Thomas Jefferson
•Known as a talented writer, Jefferson hated having his work edited. He sat and fumed while the Continental Congress debated his draft version of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was especially peeved when the delegates deleted his reference to slavery, “the execrable commerce.”
•Jefferson instructed his slaves to hide the silver at Monticello, during the American Revolution, when the British came after him, led by turncoat Benedict Arnold.
•Jefferson died on the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration, July 4, 1826.

There is a wealth of information about Jefferson at Monticello.

John Adams
•Adams knew that Thomas Jefferson was a good writer and wanted him to be added to the group that drafted the Declaration of Independence. Adams, a wily politician, knew he needed a Virginian on the Committee drafting the Declaration. Adams  later said Jefferson was ten times a better writer than he was himself.  Eventually Adams became Jefferson’s political enemy, although they would reconcile in their old age.
•Adams was told by his wife Abigail Adams, to “Remember the ladies,” meaning consider giving women rights in the new country being considered. Abigail wrote this to her husband while he was in Philadelphia working towards Independence, and Adams jokingly dismissed that idea, saying “he knew better.”
•Adams believed America would celebrate July 2d as its great independence day –that was the day on which the Congress passed a resolution in favor of independence.
•Like Jefferson, John Adams died on the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration.

Read more about John, Abigail and their  son John Quincy Adams at Adams National Historic Park.

John Hancock

•Hancock was one of America’s richest men in 1776. Although the son of a poor minister, he had inherited a fortune from his uncle, a shipper and merchant.
•Known for his outsized signature on the Declaration, Hancock was one of two men who signed the finished draft version of the Declaration on July 4th 1776. Most of the others signed the parchment version later.
•Hancock was the first to sign—on an empty page—and forced the others to sign around the edges. He supposedly said it was so that king wouldn’t need his spectacles, but Hancock was a man who thought highly of himself. That is one reason he was disappointed when George Washington was nominated to command the Continental Army. Hancock hoped to get the post, despite little military experience.
•Hancock was one of the few American Patriots who had a bounty placed on his head by King George III. Hancock was the man the British troops were looking for in Lexington in April 1775.

Read more about Lexington and Concord.

Benjamin Franklin
•Franklin had little formal education but went from printer’s apprentice to wealthy and world-renowned writer and publisher –and inventor.
•Franklin was the most famous American in the world at the time of the signing of the Declaration due to his success publishing Poor Richard’s Almanac and his later scientific and practical inventions, including the stove that bears his name, bifocals and the lightning rod.
•Some American clergymen thought that Franklin’s lightning rod was “sinful” because it controlled something that they considered divine. But the lightning rod prevented many homes and buildings from being destroyed by fires set by lightning strikes.
•Though he later founded an anti-slavery society, Franklin kept slaves as household servants and took advertising for slave sales in his newspapers
•After Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence and said “Gentlemen we must all hang together,” meaning they should be unanimous and all sign, Franklin supposedly said, “Yes, or we shall assuredly all hang separately.”
•Franklin was so stricken with gout in his old age that he had to be carried to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 on a divan chair by inmates of a nearby jail.
•When Franklin died in April 1790, an estimated 20,000 people attended his funeral. Big crowd. But was about two-thirds of Philadelphia’s entire population back then.

The Benjamin Franklin Memorial at the Franklin Institute has more on this fascinating characters.

Charles Carroll
•One of the lesser known Founders, Carroll was unique as the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence; he came from Maryland. Many Americans of this era distrusted and disliked Catholics and there were even laws that kept them from holding property and voting in some states.
•Carroll was also the last surviving signer, dying in 1832 at the ripe old age of 95.
•From a wealthy plantation family, Carroll had studied abroad and was a French-speaker. With his cousin, John Carroll, a Catholic priest, and Benjamin Franklin, he went to Canada on a mission to convince Catholic French Canadians to join the American union. Their mission failed.
•Carroll later helped found the B&O railroad (of “ MONOPOLY” board game fame).

