It’s easy to look back at 2002-era PBS cartoons with a bit of a "yeah, that was for school" shrug. But honestly? Liberty’s Kids Episode 3, titled "United We Stand," hits different when you watch it as an adult—or even as a kid who is actually paying attention to the high-stakes politics of 1775. This isn't just a half-hour of filler. It’s the moment where the show stops being a travelogue of Colonial Philadelphia and starts being a tense political thriller about whether the American experiment would even get off the ground.
You've probably seen the meme of the "Join, or Die" snake. Well, this is the episode where that imagery moves from a printing press to the reality of the First Continental Congress. It’s gritty. It's messy. It's basically "House of Cards" but with tri-corner hats and much better intentions.
The Continental Congress wasn't a party
People tend to think the Founding Fathers all sat down, grabbed some feathers, and immediately agreed that King George III was the worst. That’s a total myth. "United We Stand" does a great job of showing how much these guys actually hated each other’s ideas.
Basically, you had a room full of guys who didn't even identify as "Americans" yet. They were Virginians. They were New Yorkers. They were Pennsylvanians. In Liberty’s Kids Episode 3, we see the friction between the radicals like John Adams and the more cautious delegates who were terrified that a war with Britain would mean total economic ruin. Or, you know, getting hanged for treason.
Sarah Phillips, the show’s resident British loyalist (at least at this point), acts as our window into the confusion. She’s coming from a world where the King is the literal center of the universe. To her, what’s happening in Philadelphia isn't a "revolution"—it’s a riot. James Hiller, on the other hand, is the firebrand. This episode is where their ideological clashing really starts to mean something. It’s not just "you’re wrong," it’s "people are going to die because of these decisions."
John Adams and the fight for a name
One of the coolest details they snuck into the script is the focus on the "declaration of rights." It wasn't about independence yet. Not officially. It was about defining what it meant to be an Englishman living in the colonies.
The episode highlights how Benjamin Franklin—voiced by the legendary Walter Cronkite—had to play the role of the ultimate diplomat. While the younger guys were shouting, Franklin was the one trying to glue the colonies together. He knew that if they didn't act as one unit, the British would just pick them off one by one. The stakes were incredibly high. If the Congress had failed in this episode, there would be no United States. Just a bunch of failed British colonies and a lot of executions.
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Why the "Join, or Die" snake matters here
You see the cartoon snake everywhere in the show, but in this specific episode, it becomes a literal survival guide.
- The head represents New England.
- The tail represents the Carolinas.
- The middle bits? All the colonies in between.
The show uses the printing shop—where Sarah, James, and Henri work—to explain that if the snake is cut into pieces, it dies. It’s a simple metaphor, sure, but it captures the sheer anxiety of the 1770s. Honestly, it’s a miracle they agreed on anything. The episode shows us the delegates signing the "Continental Association," which was basically a massive boycott of British goods. It sounds boring on paper, but in the show, it feels like a declaration of war without the gunpowder.
The human side of the revolution
Most history books treat the Continental Congress like a series of oil paintings. Liberty’s Kids Episode 3 treats it like a crowded, sweaty room full of stressed-out men.
The animation might be a bit dated by today's standards, but the voice acting carries the weight. You feel the tension. You see the fear in the characters' eyes. It’s not a foregone conclusion to them. They didn't know they were going to win. They didn't even know if George Washington was going to be the guy yet.
There's a specific scene where the reality of the boycott starts to set in. It meant no tea. No fancy clothes. No imported tools. For the average person in 1774, this was a massive life change. The show doesn't gloss over the fact that some people were really angry about the disruption. It gives a voice to the Loyalists, which is something a lot of American history media fails to do. It makes the conflict feel three-dimensional.
Henri: The comic relief with a heart
We have to talk about Henri. He’s the young French immigrant who mostly provides the jokes, but even he starts to pick up on the gravity of the situation in this episode. While he's usually chasing a pig or looking for a snack, his perspective as an "outsider" helps the audience understand how weird this all looked to the rest of the world. Why would these people give up the protection of the greatest empire on Earth?
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What most people get wrong about this episode
A lot of folks skip the early episodes to get to the "big" stuff like the Boston Tea Party or the Battle of Yorktown. That’s a mistake. "United We Stand" is the foundation.
If you don't understand the political maneuvering shown here, the later battles don't make sense. The war wasn't won just with muskets; it was won because these guys managed to stay in the same room long enough to sign a piece of paper. The episode does a fantastic job of explaining the Suffolk Resolves, which basically told the British "we aren't paying for the tea you dumped, and we're going to start training our own militias."
This was the point of no return.
Watching it in 2026
It’s wild how relevant this still feels. The idea of people from completely different backgrounds trying to find common ground is pretty much the most "American" thing there is. Looking back at Liberty’s Kids Episode 3, you realize that the showrunners weren't just making a cartoon for kids—they were making a primer on democracy.
The show was produced by DIC Entertainment, and they actually had a team of historical consultants to make sure they weren't just making stuff up. While some of the dialogue is obviously modernized so we can understand it, the core events—the meeting at Carpenters' Hall, the debates over the boycott, and the rising temperature in the streets—are all based on the real journals and records of the time.
How to use this episode for learning
If you're a teacher, a parent, or just a history nerd, don't just watch the episode and move on. There’s a lot to unpack.
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First, look at the geography. The show emphasizes how long it took for news to travel. When we see characters waiting for letters from other colonies, it highlights why unity was so hard. You couldn't just send a text. You had to wait weeks for a guy on a horse to tell you if Virginia was still on board.
Second, pay attention to Sarah’s letters. Her character is a brilliant device because she writes to her mother back in England. This allows the show to explain "why" things are happening without it feeling like a boring lecture. We hear her internal struggle, which represents the struggle of thousands of real people who felt torn between their home and their new life.
Key takeaways from Episode 3:
- Unity was not a given; it was a desperate, hard-fought compromise.
- The First Continental Congress was about legal rights, not just "freedom" in a vague sense.
- Economic warfare (the boycott) preceded the actual shooting war.
- Public opinion was split, with many people like Sarah wanting to stay loyal to the Crown.
Actionable insights for your next watch
If you want to get the most out of your rewatch or your first time seeing it, keep an eye on the background characters. The show is great at showing the "common people" in the streets of Philadelphia. Notice how their clothes and their attitudes change as the political tension ramps up.
Practical next steps
- Compare with the actual journals: If you're really feeling adventurous, look up the Journals of the Continental Congress online. You can find the actual text of the documents they discuss in the show. It’s fascinating to see how the "cartoon version" stacks up against the real, dense legal language of the 1700s.
- Map it out: Get a map of the original 13 colonies and trace how far the delegates had to travel to get to Philadelphia. It puts the "United We Stand" theme into a physical perspective.
- Check out the soundtrack: The theme song (performed by Aaron Carter, believe it or not) sets the tone, but the incidental music in this episode is actually quite good at building that "conspiracy" vibe.
The real power of Liberty’s Kids Episode 3 is that it reminds us that the United States wasn't inevitable. It was a choice. A really difficult, dangerous choice made by people who were mostly just hoping they wouldn't get killed for it. Whether you're 8 or 80, that's a story worth paying attention to. It’s the moment the colonies stopped being thirteen separate entities and started, however tentatively, to become a country.
The episode ends not with a victory, but with a sense of "okay, now what?" That’s the most honest way to portray history. There were no fireworks yet. Just a lot of work ahead and the cold realization that life would never be the same again. It’s an essential piece of the Liberty's Kids run and arguably the best "classroom" episode the series ever produced.
Sources and Further Reading:
For those looking to verify the history, check out the archives at the National Constitution Center or the Library of Congress digital collections regarding the 1774 First Continental Congress. These sources provide the primary documents that inspired the scripts for this series.