The Founders of this nation understood full-well that a nation of liberty could not long survive without a strong moral foundation.  If government exists to control people, then limited government naturally would control them very little.  The potential upside was tremendous.  If allowed to live free, a human being might pursue their own interests to the betterment of all of society.  Freedom means a man might strive, risk, and fail, but it also meant that he might strive, risk, and succeed.  As this process played out over time, it might well become the single greatest engine for innovation and wealth creation in all of human history. 

But it came with great risk.  To give man this freedom meant to largely leave him alone.  Government could not overly interfere in his decision making, other than to ensure that he did not, in his pursuit of his own freedom, encroach unduly on the freedom of others.  In fact, it might be said that our Founders saw government’s exclusive rightful job as providing just that much protection to its citizens — protecting their freedom from those that would rob them of it.  Of course, that meant that government’s first job was to restrain government, that great and historic robber of liberty. 

The problem with so limiting government, however, was that a government that cannot force people to conform to ideas they do not hold, cannot rob man unduly of his freedom to act on his own will, and only has a limited means by which to prevent a man from robbing the freedom of his fellow man.  In order for man to live free from outside law, he must first have a strong and predictable internal code.  It is that code which would provide him the majority of his regulation.  Government would only have to concern itself with behaviors that violated that personal norm.

Of course, the Founders did not arrive at this conclusion in a vacuum.  Free from the constraints of governmental religion, the Founders had actually read the Bible.  While many churches attempt to act as mini-governments and control men, the New Testament makes clear that, “It is for Freedom that Christ has made us Free.”  The Apostle Paul proclaimed that the “Power of sin is the law.”  That, “law came that sin would increase,” but that Christ had, “Set us free from the law of sin and death.”  What does this mean?  It means that there is a natural, inherent evil in man that causes him to rebel against any authority.  Paul says he did not even know what it was to covet, but then the command came saying “thou shalt not covet,” and sin in him, that inherent flaw, seized the opportunity afforded by the commandment and wrought in him every covetous desire. 

In other words, rules (laws, external governance) do not make man better.  On the contrary, they make him worse.  But, taught the New Testament, Christ was the author of a New Covenant in which the written code no longer had power.  Instead, God had freed man through the sacrifice of Christ and now offered man a New Life in which Christ lived in the man, writing his laws upon our hearts.  It was only in this state, free from external governance which wars with our internal flaw — but given a new, personal internal righteousness that is Christ, that man was truly living the life God desired. 

Whatever your religious belief, you can see how revolutionary this line of reasoning is, and how directly it impacted the Framers of our Nation.  If God made man free, then he should be free indeed.  It is the inner goodness that would make him good, not external law.  This was an idea so important to our Founders that they almost all spoke about it.  Washington even dedicated a portion of his Farewell Address to the idea:

“Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.  It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”

Free men must be moral men.  Immoral men must be slaves to external regulation.

Which brings us back to the events of the last several weeks, and an examination, not of Roman Polanski’s moral choices, but of our moral health as a society.  There is good news and bad news.  The overwhelming public sentiment in the wake of Polanski’s apprehension in Switzerland seems to be in favor of his arrest and extradition.  The majority of people recognize internally that drugging and raping a child in your care while she cries, says no, and asks to be taken home, and then fleeing justice, still qualify in the hearts of most American’s as abhorrent behaviors. 

Of course, one might think that this would go without saying.  It is a common belief that in prisons, hardened criminals and even murders won’t tolerate child-rapists.  Even people whose own moral codes are tolerant of extreme violence and crime know that raping children is especially evil.  Here we find the bad news. 

Apparently many prominent people in the arts and politics are blind to such wanton acts of depravity that even convicted murderers acknowledge.  The danger here is readily apparent.  The Hollywood community that believes Roman Polanski does not deserve to be punished for raping a child, or that having sex with anyone of any age who is crying, saying no, and asking you to stop is “rape-rape,” are the very people who pride themselves in setting the trend for the rest of us.  And the politicians around the world who are coming to the aid of this predator are the same men and women who believe they have the authority to define the external laws that they would see regulate us.  That means that while we may all commonly agree that raping children is evil, the trendsetters and external morality regulators out on the leading edge of society do not think it is evil, and they are working tirelessly to bend our morality to their own through art and law.

