I’ll never forget America’s Bicentennial, 1976, when my fifth grade class had fun and unique opportunities.
In the San Antonio chill of February, we visited the Freedom Train filled with historical artifacts that was touring the nation.
Meanwhile our fifth and sixth grade classes rehearsed extensively for a musical review of American history, performing for our parents and even a local nursing home.
The most fun was that we dressed 18th century style for Colonial Day at our school, where I recall visiting booths to dip candles, churn butter, and more!
But perhaps the most meaningful was our class trip to see the movie version of the hit Broadway play, 1776, that was made four years previous.
I loved the costumes and the 18th century setting, where the production team perfectly recreated Independence Hall of Philadelphia on their California set, where most of the action occurs.
Although so much of it is obviously not historical, since I’m quite certain that our Founding Fathers never once broke into song and dance, it’s a tight production based on historical fact that has always stuck with me in the back of my mind while reading pithy school textbooks.
BOOK VERSION OF THE PLAY
Learning that the movie is basically a remake of the award winning play, which was set forth in book format in 1969 to help promote the play, I purchased my own ragged copy last winter.
Surprisingly, I learned that the playwright was Peter Stone…the man who wrote “the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never produced”…Charade, starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.
AWARD WINNING PLAY
Premiering on Broadway in 1969, 1776 won numerous awards.
In 1972, the movie version came out, with nearly the entire cast and crew of the Broadway version acted in the movie version.
Upon rewatching 1776 as an adult, I now recognize the two leads.
John Adams is portrayed by William Daniels from St. Elsewhere, while Thomas Jefferson was portrayed by Ken Howard of The White Shadow.
A FEW LIBERTIES DROVE THE PLOT
At the back of the book, Peter Stone (playwright) and Sherman Edwards (music and lyrics) analyze historicity of this production.
In essence, while some liberties were taken to drive the plot, the play is historically based.
Principally, there were more delegates at the Constitutional Convention than seen in the play/movie, due to ease for the audience to keep track of the plot and making room on set for the leads.
Thus, those who contributed the most to debate were kept while deleting those who contributed the least. In some instances, other characters became composite characters.
Although Martha Jefferson never came to Philadelphia, Stone and Edwards thought this was a fun lighthearted romance to include in the play. And yes, TJ and Martha were THAT in love!
LEE RESOLVES INITIATED BY VIRGINIA NOT FRANKLIN
Nor did John Adams send Richard Henry Lee to Virginia to call for Independence.
Instead, while Lee was in Congress, Lee received word from the Fifth Virginia Congress that Virginia had declared Independence from Britain on May 15, and they wanted him to call the other twelve colonies to do the same.
Thus, on June 7, Richard Henry Lee presented the Lee Resolves to Congress:
Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.
WRITERS UNDERSTOOD VIRGINIA LEAD IN INDEPENDENCE
Regarding the Lee Resolves, Stone and Edwards state exactly how that worked was unknown to them. But had they visited Colonial Williamsburg…
Since my first visit to Colonial Williamsburg in 1989, I learned how influential Virginia was in the American Revolution.
Sadly, Virginia’s influence is often marginalized these days.
However, Stone and Edwards did understand the importance of Virginia:
Certainly, Adams was getting nowhere with his own efforts; he had, on twenty-three separate occasions, introduced the subject of independence to his fellows in Congress, and each time it had failed to be considered. It was also true that whenever an issue needed respectability, the influence of Virginia was brought to bear. (Virginia was the first colony, and its citizens were regarded as a sort of American aristocracy, an honor that was not betrayed by their leaders. The Virginian Washington was given command of the army, and the Virginian Thomas Jefferson was given the assignment of writing the Declaration.) –1776: A Musical Play, by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards, p 164
WRITERS DEEPLY RESEARCHED INDEPENDENCE
On top of that, Stone and Edwards submit:
There are those who would claim that the schools just don’t teach [history], and we would have trouble disagreeing with them. The authors of 1776 are both products of the American public-school system – one from the West Coast, the other from the East. Both were better than average students with a deeper than average curiosity about American history. –1776: A Musical Play, by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards, p 171
Since we don’t have a daily journal of the debates in Congress, Stone and Edwards extensively studied historical journals, letters, etc at many libraries.
