Making War, Finding Peace: The United States and the World, circa 1776 and Beyond

On July 4, 1776, Congress declared that thirteen of Britain’s North American colonies were joining the powers of the earth as free and independent states.  But what, exactly, did it mean to join the powers of the earth?  What were the consequences for citizens of the new United States — and how did the implications differ for people on the union’s peripheries and margins, whether the margins were geographic or arose from distinctions of race, class, religion, indigeneity, and gender? 

In this year’s Joanne Goodman Lectures, New Hampshire University professor Eliga Gould will explore the international consequences of the Declaration of Independence, both within the United States and for the world that Congress proclaimed its intention to join.

October 7 – Union

In the second lecture, Professor Gould will examine the various unions with which Americans hoped to secure the Revolution’s internal and external goals.  In the Articles of Confederation, adopted as the union’s first constitution in 1777, the states remained free to chart their own path on a range of crucial questions, including the abolition (or not) of slavery, who had the right to vote, and whether to end public support for religion.  But Congress also envisioned the United States as a continental union or empire that would someday include Canada, Britain’s other remaining North American colonies, and Indian country as far as the Mississippi River.

October 8 – Peace

In the Declaration’s conclusion, Congress promised that Americans would treat the British as they did the rest of mankind:  “enemies in war, in peace friends.”  In his final lecture, Professor Gould will start with the peace that Americans hoped to secure in 1776.  He will then discuss the Anglo-American Treaty of Peace and Independence that Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay, signed in Paris on September 3, 1783.  As the history of the United States’ founding treaty shows, finding peace turned out to be at least as difficult and transformative as making war.