A Brilliant Solution with Carol Berkin

In the summer of 1787, 55 delegates assembled at Philadelphia to write a new Constitution for the new United States of America.  The document that was finally agreed upon on September 15, 1787 was not without controversy.  The completed document was filled with compromises, particularly around how representation would be calculated, and lacked a Bill of Rights.  Join Professor Robert Allison & Revolution 250 Executive Director Jonathan Lane in conversation with Professor Carol Berkin, Baruch Presidential Professor emerita at the City University of New York on her book A Brilliant Solution; Inventing the American Constitution.

Transcript

WEBVTT
 
 00:00:02.158 --> 00:00:03.080
 Hello, everyone.
 
 00:00:03.180 --> 00:00:05.761
 Welcome to the Revolution 250 podcast.
 
 00:00:06.262 --> 00:00:08.023
 Rev 250 is a collaboration
 
 00:00:08.083 --> 00:00:09.646
 among about 70 groups in
 
 00:00:09.686 --> 00:00:10.946
 Massachusetts planning
 
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 commemorations of the
 
 00:00:12.288 --> 00:00:13.728
 beginnings of American independence.
 
 00:00:14.349 --> 00:00:17.032
 And our guest today is Carol Birkin,
 
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 who is the Presidential
 
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 Professor of History
 
 00:00:20.214 --> 00:00:22.135
 Emerita at Baruch College
 
 00:00:22.317 --> 00:00:24.739
 and at the Graduate Center at CUNY,
 
 00:00:24.798 --> 00:00:26.179
 the City University of New York,
 
 00:00:26.757 --> 00:00:29.239
 author of a number of extraordinary books.
 
 00:00:29.278 --> 00:00:30.239
 Your first book was actually
 
 00:00:30.259 --> 00:00:31.178
 about a Massachusetts
 
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 loyalist named Jonathan Sewell.
 
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 Yes.
 
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 And a biography of Elizabeth
 
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 Patterson Bonaparte,
 
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 someone of wondrous beauty,
 
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 as well as two of the
 
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 really essential books on
 
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 teaching colonial America
 
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 and the Revolution,
 
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 First Generations and
 
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 Revolutionary Mothers.
 
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 And your new book is The Sovereign People,
 
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 about the 1790s.
 
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 But what we're going to talk
 
 00:00:54.286 --> 00:00:55.326
 about today is your
 
 00:00:56.192 --> 00:00:57.692
 book on the Constitution,
 
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 A Brilliant Solution,
 
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 Creating the American Constitution.
 
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 So thanks so much for joining us.
 
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 Happy to be here.
 
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 And actually, before we got on,
 
 00:01:07.015 --> 00:01:08.036
 we were just talking about
 
 00:01:08.055 --> 00:01:09.096
 there's an effort underway
 
 00:01:09.135 --> 00:01:11.876
 here to memorialize Mercy Otis Warren.
 
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 And there is a statue of her
 
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 in Barnstable on Cape Cod.
 
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 And there's a group here
 
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 planning to memorialize her.
 
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 And you had someone else
 
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 that you thought should be
 
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 a good candidate for our
 
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 historical reconsideration,
 
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 and that's Judith Sargent Murray.
 
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 Yes, yes.
 
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 Not to replace Mercier de Soir,
 
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 and I think there should be
 
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 statues of scores of women
 
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 from Massachusetts and
 
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 around the country.
 
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 In New York City, in the park,
 
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 Central Park,
 
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 they think one statue with
 
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 three women is sufficient
 
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 forever and ever and ever.
 
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 I hope you won't feel that
 
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 way in Massachusetts.
 
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 Judith Sargent Murray is the
 
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 author of a series of
 
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 essays called the Gleaner Essays,
 
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 in which she lays down
 
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 practically everything that
 
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 in the 19th century will become political
 
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 fodder for the women.
 
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 She says women are not less
 
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 intelligent than men.
 
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 They are simply undereducated.
 
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 She's just an interesting woman.
 
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 She has a wonderful exchange with a friend,
 
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 and she's talking about the
 
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 biblical story of Adam and Eve.
 
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 which was interpreted in
 
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 Massachusetts in the 18th
 
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 century as proof that women
 
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 were dangerous if left
 
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 under the control of men.
 
