Editing Thomas Jefferson

The Declaration of Independence was America’s first act of social design. The men who drafted America’s founding document recognized the tension between their ideals of liberty and the realities of the nation's slave economy. But they couldn’t deal with that tension, so they chose to avoid it. A generation later, in a July 5, 1852, speech in Rochester, Frederick Douglass delivered one of history's most stirring oratorical responses to the contradictions embedded in the Declaration. In this episode, reporter Jim O'Grady visits the New York Public Library to check out Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of his early draft of the Declaration, and considers how the document shaped today’s society. Then, we hear excerpts of Douglass’s famous speech. 

Plus, we bake a pie (literally), meditate on the stories we tell ourselves, and hear from The Stakes' listeners.