Homewood, a Carroll family home, is maintained as a museum by the Johns Hopkins University.

James Wilson
•Another “forgotten Founder,” Wilson is probably the most important signer of the Declaration many of us have never heard of. An attorney from Scotland, he not only signed the Declaration but was instrumental in drafting the Constitution.
•Wilson was attacked by a working class mob during the Revolution because he and fellow signer Robert Morris were suspected of hoarding supplies, such as wheat, to drive up prices. The incident, known as the “Fort Wilson Riot,” shows there were powerful class differences in Revolutionary America.
•Wilson was one of the first Justices appointed to the Supreme Court, but is the only justice ever to be jailed. He lost money in land speculation, and was held briefly in debtor’s prison and later fled from an arrest warrant. He died in shame.

A marker shows the location of the “Fort Wilson Riots”

John Witherspoon
•Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration and an influential clergyman and educator, was a renowned scholar who came to America from Scotland to run the College of New Jersey –later Princeton.  His prize students included James Madison and Aaron Burr.

•In addition to teaching a future President and Vice-President, Witherspoon’s Princeton students include many Senators and Congressmen, cabinet officers, Supreme Court justices and state governors.

Francis Hopkinson
•Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration from New Jersey, wrote some of the first songs published in America.
•Hopkinson took credit for the design of the United States flag. The evidence is his request for payment of a case of wine.

George Washington
•Of course, Washington didn’t sign the Declaration because he was busy commanding the Continental Army, a post he had been given in June 1775.
•Washington was a rugged, plainspoken frontiersman who is quoted as telling General Henry Knox to “Shift that fat ass, Harry, but slowly or you will swamp the damn boat,” before crossing the Delaware. (Knox’s account) Forget those hokey prayer vigils at Valley Forge!!
•Washington had the Declaration of Independence read to the troops then occupying New York City on July 9, 1776.
•Washington probably had mixed feelings about July 4th because on that date in 1754, as a young man in command of the Virginia colonial militia, he had been forced to surrender to a French army and sign a document that essentially was a confession of murdering a French diplomat. It was the first and only time he surrendered in his military career.
•False teeth? Yes, Washington only had a single tooth of his own left at his death. Wooden teeth? No. His dentures were made from ivory, bone and even human teeth.
•And the cherry tree tale? Also a legend created after his death. Washington’s father died when the boy was eleven and George Washington rarely mentioned his father.

Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation

Juneteenth falls on June 19 each year. It is a holiday whose history was hidden for much of the last century. But as the nation now observes the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s onset, it is a holiday worth recognizing.”

Read more at Smithsonian Magazine

In May 1844, Philadelphia –the City of Brotherly Love– was torn apart by a series of bloody riots. Known as the “Bible Riots,” they grew out of the vicious anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment that was so widespread in 19th century America. Families were burned out of their homes. Churches were destroyed. And more than two dozen people died in one of the worst urban riots in American History.

The story of the “Bible Riots” is another untold tale that I explore in my new book A NATION RISING available in paperback in June 2011

Even Jefferson’s birthday is confusing. History books say he was born on April 13,1743. But the grave marker at Monticello says he was born on April 2. That one is easier to answer than some of the larger contradictions in Jefferson’s life. Jefferson was born while the old Julian calendar was still in use in Protestant England and its American colonies. So the April 2 date is called “Old Style” (O.S.). When Great Britain and America finally came around and adopted the Gregorian (named for Pope Gregory) Calendar in 1758, Jefferson’s birth date was changed to April 13.

Thomas Jefferson's Grave Marker at Monticello (Photo: Kenneth C. Davis, 2010)

Birth date aside, Thomas Jefferson is such a fascinating and confounding personality because he more than anyone embodies the “Great Contradiction” in American history. How could a nation dedicated to ideals of  freedom and liberty continue a system that enslaved human beings in the cruelest of ways?

That contradiction is nowhere more evident than in Jefferson’s original draft of Declaration of Independence.

