“To give Instructions to their Representatives, with respect to INDEPENDENCE”

In May 1776, the Massachusetts General Court elected in the summer of 1775 was coming to a close.

Later that month, men who owned enough property to qualify to vote for the new legislature would gather in their town meetings to choose one or two men to go to the new General Court.

Those meetings then usually appointed a committee to write instructions for the elected representatives, telling them what the voters wanted on important issues. Sometimes those instructions were published in the newspapers as political manifestos.

At this time James Warren was the speaker of the Massachusetts House, but he had evidently anticipated being absent some days (until 19 April he was still paymaster general of the Continental Army). The chamber had therefore chosen William Cooper, usually the town clerk of Boston, as its speaker pro tem.

On 9 May, the assembly, probably chaired by Cooper, raised the issue of independence this way:

On Motion, Ordered, That Mr. Speaker [Warren? Cooper?], Major [Joseph] Hawley, and Mr. [William] Story, be a Committee to bring in a Resolve recommending the several Towns in the colony to give Instructions to their Representatives, with respect to INDEPENDENCE.

The Massachusetts House’s journal included a lot of italics for proper names and terms like “Ordered” and “Resolved,” but a word spelled out all in capital letters was an even bigger emphasis, and rare.

That high-powered committee proposed a resolve, which the whole house approved:

Resolved, That it be, and hereby is recommended to each Town in this Colony, who shall send a Member or Members to the next General Assembly, fully to possess him or them with their Sentiments relatives to a Declaration of Independency of the United Colonies on Great-Britain, to be made by Congress, and to instruct them what Conduct they would have them serve with Regard to the next General Assembly’s instructing the Delegates of this Colony on that Subject.

The assembly itself wasn’t voting for independence, or even urging town meetings to approve such a move. It was simply asking town meetings to express their opinions on the topic. 

That resolve was sent up to the Council for its concurrence. At the same time, the house delegated Watertown representative Jonathan Brown to “get the foregoing Resolve printed in Hand-Bills, and sent to the several Towns in this Colony.”

The next day, the house prodded the Council for its answer:

On a Motion, Ordered, That a Message go to the honorable Board to know if they have passed on the Resolve of Yesterday, relating to requesting the Inhabitants of the several Towns to instruct their Members to be chosen relating to Independency.

Samuel Holten, Esq; came down and informed the House that the Board had non-concurred the same:

Thereupon Ordered, That the Secretary [Perez Morton] be directed to lay the said Resolve on the Table, which he did accordingly.

TOMORROW: Behind the scenes.

Detouring with an Antiques Roadshow Podcast

Back in June, I shared news of an episode of the Antiques Roadshow Detours podcast that included the voice of Joel Bohy, Caitlin DeAngelis, and myself discussing an engraved silver drinking vessel.

That episode has now been released in video form under the title “What If Our Appraiser Got It Wrong?” You can watch on YouTube here.

While the baseline of a podcast video episode is people sitting in front of microphones and talking for forty minutes, producer Adam Monahan has spiced up these conversations with graphics, cuts, and other televisual elements. And you get to see my dining-room wallpaper and one of the sweaters my mother knit for me.

I don’t know if the video version is different in other small ways, with more or less historical content. To do that, I’d have to listen to both, and to do that, I’d have to be comfortable hearing and watching myself at length.

Both versions offer a discussion of the Vassall family, silversmith Nathaniel Hurd, and the eagerness to find artifacts on the right side of our Revolution. Choose the format you prefer.

As an adjunct to this link, I also recommend the Decoder Ring episode “What Even Is a “Podcast” Anymore?” It helps to explain how that medium has evolved, and acknowledges (even if it can’t explain) the peculiarities in the recent “pivot to video” for what started as a handy audio-only medium.

Ramsay’s Infographics

David Ramsay (1749–1815) was a legislator in South Carolina and then in the Continental Congress. He became a son-in-law to not one but two prominent members of that Congress: John Witherspoon and Henry Laurens.

