7. US History - America Declares Independence (July 4, 1776) — Transcript

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1. 0:01so on July 4th 1776 America declares its
2. 0:05independence or more specifically the 13
3. 0:08states or colonies that America consists
4. 0:10of at this time declar their
5. 0:11independence from Great Britain um there
6. 0:15are three things I want to discuss about
7. 0:17this specific um event in US history the
8. 0:20first thing is the contents of this
9. 0:23document the Declaration of Independence
10. 0:26um there are some definite upsides to
11. 0:28this document and some clear downsides
12. 0:30so let's take a look at those first of
13. 0:32all the upside of this is that it's an
14. 0:34absolutely revolutionary document we
15. 0:36have to remember that this is a time
16. 0:38when pretty much all European countries
17. 0:40were still run by monarchs I think in
18. 0:42Belgium we were still stuck under
19. 0:44Habsburg or Austrian rule um none of
20. 0:48these kings were elected and they often
21. 0:50ruled like dictators the new us will be
22. 0:53very very different from that let me
23. 0:55give you three examples of how the us is
24. 0:57going to be different than uh what we're
25. 0:59used to in Europe first of all according
26. 1:01to this document the ruler of the
27. 1:03country will be the people that's very
28. 1:06different because in Europe um the
29. 1:09countries are ruled by kings that have a
30. 1:11power that's been granted by God in this
31. 1:14case the US will be a country that has a
32. 1:16government not a king with power granted
33. 1:19not by God but by the citizens that's
34. 1:21new that's revolutionary the second um
35. 1:25example of how this document is very
36. 1:27revolutionary has to do with the fact
37. 1:30that it endows people with natural
38. 1:33rights um here in this specific section
39. 1:36uh they talk about how if you're human
40. 1:39you get rights simply for Being Human uh
41. 1:42let's enlarge this a little bit and take
42. 1:43a look so it says and this is these
43. 1:46lines are very very famous in American
44. 1:48society so we hold these truths to be
45. 1:51self-evident that all men are created
46. 1:52equal that they are endowed by their
47. 1:54creator with certain unalienable rights
48. 1:56that among these are life liberty and
49. 1:58the pursuit of happiness that's quite a
50. 2:00mouthful so let's turn this into normal
51. 2:02English we hold these truths to be
52. 2:04self-evident that simply means we think
53. 2:06it's pretty obvious that all men are
54. 2:08created equal even though it says men
55. 2:10what they pretty much mean here is
56. 2:11humans so all humans are equal they are
57. 2:15indued by their creator that's an
58. 2:17obvious reference to God however what
59. 2:19they really mean is that you get these
60. 2:22rights simply because you're a human so
61. 2:26simply by being human you get
62. 2:27unalienable rights that means that these
63. 2:30are rights that can never be taken away
64. 2:31from
65. 2:32you um and what are these rights then
66. 2:35specifically uh well the right to live
67. 2:38uh to be free and to find happiness
68. 2:40whichever way you seem fit um again
69. 2:43that's very different from the situation
70. 2:46that's going on in Europe in Europe you
71. 2:48have these kings that Grant rights to
72. 2:51whoever pleases them usually that's the
73. 2:53nobility they are given some land
74. 2:55they're given some rights they can do
75. 2:56things that other people simply aren't
76. 2:58allowed to so it's King granting rights
77. 3:01based on their personal preference sorry
78. 3:05um here in this document it states that
79. 3:07you have rights simply because you're a
80. 3:09human being that's new that's very very
81. 3:12revolutionary um the third thing that's
82. 3:14pretty revolutionary about this document
83. 3:17is that uh it states that people have
84. 3:18the right to overthrow tyranny what does
85. 3:21that mean uh people have it's not even a
86. 3:24right it's a duty to get rid of any
87. 3:28government that violates these rights
88. 3:29that are specified so the right to live
89. 3:31to be free and to find happiness
90. 3:33whichever government is trying to take
91. 3:35that away from them they have the duty
92. 3:37to stand up to that government and to
93. 3:39get rid of them uh again that's very
94. 3:41different from the situation in Europe
95. 3:43where people have to remain loyal to
96. 3:45whatever ruler they have despite
97. 3:47sometimes leading absolutely miserable
98. 3:49lives versus in the US people have to
99. 3:53rise up when they're leading miserable