A few years ago, at the New York Public Library, I had the thrilling experience of seeing Jefferson’s handwritten copy of his original draft of the Declaration of Independence.  We may take the words for granted now. But Jefferson gave full voice to the idea that we all possess “inalienable rights.” That we are “created equal.”  That we have basic rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That governments exist to advance those human rights, and only with the “consent of the governed.”

This document was written on both sides of two pieces of paper. In his careful, flowing script, Jefferson included all of his original wording to show what the Congress in Philadelphia had changed, underscoring words and phrases that had been deleted. Those alterations, Jefferson, thought were “mutilations.” Distressed by the editing, he made these “fair copies” of his original some time after July 4th. (The document held by the New York Public Library is one of only two known surviving copies.)

The most startling of these changes is a paragraph about what Jefferson calls “this execrable commerce” — slavery.  Jefferson charged –rather ridiculously, of course– that King George III was responsible for the slave trade and was preventing American efforts to restrain that trade. The section was deleted completely. But it is striking to see Jefferson’s bold, block lettering when he describes:

an open market where MEN should be bought & sold

He clearly wanted to underscore his belief that slaves were MEN. The contradiction is stunning, troubling, and difficult to resolve. Jefferson knew slavery was wrong. He believed, like fellow slaveholder George Washington, that it would end. But both men were inextricably tied to the slave society and economy, even though they believed that the “peculiar institution” would gradually die out.  On that point, both men were grievously wrong and the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s opening on April 12 is a grim reminder of that.

Of course, part of the cynicism in Jefferson’s case is due to the rumored relationship between Jefferson and slave Sally Hemings. Even Monticello now acknowledges that relationship probably existed, a contention first raised publicly in 1802 by muckraking newspaperman James Callender, a former Jefferson ally who was disgruntled when Jefferson did not offer him a post in the government. In recent years, Monticello has also gone a long way in addressing the question of slave life at the plantation.

Jefferson, who died on July 4, 1826 –the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration– and his deep contradictions are the perfect reminder that politicians are people –even the marble gods like Washington and Jefferson. Their all-too human flaws are proof of that as well as the fact that history books once tried to hide these flaws by pointing to the past with pride and patriotism.

Those flaws are explored in several of my books, including Don’t Know Much About History, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War and most recently A Nation Rising, in which I write about Jefferson’s bitter relationship with his first Vice President, Aaron Burr, a man Thomas Jefferson tried to destroy using every political tool at his disposal as President.

I have always felt that seeing a man like Jefferson as human and not a demigod does not diminish his accomplishments as a leader, philosopher, champion of religious freedom and rationality and builder of a great university. If anything, those accomplishments become all the more remarkable.

When I was a kid, we got two holidays: one for Lincoln’s Birthday and another for Washington’s. Now, we have to make do with a three day weekend in February for Presidents Day.
Think you know about the Father of Our Country?
This video contains a few things that might surprise you.

Want to learn a little more?
Here is the website for the National Park Service’s Birthplace of Washington site:
http://www.nps.gov/gewa/index.htm

And here is the National Park Service website for Fort Necessity, scene of Washington’s surrender and “confession.”
http://www.nps.gov/fone/index.htm

Once again the New York Public Library is displaying a handwritten version of the Declaration, written by Jefferson. Here is a post I wrote last year after visiting the Library:

Last evening, I had a thrilling experience. In a small, darkened room with the feel of a chapel inside the magnificent New York Public Library, I saw Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of his original draft of the Declaration of Independence. For me this was a “Grail Moment.” Setting aside all of Jefferson’s contradictions and human flaws, I found the experience of seeing these words in his own hand exhilarating.

We take them for granted, of course. But Jefferson gave full voice to the idea that we all possess “inalienable rights” –That we are “created equal.” That we have basic rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That governments exist to advance those human rights, and only with the “consent of the governed.”

