laughter] i was trying to study it in college but that little movement that you described sort of intervened in my endeavors. >> that can get in the way sometimes. >> one question, they might both be about philadelphia, i am not sure. one is about the pennsylvania antifederalists. i noticed in your index you had one of the guys that was trying to learn about timothy melt lech, another guy george brian, so who are these people? >> are you talking about the cantor of-- into the federalist?

ancef federalist usually prefer-- refer to the people in the ratification debate on the constitution. by the way i certainly treat that-- you know how people say the founders in the constitution, whoever wrote the constitution of the founders that flit been one of tens of thousands of resolutions that came out of the revolutionary era had it not been ratified by people so obviously i conclude it but also the intense ratification debates which include the other kind of antifederalists figure very large. that is really where the action is out there in ratification. now, you are referring to the 1776 pennsylvania constitution. as the state started to basically-- with no government the british government structure gone, every state had to come up with their own government. and, what is that going to be?

in pennsylvania, the assembly had been very conservative so thomas young and payne and matt luck and these others are involved in this movement independence in the gration are going side by side. and a actually crete the constitutional convention and at that convention they pass this constitution with hugely democratic measures. there is only one legislative body because they regard the upper body as not of the people. they say only that people should have a say. there is no real executive body other than what is appointed by the legislature as the representatives of the people but you have to check them somehow so who checks them? yvette certain rules, such as any law that you propose cannot be enacted until after the next election. so, if your guy is not supporting, it turns everything

into a referendum and you have to have open meetings and you have to have public record of everything. and you have, also you have a complete franchise. you have open franchise. the idea is anyone can serve to defend the country and can also be in government as opposed to property restrictions. no, no, because they are not defending the country and by the way at this time of the states did have, most states that property requirements though in worcester, usually they were quite minimal so in included most of the people. most of the men and included a few women because if you were a widow and own property you did have a votes so out of 300 doesn't wash their-- and four were dead people because they own property. if your state had been distributed your state had a vote. it was not quite women's lib as i am suggesting.

that was of an idea ahead of its time. does that satisfy you? >> can you say more about, when i was trying to learn about these people they were described as bad for democrats, which if my memory is correct backwoods was to philadelphia as basically we are to downtown washington. , who were these people and-- >> there was a huge movement in philadelphia and the-- in philadelphia it is called the committee of private them basically these are militiamen who were tired of being ordered around by superiors and taken by their own militia engaged in very radical politics. they are very much, the people in the western regions are very much in sympathy with them because they are basically trying to get rid of kind of their restrictive control of what they considered to be a narrow ruling class but it is a

very complicated revolution and that is why i am not giving you too much more. i deal with that-- the reason i can deal with that is because one of my characters is in it, so he appears scene by scene. you will see this revolution develop. honestly would take the rest of the time here to do more. >> i have another one. >> anybody else want to contribute or have the nomination? >> while you were coming up, what about what you might call industrial workers, seamen, you know, how did they fit in? >> the seamen are certainly part of the story in the big cities and we know this like in boston, you know in boston and philadelphia and the seaport towns, newport in charleston the seamen are figuring in it as are the artistans and they can do this because they basically, they are geographically

contiguous and also they have a press there, said they are very involved in this kind of on going, there on going characters to the whole revolutionary movement, and in philadelphia for instance they really become very articulate and the whole movement of 1776 is very involved in the artistans and seamen and in boston. yeah. >> i want to know what happened to all the founders that we learn about. >> what happened to them? beach jefferson, adams. you have not talked about them. i assume they are part of your story. >> they are all in their but they come in as participants. do you choose to focus on is somewhat arbitrary. as i say, my idea was i wanted to have-- back up one second. history flows to ways.

it flows bottom up and it flows top-down. the trajectories up and down power hierarchies are true in all ages and in our founding moment, the declaration of independence, huge bottom up from thomas paine and the common sense to people debating it in every tavern, to coming together in their committees and local committees, the county committees in each of these giving instructions to the next body of, provincial committees and eventually instructing congress comes with the declaration. the constitution, behind those and down so i want to have people who are representing the bottom and the tops of these folks who were your talking about, the traditional founders they are participants in my book. john adams comes in often when i'm talking about mercy otis warren because they are linked up. their histories are very linked up.

