For Americans today, it's a treasure. Scripture. The thing that made us. It wasn't always that way, though. This is the story of the Declaration of Independence before it was enshrined in our collective national consciousness. Back when it was a news headline and we had no control what others thought of it.
Our guest is Emily Sneff, author of When the Declaration of Independence was News.
Transcript
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:00] This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:03] I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:04] Nick, imagine you need to drop some major news. The [00:00:10] biggest thing you have ever told the world. But the minute it gets into other people's hands, you have no control over it. They're [00:00:20] going to take it and run with it, and they're going to decide what it means, and they're going to play it up, or they're going to use it to tear you down.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:29] See? See, [00:00:30] this is why I am neither a politician nor a celebrity, Hannah, because that sounds terrifying. And that is what always, always happens. [00:00:40] It's like less of a imagine this and more of a duh, vulnerability at your own risk kind of thing. The internet is a hall of [00:00:50] funhouse mirrors.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:51] Yeah, well, 18th century news consumers, they're just like us.
Emily Sneff: [00:00:56] In terms of misinformation. When the declaration first [00:01:00] arrives in London before it's printed in London newspapers, like the first week of August, when the news is there that the declaration has arrived. It's [00:01:10] not called a Declaration of independence. It's called a declaration of war.
Archival: [00:01:14] Colonies.
Archival: [00:01:15] They're now called the United States, sir.
Archival: [00:01:18] We will now all hang together, [00:01:20] or most assuredly, we will all hang separately.
Archival: [00:01:23] Why do you refer to King George as a tyrant? Because he is a tyrant. [00:01:30]
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:36] This is Emily Sniff.
Emily Sneff: [00:01:38] I am an early American historian, [00:01:40] consulting curator and author of When the Declaration of Independence was News.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:45] Emily just published a book that takes us into the media and social maelstrom before [00:01:50] and after the release of the Declaration of Independence, before it became a gleaming relic signed by America's heroes before it had a legacy of any kind. [00:02:00] Like when Londoners got their hands on it and were like, oh no, these little brats are gonna get what's coming.
Emily Sneff: [00:02:07] And the Continental Congress did not think of this [00:02:10] as a declaration of war. They had been at war for 15 months. And, you know, the king had declared them to be in rebellion. A declaration of war [00:02:20] also means something within the law of nations. Like, if you declare war, you're supposed to make them aware that you have declared war against them. So just that phrase [00:02:30] and that sort of titling has all these implications that I think impact how the text was then received when it was printed in the London press. [00:02:40]
Nick Capodice: [00:02:40] That would not be great. That's some sneaky business.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:43] Especially when you decide to let the cat out of the bag before you actually have a solid plan for, you know, being [00:02:50] your own country at war with the most powerful military On planet earth.
Emily Sneff: [00:02:57] You know, right up until July [00:03:00] 1776, independence was not a foregone conclusion. There was still quite a lot of disagreement about whether and when independence should happen [00:03:10] within the Continental Congress. There are delegates who are remembered as being against independence, but I think they're actually against independence first, [00:03:20] because independence was intertwined with confederation and foreign treaties. So the idea of tearing down something without a substitute [00:03:30] in its place, like, you know, not having any connection formalized among the colonies and not having an ally like France, you know, on board was really challenging [00:03:40] for a lot of people at the center of the story of the declaration, but also more broadly.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:48] You know, when Emily puts it like that, [00:03:50] it actually makes the doubters seem pretty reasonable.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:54] Right? You would probably want to have some solid diplomacy and PR in the works before you [00:04:00] assert yourself as a brand new nation breaking off from Great Britain.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:04] Actually, that's a good point. When we did this, did everyone. Okay, maybe not Great Britain, [00:04:10] but did everyone else say, there they are, the United States of America?