The document is written on both sides of two pieces of paper. In his careful, flowing script, Jefferson included all of his original wording to show what the Congress in Philadelphia had changed, underscoring words and phrases that had been deleted. Those alterations, Jefferson, thought were “mutilations.” Distressed by the editing, he made these “fair copies” of his original some time after July 4th. (The document on display at the New York Public Library is one of only two known surviving copies.)

The most startling of these changes is a paragraph about what Jefferson calls “this execrable commerce” — slavery. Jefferson charged –rather ridiculously, of course– that King George III was responsible for the slave trade and was preventing American efforts to restrain that trade. The section was deleted completely. But it is striking to see Jefferson’s bold, block lettering when he describes:

an open market where MEN should be bought & sold

Yes, he was going home to a plantation completely dependent upon slave labor. But he clearly wanted to underscore his belief that slaves were MEN. The contradiction is stunning, troubling, and difficult to resolve.

As the nation approaches its celebration of Independence and the ideals of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” it is always crucial –and challenging– to remember that with those rights comes responsibility. We have traveled a remarkable road in 233 years. There is no more powerful symbol of that distance than the fact that an African American is President.

But we still have far to go until we all have secured all of those rights –equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness– for all of the people. Jefferson and his 55 fellow signers pledged their lives, fortunes and “sacred honor” in support of those fundamental human rights. Would we all be willing to say the same?

Here is a link to the New York Public Library Exhibit:
http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/declaration-independence-7

Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, a few names are familiar. Most Americans, if pressed, can probably name a true handful –Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John and Sam Adams, and John Hancock, he of the famous signature.

But among the other men who set their names on the Declaration –in essence, signing a death warrant for committing treason against the most powerful man on earth, King George III– are a collection of some extraordinary characters, who for the most part are forgotten. One of these “Forgotten Founders” is James Wilson, whose contributions to the creation of the United States of America were obscured by his  later disgrace.

Scottish by birth (in 1742), Wilson came to America in 1766. He soon found a place in the offices of John Dickinson, then one of the richest men in America. He also began to speculate in real estate, as many of the other Founding Fathers did. That would be his downfall.

In 1774, Wilson wrote a pamphlet called “Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament.” In it, he argued that the British Parliament had no authority over the colonies. This pamphlet was one of the first convincing legal arguments for American independence. Although it lacks Jefferson’s poetry, Wilson’s essay contained some ideas that have since become familiar:

All men are by nature, equal and free. No one has a right to authority over another without his consent…. The consequence is, that the happiness of the society is the first law of every society.

As a member of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Congress, Wilson was an outspoken advocate of independence. But his constituents were more cautious. Then, Wilson met with some of the people who elected him, and it was agreed that he could vote for independence. He brought Pennsylvania into the “Yes” column. For that alone, he probably deserves more credit on July 4th.

Wilson next appears in history when a riot broke out in Philadelphia in the middle of the Revolution. Working class residents of the city were angry because of skyrocketing prices, due in part to hoarding of supplies by Philadelphia’s wealthy merchants. While about 30 of these merchants, including fellow Signer Robert Morris, were barricaded in Wilson’s Philadelphia home, an angry mob wheeled out a cannon and attacked the house in what was known as the “Fort Wilson Riot.” Wilson and the others were rescued by a detachment of Pennsylvania militiamen, but five people died in the fighting. They left that out of your textbook, I bet.

In the summer of 1787, Wilson became one of the central figures in the debates over the Constitution. With the Constitution ratified, Wilson then lobbied George Washington –a bit too aggressively for Washington’s taste–  for the post of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  Washington instead appointed Wilson an associate justice of the first Supreme Court.

But Wilson, who had continued his land speculation and even had a Utopian vision of bringing in boatloads of immigrants to work new lands he was acquiring, got caught in one of America’s first economic meltdowns. While a sitting justice, he fell deeply into debt and was eventually sent to debtor’s prison –the first, and so far only member of the Supreme Court to go to jail.

