H.W. Brands

speaker

313 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 12 May

H.W. Brands’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

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Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci · NYT Bestselling Historian: Why George Washington Was the Greatest Leader Who Ever Lived — H. W. Brands · 12 May 2026 podcast

So there it is.

Nobody wants to be a slave who's not a slave, but nobody wants to die early either.

So there's that part of it.

But once...

The United States establishes a republic.

Once Washington's fellow Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence says all men are created equal and highlights the fact that Americans are fighting for their freedom.

And Washington himself says that unless we stand up for our rights, we will be no better than slaves.

And when I first read this from Washington's hand,

I thought, gee, George, that's awfully rich.

You're talking about you being enslaved by the tax policies of Britain.

You own the slaves, guy.

You really know what slavery is.

At first, I thought this was just kind of a figure of speech or something.

But what he really meant was that we will not be the masters of our own destiny.

And just as real slaves are not masters of their own destiny.

See, the essence of slavery was you don't get to decide what you will do.

And Washington was saying Americans would not get to decide what they would do if they failed to resist these illegitimate British laws.

So anyway, but once the United States begins fighting for its freedom, Washington realizes the contradiction.

He's not alone.

He realized the contradiction between

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