Now, it might seem a bit far-fetched to say that a few actors in Hollywood supporting a brilliant, tortured artist could possibly lead to a culture that is so morally bankrupt that they cannot identify raping children as evil, but consider how rapidly common morality can change when the trendsetters and politicians take a strong stand.

Whatever a person’s personal feelings about homosexuality, it is beyond dispute that, with some few and specific exceptions, for most of human history homosexuality has been considered immoral by most people.  And yet, it is equally clear that our culture is moving quickly toward a position that not only sees this behavior as morally acceptable, but that sees the very belief that homosexuality might in fact be immoral as itself being immoral. 

This fundamental shift in a common moral-view has happened very rapidly.  It has only been eleven years since Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet on primetime, an act widely associated with the death of her show.  In 1997, America just “wasn’t ready.”  Contrast that with 2008 when the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation determined that 42% of HBO’s primetime hours were dedicated to depicting the lives of homosexual people (ABC was the highest rated non-cable network at 25%).  And of course, Ellen herself is back, and one of the biggest stars on television. 

It isn’t just in the media.  There is a nationwide movement to legalize same-sex marriage and brand as hate-speech any opposition to homosexuality.  Even Bill Clinton has changed his mind on the subject.  According to a recent Gallup poll, only 48% of Americans currently see homosexuality as immoral.  The exact number who see it as being moral.  That number keeps moving, and only in one direction.

Now, again, the point is not to debate the morality of homosexuality itself, but to demonstrate just how rapidly a common moral position can shift, for better or for worse, when the media and politicians lead the way.  In the case of homosexuality, thousands of years of moral structure are reversing themselves in a window of only forty or fifty years, but for most of recorded history, the age of sexual consent was much younger than our current law would allow.  In fact, the common age of consent across numerous cultures throughout most of the last several thousand years has been the age of puberty, typically thought to occur between the ages of12 and 14 (Shakespeare’s Juliet was only 13 when she decides to marry Romeo). 

If the trendsetters have been successful in altering the common moral position on homosexuality in so short a time, even with all of human history working against them, how much more quickly might they succeed in altering the common view of sex with thirteen-year-olds with almost all of human history behind them?  And if they succeed here, what lines are left for them to cross?

To be sure, moral absolutes have always shifted with time.  When our forebears took slaves, it was certainly not morally good, but the absolute moral disparity was perhaps not clear before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Before that great document, many forms of slavery and servitude existed in the world, and most everyone lived at some point on that sliding scale.  The complete slavery of black men and women was only an extreme level of the general tyranny and oppression that marked all men. 

Only after the signing, when the natural rights of man were declared loudly as being from God, and violations of those rights were declared unnatural acts and acts of war, was black slavery in this nation truly singled out as a special breed of crime, and not a degree of crime.  In other words, it is only in the presence of good that evil is clearly seen.  The question is, who should a society look to for guidance in judging common morality?  God and philosophers; or government and movie stars? 

As Jefferson pointed out, God has the power and right to force his beliefs on us and yet made us free, the government has not that right, and yet seeks to wield that power over every aspect of our lives.  The media seems obliged to help.  One thing is certain, if we ignore the former, then as Washington warned, we will be slaves of the latter.  If so, we will all be sons-of-bitches for it.

We [Americans] see America, from the Pilgrims who signed the Mayflower Compact to the Biblical scholars… who birthed the nation, to the spirit of sacrifice and charity that thrives to this very day, not as a nation of Christians (for that freedom is at the deepest core of our common philosophy) but as a Christian nation.

It seems that there is a growing belief that because our Founders were stalwart advocates for religious liberty, and because some of them had very nuanced and sometimes cynical views about organized religion, the United States was somehow conceived to be a secular nation. This belief is not only untrue, but detrimental to an adequate understanding of the underlying political philosophy of the founding, not least of all because it envisions the government as the nation instead of merely the organization through which the nation conducts its civil affairs, and more importantly because it betrays the singular belief that undergirds the entire American experiment: That the rights of man come not from government but from God.

