As we celebrate 250 years of American Independence, it’s important to understand who we were then, and today. To do that, I had the good fortune to interview Denise Kiernan, a nonfiction author who was featured on NPR’s “Throughline Podcast” about America 250 (through her husband Joseph D’Agnese, a fellow fiction writer and journalist). Her latest book is Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution published by Penguin Random House this year.
Q: Your new book, Obstinate Daughters, is about important women who contributed to the American Revolution. What’s a great story about a few of the women that most people wouldn’t know?
A: I’ll mention two. Mercy Otis Warren was a pen pal of John Adams. She was a fierce satirist who wrote plays mocking the British. In November 1775, when Adams asked if she had any advice for Congress, she said yes, tell them not to “piddle” on the matter of independence. Yes, she used that word. Mary Katherine Goddard, the first woman postmaster in the USA, printed the first copy of the Declaration of Independence that featured the names of the signers. And yet, this woman’s face has never appeared on a U.S. stamp.
Q: Why did we list our grievances with the King, if the nation was a Constitutional Monarchy and the British Parliament was running the show?
A: James Wilson, a brilliant lawyer who signed both the Declaration and the Constitution, urged Congress to take their grievances straight to the top. Not Parliament. Not the Prime Minister. Not their British brethren. But the King himself. Beyond the force of rhetoric, blaming the King had the side benefit of attracting foreign powers to their predicament. France, as it turned out, was happy to support rebels against a perceived tyrant.
Q: How close were we to having the Declaration of Independence rejected by the colonies?
A: Congress wanted the vote to be unanimous. But when an informal vote was taken on July 1, 1776, only nine colonies voted yes. They had 24 hours to get their heads together. For Delaware, where the two delegates were deadlocked, the problem was solved by sending an urgent message to the home of Congressman Caesar Rodney. In a storm, he covered a two days’ ride on horseback in a single night to vote yes in Philadelphia on July 2. Delaware pays homage to Rodney on the Delaware state quarter. A monument to him stands in Wilmington, DE.
Q: Did the Declaration of Independence once have anti-slavery language? Did Jefferson write that part?
A: Yes. Jefferson, an enslaver himself, did in fact write a paragraph blaming King George III for the slave trade. That paragraph did not make the Final Cut.
Q: During the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, what was the significance of Ben Franklin changing the phrase “we hold these truths to be sacred” to “we hold these truths to be self-evident?” Is the Declaration of Independence a religious document?
A: The Declaration references God in different ways but the Committee of Five, who drafted it, did not perceive it as a religious document. Franklin was a pragmatic man and a Deist. He preferred “self-evident” over “sacred,” and Jefferson accepted the revision. Jefferson himself was dedicated, also during his presidency, to the separation of church and state. The word sacred does get its due in the final line of the document, where the signers wrote “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
John A. Tures is Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Political Science Program at LaGrange College, in LaGrange, Georgia. His first book, “Branded”, is available on Amazon. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu.