In Popular Culture
Rutledge was a main character in the musical play 1776, in which he sings the song "Molasses to Rum" about slavery and the Triangle Trade. He is depicted as the secondary antagonist in the play in obstructing John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Rutledge was portrayed by Clifford David in the original Broadway production, and John Cullum in the 1972 film. 1776 claims that Rutledge led the opposition to an anti-slavery clause in the original draft of the Declaration. Rutledge's leadership against the clause is completely fictional. According to Jefferson, the clause was opposed by South Carolina and Georgia, plus unspecified "northern brethren"; that is the limit of known information about opposition to the clause. Rutledge was a delegate from South Carolina, but there is not one item of evidence in the historical record that he played any part—much less that of leader—in the opposition to the clause.
In the 2008 miniseries John Adams, Rutledge was portrayed by Clancy O'Connor.
Read more about this topic: Edward Rutledge
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:
“Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.”
—Anonymous. Popular saying.
Dating from World War I—when it was used by U.S. soldiers—or before, the saying was associated with nightclub hostess Texas Quinan in the 1920s. It was the title of a song recorded by Sophie Tucker in 1927, and of a Cole Porter musical in 1929.
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)