When the Founders crafted the Constitution of the United States, they were not setting about to create a nation; they were setting about to create a system of government. The people of the United States had successfully waged war against Great Britain, formed alliances with foreign powers, brokered trade, and secured national debt before the current system of government was ever established. The Constitution merely created a system of administrative and judicial structures meant to represent the nation and to conduct the affairs of the people of that nation. This is perhaps best evidenced by the opening words to the document itself: “We the people of the United States… establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The United States already existed. Its people created the Constitution to “form a more perfect Union… and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

The birth of the nation occurred in 1776 when the second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. It was this document that “dissolved the political bands” which connected the people of America to the people of Great Britain and assumed for them “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” entitled them. It was also in this document that the Founders outlined the uniquely American philosophy of the legitimate rights of the governed. “Self-evident” truths, they called them: that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator (not afforded by their government) with certain un-alienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Governments, says the Declaration, are formed to help man secure these rights and derive their power only from the consent of the people themselves. If government should exceed the people’s authority, or encroach upon the rights man received from his Creator (also called, in official documents by the same congress, “Providence,” “Almighty God,” “the Common Father,” “Nature’s God,” “God,” “Supreme Being,” “Holy Ghost,” and, wait for it, “Jesus Christ”), it was “the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.” The Founders then go on to cite, as the moral authority from which their philosophy is derived (rectitude as they called it), the “Supreme Judge” of the world, and call upon “Divine Providence” for their protection in carrying out their God-given rights.

It was hardly a secular origin then for these United States. Instead, a founding document that proposes a theory, really a theology of government, never enacted before. The people of this country are entitled by God to independent statehood. They were created by God with rights that no government can legitimately take away. Their philosophy was deemed morally correct because it has been judged so by God, and God will protect them in the execution of war against those that would subjugated them in violation of that philosophy. This is how the Founders viewed rightful governance, and this is the sort of government that they sought to give life when, a decade later, they drafted the Constitution of the United States.

Of the four claims about God and Americans outlined in the Declaration, it was the idea that man was made by God to be free that was the most radical, and which was so pivotal. The British press mocked it openly. It is, however, at the very heart of the founding ideology. If it is God who made men free, then Liberty is not a pragmatic imperative; it is a moral one. Governments that encroach on that liberty are not only violating the preferences of the governed, they are violating the very intention of God for government. For the Founders, this idea would fundamentally redefine the relationship between government and citizen. Man does not exist to be governed; governments exist to protect man’s freedom. Man does not owe government anything, other than what is necessary to aid that government in securing his basic rights. Likewise, government does not owe man anything other than protection from those who would intrude upon his freedom, be it his fellow citizen, foreign enemies, or the government itself.

It is this idea, above all others, that marked this country as unique among the nations of the world. It is an idea so deeply held by our Founders that many actually feared making references to the rights of man in the Constitution itself. They didn’t think they needed to. They also knew that to do so might one day be interpreted to mean that those rights were not natural at all, but rather were gifts from a benevolent master called the state. When the Bill of Rights was finally added, the Congress selected the language very carefully to make clear that the document was not bestowing rights on the people, but limiting the rights of government: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble…,” “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” “The right of the people to be secure… shall not be violated…” The Constitution doesn’t grant man rights; God does. The Constitution only protects those rights from the government. The idea that the Founders believed government must exist independent of God is thereby false since their own view of the rightful place of government was in the protection of the rights granted to man by his Creator.

The tired argument that the Founders were not Christians but Deists is not only false (there were more overtly Christian men among the Founders than even supposed Deists by orders of magnitude), but more importantly, it is irrelevant. Whatever the nuances of their personal faiths, the Founders were to-a-man theists, believers in God, and in the Christian tradition. While some of them, men like Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson, were skeptical of many of the miraculous claims of the Bible, they were none-the-less scholarly about and reverent toward what they saw as its philosophy, and its God. They may not have been Christians by the standards of the church, but they were certainly Christians by the standards of atheists. They believed in the God of the Bible and believed faith was critical to the workings of a free society. Not only that, but they made clear what they thought about the relationship between God and government in both word and deed. Franklin called for prayer at the Constitutional Convention and suggested spending government revenue on chaplains. Adams declared the Constitution was “made only for a moral and religious people…” and wrote the Massachusetts State Constitution, which required that its governors pledge their Christian faith in order to serve (This was considered a legitimate state law under the original reading of the First and Tenth Amendment). Jefferson spent federal revenue on Bibles, declared that the Bible should be taught in public schools, and approved of the use of federal buildings for church gatherings – including the capital building where he personally attended services during his presidency. Oh, and he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Of course Jefferson also, in a letter to the Danbury Baptists, first coined the popular phrase, “Separation of Church and State,” which has been used for so long to inform a reading of the ‘Establishment Clause’ which seeks to excise all religious expression from public institutions. So how could he approve of the innumerable expressions of faith by himself and the government under his watch? It is important here to bear in mind the context of Jefferson’s thinking.