jefferson of course appears several places, certainly in the declaration of independence but he is not a major player in declaring independence, just a you know that. there is a committee of five and a draft declaration and they do draft it. he gives the first draft and that is very eloquent and refined and that is the declaration. the declaration, people celebrated it but that was the declaration. the document, independence was voted on on july 2nd. it was the both the counted, not the declaration. during his time and nobody ever quoted the declaration. for state constitutions quoted george mason's declaration of rights, all morning-- men are born equally free and independent, which jefferson was reading in the philadelphia paper when he was writing the declaration and which had been mason had said two years earlier, so mason is the character by the play because he

is washington's neighbor and political cohort, and also then they fall out during the constitution, washington is a federalist and mason and antifederalists. jefferson is a character in all of that, so he comes in and out of the narrative. hamilton is definitely in the narrative partly because he is john larns's best friend and another reason hamilton is in the narrative is because he starts being the one who is actually implementing, he is supporting robert morris' idea 48, and the farmers idea, their idea for a strong will center government. hamilton comes on board their program starts supporting it in 1780, supports it during the constitutional period and win robert morris turns down the obvious offer to become first secretary of the treasurer-- treasury, his protége, alexander hamilton is given the job to

implement robert morris' programs of these don't disappear. it is just the emphasis has changed. >> a quick follow-up. if there were polling at the time, but like there is today, who who would be the five, six, seven, ten people that most people in america would have known? would they have included hamilton? washington i assume, but more like morris then like jefferson or adams? >> i would say, if you are pulling at the end of the war the most politically active people would have known, the top three would have been franklin because franklin would have been number one in name recognition, washington equaled him in morris could on the government and anybody who had cognizance of what was going on knew about the financiers of those were the top three. after that, things would get very diffuse and regional and

everybody in massachusetts knew both de'jon and samuel adams. everybody knew patrick henry. not so much because of his liberty cordes beach but because he was the governor. they knew jefferson and not nationally. they knew him because he was the governor of virginia and all these local figures. it wasn't a unified story at that moment. the unified story is what we have successfully created. >> this is really fascinating and i applaud your attempt to open the inquiry. i think we all grow up basically studying the history of great men, and great and men, and i am interested in your strategy of these seven characters and i think that is one way to choose seven different people, but this is a literary question in some ways. are there other things you do in your book that get beyond the

history of people who manage to become famous and take down into the history of lots of people who were just ordinary and like everybody else which i think is an important part of history as well. can you talk about the little bit of that as well? >> several people in my book were totally unknown at the time. won was absolutely unknown except to his friends. nobody have a clue. as a matter of fact the book starts with him getting born. he is a kitten that is for a start my book. what was everybody doing on november 21, 1760 and i set up what everybody's like this and i will tell you, then on that date sarah pullum was giving birth to joseph blum in 15 years later he is a private in the army but nobody knew about him. to get to the heart of your question is the relationship of individuals action to group action and where is the motive force of history?

the person who i address that most with is this a tenor it revolution there thomas young because he is very involved in the people, the body of the people. this whole concept when he moved to boston, he is already rebel in these circumstances. he inoculates ethan allen with a smallpox vaccine on the salisbury meeting house steps away before the revolution as an act of civil disobedience. this is the kind of guy ethan allen inn thomas young for but when he moved to the boston and the first thing he does, they are building a gallery of around so people can watch and that excites young so much. he says they shouldn't just built a gallery. they should tear down the state house and build a grand theater so all the people can participate and can look at what is going on and then as he is in boston he actually works-- the body of the people and that is actually technical term, the

body of the people, he helps transform, he and others. it starts being the society for merchants and trade and then they call it, then they extended to all the artistans in town. somebody had a question about artistans and then they extended to the entire town because anybody who lives in boston as an interest in trade. this local society becomes the body of the trade, and then it is simplified into the body. thomas young is very involved in this than they have these big meetings, about 1,000 each in nathanial hall and when they get more than 1,000 they move over to old self. you of leaders and people on the streets in this is all, you are seeing all that interaction. young is a perfect person because what makes him so special is he goes in both world. he is in the inner circle and literally on the street. he is on the streets carrying

flags, beating drums and getting in fights and in the inner circles, writing patriot polemics and developing strategies such as the development of the committees of correspondence which is the revolution doesn't just come from the masses and then a couple of leaders because it comes from all these intermediary groups and kind of groups of activists and the committees of correspondence and later the committees of safety and inspection and you literally have thousands of these committees running the government in this hodge-podge way in the revolutionary era and they are the interface that they think you are asking about. >> hi, looking forward to reading your book. you mentioned henry lawrence in south carolina. it has been my understanding and correct me if i am wrong vet south carolina actually declared independence from great britain several months before the rest