Ramsay was a physician and also a historian, author first of a History of the Revolution of South Carolina (1785) and a History of the American Revolution (1789).

In 1810, Ramsay published a Historical and Biographical Chart of the United States. Measuring 29" by 17", this poster combined multiple infographics with extensive text.

On the left was a map of the U.S. of A. as it existed in 1810, extending from Maine to Georgia, and westward to territories and “Lands in Dispute.”

On the right side were timelines for each American state showing what sort of government they were under in each period, starting with “primitive Settlers” like those at Plymouth. Michael D. Hattem wrote for the Junto:

Ramsay…was not content to merely represent chronology in a linear fashion. Instead, he sought to illustrate substantive change over time, particularly regarding the political and military circumstances of the colonies. He color-coded his timeline to represent different types of colonial governments, e.g., “free governments,” “royal,” “proprietary,” oligarchic,” or “Parliamentary.” He also color-coded the imperial power over a colony at any given time. His chart also includes symbols denoting the establishment of colleges, rebellions, war with Native Americans, and involvement in imperial wars.

The Confederation Congress of the 1780s was in Ramsay’s view a “Period of nerveless advisory government,” nonetheless “free.”

Below those state timelines are timelines of eminent American men, sorted into five regions and four categories. Like Joseph Priestley, Ramsay positioned those men’s surnames chronologically, but in this case according to their dates of death with no indication of lifespans. (Priestley himself was among the men Ramsay included since he emigrated to America in 1794.)

In the upper right corner Ramsay shifted his graphic form. Under the U.S. Constitution, shifts in government became moot, and there were supposedly no more wars to mark. Instead, the poster displays national economic measures in jagged lines like William Playfair’s.

Ramsay thus built on Priestley, Playfair, and other predecessors in infographics. It looks like we don’t know the name of his engraver or printer. But in a March 1812 letter which Hattem quoted in a footnote, Ramsay identified some collaborators: “My daughters paint & varnish the map and chart; but the painting each copy requires one [hour?] & 45 minutes.”

Charting the National Debt

Among the charts in William Playfair’s Commercial and Political Atlas was a graph of Britain’s national debt, which I found very helpful for understanding the mindset in London in the 1760s.

Playfair first published that book in 1786, but the chart above, which comes courtesy of the Junto, takes the figures up through 1800, so it must be a reissue.

Politicians like George Grenville, and many historians since, pointed to Great Britain’s debt at the end of the Seven Years’ War as justifying the need for more revenue from the American colonies. Just how bad was that figure?

This chart shows that the national debt did rise to an unprecedented level after 1755. It had never topped £80 million since the Glorious Revolution, but in 1762 it was at £150 million. No wonder politicians in London were worried.

That debt declined by 1775, though it still wasn’t close to the pre-war level. In those years the North American Stamp Act ended up costing money, and of the several Townshend duties only the tax on tea produced significant revenue. I surmise that Britain was paying its bills because of economic growth, not new taxes.

Then the American War sent the debt soaring to almost £250 million in 1784. Another decade, and war with Revolutionary France set it off again. At the end of Playfair’s chart, Britain owed £400 million, and there were more war years to come.

Did that presage Britain’s financial default? Was the next century ruinous? Of course not. The British economy grew tremendously through industrialization, funding and being funded by a new colonial empire which extended around the globe. The country had never been more prosperous or more dominant.

As scary as the national debt looked in the early 1760s, the British state was in solid economic shape then. Nobody knew steam power was just about to change everything, but even the old system of agriculture, trade, and small manufactures was probably working well enough to maintain national prosperity.

The Crown might not have needed the revenue measures that caused all the trouble in North America. But to many statesmen watching the national debt rise much higher than it had ever been before, taxes seemed imperative.

Playfair’s Charts

Like Joseph Priestley, William Playfair (1759–1823) was a brilliant thinker and a restless soul.

