I was very excited to watch the movie 1776 because I am such a big fan of Hamilton and I have been for quite some time now! I was very excited to compare and contrast the two pieces of work while also relating them to what we are discussing in class. I was very interested to watch the scene in the movie where the Southern delegates object the line in the Declaration of Independence which strongly condemns slavery in the US and calls for its abolition. Even though Thomas Jefferson wrote this line, he had countless slaves until the day he died. Jefferson’s stance on slavery is an interesting paradox that is in fact mentioned in Hamilton. In one of the songs, Cabinet Battle #1, Hamilton and Jefferson are debating the establishment of a national bank, and Hamilton rebuttals Jefferson’s points about the agricultural success of the South by claiming, “We know who’s really doing the planting.” This shows the trade-off between agricultural success and the ethical injustices regarding slavery that Jefferson couldn’t overcome even though he may have understood how wrong it truly was. In 1776, Jefferson ultimately was the one who scratched out the line, upon his and John Adams’ dismay, in order to persuade the South to sign the Declaration. Benjamin Franklin objected to the sentence about slavery and exclaimed that “The issue here is independence!” This line in the movie directly relates to what we were discussing in class which is that the elites of society have figured out, whether it is conscious or not, that war and external conflict helps appease internal struggles or tensions. These wealthy, white, property wielding men intricately used language in the Declaration that aired the grievances against King George III while not exposing the injustices that were occurring in the colonies. Benjamin Franklin’s statement shows the intentional deflection of the civil unrest in the colonies to anger and independence from England.
The exaggerated statement in the Declaration where Jefferson stated that all men are created equal and the conflicting stance on slavery that many colonists may have held during Revolutionary times, one of them being Jefferson himself, is also depicted in the lyrics of several Hamilton songs. One line that sticks out to me in particular and relates to this belief the most is in the song “My Shot” where John Laurens says, “But we’ll never be truly free, unit those in bondage have the same rights as you and me. Wait till I sally in on a stallion in the first black battalion.” John Laurens criticized slavery and wanted slaves to fight in the Revolutionary War and then be rewarded their freedom for their service. However, similar to Jefferson, he had several hundred slaves on his plantation and co-owned one of the largest slave-trading houses in the colonies. It is the unfortunate truth that although people in power may want the best for the public good, their own self-interests historically get in the way and they choose the more selfish, easy, and least controversial option.
This scene in 1776 was also interesting because of how many of the delegates condemned the parts of the Declaration when they insult Parliament or when they call King George III a tyrant. This shocked me and showed how not everyone was on the same page regarding the revolution and England in general. The American Revolution is always depicted as a unanimous and collective movement against the big bad English empire, however, that isn’t really historically accurate. In class, we discussed how merely 1/5 of the colonists fully approved of and supported the Revolution, which clearly relates to this scene. This scene showed how several colonists were still connected and related to their strong British roots and were hesitant to fully break away. This revelation starts to chip away at the commonly held myth surrounding the Revolution that all the colonies had enough and wanted to break free and start their own united country.
In response to your valid point about how the elite in society will distract the public from the internal struggles within a nation by promoting war and external conflict, I believe that our current legislators face these challenges during every Congressional session they attend. Just to pass the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had to remove the line about the abolishment of slavery despite how unethical slavery was back in the late-17th century. It is not surprising then that in modern-day politics, our most ethical leaders sometimes have to sacrifice their values and beliefs to earn the support of their antagonistic colleagues by making agreements that will disappoint their constituents. On that note, what does this reveal about our hopes for ending global poverty? What about ending racism and prejudice against BIPOC and the LGBTQ+ community and so forth?
I really agree with the points you brought up in your post. In particular, it is interesting to look at the paradoxes between characters like John Laurens and Thomas Jefferson, who spoke out against slavery while still owning slaves. As something we see then as well as in modern times, we often have a hard time conflating what we know to be the broader, moral truth with what directly impacts us and our own self-interests. This can be seen today in examples such as pro-life Christians in politics, who advocate for the rights of the unborn in women’s wombs but fail to advocate for life when it becomes less convenient for them, such as the Black Lives Matter movement or children being detained in detention camps on the US/Mexico border.