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The United States has a complicated history when it comes to ideas of empire and imperialism. Since it\u2019s earliest days, the United States has wanted the power that came with being an empire even while declaring its distaste for them.

Therefore, it should not be surprising that the man who drafted the Declaration of Independence, which severed the 13 American colonies\u2019 ties to the most powerful empire in the mid-to-late 18th-century world, also had strong views about empire: Thomas Jefferson wanted the United States to become a great and vast \u201cEmpire of Liberty.\u201d

Frank Cogliano, a Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh and author of Emperor of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson\u2019s Foreign Policy, joins us to explore how Thomas Jefferson came to be a supporter and promoter of empires.

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Show Notes:\xa0https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/131

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