He was born to a genteel Scottish family, with older brothers who became a noted mathematician and a noted architect.

Playfair’s Wikipedia entry says he worked variously as “a millwright, engineer, draftsman, accountant, inventor, silversmith, merchant, investment broker, economist, statistician, pamphleteer, translator, publicist, land speculator, banker, ardent royalist, de facto intelligence officer, convict, editor, blackmailer and journalist.”

I bring up William Playfair here because he gets credit for introducing several of the infographics we’re used to. In 1786 his Commercial and Political Atlas introduced the line, area, and bar charts to show economic data.

Fifteen years later, in The Statistical Breviary, Playfair published what seems to be the first pie chart. Denis François Donnant translated that book into French, adding his own information on the U.S. of A.

In 1805 Playfair translated Donnant’s additions into English as a Statistical Account of the United States of America, adding this pie chart to show the relative land areas of the American states and territories after the Louisiana Purchase.

Priestley’s Timelines

Growing up in a family of chemists, I thought of Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) as the natural philosopher who discovered oxygen.

Later I learned Priestley was also a political radical, supporting both the American and French Revolutions. He was a religious explorer, championing Unitarianism.

Not until recently did I learn that Priestley invented the timeline graphic with a uniform scale. In 1765, he published his Chart of Biography as a poster-sized appendix to a series of lectures.

That’s the sample of Priestley’s chart showing the lives of “Statesmen” and “Men of Learning” from before 600 B.C.E. to a few years into the common era. Those men are from the Greek and Roman worlds, of course.

In 1769 Priestley applied the same approach to empires with A New Chart of History. This graphic tucked the “English” empire in North America into the upper right corner. The revision shown here adds the label “United States.”

A team at the University of Oregon has created digital versions of Priestley’s timelines, offering a way to dig into them online.

“All our difficulties in forming the Militia”

In colonial Massachusetts, it was common for wealthy landowners to hold several positions of authority at once.

Gentlemen might represent their towns in the Massachusetts General Court, hold a high rank in the local militia regiment, and receive a royal appointment as a justice of the peace or the like.

After the Revolutionary War began, citizens became concerned about such “plural office-holding.” That was partly a practical concern since men away at the Continental Congress or in the army couldn’t also do vital work in provincial and local government. But the concern also reflected a general reformist mood, spreading out power.

Legislators began to write rules forbidding men to hold multiple positions. At the same time, they wanted to keep their friends and political allies in important roles. The result was a muddle. Sometimes politicians seem to have ignored the new rules against plural office-holding while at other times they seized on those rules as an excuse to block rivals.

On 14 Feb 1776 assembly speaker James Warren wrote to his ally Samuel Adams about how the General Court’s choice of militia major generals was working out:

We have not surmounted all our difficulties in forming the Militia by Compleating the Bill, the House chose Coll. [John] Hancock the first, your Humble Servant the Second and Coll. [Azor] Orne the third Major Generals.

the Board [Council] nonconcurred the second, because they think, as they say, the Choice militates with a Clause in the Act, forgetting it did as much so with the Choice of several of their Honours, as military Officers, Brigadiers, etc.

the Vote by means of the nonconcurrence is again before us. I am unable to say what the House will do with it. Orne refuses. Coll. Hancock is objected to as being unable to attend, etc. it lays for the present and will till next Session. . . .

I am glad to be out of the List, but the Council have done it in a manner as ungracious and Indelicate as [royal governors Francis] Bernard or [Thomas] Hutchinson would have done; for which reason I have serious thoughts of quiting my civil commission…

Warren didn’t step down as speaker of the Massachusetts house or representative from Plymouth. (Nor as Continental Army paymaster general—until the army moved south.)

A lot of quiet wrangling followed. As speaker, Warren had a lot of influence over who the assembly voted to be major generals. If he hadn’t wanted the appointment, he could have told his colleagues not to nominate him. But he didn’t.

