Some hours on the radio feel like a stroll through a dusty archive. Others feel like you have kicked open a forgotten door in the American attic and discovered something that still matters. This week’s edition of Dave Does History on Bill Mick Live manages to be both. It begins with a grievance from the Declaration of Independence that most people glide past without a second thought. It ends in West Virginia with a liars contest and the long shadow of promises broken by kings. Along the way there is a reminder that nothing in American history ever stops being relevant if you listen closely.
The grievance in question is the one where Jefferson says the king has endeavored to prevent the population of these states. On the surface it sounds like bureaucratic mumbling. What it really describes is a tug of war over land, liberty, and who gets to decide where free people may go. The colonies had just taken possession of a continent that nearly tripled their size after the Seven Years War. The king, seeing the price tag for guarding that continent, decided he wanted fewer settlers, not more. The Americans, who believed landholding and liberty walked hand in hand, had other plans. Between those competing instincts you can hear the first faint groan of the coming revolution.
This episode takes that grievance and puts flesh on its bones. There is Ben Franklin pulling political levers in London with the ease of a man who could charm a fireplace poker into voting his way. There is the Earl of Hillsborough trying to block the creation of a new colony in the Appalachians, only to be undone by his own arrogance. There is the proposed colony of Vandalia, which came shockingly close to existence before the crown surrendered its nerve and handed the entire region to the province of Quebec. That decision did not just kill Vandalia. It hardened the belief on the American side that a distant government would always value stability over opportunity and control over freedom.
The conversation also turns homeward for Bill, as it traces how the frustrations that helped sink Vandalia found their way into the folklore of West Virginia. The annual Vandalia Gathering still honors the idea that settlers west of the mountains felt lied to by the crown. It is fitting that the festival includes a liars contest. Those settlers believed the king had mastered the art first. That memory still hangs around the hills because tradition has a long life there.
In the end the episode reminds us that immigration, settlement, and the right to grow have never been small debates in America. They were there in 1776 and they are here now, wearing different clothes but carrying the same questions. That is what makes this hour worth hearing. It shows how the past refuses to stay put and how every old grievance still knows the way back home.
DAVE DOES HISTORY 
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