The Danbury Baptists were concerned that the First Amendment’s very existence might one day be taken to imply that it was the government who gave men religious freedom, not God, and therefore imply government could also take that freedom away (a possibility Alexander Hamilton had also raised in Federalist No. 84). The Baptists feared that this left open the possibility that at some point in the future the government might claim for itself the power to enforce religious edicts through civil coercion. This fear was not without historical precedent.

The original European settlers of what would become the United States of the Revolution were almost exclusively British. They were also immensely religious. That’s why they were here. After a millennia of state-religion mandated by Rome, Henry VIII had rejected the authority of the Pope in Britain and created a state-religion of his own. The Church of England made the king not only the ultimate political power in the land, but the ultimate religious authority as well. A violation of Henry’s religious positions was a violation of the law, and a violation of the law was heresy. The punishment was severe: Beheading, hanging, burning at the stake… Terrible things happen when civil and religious authority are mingled together.

The problem for Henry, and for Rome, was that a Reformation was also taking place. Men like Martin Luther and William Tyndale (who Henry had strangled and burned) had begun translating the Bible into common languages, giving the people the opportunity to explore God for themselves. What they discovered surprised them. In the Book of Exodus, God establishes a civil leader for his people in Moses. He also establishes a religious leader in Aaron. Then he does something really interesting: He commands that they remain separate forever. If the king tries to supersede the religious authority of the priesthood, God will destroy him, as he does in 2 Chronicles, cursing a king named Uzziah for conducting a religious rite in the temple. Of course, God was God of the state, as well as the religion. He gave guidance to Moses just as surely as he did to Aaron. He just precluded the civil leader from also being the religious leader. Undoubtedly, God understood that without that distinction, all kings would be like Henry VIII. Separation of church and state, then, is actually a Biblical principle.

When Jefferson’s own American forefathers, the Pilgrims, took sanctuary from religious persecution in this new world, they sought to be true to the Biblical teachings that their former rulers had violated. In America, as in Israel thousands of years before, government and religious authority would be forever separated, though just as in Israel, God would be God of both. God and religion, after all, are not the same thing. One is the Supreme Being over all, and the other is the institution by which he is taught and worshiped. Jefferson understood this distinction, which is why he could assure the Danbury Baptists that there was a “wall of separation between church and state,” ensuring that the government would never dictate or enforce religious decrees, while at the same time he also recognized God though the government, and based the legitimacy of both on him.

There is far more to say on this subject than could possibly be explored in one sitting: The fact that the opening lines of the most important state law concerning religious freedom discuss how God made the mind free though it was within his Almighty power not to as Lord of both and Author of our religion (Jefferson). There is Washington’s Presidential warning that no man can call himself a patriot and oppose religion, since it is intrinsically linked to free government. There is Congress authorizing an official translation of the Bible and Thanksgiving Proclamations calling upon Jesus Christ to forgive of our national sins. For nearly two centuries government was separated from religious authority by Jefferson’s wall, but there was simply no separation of the government and God. The Bible was read in schools, there were prayers at most public functions, churches continued to meet in federal buildings, and America’s rich Christian heritage was taught and celebrated, not denied, suppressed, and scorned. To be sure, there were always Americans of diverse faiths, but as the nation was settled by Christians, founded on the principles of Christianity, and peopled by an overwhelming majority of Christian citizens, it didn’t seem a terrible thing to consider her a Christian Nation. It was not until 1947, when the Supreme Court heard a case called Everson vs Board of Education, that the modern understanding of America as a secular nation was first introduced. In a stunning act of judicial activism, the court declared that Jefferson, in his Danbury Letter, in contradiction to earlier court rulings on the subject and to everything Jefferson himself had ever written including the Declaration and the actual letter itself, must have intended that the government be legally bound to secularism. This effectively turned two centuries of American history on its head. In the sixty years since, generations of Americans have been fed a radical reinterpretation of the Founders’ intent. Government, we are now taught, must protect the people from public expressions of, or support for, religion. God must be stripped from the public square, which is in large part why the true history of our founding has been so stripped from our schools. In this newly interpreted separation, the chief concern of our Founders seems to have been preventing anyone from encountering religion at all. That they often argued publicly that the republic could not survive without religion is ignored entirely, as is their own reliance on God for their authority to create the government in the first place. Like so many other issues in post-New Deal America, if the courts disagree with the Founders, they simply re-invent them, avoiding the sticky democratic practices of debate and legislation all together.