Faced with more debt, he essentially went on the lam, ahead of creditors and the sheriff. He went to North Carolina where he was jailed a second time. After his release, Wilson contracted malaria, and died, penniless, of a stroke in August, 1798, an embarrassment to his friends and fellow Federalists. Buried in North Carolina, Wilson’s remains were later moved to Philadelphia’s Christ Churchyard.

Wilson had a hand in the creation of the Declaration and the Constitution  — he was a “Founder,” a “Signer” and a “Framer.” But in the end, he was disgraced and forgotten.

A portrait of Wilson from the University of Pennsylvania Law School: http://www.law.upenn.edu/about/history/photogallery/Insidegallery/wilson.html

And read more about the Revolutionary era in America’s Hidden History and Don’t Know Much About History.

-It’s not a “piece of paper.” The original version of the Declaration  was “engrossed” (a word for preparing an official document in a large, clear hand) on parchment (which is an animal skin, stretched and treated to preserve it). The Declaration was probably “engrossed” by Timothy Matlack, an assistant to Charles Thompson, the Secretary of the Continental Congress.

–”Inalienable” or “unalienable“?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Jefferson’s drafts shows he wrote “inalienable.” The parchment and printed versions use “unalienable.”

According to The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style from Houghton Mifflin:

The unalienable rights that are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence could just as well have been inalienable, which means the same thing. Inalienable or unalienable refers to that which cannot be given away or taken away.

–Why didn’t George Washington sign? Washington was otherwise engaged. At the moment that the Congress voted on the Declaration, Washington was commanding his ragtag Continental Army in New York City, about 90 miles from Philadelphia. Washington had been appointed Commander of the Army in June 1775 and taken command in Boston.  On July 9, 1776, he had the Declaration of Independence read aloud to his men. After hearing the Declaration read, a mob of enthusiastic New Yorkers tore down a statue of King George III in the Bowling Green and melted the lead for musket balls.

For Washington, the date of July 4 was bittersweet. In 1754, as the young and untested commander of a Virginia militia unit, he had been surrounded and forced to surrender by a French army in the Pennsylvania wilderness. Washington’s surrender came after his men and some Native American allies attacked and massacred a group of French soldiers on a diplomatic mission.  Washington’s surrender included what was a “confession” of murdering a French diplomat and the incident helped sparked the Seven Years War (known in North America as the French and Indian War). This was the first and only time he surrendered in his military career. But the sting of that defeat must have made July 4th an unhappy anniversary for Washington for years to come.

–How many Declarations are there?

The document, which was later lost, went to printer John Dunlap who prepared 26 (known) copies of the Declaration of Independence on the night of July 4th. Their present location –including two in England– and more information on the history of the Declaration and its travels over the centuries can be found at the National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_history.html#appendixa

–First of all, we celebrate the wrong day –as far as John Adams was concerned. The Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, actually voted on a resolution of independence on July 2d. John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that this day would be a day of history that would be marked with bonfires, church bells ringing and “illuminations” –or fireworks. He was right about all the other details but missed on the date. The date of the adoption of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence became fixed on the national calendar.

–Although Jefferson was the chief author of the Declaration, he was a member of a committee of five men charged with drafting a declaration that would explain why the colonies were separating from England. The others were  John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert Livingston of New York, who was not an advocate of independence.

–“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of ?“  Jefferson borrowed from a phrase used by other writers, including fellow Virginian George Mason, who had written about “life, liberty and the pursuit of property.”

Here is a link to Jefferson’s draft as it was presented to Franklin and Adams with some of his changes shown: http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/rough.htm

–Congress also made some changes. The most significant was the deletion of a paragraph in which Jefferson charged that King George III was responsible for the slave trade. That was dropped, Jefferson later noted, in deference to the men who owned slaves as well as those who made a great deal of money transporting them. Remember, some of the largest slave ports were in the northern colonies.

–The July 4th vote was not unanimous. The vote tally was by each state delegation. New York abstained on July 4 and voted to approve the Declaration on July 9th, making it unanimous. All thirteen colonies were now aboard.