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 And she writes, she says,
 
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 I don't understand.
 
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 I'm paraphrasing.
 
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 I don't understand why they
 
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 say that women are morally
 
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 less strong than men.
 
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 After all,
 
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 it took all the wiles of Satan
 
 00:02:53.513 --> 00:02:54.373
 as a serpent
 
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 to get Eve to eat from the
 
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 Tree of Knowledge,
 
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 but all Eve had to do was say, here, Adam,
 
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 have a bite, and he did.
 
 00:03:04.862 --> 00:03:05.483
 I mean,
 
 00:03:05.723 --> 00:03:09.866
 she's got a light touch about
 
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 various subjects, which I admire.
 
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 So I nominate her for the nomination.
 
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 Thank you.
 
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 Well, thank you, and a wonderful writer,
 
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 and we're always looking
 
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 for new things to discover.
 
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 Which gets us to a brilliant solution.
 
 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:26.681
 It seems like everything
 
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 that could have been
 
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 written about the
 
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 Constitutional Convention had been,
 
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 but your book really brings this to life.
 
 00:03:32.365 --> 00:03:32.485
 Now,
 
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 what made you turn to the
 
 00:03:34.366 --> 00:03:35.627
 Constitutional Convention?
 
 00:03:36.348 --> 00:03:36.548
 Well,
 
 00:03:36.647 --> 00:03:41.091
 I've been teaching this era for years.
 
 00:03:41.390 --> 00:03:44.073
 And when you do that for decades,
 
 00:03:44.112 --> 00:03:45.593
 you begin to build up a
 
 00:03:45.653 --> 00:03:48.075
 sort of your understanding
 
 00:03:48.135 --> 00:03:49.197
 and interpretation.
 
 00:03:49.693 --> 00:03:51.134
 And the thing that troubled
 
 00:03:51.194 --> 00:03:53.697
 me always was either God
 
 00:03:53.757 --> 00:03:56.419
 wrote the Constitution, you know,
 
 00:03:57.860 --> 00:03:59.203
 you could see his hand in
 
 00:03:59.223 --> 00:04:00.044
 the Constitution,
 
 00:04:00.544 --> 00:04:01.906
 as in the Ten Commandments,
 
 00:04:02.926 --> 00:04:08.772
 or a kind of somber look at these heroic,
 
 00:04:09.293 --> 00:04:10.693
 perfect men.
 
 00:04:12.793 --> 00:04:15.076
 When I go down to the Constitution Center,
 
 00:04:15.137 --> 00:04:16.459
 I always say they look like
 
 00:04:16.540 --> 00:04:18.723
 statues waiting for pigeons
 
 00:04:18.884 --> 00:04:20.307
 to settle on their shoulders.
 
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 And I thought, I mean, this was exciting.
 
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 incredible anxious,
 
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 nervous time when they did
 
 00:04:31.098 --> 00:04:32.738
 not know whether they could
 
 00:04:32.819 --> 00:04:33.879
 save the country.
 
 00:04:34.358 --> 00:04:36.240
 And that was really what I wanted.
 
 00:04:37.079 --> 00:04:38.660
 I wanted to make them human
 
 00:04:39.261 --> 00:04:40.920
 instead of superheroes.
 
 00:04:41.321 --> 00:04:46.002
 I wanted to capture that tension.
 
 00:04:46.641 --> 00:04:47.802
 They thought the country was
 
 00:04:47.843 --> 00:04:48.822
 about to disappear.
 
 00:04:49.975 --> 00:04:53.184
 And they were meeting to try to save it.
 
 00:04:53.786 --> 00:04:55.430
 And the last thing that
 
 00:04:56.091 --> 00:04:57.677
 really motivated me was
 
 00:04:59.473 --> 00:05:02.173
 The idea that they knew as
 
 00:05:02.293 --> 00:05:04.194
 they wrote the Constitution
 
 00:05:04.274 --> 00:05:05.894
 that the country would rise
 
 00:05:05.975 --> 00:05:07.654
 to be the most powerful
 
 00:05:07.735 --> 00:05:09.115
 country in the world and
 
 00:05:09.196 --> 00:05:11.735
 everything would be fine, not at all.
 