of the gang did. i don't know how accurate that is, but i was just wondering who the people were that were behind that action and was henry lawrence the main guide or were there some other? >> that is an exaggeration. they did not declare independence. lawrence was against independence. with that rumor comes from is south carolina was i think actually the first in the hampshire or south carolina but before, they were the first ones to establish new governments, but the government that they established they were very clear was provisional government until the disputes were settled and so in that sense it did not really different from all the other provincial congresses which were doing the same thing. they just made a more formal. professionally until the dispute is settled and this is before

the declaration this will be our government and the action put a six month time limit on it so it is hardly declaring independence but that is the beginning. >> when i was in south carolina a lot of people like to think that. >> they like to think that. in fact on the flotage independence south carolina was like being. on july 1st, 1776 ewald no july 4, 1776. the motion for independence came on june 7. they said we don't have the votes now. people should go back to their states. they are not calling them states it but their provinces, whatever and see if they can drum up the votes because at that point there were only seven votes in favor and that wasn't enough. you needed pretty much a supermajority to be a separate nation. you could not have seven saying yes in six sing no's avakian bakri weeks later and they take it up on june 1st.

on june 1st, 9 have now signed on because south carolina is lagging, and as is i think it was delaware. the big-- pennsylvania and new york and south carolina and delaware. delaware was only lagging because one of the representative had arrived so he'll arrive in town the next day. south carolina decided, they said you know if there is a new nation and we don't join it, we are history because we have to spend most of our manpower of looking over our slaves and we cannot successfully survived without help from other colonies of that was the convincing argument that send south carolina towards independence. that left only to colonies on the next day which was july 2nd. one was new york and new york was by delegation. new york was under specific

instructions. remember everything was done by instructions of the way up from the town meetings to the county to the province. you tick instructions from your constituents. imagine that today. when i talk about this being this grand social movement and a new way of doing business, they had come for the monarchy and everything, it is amazing in you talk about patriotic messages. imaginable whole edifice was so heavily weighted with people. and how that story gets lost is just frankly personally frustrating to me. as a movement activists from the '60s and i see that our country was created by that kind of movement and on an official level. they are getting their official instructions from the people. anyway, new york was under instructions to not vote for it. until the convention meets again on july 19th, you can't cast a

vote. so they are out. they are in limbo. also there are very conservative people in new york, john jay livingston and so on who will probably try to push against him. adel hinges on pennsylvania because if pennsylvanians goes with it new york is not going to stay alone. no one state wants to do that. but, if pennsylvania stays out you have the two giant states right in the middle splitting the colonies apart. pennsylvania exerted huge influence over delaware, new jersey and to some extent maryland and certainly delaware and new jersey would have switched over and you don't have-- july 1st the vote is 4-3 against the independents. the next day, these of the results come in. by the way maryland has switchover on the day from june 32 july 1st, they switched

over because the writer came into town saying they voted formally against independence and they have all the county conventions, that all said no, change your vote for it and john adams received a letter from chase saying, thank god for county conventions and instructions. he says, we are now for independence. adams is receiving that letter on july 1st so maryland is on board. it is 4-3 pennsylvania. robert morris and two of the delegates there are robert morris and a farmer. anybody know who the farmer is? wilson, that is a whole other story but the farmer was dickenson and he had written a letter-- this was another guy who had forgotten. who said the most famous question? dickenson. dickenson circling with the pin in the top by but he would not have been called dickenson.

he would have been called the farmer. just like morris would have been called the financier. it sums like some sort of a novel, the financier and the novel. and dickinson had given all these speeches against independence. he had taken a path the day before, voting. but, morris feld very strongly in dickenson too that the reason morris did not want independence is he felt it was distracting from the real issue was this issue of developing of free commerce and some help the notion of independence head toward people apart. that was his concept so imagine his dilemma. the reason he does not want it is because it is splitting the nation. if he votes against it he tears the nation apart. he is in a catch-22 so what you do when you are in a catch-22? don't do anything which in my mind from my study of robert morris is the only time i had seen him abstain from any thing,

which is kind of ironic and dickenson abstains. they both are close to independence, so it is 3-2. pennsylvania comes on board, july 19th new york comes on board. by the way when you see a declaration of independence think the unanimous declaration, that was not printed on july 4th because it was not unanimous. they did not have new york. they were actually printed on august 2nd so they could change the wording. do you see nut technical it gets? it is technical but the story gets richer when you follow it and all these individual motive actions and what people are really doing. check this out. the next item after the declaration of independence is entered in the congressional journal on july 4th, i don't have the exact words that it is about robert morris dealing