The house scheduled its vote for the three major generals multiple times that spring, only to postpone. Meanwhile, the British left, followed by the Continentals. Not until 8 May did the house state its new choice:

• John Hancock
• James Warren
• Benjamin Lincoln

Having reestablished his standing, as least in his own chamber, Warren then declined the appointment. The representatives chose Azor Orne to replace him as second major general.

A new legislative session with a new house began later that May. On 11 June, the Council reported that Hancock and Lincoln had accepted their appointments, the former writing from Philadelphia. Orne once again declined. The next day, the house named its replacement for Orne:

• James Warren

I don’t see an official concurrence with this decision by the Council in the house records. Nonetheless, after that James Warren had the militia rank of general and thus could be called “General Warren” for the rest of his life. (This compounds the ease of confusing him with Dr. Joseph Warren, also named a general just before he died.)

Speaker Warren was offered the chance to command troops sent to support Gen. George Washington at New York in September. He declined on account of his health. Lincoln went instead and eventually became a Continental Army commander.

COMING UP: The question of independency.

“The Appointment of the three Major Generals”

One big task confronting the Massachusetts General Court in January 1776 as they convened in the Watertown meetinghouse was reestablishing the province’s militia system.

The legislature needed to make clear that the authority for that military force came from the colony’s people (well, the men of property speaking for the people), through their elected representatives.

The General Court also needed to select commanders at every level since so many men were now in the Continental Army. Early on the legislators agreed the militia needed three major generals, as well as a brigadier for each county.

On 30 January, the Massachusetts house voted for these three major generals:

• John Hancock of Boston, then serving as chairman of the Continental Congress.
• James Warren of Plymouth, the house’s own speaker.
• Azor Orne of Marblehead, a member of the Council.

That slate was “Sent up for Concurrence” to the Council.

The chamber’s record for Thursday, 8 February, reads:

Thomas Cushing, Esq; bro’t down the Resolve of this House of the 30th January last, containing the Appointment of the three Major Generals, with the following Vote of Council thereon, viz.

In Council, February 8, 1776.
Read and concurred with the Amendment at A. viz. at A dele[te] the name of “Hon. James Warren, Esq; second Major General.”

As I described last month, just a few weeks earlier Cushing had the shock of reading a letter in which Warren had sneered at him and Robert Treat Paine. Then Cushing learned the General Court had replaced him as a Congress delegate. Ostensibly the reason for bringing him back home from Philadelphia was that he was needed on the Council.

Cushing indeed quickly became an influential member of that Council. He may have swayed the vote on the major generals. But he certainly had the pleasure of reporting that the Council had vetoed an appointment for Warren.

TOMORROW: Who wants to be a general anyhow? 

Examining the President’s Pardon Power

In September, Lindsay M. Chervinsky wrote about the President’s power to pardon people at her Imperfect Union website:

The Constitution says that the president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” This language is unlike many other powers granted in the Constitution. The language is fairly absolute and the pardon power is one of the president’s most unlimited. The courts have largely rejected attempts to limit this power. And yet, the time has come to address this constitutional blind spot.

Chervinsky’s essay noted the roots of the pardon power in traditional monarchy, and how “We are the only democracy with such unfettered pardon power.”

She offered the example of how President George Washington deployed this power.

Washington’s pardons of [David] Blair and the whiskey rebels suggest that there were four factors that he considered when contemplating clemency.

First, he considered whether the petitioners had lived a reputable life prior to the conviction. Was this case a one-off or were they problematic citizens? Most of the people Washington pardoned, including Blair, were veterans of the Revolutionary War.

Second, Washington considered whether the conviction would prevent the petitioner from making a living or providing for their family.

Third, Washington required the petitioners to take responsibility for their actions.

Fourth, Washington expected the petition[er]s to swear loyalty to the Constitution if the charges called into question their patriotism.

