During the recent July 4th holiday, amidst the barbecues, mattress sales, and fireworks, there was quite a bit of highfalutin rhetoric about our Founders and an almost sacred revisionism through which we view their efforts. In fact, they had a lot in common with contemporary politicians. In fact, polarization, partisanship and divisiveness were alive and well on July 4, 1776. All the usual players were their; angry populists, elites, grass roots democrats and the strange bedfellows that joined together to achieve an independence that not everyone wanted.
William Hogeland, in his book
Declaration: The Nine Tumultuous Weeks When America Became Independent, May 1-July 4, 1776, tells the whole unvarnished story.
My conversation with William Hogeland:
