The Founders Couldn't Agree Either

Every month, Third Thursdays with Arizona Talks brings together civic leaders, community members, and engaged Arizonans for an evening of connection, candid conversation, and genuine dialogue.

This month's topic is: Road to 1776: Competing Ideas and Motives of American Independence

We tend to think of the American Revolution as a single story with a single ending: the colonies versus the Crown, liberty versus tyranny, taxes and tea. But the people living through it didn't see it that way. Patriots disagreed sharply among themselves about what independence should mean, what kind of government should follow, and whose interests it would actually serve.

This month we're joined by James Hrdlicka, Associate Teaching Professor in ASU's School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies. A historian of early America, Hrdlicka studies the origins and development of democratic constitutionalism and is the author of Colonists, Citizens, Constitutions: Creating the American Republic, a companion to an exhibition he curated for the New-York Historical Society. He is currently writing a book about constitution-making in Revolutionary America.

We'll examine the competing motives and ideologies that shaped and fueled the Revolution: debates over representation and natural rights, questions about property, religion, inherited power, and disagreements over who would actually benefit from a break with Britain. It's a chance to see the founding not as a settled consensus but as a genuine argument, one whose echoes are still audible in how we think about government, rights, and dissent today.

Whether you're deeply embedded in civic life or want to spend an evening exploring ideas with other curious, sincere people, Third Thursdays offers something increasingly rare: thoughtful exchange in a welcoming, face-to-face setting.