Emily Sneff: [00:04:15] Not as soon as the Continental Congress would have hoped. One of the chapters in my [00:04:20] book is about Silas Deane, who was Congress's agent in France, and Silas Deane has a horrible time the fall of 1776, [00:04:30] because the Declaration of Independence is spreading all around him in the popular press in Europe, and he has yet to receive a copy from the Continental Congress. [00:04:40] He doesn't know that they tried to send one to him. It was thrown overboard to prevent being intercepted by the British. They sent another one, but much later. So [00:04:50] he ultimately doesn't get the declaration from them directly until November, by which point it had become an old story in his words. And so this [00:05:00] issue of like the sort of diplomatic shortcomings in communication for the Continental Congress means that even though the declaration uses the language of [00:05:10] free and independent states, in European newspapers and in all of the diplomatic correspondence, no one is calling the colonies the United [00:05:20] States of America. They're still the colonies for quite some time, and then they're slowly in France and then in the Dutch Republic and among other folks, there's [00:05:30] increased usage of states rather than colonies. But it's much more delayed than I think the Continental Congress probably assumed. [00:05:40] As soon as the declaration is out there, we have a new name in the world. We will be the United States of America. And that is not what happens.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:52] Silas [00:05:50] Deane, by the way, the one who is in France trying to make sure we have France on our side. When he finally does get a copy of the declaration, [00:06:00] he's like, come on, guys, paper. This is bush league.
Emily Sneff: [00:06:05] And Silas Deane says this to them that the courts of Europe demand more [00:06:10] formality. So when he gets a paper copy of the declaration, he's thinking, you know, it could have been on parchment, it could have had a seal, it could have had some gold thrown on [00:06:20] it. Like we have to stand up against the courts of Europe.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:23] Meanwhile, even in the United States, Congress's message did not look the same everywhere it appeared in print. [00:06:30] The declaration was published in newspapers with typos, sometimes with words missing, different formatting, different fonts. And this is a nation, even at this point [00:06:40] of many languages. So it's printed in translation as well, which is art as well as science. Translation can be and often is interpretation. Oh, and [00:06:50] Nick, have you ever thought about the fact that when it was first printed, barely anybody, and certainly not the public, knew who was going to sign the Declaration of Independence?
Nick Capodice: [00:06:59] What [00:07:00] do you mean, who was going to sign it? The declaration is the whole reason we call a signature a John Hancock.
Emily Sneff: [00:07:06] We tend to, in the history of the Declaration of Independence, [00:07:10] prioritize the signing that the signers are the most important people, and the signing is the most important act. Second to that would be [00:07:20] the drafting and the drafters. And of course, Thomas Jefferson as principal author. And all of that is informed by the fact that the parchment copy of the declaration [00:07:30] is on public view and is a, you know, regularly used visual, you know, that visual is very identifiable for people. And we [00:07:40] know who the drafters were, and we know what Thomas Jefferson's rough draft looked like. None of that existed in July 1776.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:49] The Dunlap Broadside, [00:07:50] the first printing of the declaration for Public Distribution. It only has two names on it, and yes, one of those names is John Hancock. But it wasn't [00:08:00] John Hancock. John Hancock. It was not his signature. It just says in typeface. John Hancock, president and Charles Thompson, secretary. The [00:08:10] signing did not start until August 2nd of 1776.
Nick Capodice: [00:08:15] Right. I actually knew that about the signing. I've told people that it's just when [00:08:20] I think about the declaration, I think about all of those signatures. I think about that piece of parchment on display at the National Archives.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:29] Yeah. And that is [00:08:30] the famous classic image that comes to mind for a lot of people. But in July of 1776, the public did not see that, which to [00:08:40] me reveals the evolution of the declaration from news bulletin to precious document.
Emily Sneff: [00:08:48] And that's an important part of its story because [00:08:50] the signed parchment, it doesn't reflect the men who voted for independence itself on July 2nd, or who voted for the declaration on July 4th, or [00:09:00] even the men who were in the Continental Congress on August 2nd when signing began. It's an amalgamation of people who were there, but also people who came back [00:09:10] after having been in their home colonies, and people who joined the Continental Congress after the Declaration of Independence.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:18] And going back to what London [00:09:20] chose to do with it.