100. 3:55lives so these are three examples of why
101. 3:59this is absolutely revolutionary
102. 4:01document for humankind basically um and
103. 4:03it's no surprise that this became a huge
104. 4:06inspiration for many other countries um
105. 4:09for example the French Revolution that's
106. 4:11only um
107. 4:14two 13 years after this um they took
108. 4:17this as their big example of how things
109. 4:21should be rather than how things are um
110. 4:24as with any old document there's an
111. 4:27obvious downside to it and that is
112. 4:30it's always the same thing that it's a
113. 4:32racist sexist document because they
114. 4:34Proclaim that all humans are equal but
115. 4:36nowhere in this document is there a
116. 4:39mention of abolition of slavery so
117. 4:41slavery can just continue um meaning
118. 4:43that if you are a black human you are
119. 4:45now in servitude to the other humans um
120. 4:50same thing with all humans are equal but
121. 4:52there's simply no mentioning of women so
122. 4:55if you're a woman there's there's no
123. 4:57inalienable rights for you um
124. 5:00again thirdly it states that all humans
125. 5:03are equal um but the natives um are
126. 5:06mentioned in this document and in this
127. 5:09document they call them um right
128. 5:13merciless Indian Savages so that kind of
129. 5:15tells you how they feel about natives uh
130. 5:18I don't think they even consider them
131. 5:19human uh in fact there's a landmark
132. 5:22Supreme Court case later on like I think
133. 5:24the early 1900s where the Supreme Court
134. 5:27uh decides that in fact yes n natives
135. 5:30don't have to be considered human so
136. 5:32they have no rights um that means that
137. 5:35since they think of the natives of
138. 5:36savages that they can further colonize
139. 5:39their lands they can violate their
140. 5:41rights and so on and so on so the
141. 5:43conclusion is that even though this is
142. 5:45an
143. 5:46extremely revolutionary document as I
144. 5:48said many times uh However the fact that
145. 5:52they say that all men are created equal
146. 5:55um should be specified further not all
147. 5:59human are created but all landowning
148. 6:01white men are created equal as happen so
149. 6:04often um all right that's the first main
150. 6:07thing I wanted to discuss the second
151. 6:08main thing I want to discuss is the
152. 6:10author of this document um it's this man
153. 6:12called Thomas Jefferson who was later
154. 6:14also president um again some good things
155. 6:17about the guy and some very bad things
156. 6:19about the guy so I'll discuss a few
157. 6:21upsides uh first and then we'll move on
158. 6:24to the downside the positives about this
159. 6:27man were are sorry that he's pretty
160. 6:30enlightened when it comes to the whole
161. 6:32idea of monarchy versus democracy uh
162. 6:35he's thought about this significantly
163. 6:37and
164. 6:39um he is the person who wrote all of
165. 6:43these things down so you can pretty much
166. 6:44say that he
167. 6:46was an enlightened thinker that way um a
168. 6:49second upside is that he was also a good
169. 6:51writer he has a true way with words I
170. 6:53mean the merciless Indian Savages not
171. 6:55taken into account obviously but uh this
172. 6:57is really beautifully written Pros
173. 7:00um this doesn't really match up to the
174. 7:03downsides um because those are PR
175. 7:05important too the downsides are main but
176. 7:08he had about 600
177. 7:10slaves um he's not the only president
178. 7:12that owns slaves obviously um however
179. 7:15600 is a lot he had a um aate called
180. 7:20Montello in Virginia um and he had 600
181. 7:25slaves to run that estate um it doesn't
182. 7:29stop there though uh he also
183. 7:33um had a house slave called Sally
184. 7:36hemings and he had about six kids with
185. 7:39her
186. 7:41so yeah that's not great clearly
187. 7:46um again there are multiple presidents
188. 7:48that may may or may not have started
189. 7:50families with um their enslaved people
190. 7:54um however what's particularly nasty
191. 7:58about um Thomas Jefferson is that he did
192. 8:00not set them free in his will and
193. 8:02testament for example George Washington
194. 8:04also had slaves a lot less than 600 but
195. 8:08um he set them free in his Testament
196. 8:11after he died which was kind of even
197. 8:13then considered the nice thing to do um
198. 8:16Thomas Jefferson said none of his slavy
199. 8:19including the mother of his I think six
200. 8:21or seven children and those children so
201. 8:24they remained in servitude even after
202. 8:26his death all right that's the second