Since God no longer exists in government, and his history there is no longer taught, is it any wonder that millions upon millions of Americans believe, in utter opposition to the founding philosophy, that our rights come from the government? Where else would they come from? And should it be any surprise if those same Americans desire that the government give them other things as well? After all, if our rights are not by the grace of God but by the grace of government, then whoever controls the government has the ultimate authority over man. Government by definition can do no wrong. This is precisely the kind of thinking our Founders literally warred against. It is also precisely why Americans of all faiths should be proud to own America’s Christian Heritage, and why without it, America is lost.

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.” – Thomas Jefferson, “Deist”

“Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian Nation…” - Barack Obama, “Christian”

They started a war. My ancestor, Francis Lightfoot Lee was one of those men. They started the revolution that birthed this nation. 

Now we are engaged at a crossroads of history, testing whether the leaders of this nation so conceived and dedicated, still hold those same truths and ideals to be self-evident. 

Iranian citizens have taken to the streets of their cities in the pursuit of freedom and liberty. They sought, and deserved, their own revolution. The Iranian government murdered and persecuted them for it. Our government voted present. 

Manuel Zelaya attempted to trample the Honduran Constitution and follow in the footsteps of his communist brother: Hugo Chavez. In the face of such tyranny, the Honduran people rose up in a revolution of their own and sent their  King George packing. Within hours, the same US government that dared not meddle in the affairs of the Iranians, sponsored a United Nations Resolution condemning the Honduran people for resisting the spread of communism. 

We will meet in the next few days to drink beer, eat hotdogs and enjoy multitudes of pyrotechnic displays reminiscent of the rockets red glare and the attack on Fort McHenry. 

Let us also take a moment to remember Neda and all those who are suffering in the quest for freedom. The Honduran Congress had the might of its military to deal with a would be dictator. Would the situation in Iran be different today if her citizens were armed as we Americans are under the Second Amendment? Would the Iranian Basij Militiaman who murdered Neda have ridden so confidently into that crowd if he knew that he faced a citizenry able to defend itself? 

I have the freedom today to write this article because on April 19, 1775 a handful of armed farmers and merchants stood and held their ground against the greatest super power on the planet. When the Minutemen stood at Concord’s North Bridge and fired the shot heard around the world, they forever changed the course of history. 

That moment brought the audacity of hope to the people of  Honduras and it should be cherished by Americans. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this on this 4th of July weekend. 

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate this weekend, we cannot hallow our history if we don’t remember the true meaning of our country’s birth: Revolution. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Saul Alinskys and the William Ayers of the world will mourn the loss of  Manuel Zelaya and all that he represents, but those of us that are proud of our American heritage will pass on the Dreams of Our Fathers to our children this weekend and every day to come for the rest of our lives. We here highly resolve that all of those who have given their lives for the preservation of freedom shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall continue on in freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

March 16 will mark the 40th anniversary of the Broadway opening of “1776.”  Written by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, it went on to run for 1,217 performances.  It’s hard to believe that forty years ago it was still popular to write an unabashedly patriotic musical that openly celebrated American Exceptionalism and painted the founding fathers not just as humans but as the intellectual and moral giants that they were.  Because the 1972 film version is tantamount to a filmed version of the play rather than a Hollywood re-interpretation, its original intent and form is easily accessible to today’s audience.  It deserves a good look and therefore, is this week’s Sunday Matineé. 

“1776″ uses the character of John Adams as the main protagonist in telling the story of his legendary fight to convince the continental congress to adopt a resolution calling for independence from King George.  The show follows the journey of Adams’ victories in convincing congress to form a committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, the ensuing debate over the contents of the declaration, the conflict between the Northern states and the Southern states over slavery and finally, the climactic scene depicting the signing of the declaration.