Emily Sneff: [00:09:21] The most common manipulation of the declaration in London newspapers was simply censoring the words [00:09:30] for King tyrant. You know, just very light censorship. Just, you know, the whole document is about the king. You can't really get away from it. But at least eliminating [00:09:40] those words. One particular newspaper in London, the Saint James's Chronicle actually changed all of the pronouns in the list of grievances [00:09:50] to it. So instead of he has the declaration read, it has. Now, whether it was Parliament [00:10:00] or the British government at large or all of Great Britain. Very unclear. The process to change all those pronouns would have been very convoluted [00:10:10] and time consuming. So it took some real effort on their part. But that was the strategy for sort of avoiding any implications of, you know, sedition [00:10:20] or printing something against the king by literally changing the text and actually giving us something that, you know, might resemble what the Continental Congress [00:10:30] could have done, you know, by actually blaming Parliament and the British government rather than the king personally.
Nick Capodice: [00:10:36] Hang on. Blaming the king was hugely important to the [00:10:40] declaration, the grievances. Hannah. The grievances are like the whole thing.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:44] And not something most British newspapers were interested in risking the printing of.
Nick Capodice: [00:10:49] So British [00:10:50] audiences are reading a declaration of war that avoids mention of the King. This is a total misrepresentation of [00:11:00] the message.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:00] Which is not to say, Nick, that the message totally failed to resonate outside of the U.S..
Emily Sneff: [00:11:06] Whereas the rest of British newspapers, by and large, printers [00:11:10] are exerting the text or printing it alongside misinformation, or just kind of presenting a story that is very far from what the Continental Congress would have intended [00:11:20] for an international audience in Ireland. That's still all happening. They're copying from London newspapers, but we see more examples of commentary that [00:11:30] is positive, or at least framed in the sense of the king forced them to this point. And I think that's interesting in terms of the long fight [00:11:40] in Ireland for rights that run sort of parallel to the 13 colonies. So that's where you really see at least hope [00:11:50] that independence might succeed. Whereas in the rest of Europe, it's much more sort of assuming that [00:12:00] the British will win and probably soon based on how things are going for the Continental Army.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:09] Yeah, things were not [00:12:10] going great at this point. What were other countries thinking in terms of the war itself, by the way? Because if Europe isn't looking at us [00:12:20] as the states, at least not at first, does this mean that people think we're going to lose this thing.
Emily Sneff: [00:12:25] Among the courts of Europe? There's not a ton of optimism, [00:12:30] at least in 1776. There's still a sort of belittling of this rebellion and not treating it as a new [00:12:40] sovereign nation, making its appearance on the world stage.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:43] And Nick, while we don't necessarily have to call it a project of fits and starts, the Declaration of Independence was [00:12:50] not even the first, well, declaration of independence that Europe had seen from the colonies.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:58] Say what now?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:59] I'm gonna [00:13:00] get to that after a quick break.
Nick Capodice: [00:13:13] We're [00:13:10] back. We're talking about the Declaration of Independence, back when it was a message from a brand new country that may or may not have [00:13:20] stood a fighting chance. Hannah, before the break, you said that the declaration was not even the first declaration. What [00:13:30] do you mean?
Emily Sneff: [00:13:31] There's documents and sort of, you know, ideas that are spreading that people are like, oh, is this it? Is this the declaration? Do we have to wait? Like, when's it going to happen? [00:13:40] Internationally, certainly, there was anticipation that a Declaration of Independence was coming.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:46] Nick, what do you know about the May 15th resolution? [00:13:50]
Nick Capodice: [00:13:50] Uh not much.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:53] So in early May, John Dunlop. John Dunlop of the Dunlap Broadside published news of German mercenaries [00:14:00] headed to join the fighting in North America. And just a little reminder that we were already in armed conflict with Great Britain at this point, though at this stage, of course, [00:14:10] we are still technically a part of Great Britain.