 00:05:12.415 --> 00:05:13.696
 Benjamin Franklin says,
 
 00:05:13.815 --> 00:05:16.836
 if this Constitution lasts 10 years,
 
 00:05:17.156 --> 00:05:18.396
 we'll have done our duty.
 
 00:05:18.997 --> 00:05:21.817
 So it's a little poke, I guess,
 
 00:05:21.898 --> 00:05:23.658
 at originalists who think
 
 00:05:23.718 --> 00:05:26.918
 that these men saw into the future.
 
 00:05:27.218 --> 00:05:28.139
 The only vision...
 
 00:05:28.663 --> 00:05:30.584
 the convention was Hamilton.
 
 00:05:31.363 --> 00:05:33.903
 Hamilton indeed was thinking
 
 00:05:33.983 --> 00:05:34.904
 about the future.
 
 00:05:36.204 --> 00:05:38.365
 So those things, when someone said,
 
 00:05:38.406 --> 00:05:39.826
 would you like to write a book?
 
 00:05:41.886 --> 00:05:42.526
 I said, yes.
 
 00:05:47.827 --> 00:05:51.149
 You do a very good job with
 
 00:05:51.408 --> 00:05:53.790
 the characters in this.
 
 00:06:03.216 --> 00:06:06.600
 I wanted to make them, they were,
 
 00:06:06.860 --> 00:06:08.661
 they had lots of quirks and
 
 00:06:08.862 --> 00:06:10.182
 eccentricities.
 
 00:06:10.923 --> 00:06:14.826
 They were sinners, not saints.
 
 00:06:15.588 --> 00:06:19.911
 They were more than anything else.
 
 00:06:20.653 --> 00:06:22.574
 They were men who did not
 
 00:06:22.834 --> 00:06:24.315
 suffer from hubris.
 
 00:06:25.461 --> 00:06:28.142
 which is common today.
 
 00:06:28.163 --> 00:06:30.785
 They didn't think that they
 
 00:06:30.845 --> 00:06:32.427
 were all geniuses.
 
 00:06:32.526 --> 00:06:35.088
 They weren't sure they could
 
 00:06:35.329 --> 00:06:36.410
 pull this thing off.
 
 00:06:41.444 --> 00:06:44.386
 They knew that they had all
 
 00:06:44.425 --> 00:06:47.468
 the foibles that human beings could have,
 
 00:06:47.867 --> 00:06:49.108
 and they accepted that.
 
 00:06:50.168 --> 00:06:51.269
 And that's what I wanted.
 
 00:06:51.290 --> 00:06:52.990
 I wanted everybody to know
 
 00:06:53.091 --> 00:06:54.651
 that Luther Martin was an
 
 00:06:54.730 --> 00:06:57.632
 alcoholic and that there
 
 00:06:57.653 --> 00:06:58.913
 were obese men at the
 
 00:06:58.992 --> 00:07:00.553
 convention and that Oliver
 
 00:07:00.634 --> 00:07:03.956
 Ellsworth was a snuff addict.
 
 00:07:04.216 --> 00:07:06.557
 He was surrounded constantly by this
 
 00:07:07.747 --> 00:07:09.629
 cloud of dust from the smoke,
 
 00:07:10.028 --> 00:07:10.809
 from the stuff that
 
 00:07:10.850 --> 00:07:12.569
 reminded me of Pigpen and
 
 00:07:13.071 --> 00:07:14.350
 Charlie Brown's comics.
 
 00:07:14.370 --> 00:07:16.971
 I mean, they were, they were,
 
 00:07:17.533 --> 00:07:19.793
 James Madison was a hypochondriac.
 
 00:07:21.213 --> 00:07:23.815
 Almost repeatedly, he would write,
 
 00:07:24.076 --> 00:07:26.156
 I've come down with some strange disease.
 
 00:07:26.257 --> 00:07:27.416
 I don't know if I'll live.
 
 00:07:27.437 --> 00:07:27.997
 And he lived.
 
 00:07:28.038 --> 00:07:29.057
 Gunning Bedford.
 
 00:07:30.259 --> 00:07:31.519
 For a long time.
 
 00:07:31.678 --> 00:07:34.641
 So I think that
 
 00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:38.543
 I think seeing them as human
 
 00:07:38.624 --> 00:07:42.069
 beings is helpful for us to
 
 00:07:42.228 --> 00:07:45.454
 understand what an amazing thing they did,
 
 00:07:45.473 --> 00:07:45.533
 was.
 