I should specify that Washington never wrote a single letter outlining these four factors (history would be much easier if he did write down his thoughts in such articulate fashion). Instead, we can see what mattered to him through a series of letters and questions about the potential pardons.

There are many proposals on the table to limit the pardon power, or at least to ensure its use doesn’t depend on one person’s whims. Those reforms range from a constitutional amendment to various laws defining procedures (laws that a Supreme Court might decide violate the Constitution) to a requirement for simple transparency from the executive branch.

Herrera on “Treason at West Point,” 5 Nov.

On Thursday, 5 November, Ricardo A. Herrera will appear online as part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s “Inside the Vault” series. Rick’s topic will be “Treason at West Point—Benedict Arnold, John André, and the Spies of the American Revolution.”

The institute’s curator will bring out these items from its collection:

• Maj. John André’s letter from June 1780, asking a contact to keep watch on “Arnold the Rebel General,” three months before the plot came apart
• The note sent to André on the morning of his death: “His Excellency Genl. Washington has fixed the Hour at 12 o Clock this Day”
• A Continental officer’s letter written the day after the hanging, condemning Arnold for leaving André “to pay the forfeiture that should have fallen on the traitor”
• An eyewitness’s account of why André’s last request, to be shot instead of hanged, was refused

Ricardo Herrera is senior historian at the George Washington Leadership Institute and George Washington Presidential Library. Previously he was a professor at the U.S. Army War College, and before that an army officer. Rick’s most recent book is The New York Campaign, 1776.

The institute says, “This event is for teachers, students, and their families—and everyone with an interest in history!” Folks who attend the whole program can sign up to receive professional development credits. The program is due to start at 7 P.M. For more information, go to this registration page.

The day after this online event, Rick and I will be cohosting “The British Empire Strikes Back,” the Pursuit of History’s latest weekend exploration of Revolutionary events 250 years later. We’ll be in the Old Barracks Museum in Trenton, New Jersey, a structure used by both Crown and Continental forces as they fought over that region in late 1776 and early 1777.

Freeman at the Concord Museum, 6 Nov.

On Friday, 6 November, the Concord Museum will host Joanne Freeman, the Alan Boles, Class of 1929 Professor of History at Yale.

The event description promises:

a compelling exploration of the Revolutionary era and the ideas, conflicts, and personalities that shaped the founding of the United States.

Drawing on her extensive research into early American politics and public life, Freeman will examine how debates over power, democracy, and citizenship continue to resonate today. This engaging conversation offers new perspectives on the people and choices behind the nation’s beginnings.

Freeman is known for her award-winning books Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic and The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War. Her 2010 lecture course on the American Revolution can be watched here, and the 2025 course on America at 250 that she taught with David Blight and Beverly Gage is preserved here.

A seat for Freeman’s appearance at the Concord Museum costs $10, but is free to members and to people tuning in online. The event will start at 7 P.M.

“Their little, low, dirty, and sly insinuating arts and machinations”

As I recounted yesterday, as 1776 began the Massachusetts General Court was in the process of replacing Thomas Cushing as a Continental Congress delegate with Elbridge Gerry.

When he heard that news, John Hancock wrote to Cushing from Philadelphia on 17 January:

I hope this will find you safe arrivd and in the Enjoyment of Domestic Ease and happiness, that you found all your particular Connections well, and not Destitute of many Friends, altho’ some would gladly have it thought that you are totally deserted, but by no means, My Good Friend, let the Circumstance of the Election discourage you from the noble pursuit in which you are engaged, your Cause is just, and I am Confident your Conscience will acquit you.

I can tell you for a truth that you have left in Congress many who are peculiarly friendly to you, and who, had they a Suspicion that you would not have Returnd to Congress, would have given you many Expressions of their Friendship previous to your Departure. I never flatter, but shall ever in future unbosom my self to you, and write freely in Confidence that I can Rely on your Friendship, and from a Conviction that you are Deserving of the Esteem I have for you, and I shall ever feel a pleasure in doing any thing that can Contribute to your Ease or Reputation, as I must say I have Reason to think Endeavours have been made to Disturb both, and which I will not let pass over unnotic’d, for it may Operate further and be the means of stirring up Jealousies and Animosities which had better be nipt in the Bud; of which more in my next.