Nick Capodice: [00:14:13] Hold on. German mercenaries. Are these the Hessians?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:17] They are at King George the Third. Had [00:14:20] a German prince cousin from Hesse-Kassel who decided to send him a lot of backup anyway. Dunlap informs his readers that George is sending [00:14:30] tens of thousands of mercenary soldiers. Now, this is not much more than a rumor at this point, but it would turn out to be true. And [00:14:40] this is after, by the way, the King has rejected the colonists olive branch petition and declared them to be in open rebellion. This is after Thomas Paine's Common [00:14:50] Sense had been published.
Nick Capodice: [00:14:51] All right, I'm with you here. Hessians at the door. King George is letting us down. Paine's got everyone riled up. Et cetera. Et cetera.
Emily Sneff: [00:14:59] Then, [00:15:00] in May of 1776, the Continental Congress issues a resolution calling for new representative governments in each of the colonies. And that resolution, [00:15:10] the preamble for that is the first time that the Congress blames the king for what the colonists are dealing with. And that resolution is [00:15:20] perceived by some people in the Continental Congress and outside of Independence Hall as a Declaration of Independence. John Adams remembers. It was, you know, all but a formal [00:15:30] declaration of independence.
Nick Capodice: [00:15:32] Why did I not know about this, John Adams himself saw it as a declaration of independence.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:41] Well, [00:15:40] he knew it wasn't enough. As Emily explains in her book, only 12 of the 13 colonies were actually represented when the resolution was [00:15:50] voted on. Also, Adams preamble calls us the colonies.
Nick Capodice: [00:15:55] Yeah, but all this to do about calling out King George in the Declaration [00:16:00] of Independence. And we had already kind of done it.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:04] Well, to me, looking at how American independence was rolled out, it sometimes feels [00:16:10] closer to a soft launch than it does a single, isolated, carefully coordinated political PR move. Independence didn't happen once, and [00:16:20] in one place we were gesturing to it, testing its waters, watching to see what Great Britain was going to do. I mean, the fact that George the Third had effectively [00:16:30] rejected us, that was to some people, his declaring us independent.
Nick Capodice: [00:16:36] Even so, Hannah, the capital D capital I declaration [00:16:40] of independence was a huge deal. I mean, didn't people get super excited, take to the streets?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:48] Oh, yeah. Plenty of people did. [00:16:50] Not everybody though.
Emily Sneff: [00:16:52] The stories that get reported are, of course, all celebratory about the Declaration of Independence. Public readings with hundreds and [00:17:00] thousands of people shouting huzzah! Cannons firing, tearing down the symbols of the king. You know, that's what gets in the newspapers. We see less of the [00:17:10] perspective of people who are not so pleased about independence, but they certainly were out there. One of my favorite stories is from a teenaged girl [00:17:20] on the island of Nantucket. Her name was Keziah Coffin. And when someone brings the declaration from Cape Cod over to Nantucket, she reads [00:17:30] it and she says it's horrible. And she wishes that the Continental Congress and all of their supporters had been hung 50ft in the air before they had been allowed [00:17:40] to issue this document. You know, she's a teenager and and she understands the political stakes of this moment.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:48] And, you know, okay, sure. That [00:17:50] is a loyalist perspective. But as Emily told me, it wasn't always as simple as pro-independence or pro-monarchy.
Emily Sneff: [00:17:58] There's this political spectrum that is [00:18:00] much more complex than loyalist patriot. There are a lot of people, and I think this is a very relatable position who just want to continue living their [00:18:10] lives as they had been. And so any change, whether it's independence or reconciliation with Great Britain, they're thinking about like, what does that impact my family, [00:18:20] my farm, my business, you know, commerce, my church.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:25] Which is, I think, something that plenty of American voters can relate to today. [00:18:30] When it boils down to it, are you making your political choices based on what's good for everybody? Are you making decisions based upon sweeping [00:18:40] ideals, or are you thinking about how the results are going to affect you and your family?
