Michael Hattem

though it is a contradiction and it is a paradox.

And I think, you know, in some sense, it's incumbent on Americans as part of their, you know, civic education to wrestle with that paradox.

I think that one of the things that

in some sense, kind of squares it for me, is the fact that all of those groups that you just mentioned, African Americans, well, first enslaved persons, and then later, you know, free African Americans, women, Native Americans, and many other marginalized groups, over the course of the next 250 years, every one of those groups would adopt the Declaration as part of justifying their cause for equal rights and

to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And so, you know, that has less to do with, you know, with the founders themselves than it does the document.

But to me, it's the fact that the document has been used and redefined over, you know, the subsequent 250 years that kind of gives it really its most importance for me.

Yeah.

You know, sometimes I'm asked by people, you know, did Jefferson or the other founders, you know, ever imagine that later on these marginalized groups would use the Declaration, you know, to...

To declare their own – to support their own claims for rights.

And the simple answer is no, right?

They simply did not.

But one of the things that makes revolutions messy and makes them interesting is that they always have unintended consequences.

The intentions almost never play out as the revolutionaries expected.

And so, you know, it's part of, you know, the unintended consequences of this revolution that they that Jefferson made a decision, a conscious decision to include this preamble with its universal statement of human rights and of natural law and

He made a decision to include that because he felt it was necessary at the moment.

But it turns out that it's actually been more sort of necessary in the 250 years since than it was at that moment.

Yes, they would have.

I mean, immediately after the declaration is passed, the British fleet shows up in New York, right?

So getting ready for the Battle of New York and to take New York City.