The brilliance of the drama in this show is not “will they do it?” since everyone in the audience knows they will… the drama lies in “how are they gonna pull this off?”  The show uses a simple but very theatrical and dramatic device by showing a giant day calendar on the wall above John Hancock’s desk.  Each new scene shows the calendar page ripped away revealing what day we are witnessing.  Everyone with at least a 1st Grade education knows that we are all counting down to July 4th and the tension genuinely builds as we see the day coming closer and yet it doesn’t seem like Adams and his coalition will get all of the states to favor a declaration in time.

“1776″ is unique in many ways.  Most striking is the fact that the stage is populated by many, many men and there are only two women in the show: Abigail Adams and Martha Jefferson.  And Abigail only appears through her letters with John–she does not actually interact with the rest of the cast.  Martha only appears for one scene, a somewhat apocryphal moment when Franklin and Adams send for her to provide Jefferson a much needed conjugal visit so he can re-focus on the writing of the declaration.

So, other than that, it’s a 2 1/2 hour long musical with a bunch of wig-wearing guys sitting around debating in 18th century aristocratic costumes.  No chorus, no dancers, no special effects, no leggy dancers… not really the recipe for musical theatre success.

Because the film was such a faithful replica of the stage production including using most of the same principal actors, clips from the film should provide you with a great taste of what it was like to witness this show live at the 46th Street Theatre (now the Richard Rodgers) 40 years ago.  Here is the great opening number, “Sit Down John!”:

How great is that?  “One useless man is called a disgrace, two are called a law firm, and three or more become a congress!”  That’s the great William Daniels playing John Adams, a role he will always be associated with.  And what brilliant writing as the congress is in a great debate over the pros and cons of opening a window?  They all agree it is too hot, half want the window open, the other half don’t want to let in any flies, Thomas Jefferson forms a coalition trying to strike a compromise… it seems the only thing the entire congress can agree on is their hatred of Adams.  In one opening number, Sherman Edwards defines the character of Adams and his single-minded focus on pushing the issue of independence plus he illustrates the ineffectiveness of congress and their antagonism to Adams.  All put to song… I’ve said it before:  Great musicals are often defined by their opening number.

Another thing to note as these clips keep coming:  One of the most thrilling things to hear on stage is a full male ensemble singing robust songs in multiple parts.  There is something about hearing great male singers in full voice with close layers of harmony.  “Guys and Dolls,” “Les Miserables,” “The Music Man” and “1776″ all feature songs like this and it never fails to please the audience.

One of the great surprises of “1776″ is how much humor there is in it.  At first glance, it’s pretty dry stuff, but Edwards and Stone take great liberties in using some facts about the characters of these men and then expand upon those traits drawing them out and making the comedic elements of their personalities as broad as possible.

Here’s an example… it’s no secret that the Lee family of Virginia was historically prominent and influential.  Dating their origin to the Jamestown colony in 1639, they became established in the colonies through tobacco farming and politics… they were the Kennedys of their time–rich and political and not a little pompous.

History tells us that one of the strategies Benjamin Franklin and John Adams used to move the Declaration of Independence along was to get Richard Henry Lee to make the motion in congress.  He was so respected and carried so much weight that he would be accepted as the sponsor of the resolution (where as Adams was hated by all).  It was up to Lee to ride to Virginia to get the approval of the House of Burgesses to make the motion.  Here’s how “1776″ portrays the man and the moment:

I’m glad the scene is included before the song as well.  You can see how brilliantly Stone uses actual quotes from giant men like Franklin and incorporates them seamlessly into the dialogue.  Also, Stone clearly has a reverence and love for these men and what they did.  Make no mistake, this is ”American Triumphalism, the musical” and there are no apologies made.  You see this show and you learn one thing:  America is great.  Period.

OK… gotta show a little more of the humor and then we’ll move on to the meatier stuff.  Here’s a brilliant song depicting the debate within the committee over who should write the Declaration of Independence.  Again, pay attention to the clever lyrics.

Franklin:
Mr. Adams, but, Mr. Adams
The things I write are only light extemporania
I won’t put politics on paper; it’s a mania
So I refuse to use the pen in Pennsylvania

Sherman:
Mr. Adams, but, Mr. Adams
I cannot write with any style or proper etiquette
I don’t know a participle from a predicate
I am just a simple cobbler from Connecticut

By the way, yes, that’s Ken (The White Shadow) Howard as Thomas Jefferson.

