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The speaker explains how colonial attitudes shifted toward independence in 1776 and why Thomas Paine's Common Sense became so influential. The focus is on Paine's accessible writing style and how he persuaded ordinary colonists more effectively than more elite authors.
Speaker A
In the fall of 1775, the British were not backing down from their hardline stance.Several battles had already happened.Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, namely the Olive Branch petition had been ignored and rejected, and the King's proclamation of Rebellion had been issued.With all of this, more colonists started entertaining independence.Still, most colonists were not in favor of independence.
This changed early in 1776.Now a lot of people are going to start writing and making arguments for independence, but none will be more significant or successful than Thomas Paine and his pamphlet Common Sense, which was officially published in January of 76.Paine was a fantastic, fiery, yet simplistic writer, and this contrasted with most of the other authors of the time, like Jefferson, who wrote for their fellow intellectuals and political colleagues.With language far more complex than what the average person used or knew, Paine wrote for the common person understanding that no movement can succeed without the support of the people, a people who frankly could not understand much of what people like Jefferson wrote.This is not about intelligence, but comprehension and understanding.
For example, if you are talking to someone who uses a word, phrase, metaphor, colloquialism, or reference, you do not understand.Do you focus on their main point or the parts you missed?Or does that the use of that word take you out of you listening?And in the case of if it were me listening to me lecture, you're notetaking.
Similarly, if they do that repeatedly, do you just start to tune them out?If you're not understanding the words they're using, you're definitely not going to get them meaning, and you're going to lose interest and realize you're not going to get much from what they're saying.
How many of you listening to this were thrown in your concentration and or comprehension?When I use the word colloquialism, you may not even.You may have heard the word, you may not may not have heard it.And if you have, that's fine, too.For those of you who don't know, a colloquialism is a word or phrase that's not formal.
It's either used in a certain region, or it could just be slang or casual speak.For example, in Texas, it would be things like y' all, or gonna or that dog will hunt, which just means that'll work.So he made many of the same arguments as others, but in a way that was accessible to many more people in the colonies.
So just reiterate the way that Paine, or rather the way that people like Jefferson, wrote he would have used the word colloquialism the way that Paine wrote, he would have just used the word slang.It's not about writing about more difficult things.It's about writing in a way that he was writing to his audience.The audience for Paine's work was the average colonist.So you don't need to use the higher end $10 words when a 10 cent word will do.
Again, it's not about intelligence or even necessarily education level.It's just you want your reader to have the easiest time to understand what you're saying.You write to your audience.
So he makes the same arguments.And in fact, to this point, I haven't even told you what he argued other than independence.
And much of what he wrote was basically the same thing.All of the arguments we've talked about to this point carry forward.He argued that King George III was a tyrant.You know, that was one of the things they argued that the king was out to get them.And in fact, much of his pamphlet was a rant on the king.
He carried forward the previous arguments, especially no taxation without representation, but he mostly focused, he mostly focused on violations of their rights as better citizens, also breaking ties with Europe and the need for better or self government, largely taking these ideas and arguments that had been there before and just turning them and presenting them in a way that was more accessible.So it wasn't so much that he was making groundbreaking arguments, but he was making the same arguments in a way that most colonists would listen to, would read, rather would read, and was persuasive to them.It was incredibly effective.It led to massive pressure on the Second Continental Congress to declare independence.And Paine quickly became the propagandist of the Revolution after the Declaration was issued.
So there was other stuff that helped push towards the Declaration, but none as singularly significant as Paine and common sense.And it wasn't because of what he argued, but how he argued it.
This section broadens the lesson about audience and messaging, using apologies as an example of how wording changes meaning. It then transitions to the creation of the Declaration of Independence and Jefferson's role in drafting it.
Speaker A
And this is something that you may already understand that when you're presenting anything, you need to understand your audience, whether it's written or oral communication or any other form of communication, you can just think about on the, on the Internet.The example I use in this, in this particular context is apologies, right?The messaging can be just as important as the message itself, the way it's presented.
So think about when someone apologizes for something, you can pretty much instantly tell whether it was written by PR and or if they're sincere.Certain phrases usually stick out, at least for me.One that does is I'm.I'm sorry for those I may have offended with my words.Or whatever, right?
Not apologizing for what they said, but the fact that people got angry about what they said, that's usually the way that they word that argument is a clue as to the meaning.So the way that words are presented can have just as much of an impact as the word, as the message you're trying to convey.And that's what this is all about for pain and common sense.So while there was other stuff, nothing was as secretly important as the pamphlet Common Sense.Which leads us to the.The Declaration itself.My slide will go.If my slide will go.There we go.