JEFFERSON TRIED TO END SLAVERY
…a record of the debate on Declaration was never kept. But in this case, there was even more to go on. Jefferson himself, in his autobiography, provided two versions of the document – as originally written and as finally approved. –1776: A Musical Play, by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards, p 165
From the first draft that Jefferson penned is this clause against slavery, of which the play focuses much attention:
…he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. –First Draft Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, Library of Congress
In 1772, the Virginia House of Burgesses, which included Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Harrison V, implored the king to end the slave trade, which was a great Inhumanity. But the king refused them.
SLAVERY CLAUSE DEBATED
And so, the standoff led by South Carolina delegate Edward Rutledge plays out, which angers Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams.
With a deadline to vote for independence, the mighty trio work to forge alliances and convince their fellow delegates to vote for independence.
Succeeding in that task in numerous ways, the drama unfolds against the clock, or the tally board (which didn’t really exist but helps the audience keep track of time).
With unity required to adopt the Declaration of Independence, Rutledge challenges Adams on the last day, the deadline to make Independence happen…
QUOTES FROM 1776, SCENE 7
Rutledge: Mr. Adams, you must believe that I will do what I have promised to do.
Adams: What do you want Rutledge?
Rutledge: Remove the offending passage from your Declaration.
Adams: If we did that we’d be guilty of what we ourselves are rebelling against.
Rutledge: Nevertheless, remove it or South Carolina will bury now and forever your dream of independence.
Franklin: John, I beg you to consider what you’re doing.
Adams: Mark me Franklin, if we give in on this issue, posterity will never forgive us.
Franklin: That’s probably true. But we won’t hear a thing, John – we’ll be long gone. And besides, what will posterity think we were – demigods? We’re men – no more, no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. John, first things first! Independence! America! For if we don’t secure that, what difference will the rest make?
Adams: Jefferson, say something.
Jefferson: What else is there to do?
Adams: Well, man, you’re the one who wrote it!
Jefferson: I wrote all of it, Mr. Adams! (He goes to Mr. Thompson’s table, [the clerk], takes up the quill pen, and scratches the passage from the Declaration. Then he returns to his seat. Adams snatches up the Declaration, goes to Rutledge, and waves it under his nose.)
Adams: There! There it is Rutledge! You’ve got your slavery, and little good may it do you! Now vote, damn you!
Rutledge: Mr. Secretary, the fair colony of South Carolina says “Yea.”
CIVIL WAR PREDICTED
One of the bits of history Stone and Edwards did not add was the rest of John Adams words, which was actually said by his cousin, Samuel Adams. Why? Because they said, no one would have believed it.
In reality, Samuel Adams accurately predicted:
If we give in on this issue, there will be trouble a hundred years hence; posterity will never forgive us. -Samuel Adams
Many of these delegates were part of the Continental Constitution in 1787 Philadelphia, where again, slavery became a hot topic for debate.
Again, most of the colonies, including Virginia, wanted to free the slaves. Again South Carolina took the lead arguing otherwise.
Since unity again was needed to send the Constitution for ratification through the states, South Carolina won, keeping slavery.
Frustrated, the others could only hope the horrible institution of slavery would soon wear out, as they already saw the signs.
Slavery was not profitable for anyone, yet in places like Virginia, laws still bound them to the slavery.
However, no one predicted the cotton gin, which tightened the South’s grip on slavery…ultimately leading to the Civil War.
Yet, the legacy the Founding Fathers left to us in Article V of the Constitution finally ended slavery.
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, the 13th amendment was ratified by the states on December 6, 1865…abolishing slavery! At long last!