So, the aforementioned conjugal visit between Jefferson and Martha occurs and Franklin and Adams wait for him to emerge from his chamber.  A wonderful scene between the two of them speculating about how history will (or will not) view them, and then comes Martha to sing the praises of Tom.  On Broadway, it was a young Betty Buckley wowing Broadway audiences for the first time.  Here on film, it’s the sumptuous and aptly named Blythe Danner… oh how I miss seeing her on stage and how superior she is on film to her daughter.

And, there you have it.  All Jefferson needed was one night with Martha and the next morning he cranks out the Declaration of Independence!  Who knew?  If I had one night with a young Blythe Danner, who knows what great writing I’d be capable of?

So, now things get a little tricky.  You see, the block of voters who oppose the declaration and wish to keep their allegiance  with the King are labeled in the show as “Conservatives.”  This was a real sticking point in 1969 when the show came out and in 1972 with the film.  In fact, the Nixon Administration complained at the characterization of those against the creation of our country as being the forefathers of the modern conservative movement.  Frankly, knowing that the vast majority of millionaires in the Senate are Democrats, and knowing that the ideals Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and Washington represented fit perfectly with the values of the modern conservative movement, I don’t see the problem.  But if you think in shallow terms and watch this scene thinking that these guys represent the “Republicans,” then yeah, I think you can see the problem:

The purpose of this series of articles (Sunday Matineé) is to highlight great shows from Broadway’s past.  Not just shows written by conservatives or for that matter shows which always take a “conservative” world view.  I have no idea about Stone and Edwards’ politics, but I do know that as a conservative thinker, I can watch this show and love all that is great about America.  I feel pride with my spiritual connection to the forefathers and celebrate their courage and brilliance.  I am not forced to defend my modern-day political perspective and I can objectively feel a kinship with these men and respect for the revolution they spawned.  That is not only great writing, it’s what is now lacking on Broadway in so many of our shows.  And I maintain there is a vast audience for it.  So, please don’t send e-mails or post comments telling me that the writers of this show hated conservatives… if they did, it doesn’t matter.  Their work stands up to any objective scrutiny despite the inclusion of the above song.  If a modern-day conservative sees themselves in that number, it’s more a problem with their own perspective and self-analysis, not a problem with the writing.

So the original draft of Jefferson’s declaration is read and debated, almost line by line.  And slowly, Adams wins his votes and Jefferson loses large chunks of his original draft… until the issue of slavery is approached.  As we know, Jefferson’s original draft had language decrying the ownership of slaves (modern revisionists overlook this and ignorantly paint Jefferson as nothing more than a racist, slave owner).  The Southern states refuse to sign on until the language is removed and Adams and Jefferson dig in.  Notice the brilliant staging in the way Franklin is positioned, observing:

Franklin convinces Adams to let it go; the issue of independence was too important and they agree to let future generations work out the problem of slavery (four score and seven years in the future, to be exact).  The final scene depicts, of course, the signing.  When staged properly, it brings chills and cheers:

The good humor and joshing regarding the consequences of their treasonous act is immediately shifted to the weight and reality of the situation upon the reading of the dispatch from General Washington.  And with bells tolling and the orchestra swelling, our country is born.

Here’s a bit of trivia about this play: In the first act, scene three, during the initial debate over independence, there is a twenty two minute stretch of unending dialogue without any music to interrupt it.  This is the record for the longest duration of time in a musical without a single note of music.  In this day of rock opera and endless, banal recitative, it’s so refreshing to see a musical not be afraid to talk to the audience rather than sing at them.

One more bit of trivia… Years later, William Daniels starred in the great and under-appreciated NBC drama “St. Elsewhere.”  In the final season, they had a storyline that took his character to Philadelphia.  In one scene, he is walking around the grounds of Independence Hall and says, “I don’t know what it is about this place but it makes me want to get up and sing.”  Few got the inside joke…(Good Lord, I really am a geek, aren’t I?)

For our finale, I want to take you back to the opening number.  This time, the Broadway cast of the recent revival as seen on the Tony Awards.  Pay close attention to those magnificent male harmonies as they are even more evident in this version versus the film version seen above.