Emily Sneff: [00:18:47] That's where their minds are. They're not thinking so [00:18:50] much in terms of, you know, super radical support for independence or, you know, diehard support for the king. And I think that that, [00:19:00] you know, perspective is something in the lived experience of the Revolutionary War that we tend to lose sight of being in the Philadelphia area. A lot of people [00:19:10] were able to remain sort of ambivalent until the war comes here, and then they're forced to make decisions about whether or not to support one [00:19:20] side or the other, whether to associate to be part of the actual fight for independence or not. But up until that point, they really just kind of want to hang back [00:19:30] and not, you know, claim support either way.
Nick Capodice: [00:19:36] I mean, I guess that's smart, isn't it? Hedging your bets a little bit. [00:19:40] And as you said, Hanna, we are fighting with the most powerful empire on planet earth. Independence was not a guarantee [00:19:50] just because we had declared that we have it.
Emily Sneff: [00:19:54] And there are also people who think independence might be temporary and not permanent. [00:20:00] You know, the Continental Army is not looking so great in the summer of 1776. And so there are people, you know, in particular, I have a chapter in the book about Anglican ministers [00:20:10] who swore an oath at their ordination to the authority of King George the Third, not only as a political ruler, but as the head of the Church of England. They're [00:20:20] not necessarily willing to go against that oath for something that might just be a temporary political change. So when the Book of Common Prayer is altered [00:20:30] and prayers for the King are changed to prayers for the Continental Congress or the provincial governments, some of those ministers feel obliged to shut their churches or, you know, leave their congregations [00:20:40] rather than change for what might be a momentary blip in the otherwise, you know, long history of the British Empire.
Nick Capodice: [00:20:51] That's [00:20:50] really a sobering idea. I mean, I say that, of course, as an American, as a citizen of the country, that one, but [00:21:00] that this all could have been a blip. And you don't want to be on the wrong side of that blip.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:21:05] And it is only because it was not a blip, only because [00:21:10] we did win that the Declaration of Independence is this sacred American text, because even those who celebrated it in 1776 [00:21:20] had no idea whether it would stick. And they had other things to worry about.
Emily Sneff: [00:21:25] It's just different sort of understandings of the legitimacy of [00:21:30] this document. And as something that, you know, 250 years later, it's, you know, scripture, right? American scripture. That's what Pauline Maier calls it. It is this treasured [00:21:40] document. And yet in 1776, there's a lot of questions about how legitimate it was, what it really meant. And even like, you know, on this side of the Atlantic, [00:21:50] the Continental Army, you know, here's the declaration read aloud at different locations. And one soldier at Fort Ticonderoga said the declaration made a [00:22:00] little buzz and was soon forgotten. You know, they had to move on to the next thing. So there's this, like, ephemeral nature to the declaration that is very unsettling [00:22:10] for especially Americans today. But that's my favorite thing about studying it.
Nick Capodice: [00:22:17] Hannah, when did the Declaration of Independence become, [00:22:20] as Emily puts it, Scripture.
Emily Sneff: [00:22:22] You know, the 4th of July becomes a day, a day of celebration the following year, 1777. But [00:22:30] it's kind of separate from the declaration, the declaration as a text and copies of the declaration as archival treasure. That takes some time. And [00:22:40] really, things solidify in the 1790s when the declaration becomes politicized. So as Thomas [00:22:50] Jefferson and John Adams are competing politically, the declaration is honestly weaponized by the Democratic-Republicans to [00:23:00] talk about Thomas Jefferson as the author of independence, even though John Adams was there, too. And it kind of baffles Adams that Jefferson has this apotheosis [00:23:10] around the declaration when Adams was part of the process. And so I think that politicization of the declaration then makes it more sacred [00:23:20] and more valuable, and you start to see more conversations about which was better. The draft, which no one knew what was in the draft at that point or the final version. The draft [00:23:30] must have been better because Thomas Jefferson wrote it. You know, there's all of this sort of dialog that makes the declaration seem more exceptional.
Nick Capodice: [00:23:38] Wait, what did Jefferson [00:23:40] do here? He weaponizes the declaration.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:42] So he's campaigning against Adams for the presidency. Suffice it to say, that campaign was nasty. Jefferson [00:23:50] basically said, listen, I stand for liberty. Remember this thing I wrote? I stand for states rights. This Adams guy wants a strong central government, so he's [00:24:00] essentially one crown short of a monarchist.