 00:08:06.396 --> 00:08:08.598
 Professor, while we, oh, there he is.
 
 00:08:09.437 --> 00:08:10.017
 He's back.
 
 00:08:10.278 --> 00:08:10.937
 He's back.
 
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 I'm back.
 
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 I apologize.
 
 00:08:13.059 --> 00:08:14.559
 You do a great job with.
 
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 I can't hear the question.
 
 00:08:36.592 --> 00:08:38.094
 So Bob is wondering about
 
 00:08:38.573 --> 00:08:39.754
 Gouverneur Morris.
 
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 He is my favorite character
 
 00:08:46.259 --> 00:08:47.159
 at the convention.
 
 00:08:47.700 --> 00:08:50.522
 And people do not know about him.
 
 00:08:50.542 --> 00:08:51.363
 I mean,
 
 00:08:51.503 --> 00:08:53.464
 I want statues of Gouverneur Morris
 
 00:08:53.624 --> 00:08:54.184
 everywhere.
 
 00:08:54.924 --> 00:08:55.785
 He was
 
 00:08:57.339 --> 00:08:57.778
 one of the,
 
 00:08:58.600 --> 00:09:00.961
 he in fact wrote the Constitution.
 
 00:09:01.022 --> 00:09:02.162
 That is, at the end of,
 
 00:09:02.341 --> 00:09:05.083
 he was a marvelous writer, great stylist.
 
 00:09:05.684 --> 00:09:06.725
 And at the end of,
 
 00:09:07.485 --> 00:09:08.285
 when they had finished
 
 00:09:08.385 --> 00:09:09.767
 voting on everything they
 
 00:09:09.807 --> 00:09:10.988
 thought they had to vote on,
 
 00:09:11.048 --> 00:09:13.129
 they basically turned it over to him.
 
 00:09:13.830 --> 00:09:15.971
 And they said, do something with this.
 
 00:09:16.011 --> 00:09:17.192
 And it's Gouverneur Morris
 
 00:09:17.231 --> 00:09:20.534
 who gives us Article 1, Article 2,
 
 00:09:20.534 --> 00:09:21.054
 Article 3.
 
 00:09:21.054 --> 00:09:21.835
 That is,
 
 00:09:21.894 --> 00:09:24.957
 he makes order because they did
 
 00:09:25.018 --> 00:09:26.639
 not vote in that order.
 
 00:09:27.879 --> 00:09:29.841
 He makes order out of chaos.
 
 00:09:30.302 --> 00:09:32.323
 And he writes the preamble.
 
 00:09:32.844 --> 00:09:35.346
 He said they would have put
 
 00:09:35.667 --> 00:09:38.288
 what legislative bodies
 
 00:09:38.549 --> 00:09:40.991
 across colonial America would have put.
 
 00:09:42.087 --> 00:09:44.951
 we the people of New Hampshire,
 
 00:09:45.091 --> 00:09:46.173
 Connecticut.
 
 00:09:47.815 --> 00:09:48.735
 And he said, no,
 
 00:09:49.777 --> 00:09:52.219
 we've got to impress upon
 
 00:09:52.299 --> 00:09:53.821
 people that this is better
 
 00:09:53.900 --> 00:09:55.903
 than what we already have,
 
 00:09:55.964 --> 00:09:58.166
 better than the Articles of Confederation,
 
 00:09:58.285 --> 00:09:59.427
 good for the people.
 
 00:09:59.967 --> 00:10:02.070
 There are opponents to this whole thing.
 
 00:10:03.291 --> 00:10:05.133
 rampant across the country.
 
 00:10:05.753 --> 00:10:06.572
 So he says,
 
 00:10:06.813 --> 00:10:09.014
 we have to tell them what this
 
 00:10:09.095 --> 00:10:10.615
 constitution will do.
 
 00:10:11.135 --> 00:10:13.357
 And he's the one who writes the preamble.
 
 00:10:14.597 --> 00:10:18.780
 And at the convention, he, James Wilson,
 
 00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:20.942
 and Gouverneur Morris were
 
 00:10:20.961 --> 00:10:24.043
 the three dominating voices
 
 00:10:24.144 --> 00:10:24.965
 at the convention.
 