Severall Members of Congress have mention’d to me the Desire they have to Establish you in that agreeable point of light which your Conduct in their Estimation merits, for that purpose they are framing a Letter to you, to be made such use of as you think best, to be sign’d by a number of them, as they have some how an Opinion that undue Methods have been practic’d which have Operated to your Disadvantage in the late Election, they are very sanguine in this matter, and I assure you that you are mention’d by Respectable Members in the most Advantageous and Agreeable Light, and you may Rely I do not throw any Contradictory Strokes in the way; of this more in my next.

That outreach confirmed an alliance between the two men, both Boston merchants of moderate political instincts. Cushing was now on the Massachusetts Council, helping to exercise executive power in the colony outside Boston. He and Hancock had lots to correspond about, including their political rivals.

Here’s some of Cushing’s 30 January letter, as quoted in Herbert S. Allen’s John Hancock, Patriot in Purple:

Am sincerely obliged to you for your kind offers of…friendship…at a time when I am represented to you as deserted by all others. . . .

Soon after I arrived here, I found you, as well as myself, had been placed in a disagreeable light and measures taken to hurt our influence. I instantly endeavored to remove every impression of this kind. I think I have succeeded and…I shall leave no stone unturned to serve you here. . . .

It is true, I am informed, some few whom…you are well acquainted with…have endeavored by their little, low, dirty, and sly insinuating arts and machinations to destroy my influence among the new members of the House.

Hancock replied to that on 13 February:

…am glad to hear the Reception you met with, and have no Doubt but you will ever Acquit your self the honest Man, and be superior to the Arts and Cunning of Designing Men. I am Oblig’d to you for the hints you give respecting the Designs of some against me, and wish in your next [you] would be as particular as possible, and let me know every thing passing in your Quarter, by the State of the Elections neither you or I were much Neglected.

In particular, Hancock encouraged Cushing to push the Massachusetts government forward in outfitting two warships. On 7 March he wrote:

I must most earnestly entreat and Beg of you that you exert every Nerve in forwarding our two Ships, & that you Employ as many Men in every Department as can possibly work & be of Service in expediting them, in short spare no Expence in forwarding them, for inter nos [between us] some here who are not very friendly to you & I (& of our province you know who) begin publickly to Say that the Massachusetts Ships will be the last finish’d, that they are in no forwardness &c. I want to Counteract them, in order to which you must Exert your self,…

In that letter Hancock also asked, “how were Mr. P— Letters Relish’d”? Hancock evidently wanted to hear how people had reacted to Robert Treat Paine’s bitter complaints in early January about how James Warren had written about him (and Cushing).

Back here I noted how Massachusetts Patriots had urged Paine to let the dispute die. Hancock either hadn’t gotten that message or wanted to hear what people were saying privately.

COMING UP: Wrangling in the General Court.

“Some low dirty arts made use of privately”

Soon after Thomas Cushing read James Warren’s letter sneering at him and Robert Treat Paine, as discussed back here, he received more bad news from Massachusetts.

On 15 Dec 1775 the assembly, with Warren presiding as speaker, listed its choice of “Five Gentlemen to represent this Colony in the Continental Congress…until the last Day of December next”:

the Hon. John Hancock, Esq; Hon. Samuel Adams, Esq; Hon. John Adams, Esq; Hon. Robert Treat Payne, Esq; and Elbridge Gerry, Esq

The Council approved that choice on 18 Jan 1776.

Cushing was out of the Congress, replaced by Gerry of Marblehead, a more aggressive Patriot and an ally of the Adamses. That tipped the balance of Massachusetts’s delegation from moderate to radical for the coming year.