So late spring, early summer, the second Continental Congress, or at least June rather.So summer, the second Continental Congress finally voted to draft a declaration and created a committee to do this in June of 76.The leader of this committee was Thomas Jefferson, a Virginia plantation and slave owner.Plantation owner.Slave owner.The committee created an outline and Jefferson wrote the Declaration pretty much by himself.
It was taking them a while, so he eventually just sequestered himself in his hotel room and wrote the whole thing himself as they were starting to get towards the deadline.So he basically procrastinated.And if procrastination is okay with Jefferson, I guess it's okay for the rest of us.But then again, he was also a slave owner.So maybe don't take your.
All of your cues about how to act as a person from Jefferson.Complicated legacies, what can I say?But he finishes it.He turns it back into the committee.They make a few edits, nothing major.
I'll talk about one, the only one that really matters, and that's it as far as how it was created.
The transcript shifts to the Declaration as a philosophy of government rather than just a break from Britain. It introduces John Locke's social contract and breaks down the ideas of consent, protecting rights, and the people's duty to replace bad government.
Speaker A
What was created was not just a statement of independence, however, but a statement on the philosophy of what makes a good government.The Declaration is far more a treatise or a paper on what a good government is and what it should and why it should exist and how it should exist or come into existence.And not at all a statement on what a good government looks like as far as the structure of it.It's not about that the colonies needed a democracy.It's that they needed a good government.This is about the philosophy of government, of good government in particular.
Much of what Jefferson wrote was based on the.
The philosophies, the ideas of Enlightenment philosopher, Enlightenment thinker John Locke and his Social Contract.
This was not a written contract, but an abstract one, one that is present in your life today without you even realizing it.They did not sit down and sign anything.This was something that people understood without even.Even if they didn't know the word social contract, it's an agreement between people in general and the people who have positions of power over them.
The Enlightenment.Just to backtrack real quick, the Enlightenment was the major philosophical movement of the era of the 1600s and 1700s, like the Renaissance was for the 13, 14 and 1500s.The Enlightenments was the 16 and 1700.And he was one of those thinkers.He was English, but he had died roughly 80 years before all of this.
So when Locke was writing this, this wasn't about the colonies.He was just writing about the philosophy of government.And we're going to go through that Social contract because this was the one of the most significant portions of what Jefferson used to create the Declaration itself.
There's basically three ideas or foundations to the social contract.And we're going to run through them and they build off of each other.So there is a particular order here to understand them.First is that governments only had power from what Locke called the consent of the governed.Governments only have power if the people agree to its rule over them.
If the people do not agree with the government's rule or authority, it no longer has power.
So what would determine whether the people agree or not, Whether they give their consent or whether they withdraw their consent?Consent certainly matters, whether it's governments or individuals.That leads us to the second point.Governments exist.A good government is one that.
So governments exist, or good governments are ones that protect people's basic rights, which Locke specifically listed.Life, liberty and property.
Government that protects these rights, it's good, and the people will give their consent to that government.But a government that does not protect these rights is bad, and people will not consent.
So we have what a good government is.We have the rights it protects.And if a government doesn't protect those rights, it's bad.Which leads us to the third point.If there is a bad government, what Locke said was that it was the duty or responsibility of the people to remove bad government and replace it with a good one.
Thus, if a government no longer protects these basic rights, then the people have a responsibility to withdraw their consent and replace that government with a good one that will protect those rights.
So just.And I know that I don't do this in videos, but I want to emphasize this.I'm going to do a brief overview of this again.So point one.Governments only have power because the people agree to it.They give their consent, the consent of the governed.If the government is good, they consent.If a government is bad, they withdraw consent.A good government is defined by its ability.And in Actuality how they protect the people's basic rights, life, liberty, property.If a government protects those rights, it's good, if it doesn't, it's bad.And if the government is bad, point three, it's the responsibility or duty of the people to remove bad government and replace it with a good one without actually saying it.What Locke has laid out here in a slightly larger picture is the idea that the government was for the people and by the people.
They agreed to a government, the people did.If, if the, if the people's rights were not being protected, then that was what makes a government good or bad.
They're the protection of the people's rights.And if the government was bad, then it's up to the people to replace it.Government for the people, by the people.He did not explicitly state that, but that's what he's essentially saying here.
The speaker connects Locke's ideas directly to British actions against the colonies and explains why Jefferson used them to justify independence. The chapter also covers the Declaration's change from 'property' to 'pursuit of happiness' and the historical meaning of 'all men are created equal.'