 00:10:25.504 --> 00:10:26.865
 Plus the fact that he's just
 
 00:10:26.926 --> 00:10:28.506
 such an interesting guy.
 
 00:10:28.527 --> 00:10:32.469
 He was very, very wealthy.
 
 00:10:33.149 --> 00:10:34.409
 He was unmarried.
 
 00:10:35.051 --> 00:10:36.551
 He loved women.
 
 00:10:37.011 --> 00:10:37.552
 And in fact,
 
 00:10:37.591 --> 00:10:38.893
 the women he loved the best
 
 00:10:38.972 --> 00:10:39.993
 were married women.
 
 00:10:41.726 --> 00:10:43.908
 And New England delegates or
 
 00:10:43.928 --> 00:10:45.410
 Massachusetts delegates
 
 00:10:45.951 --> 00:10:47.513
 were horrified by him
 
 00:10:48.113 --> 00:10:51.096
 because he made no bones about it.
 
 00:10:51.356 --> 00:10:55.880
 And a story spread that was
 
 00:10:55.941 --> 00:10:58.524
 completely erroneous that he,
 
 00:10:58.764 --> 00:11:00.385
 Gouverneur Morris had a peg leg.
 
 00:11:00.505 --> 00:11:01.846
 He had lost his leg when he
 
 00:11:01.886 --> 00:11:04.529
 was 13 years old in a carriage accident.
 
 00:11:06.225 --> 00:11:07.691
 I tell my students he must
 
 00:11:07.711 --> 00:11:08.874
 have had the most amazing
 
 00:11:08.934 --> 00:11:10.359
 pickup line in the world
 
 00:11:10.820 --> 00:11:12.525
 because he was homely as sin.
 
 00:11:13.806 --> 00:11:15.426
 He had big lips and from the
 
 00:11:15.485 --> 00:11:17.427
 side he looked a little bit like the fish,
 
 00:11:17.486 --> 00:11:18.106
 the grouper.
 
 00:11:18.706 --> 00:11:21.106
 He must have had quite a
 
 00:11:21.187 --> 00:11:23.768
 golden tongue because women loved him.
 
 00:11:24.628 --> 00:11:26.589
 And the rumor was spread
 
 00:11:27.109 --> 00:11:29.109
 that he had lost his leg
 
 00:11:29.769 --> 00:11:31.470
 jumping out of the boudoir
 
 00:11:31.549 --> 00:11:33.350
 window of his best friend's
 
 00:11:33.450 --> 00:11:34.490
 wife when the friend
 
 00:11:34.570 --> 00:11:38.610
 returned home unexpectedly.
 
 00:11:39.091 --> 00:11:40.530
 And the thing I really love
 
 00:11:40.571 --> 00:11:42.052
 about Gouverneur Morris is he said,
 
 00:11:42.072 --> 00:11:44.331
 that's a great story.
 
 00:11:44.591 --> 00:11:45.552
 Sure, why not?
 
 00:11:46.232 --> 00:11:48.293
 He was a bon vivant.
 
 00:11:48.432 --> 00:11:52.073
 He was a sophisticated man
 
 00:11:52.433 --> 00:11:53.934
 among men who were not so
 
 00:11:53.975 --> 00:11:57.634
 sophisticated and brilliant
 
 00:11:58.716 --> 00:12:00.196
 and really one of the great
 
 00:12:00.296 --> 00:12:03.716
 writers of America in the 18th century.
 
 00:12:06.081 --> 00:12:07.600
 And when it was all over,
 
 00:12:07.760 --> 00:12:09.182
 when the convention was over,
 
 00:12:10.543 --> 00:12:13.244
 he was the only one who did
 
 00:12:13.264 --> 00:12:15.565
 not immediately try to run for office.
 
 00:12:16.065 --> 00:12:17.225
 Everybody else was going to
 
 00:12:17.265 --> 00:12:17.905
 run for office.
 
 00:12:18.527 --> 00:12:20.827
 He said, I've had enough of politics.
 
 00:12:20.927 --> 00:12:22.208
 I'm paraphrasing for him.
 
 00:12:22.229 --> 00:12:23.729
 I've had enough of politics.
 
 00:12:23.808 --> 00:12:24.769
 I'm going to France.
 