Cushing returned to Massachusetts and took up duties as a member of the Council, then meeting in the Edmund Fowle house in Watertown. He wrote two letters to Paine in February:

At the Election of Delegates for the Congress for the year 1776, we were both struck at. I must refer you to Mr. Hancock for a state of the Votes upon this occasion as I sent them to him; Endeavors have been used to hurt us both in our Influence at Court, by those whom I need not mention as their names & characters are well known to you; It seems we are not men to suit their Turn. We are not subservient enough, we do not pay an implicit obedience to their Sovereign Dictates. . . .

I am sinsible attempts were made to dismiss you as a Delegate. I could never learn the particular objections that were urged against you. The ostensible reason was that it was best to make some alteration annually at least of two of the members; with respect to me, they urged, I should be wanted in the County of Suffolk & that my presence there could not be dispensed with; with respect to you It was said you was appointed a judge of the Superior Court & it was necessary you should be in the province; however with respect to both of us there were, as I am Informed, some low dirty arts made use of privately with some of the new members insinuating that we were timid cautious irresolute & so not fit to answer their purpose in the present day. However I have endeavoured to vindicate your Character & have said what I thought was just & proper with respect to your Conduct at the Congress, & you may depend upon the Continuance of my Freindship.

Cushing’s political career was far from over. He still wielded considerable power in Massachusetts as a leader on the Council, and he was still allied to the province’s most popular politician.

TOMORROW: The words of Chairman Hancock.

Following the Freedom 250 Money

Back in September 2025, I passed on news of how a Trump adherent had tried to gain control of the messaging of America250, the congressionally-chartered organization celebrating the Sestercentennial, and gotten fired.

The Trump White House then converted its Task Force 250 initiative within the Department of Defense to become Freedom 250, its own Sestercentennial organization controlled by the executive branch.

The administration had already diverted nearly $14 million from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to America250 for “Freedom Trucks.” But then those became Freedom 250 vehicles, and about $10 million was rerouted in that direction.

In November 2025, the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service asked its congressionally-designated nonprofit partner, the National Park Foundation, to set up a conduit for funds for Freedom 250. The foundation established a subsidiary, Freedom 250 L.L.C., headed by a veteran of the first Trump administration.

Freedom 250 L.L.C. is funded mostly with taxpayer money. The New Republic cites testimony to the House Natural Resources Committee from the N.P.F.’s chief executive officer: “The majority of Freedom 250’s operating funds come from federal funds appropriated by Congress specifically for the 250th anniversary commemorations.” Mother Jones says that was in the form of a grant “to the tune of $86 million so far, that won’t expire until the end of 2028.”

Of course, this administration isn’t shy about asking corporations and people for more money. In 2025 the Secretary of the Interior appointed the National Finance Director for Trump’s 2024 campaign, Meredith O’Rourke, to the N.P.F. board. In February 2026, the New York Times reported that O’Rourke was “amassing private donations for Freedom 250,” promising big donors “bespoke packages” like private receptions with the President. That leaves the N.P.F.’s website assuring its donors, “Individual and corporate partner donations made to the National Park Foundation are not utilized for Freedom 250 events.”

Wendy Siegelman at NewsTRACS just noted a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from the Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns the online social network Truth Social. For some reason, it’s trying to merge with a company pursuing fusion power. O’Rourke is also on the board of Trump Media.

Trump Media’s new filing discloses that it’s billed Freedom 250 L.L.C. $350,000 for advertising Sestercentennial events. Back in July, Meidas News reported that Freedom 250 was promoting its “2026 Patriot Games scholarship competition” on Truth Social.

That competition for high-school athletes ended with two students each receiving a scholarship worth $125,000.

More money went to Donald J. Trump. The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust owns a little over 40% of Trump Media, so Freedom 250 L.L.C.’s ad buy, using money mostly collected from taxpayers, put over $140,000 into the President’s pocket.