203. 8:28thing I wanted to discuss the a author
204. 8:30of the Declaration of Independence the
205. 8:31last thing is the date so you can see
206. 8:35here that the date is 1776 I remind you
207. 8:39that this happens during the war they're
208. 8:42fighting with Britain and that that
209. 8:43didn't end until uh
210. 8:451783 Americans do not tend to await the
211. 8:48outcome of their Wars to make big
212. 8:51decisions um and that's the case here so
213. 8:54one year into this war they you know
214. 8:55it the outcome of this war
215. 8:57we're just going to we are now a country
216. 8:59there period um the thing is you can do
217. 9:03that um however you can't really expect
218. 9:05it to carry any weight I mean I could uh
219. 9:08take our classroom walk around and say
220. 9:09all right good this is now my kingdom
221. 9:12and I am its Tyrant Tyrant ruler and
222. 9:14nobody's going to give a and that's
223. 9:16kind of what happened uh you can declare
224. 9:18independence of whatever you want if
225. 9:19nobody recognizes that Independence it
226. 9:22has no meaning um that's what happened
227. 9:25uh in
228. 9:261783 after they won the war or after it
229. 9:30had become very clear that the Americans
230. 9:32would win uh the rest of the world
231. 9:34including the UK admitted their
232. 9:36independence so that's when the country
233. 9:38actually became independent for the rest
234. 9:40of the world even though they celebrate
235. 9:42their independence uh on July Fourth and
236. 9:46they count back to
237. 9:501776 just so that you get a bit of an
238. 9:52idea of what we mean when we say the
239. 9:55country uh around the state I want to
240. 9:57show you this uh map real quick this is
241. 10:00the the part that's uh in Darker blue
242. 10:02that's the whole country at this point
243. 10:04so it consists of the 13 original
244. 10:06colonies uh these are Pennsylvania New
245. 10:08York New Hampshire Massachusetts
246. 10:11Connecticut Rhode Island New Jersey uh
247. 10:14Delaware Maryland Virginia North
248. 10:17Carolina South Carolina and Georgia and
249. 10:19that's it in
250. 10:201776 um the country grew pretty
251. 10:23significantly uh pretty quickly um this
252. 10:26is the part that they um gained from
253. 10:29from Great Britain after uh they had
254. 10:31lost the war so that's been added pretty
255. 10:34quickly um then in 1803 they added the
256. 10:37largest section that happened in one go
257. 10:40with something called the Louisiana
258. 10:41Purchase it's not limited to Louisiana
259. 10:44rather it's uh all of this they bought
260. 10:47this from France in what's known as
261. 10:49probably the worst or best depending on
262. 10:51how you look at it um land deal in
263. 10:54history um if you were to look at it in
264. 10:57today's money they paid napole ion um
265. 11:00$340 million so that's recalculated to
266. 11:03today's money which would be about 60
267. 11:06cents per acre uh an acre I looked it up
268. 11:09is about three4 of a football field so
269. 11:12you would pay sorry they paid Napoleon
270. 11:14in today's money about 60 cents per acre
271. 11:17the average cost of an acre today is
272. 11:19$116,000 so this must have been the best
273. 11:22bargain in history uh today if they were
274. 11:25to buy it for the average price the
275. 11:28total would be about $8.5 trillion
276. 11:31versus the $340 million that they paid
277. 11:34why on Earth would Napoleon sell so
278. 11:37cheaply well because as you know he was
279. 11:39fighting Wars and he needed money he
280. 11:41didn't need this large chunk of land in
281. 11:44the US as much as he needed money to
282. 11:45fight his European Wars um this Florida
283. 11:50was added in
284. 11:521819 uh I think they there was a war
285. 11:55with
286. 11:57Spain um then there was another war in
287. 12:01this case with Mexico so that's where
288. 12:03they got
289. 12:04Texas um this
290. 12:07section they bought from Great Britain I
291. 12:10think uh I don't remember specifically
292. 12:12but either way it came from Great
293. 12:13Britain and there was no war fought over
294. 12:15it um this was taken from Mexico in
295. 12:201848 this was bought from Russia in uh
296. 12:241867 and then they sort of made Hawaii
297. 12:27become a state in 18
298. 12:29998 because Hawaii had a lot of sugar um
299. 12:33and beet plantations and they wanted
300. 12:35that money for themselves so they outed
301. 12:37the Hawaiian King and poof it is now a
302. 12:40state and that is how the country goes
303. 12:42from the 13 original colonies in 1676 to
304. 12:47the country that we know today uh
305. 12:48stretching Coast to Coast