 00:12:24.850 --> 00:12:26.431
 I hear the women are pretty there.
 
 00:12:26.451 --> 00:12:30.393
 It's just not really...
 
 00:12:34.933 --> 00:12:39.475
 He had a good view of himself.
 
 00:12:39.796 --> 00:12:42.277
 He did not take himself too seriously.
 
 00:12:42.897 --> 00:12:44.538
 And I would like people to
 
 00:12:44.638 --> 00:12:48.298
 acknowledge the contribution he made.
 
 00:12:48.399 --> 00:12:51.640
 Most people across America, I'm sure,
 
 00:12:51.660 --> 00:12:52.721
 have never heard of him.
 
 00:12:53.808 --> 00:12:54.068
 You know,
 
 00:12:54.149 --> 00:12:55.389
 it's interesting you should say
 
 00:12:55.409 --> 00:12:56.171
 that because one of the
 
 00:12:56.191 --> 00:12:58.272
 things I've often thought about is,
 
 00:12:58.351 --> 00:12:58.591
 you know,
 
 00:12:58.751 --> 00:12:59.852
 originally there were going to
 
 00:12:59.893 --> 00:13:02.495
 be 70 delegates at the
 
 00:13:02.654 --> 00:13:04.056
 Constitutional Convention.
 
 00:13:04.255 --> 00:13:05.697
 And most notably,
 
 00:13:06.398 --> 00:13:07.518
 some of the leading lights
 
 00:13:07.599 --> 00:13:08.938
 of the independence movement,
 
 00:13:09.159 --> 00:13:10.880
 Adams and Jefferson in particular,
 
 00:13:10.941 --> 00:13:11.341
 weren't there.
 
 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:12.221
 And I've often wondered...
 
 00:13:12.802 --> 00:13:13.001
 you know,
 
 00:13:13.101 --> 00:13:15.783
 whether scholars think that there
 
 00:13:15.903 --> 00:13:18.163
 was a real impact to that.
 
 00:13:18.183 --> 00:13:19.264
 But it sounds like with
 
 00:13:19.364 --> 00:13:20.923
 Morris and some of the others,
 
 00:13:21.465 --> 00:13:22.605
 you don't feel their
 
 00:13:22.684 --> 00:13:24.404
 absence was missed all that much.
 
 00:13:24.644 --> 00:13:24.884
 No,
 
 00:13:25.046 --> 00:13:26.865
 and the other interesting thing is some
 
 00:13:26.905 --> 00:13:27.905
 of the leaders of the
 
 00:13:27.966 --> 00:13:30.986
 Revolution purposely refused to attend.
 
 00:13:31.067 --> 00:13:33.967
 Samuel Adams would not go near it.
 
 00:13:34.327 --> 00:13:35.408
 Patrick Henry,
 
 00:13:35.788 --> 00:13:37.649
 who led the opposition to
 
 00:13:37.708 --> 00:13:38.808
 ratification of the
 
 00:13:38.869 --> 00:13:40.450
 Constitution in Virginia,
 
 00:13:41.794 --> 00:13:44.998
 These men believed, and I would argue,
 
 00:13:45.498 --> 00:13:48.139
 though I don't have statistics at hand,
 
 00:13:48.841 --> 00:13:49.821
 I would argue that the
 
 00:13:50.442 --> 00:13:53.864
 majority of Americans, American males,
 
 00:13:54.144 --> 00:13:54.924
 white males,
 
 00:13:55.985 --> 00:13:57.246
 thought that the revolution
 
 00:13:57.307 --> 00:13:59.808
 had been fought for the
 
 00:13:59.869 --> 00:14:02.390
 control of their state
 
 00:14:02.551 --> 00:14:04.192
 governments over their life,
 
 00:14:04.852 --> 00:14:07.115
 what we would call today states' rights.
 
 00:14:07.587 --> 00:14:09.188
 When they said no taxation
 
 00:14:09.229 --> 00:14:10.629
 without representation,
 
 00:14:10.668 --> 00:14:12.929
 they meant governments of
 
 00:14:13.149 --> 00:14:14.910
 men who lived where they lived,
 
 00:14:15.370 --> 00:14:17.371
 earned their living the way they did,
 
 00:14:18.032 --> 00:14:20.873
 men they knew the character of,
 
 00:14:21.332 --> 00:14:23.014
 and men they could watch
 
 00:14:23.214 --> 00:14:24.815
 carefully to make sure they
 
 00:14:24.875 --> 00:14:27.134
 didn't do anything tyrannical.
 