Nick Capodice: [00:24:02] Adams, the guy who wrote that may preamble, the guy who repeatedly called for independence, by the way, is this the campaign [00:24:10] where Jefferson also called Adams a hermaphrodite?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:13] No, that was four years later. This is the campaign where Jefferson called Adams overweight. He called him his rotundity. [00:24:20] But the point is, Jefferson is calling up these principles of freedom and reminding everyone that he was the one who authored those principles. [00:24:30]
Nick Capodice: [00:24:30] But Hannah Adams is the one who convinced Jefferson to write the declaration.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:35] Yeah, this particular barb just feels really mean on [00:24:40] Jefferson's part. But it does get people thinking and talking about that document from a few years ago. It reinforces the declaration as this founding essential text. [00:24:50] And perhaps it is in part, this document that made and makes us the United States.
Emily Sneff: [00:24:57] So I would say in the 1790s and through Jefferson's [00:25:00] presidency, is when the declaration sort of takes its place on a pedestal. And then by the 1820s, that's when [00:25:10] John Quincy Adams, as secretary of state, orders the engraving of the signed copy to be made. But we also, before that, see commemorative copies starting to be printed so people can [00:25:20] have the declaration on view in their own house. That happens in the 18 tens, 1820s, and then of course, 1826 with the first major anniversary [00:25:30] of the declaration. And although no one celebrating on that day knew it, the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, all of those events kind of culminate [00:25:40] in the declaration, having this really sacred place in our nation's history.
Nick Capodice: [00:25:45] Died on the same day those two.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:47] Died on July 4th, those two which [00:25:50] come on. And yeah, by that point, after decades of reminders from the people who worked on it and the politicians who came after them, the Declaration of Independence [00:26:00] itself had gone from being something, as Emily puts it, ephemeral, to this precious physical object. Speaking of Jefferson and Adams, [00:26:10] by the way, did you ever read the letters they wrote after they became friends again?
Nick Capodice: [00:26:14] I have not, but I have a sneaking suspicion you have Hannah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:18] Yep. Sure have. So they're [00:26:20] talking again, and they're writing letters about politics and philosophy and aging. And in the same letter where he talks about becoming a great grandfather, Jefferson says, quote, a letter [00:26:30] from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind. It carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers. We were fellow [00:26:40] laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man his rights of self-government, laboring always [00:26:50] at the same or with some wave ever ahead, threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing harmless under our bark. We knew not how. We rode through the storm [00:27:00] with heart and hand and made a happy port. And I love this quote, Nick, because Jefferson is saying, hey, remember when we were just scrappy revolutionaries [00:27:10] and somehow it worked?
Nick Capodice: [00:27:14] Actually, I really love that. I really love that idea. Yeah, I really. Back before, [00:27:20] we were the heroes of liberty and the original leaders of the free world, and we had no idea what was going to happen just riding around on a skiff made of paper.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:29] Yeah. [00:27:30] And Adams writes back that he is as anxious about the union today as he was about independence back then.
Nick Capodice: [00:27:40] Wow. [00:27:40] So the United States is still not a foregone conclusion to him.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:46] It is not. Adams knows that the piece of paper [00:27:50] that said we were independent is not, in fact, what made us independent, and that calling ourselves the United States of America is not what makes [00:28:00] us the United States of America. The declaration was not a guarantee, nor was the country it named. Not for Adams then, and [00:28:10] not for us now. What makes it a treasure, what makes it Scripture is the work of fellow laborers in [00:28:20] the same cause. This [00:28:30] episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy with Nick Capodice. Marina [00:28:40] Henke is our producer, Dana Cataldo is our digital producer, and Rebecca LaVoie is our executive producer. Music in this episode comes from Epidemic Sound. This is just one of many episodes [00:28:50] we have made about the Declaration of Independence. You can check the rest out at civics101podcast.org dot org. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public [00:29:00] Radio.