–The signers didn’t sign –at least not on July 4th. Only two men actually signed the July 4th version: John Hancock, President of the Congress and Charles Thomson, serving as secretary. The actual signing ceremony took place on August 2, 1776. And even then, only 50 of the 56 signers were present to sign.

–The first celebration took place in Philadelphia on July 8th when the Declaration was read publicly for the first time. The “Liberty Bell,” a name that was not given to the famous symbol of freedom until the early 19th century, was rung. But it didn’t crack then. That came later. The words inscribed at the top of the Liberty Bell read, “Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof.” And no, Taco Bell did not buy the rights to the Liberty Bell — that was a very successful April Fools Day joke. (Yes, they got me.)

–Words on back? Sorry no secret, invisible treasure map as in the movie National Treasure. But the words “Original Declaration of Independence, dated 4th July 1776″ are written on the back of the parchment version now displayed in the National Archives.

That spontaneous celebration—commonly called Juneteenth— became prominent in many African-American communities, but never gained any official recognition. Recently it has been recognized by several states as a day celebrating emancipation. There is a movement to gain national recognition of “Juneteenth” as a way of marking the end of slavery in America.

Here is a link to the National Archives site about the Emancipation Proclamation, formally announced by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/index.html

“Listen my children, and you shall hear/of the midnight ride of . . .  Joseph Warren?”
Okay. Okay. It doesn’t scan like Longfellow’s original. But that’s the problem. In making sure we “hear” about “Revere,” Longfellow’s famous poem ignored the man whose name should be as familiar as those of John Adams or John Hancock. A man who deserves to be honored this Patriots’ Day, the civic celebration of America’s Revolutionary beginnings that is more widely known as Beantown’s “Marathon Day.”
A successful physician and progressive thinker, Joseph Warren was a farmer’s son born in 1741 in Roxbury, outside Boston. Warren chose his profession when he saw his father die after a fall from a tree. Later, he became an outspoken advocate of inoculations to battle the plague of smallpox sweeping colonial America and vaccinated his most famous patient, John Adams.
But medicine was not his only passion. As the colonies began to clash with Mother England, Warren was drawn to the red-hot center of Boston’s patriot inner circle. He became a propagandist, spymaster and orator who modeled himself on Cicero, martyr of the Roman Republic, occasionally appearing in a toga to deliver incendiary speeches.
Most likely, it was Warren who led those men disguised as Indians to the “party” where they tossed a shipload of British tea into Boston Harbor. And he was the crucial go-between, linking Boston’s upper crust patriots –who got most of the glory– and the workingmen and artisans – like Paul Revere – who did most of the dirty work.
But Warren was left out of our poems. And our schoolbooks. And that’s too bad, because his story is compelling.

It was Warren who issued Revere’s “riding orders” on that night in 1775, setting the stage for the fateful April 19th morning at Lexington and Concord –the reason behind Patriots’ Day and, with it, the running of the Boston Marathon. A few weeks after those citizen-soldiers, known as Minute Men, became the first to fight and die in the American Revolution, Warren took to the front lines at the battle called “Bunker Hill.”  An enemy ball caught him in the head and he fell.

For the British, Warren’s death was a coup, celebrated by tossing the rebel doctor’s body into a mass grave with other fallen Americans. But for the patriot cause, the loss of Warren cut deep. Abigail Adams mournfully wrote to husband John: “Not all the havoc and devastation they have made has wounded me like the death of Warren. We want him in the Senate; we want him in his profession; we want him in the field. We mourn for the citizen, the senator, the physician, and the warrior. When he fell, liberty wept.”
Paul Revere later returned to the battleground to locate the rebel leader’s body. He was able to identify his compatriot’s remains because Revere had fitted the false teeth that Warren wore, one of the first known cases of forensic dentistry.

Yet, Joseph Warren’s story remained buried, overshadowed by the more illustrious Founders with better biographers –and admiring poets. He became the most important Founding Father most of us never heard of.