Speaker A
So how is this specifically relevant to the Declaration?Well Jefferson argued that Britain was not protecting these rights.Were they protecting.Protecting the colonists lives?No.The Boston Massacre, the battles that had been fought, all say no that that was not the case.
Were they protecting the colonists liberties?No.They would have argued no taxation without representation.The intolerable or coercive acts, particularly the second quartering and the government acts or the writs of assistance, those open ended search warrants.And was the British government protecting their property?No.Basically the same as above.You could include things like the TEA act or even the Proclamation line where people who had settled were had to come back so they would lose ownership of that property.If you look at property in the sense of land ownership, remember property is anything one can own.
So Jefferson used Locke's social contract to show how the British were violating their rights and therefore why independence was necessary.Both reason both the, the both Locke and Jefferson explained the need for both reasons.What, what they explained was the neat sorry the need for independence social contract and the Declaration explained the need for independence essentially and were an explanation of what a good government should be.But what they weren't and what they did not do was specify the form of that government.
Locke was a monarchist.He believed that a government should be a monarchy.So for him a good government it didn't matter if it was a monarchy or a republic or a representative democracy.A a good.The people wanted a good government no matter the form.If it protected their rights they would agree to it.
And Jefferson in the Declaration does the same thing.He does not say what the new government should be, but that there should be a new government as long as it's a good government.Now, Jefferson had ideas about democracy and self government, but that's not what's really in the Declaration.So think about this.Or rather, let me backtrack now.
I told you that Locke laid out the rights as life, liberty and property, but in the Declaration itself, the phrase was life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness instead of property.That's one of the edits that the committee made, was to change property to pursuit of happiness.And scholars are divided as to why.We don't have notes from the committee meetings.We don't know why they did this.
And like I said, the committee did not leave notes to explain.So there's a few possible explanations, but nothing that we know for certain.But think about this on a smaller scale.Do we apply the same basic premise about different aspects of society today, whether government or smaller areas of someone in power over other people?Right.
This is basically just about the responsibility of those in power, whether it's a government or a boss at your job or a teacher in a classroom.And it's about the removal of people in power who abuse their authority.That's what the Social Contract is about.And when I said you engaged in this every day when you took my class and I laid out the responsibilities of the class on day one, in that video, my introductory videos, I was essentially laying out the social contract of the class.Here's what you should expect from me.
And you understood that if I went beyond those things, there, there's recourse for you, Right?That's what the Social Contract is.And that is how it's relevant to the Declaration.It's the core of what Jefferson argued.Independence was necessary because the British government in the colonies was a bad government.
Another idea, and the Declaration was that all men are created equal.This was controversial even at the time, particularly with Jefferson being a slave owner, but even removing slavery from the equation.This equality in practice was only for a specific group.White males with property, land in particular and money.Now, this definition has changed over time, slowly, including lower classes, women and people of color, and much more recently, LGBTQIA community as part of this equality, Though true equality is still something being worked towards in all of those respects.
No, the point that Jefferson was making with all men are created equal is not the definition we know it to be today.But it was about, or it was more that British citizens in Britain and the British citizens in the colonies were equal and should be treated as such.It was never meant to be inclusive.But as I've said several times before, ideas never remain within their original and intended context.They evolve over time, and this is a perfect example of that.
Jefferson's all men was white men with land and money, but specifically, the British citizens in the colonies, and the British citizens in Britain should be treated equally.That's what he meant, not the inclusive definition we have today.
The final section summarizes the Declaration's broader significance as a statement of independence, political philosophy, and moral justification for rebellion. It ends by noting that the next topic will be the war itself.
Speaker A
So the significance here of the Declaration, the colonies were now independent on paper, and fighting for something more concrete, more persuasive than rights within the empire, than their rights as British citizens.The Declaration, second, also popularized political philosophy of government, government for the people, by the people, and to popularize those ideas that we talked about, all men are created equal and the social contract, even though he doesn't explicitly say this is from John Locke's Social Contract.Thirdly, it provides a moral compass for government to protect and provide for the people.That is the role of government, as set out in the Declaration, to protect and provide for the people.
Fourth, and finally, it was propaganda.It was a moral justification for the rebellion.It was a way that if somebody wanted to know, why are you fighting?They had this one document, even though Jefferson wrote it instead of Paine, that would lay out exactly why all of this was happening.So that's the Declaration.
Now, what we're going to look at, finally, is the war itself.