Charles Rappleye, in an op-ed published by the L.A. Times on August 12 (I just caught up with it via the Bangor Daily News), might seem at first glance to be saying pretty much what I’d been saying in my New Deal 2.0 post of August 1 (also on AlterNet and Salon) regarding the framers [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Continental Congress’
“Constitutional” Conservatives v. “Constitutional” Liberals
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1776, Alexander Hamilton, American history, Continental Congress, finance, historiography, liberals, right wing, Robert Morris, Tea Party on August 21, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Thomas Paine and the Democratic Revolutionaries: Egypt 2011, America 1776
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1776, American history, Christianity, Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence, democracy, Egypt, evangelicals, George Washington, historiography, John Adams, religion and the founders, Thomas Paine on February 16, 2011 | 5 Comments »
To the young democratic resisters in Egypt, some of whom I’ve heard saying in street interviews that they admire the American Revolution, I want to say something complicating. (No, I don’t literally think they’re taking time out of changing their country and the world to follow my blog — but hey, you never know!) This: [...]
John Adams the Yankee v. Samuel Adams the Puritan
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged American history, American independence, Christianity, Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence, evangelicals, historiography, John Adams, religion and the founders, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine on September 27, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Over at American Creation, there are a couple of related posts from the always thought-provoking Jonathan Rowe on topics with great appeal for me. One is a link to an older post, on Rowe’s other site The One Best Way, about John Adams’s liberal ideas on religion; the other is on the illiberality of the [...]
Primary Source: Thomas Young to the Inhabitants of Vermont
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1776, Continental Congress, Ethan Allen, Thomas Young, Vermont on July 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Here’s a printed document from Dr. Thomas Young, one of the more flamboyant radical democrats in Declaration. It’s a message he sent to his friends in “the Hampshire Grants,” which were becoming known as Vermont. Young’s old friend from the lower Berkshires, Ethan Allen, had been running a remarkable strongarm operation in the Grants. Allen’s Green [...]
Correction to the Wall Street Journal Review of “Declaration”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1776, American history, American independence, Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence, John Adams on July 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Delighted to have the WSJ review over the holiday weekend, but there’s a fact that needs correcting, so I’ve done so in a letter to the editor, published in today’s edition. The gist: Mr. Bakshian cites John Adams … quoting the famous letter to Abigail Adams in which John predicts that America’s independence will one day [...]
Was May 15, 1776, Independence Day?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1776, American history, American independence, Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence, historiography, John Adams, John Dickinson, Pennsylvania, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine on June 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
I’m going around saying that the story I tell in Declaration, despite its centrality, is little known. Yet one of the better-known dates, pivotal to the story, is Wednesday, May 15, 1776, when the Congress voted to add a preamble to a resolution it had passed on Friday, May 10. Because John Adams co-sponsored the [...]
“You’re Too Short for That Gesture”: Some dissenting historiography behind Rhode Island’s supposedly declaring independence on May 4, 1776
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1776, American history, American independence, Continental Congress, Declaration, historiography, Rhode Island, Smithsonian on May 14, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The other day — May 4, to be exact — the Smithsonian American History Museum posted this on Twitter: “Today in history: Rhode Island declares independence.” I like and promote the Smithsonian’s posts. But I have a problem with this one, which draws on a longstanding tradition, promoted especially in Rhode Island, that Rhode Island [...]
Countdown to the Declaration
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1776, American history, American independence, Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence, Twitter on May 3, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Over on Twitter, I’m trying a “today in history” countdown from May 1 to July 4, 1776. (So as of now, I’ve already posted May 1-3.) That is, I’m giving the story of Declaration away, in a superficial day-by-day rendering, leading up to the Independence Day climax about nine weeks from now. It’s tricky because [...]