This Patriots’ Day, when the runners “hit the wall” at Boston’s “Heartbreak Hill,” let’s remember, it’s not about the Marathon. Nor was it just a bunch of cranky tea drinkers complaining about taxes. As the life and untimely death of Joseph Warren attest, Patriots Day –and the original Tea Party– were about idealism, selflessness, the communal good, courage and sacrifice –civic virtues that are all too often in short supply.

After four years of Civil War, with his Army of Northern Virginia practically starving and reeling under the onslaught of Union pressure from Grant’s superior forces, Robert E. Lee had to contemplate the inevitable –surrender. On the evening of April 8, after a last-ditch attempt at breaking through Union lines failed, Lee was told that his army could not move forward.

“There is nothing left for me to do but to go see General Grant, and I had rather die a thousand deaths. “

By coincidence, Lee’s meeting with Grant took place in a farmhouse owned by Wilmer McLean, the same man who in 1861 had given his house to Confederate General Beauregard during the Battle of Bull Run, the first major engagement of the war. McLean moved from Manassas, Virginia with the hope of finding a quieter place. His home at Appomattox Court House would again witness history.
The New York Times headlines read:
Hang Out Your Banners; Union Victory! Peace!

This noteworthy anniversary would be most likely overlooked by all but Civil War buffs if it were not for the current dust-up over Virginia Governor Bob McMullen’s pronouncement that April is “Confederate History Month” in the state. Unfortunately the Governor neglected to mention the word “slavery” is his press release marking this part of Virginia’s past. While the Governor quickly corrected his omission, it attracted even more attention. President Obama termed the oversight “unacceptable” a few days later in response to a reporter’s question about the controversy.

For a moment, we shall set aside the question of the wisdom of choosing April as the appropriate month in which to celebrate the tradition of violent rebellion against the government in 1861. It is after all, the month in which the Civil War began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the surrender of the Confederacy on April 9, 1865 and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14 by John Wilkes Booth. These are not exactly the high water marks of the Confederacy.

The controversy generated by the celebration of Confederate History Month and the hastily-corrected omission of any mention of slavery served as a pointed reminder that the Civil War still haunts the nation.

Discussing Civil War History still raises two problems –Many people know nothing about the central event in our history. It has fallen into that “black hole” of dates, battles and speeches that is usually flushed down the memory hole when the final exams are done.

Then there are those who profess who cling to a history that says that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War. That it was a glorious second “revolution,” fought to protect “states rights” from a tyrannical federal government. That is nonsense. Slavery was at the heart of the political, economic and social struggle that led to the Civil War. That does not mean that the Civil War was a “moral crusade” fought by Abolitionists. But the right to own slaves and take them further west into the territories being opened up was the only “right” that the Confederate states were fighting for.

I hope that the Governor’s proclamation of Confederate History Month becomes a “teachable moment” in which we really discuss what this devastating war, which cost the lives of some TWO PERCENT of the American population at the time, meant to America, then and now.

Read more in Don’t Know Much About the Civil War

His column, entitled “In Search of Dignity,” topped the Times list of most emailed articles and drew hundreds on online comments, many of them laudatory. Brooks used the column to celebrate the good manners, civility and dignity possessed by George Washington. These attributes, Brooks believed, could be traced back to Washington’s boyhood, when he scrupulously copied out maxims from the “Miss Manners” of his day, a book called Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. Among its 110 rules:

When in Company, put not your Hands to any Part of the Body not usually Discovered.

Brooks then contrasted Washington’s demeanor in public with that of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford –he of the secret rendezvous in Argentina that didn’t stay secret– and Governor Sarah Palin, who chose Friday afternoon on the July 4th Weekend to inform the world that she was resigning as Governor of Alaska for reasons that many found mystifying.  Brooks bemoaned the fact that these modern Republicans just couldn’t hold a candle to Washington when it came to dignified behavior.

Brooks finally made the leap to Barack Obama, surprising many readers with an admiring nod that placed the current President on equal footing alongside the First President in terms of his public demeanor.

Set against the backdrop of the day’s Michael Jackson memorial frenzy, the piece clearly tapped into a great American yearning for civility and a gentler time when wise men with Washington’s virtues held court.

But his argument has a fatal flaw. As I read Brooks’ words, the obvious jumped off the page. In his catalog of Washington’s public virtues and civility, David Brooks neglected to mention that George Washington owned, bought and sold his fellow human beings. When they ran away, he took out advertisements offering a reward for their return. He ran such an advertisement in 1761 when three of his “Negroes” took flight.

Whoever apprehends the said Negroes, so that the Subscriber may readily get them, shall have, if taken  up in this County, forty shillings reward. . .

Brooks neglected this uncomfortable fact of Washington’s life. It is a truth all the more evident in light of the recent celebration of  the Declaration of Independence. With its clarion call that “All Men are created equal,” the Declaration was written by Thomas Jefferson, another Virginian who also relied completely upon slave labor to put food on his table. Both men would have been completely at home owning Barack Obama, his wife and their children and perhaps selling some or all of them if necessary.

It was for this fact that Samuel Johnson once railed in Parliament:

How is that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?

The great contradiction between Washington’s dignity and idealism and the fact he was a slave owner is at the heart of so much of what was rotten in this country for centuries. It strikes me as outlandish to attempt to laud Washington’s courtly demeanor without reflecting on this great stain on his character. And the “everybody did it back then” defense doesn’t cut it either. Washington knew slavery was wrong and completely at odds with what he was fighting for. It is shameful to give him –and the rest of the “Revolutionary Generation”– a pass when it comes to America’s “original sin.”

As the events of the day have shown, we live in a world that is quick to lavish praise on the departed –to cover up a multitude of sins in an orgy of adulation that allows the country to feel some pride in a sanitized past. But when we overlook the “evil that men do” in singing those praises, the music starts to sound very tinny.

True dignity demands far more than decent manners.

But with Independence Day just around the corner, here is a list of ten of my favorite books about the Revolutionary War era. It is by no means compete or comprehensive — just some interesting books that deserve more attention. I’ve avoided the  obvious, such as the huge bestsellers by David McCullough and Joseph Ellis, in favor of some more obscure but worthy reads, including a few older books that merit rereading.

Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution by A.J. Langguth

A former New York Times correspondent, Langguth combines a reporter’s eye with a historian’s breadth in this large overview of the people on both sides of the Revolution. Though written 20 years ago, still an excellent introduction.

Liberty!: The American Revolution and Washington’s Secret War: The Hidden History by Thomas Fleming

The first of these is one of the best overviews of the Revolution, originally published as companion to a PBS series. The second title is a more recent work by one of America’s master historian-storytellers whose lively writing brings the complex story of Washington’s political genius to life.

Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey J. Kaye

Surprise! A writer thinking a writer and a book deserve more attention. This is a biography of the “greatest radical of a radical age,”  whose 46 -page pamphlet Common Sense changed history, and whose legacy has been coopted.

Almost A Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence by John Ferling

A comprehensive account of the military victory that almost wasn’t.

Rebels and Redcoats; The American Revolution Through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived It by George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Ranking

A volume filled with firsthand accounts of the war.

Benedict Arnold’s Navy: The Ragtag Fleet That Lost the Battle of Lake Champlain but Won the American Revolution by James Nelson

With a novelist’s flair, Nelson tells the story of how the man who became America’s most reviled villain staved off an early defeat of the American cause.

Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth A. Fenn

A wonderful exploration of the deadly disease that killed far more people than the war did and its impact on the history of the times.

A People’s History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence by Ray Raphael.

From the Howard Zinn school of history, a great distillation of the Revolution from the perspective of the working men and women who helped start the Revolution and then did most of the fighting. A good corrective to the simplistic “great man” view of history.

Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby

Not really about the Revolution, but a wonderful study of the tension between the role of religion in building the nation and the concept of separation of church and state –always a worthy subject as we contemplate those familiar words: “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”