 00:14:27.735 --> 00:14:30.116
 So they opposed this
 
 00:14:30.397 --> 00:14:32.758
 national government that
 
 00:14:32.977 --> 00:14:34.697
 Patrick Henry was no dummy.
 
 00:14:34.778 --> 00:14:36.318
 He knew was going to
 
 00:14:37.576 --> 00:14:39.857
 take power away from the states.
 
 00:14:39.998 --> 00:14:41.678
 And so what's remarkable,
 
 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:43.000
 and Mercy Otis Warren
 
 00:14:43.039 --> 00:14:45.501
 opposed the Constitution.
 
 00:14:45.522 --> 00:14:47.003
 She went door to door
 
 00:14:48.342 --> 00:14:49.724
 canvassing against it.
 
 00:14:50.264 --> 00:14:53.385
 So it's not that they were reactionary,
 
 00:14:53.485 --> 00:14:54.486
 crazy people.
 
 00:14:55.047 --> 00:14:57.729
 It's that they had just
 
 00:14:57.828 --> 00:14:59.529
 fought against a distant
 
 00:14:59.950 --> 00:15:01.230
 centralized government.
 
 00:15:02.475 --> 00:15:03.936
 And what they wanted was
 
 00:15:03.996 --> 00:15:06.619
 basically when they would
 
 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:10.423
 imagine home rule, they meant their local,
 
 00:15:10.523 --> 00:15:11.783
 their state governments.
 
 00:15:12.264 --> 00:15:13.566
 And they did not want to
 
 00:15:13.686 --> 00:15:17.370
 establish a uber government
 
 00:15:17.730 --> 00:15:18.691
 over the whole thing.
 
 00:15:19.062 --> 00:15:19.942
 And I have to confess,
 
 00:15:20.001 --> 00:15:21.423
 I come from a long line of
 
 00:15:21.562 --> 00:15:23.783
 anti-federalist ancestors,
 
 00:15:23.903 --> 00:15:26.684
 so I certainly understand the argument.
 
 00:15:27.205 --> 00:15:29.985
 But as part of that, of course,
 
 00:15:30.645 --> 00:15:32.947
 is the power of the executive.
 
 00:15:33.768 --> 00:15:35.768
 And I'm wondering what your
 
 00:15:35.807 --> 00:15:37.969
 thoughts are in regards to
 
 00:15:38.288 --> 00:15:41.210
 the establishment of a
 
 00:15:41.629 --> 00:15:44.091
 primary executive role
 
 00:15:45.032 --> 00:15:46.912
 leading a federalist government.
 
 00:15:46.932 --> 00:15:47.952
 They did not.
 
 00:15:48.904 --> 00:15:49.985
 They did not think the
 
 00:15:50.025 --> 00:15:51.827
 presidency was that important.
 
 00:15:52.568 --> 00:15:54.051
 They thought it was a problem.
 
 00:15:54.071 --> 00:15:58.155
 For them, Congress, the legislature,
 
 00:15:58.255 --> 00:15:59.496
 the elected body.
 
 00:15:59.878 --> 00:16:01.078
 Remember, that's Article 1.
 
 00:16:02.365 --> 00:16:04.586
 That was the heart and soul
 
 00:16:04.626 --> 00:16:05.506
 of this government.
 
 00:16:06.028 --> 00:16:08.208
 And they fought like demons
 
 00:16:08.509 --> 00:16:11.029
 over how representation would take place,
 
 00:16:11.330 --> 00:16:12.870
 who had power and who didn't.
 
 00:16:13.431 --> 00:16:14.931
 The president was supposed
 
 00:16:14.951 --> 00:16:17.111
 to just administer the laws
 
 00:16:17.793 --> 00:16:22.254
 that Congress made.
 
 00:16:22.554 --> 00:16:23.894
 He was just supposed to see
 
 00:16:23.955 --> 00:16:29.577
 that they were turned into practice.
 
 00:16:31.202 --> 00:16:33.043
 The only reason they talked
 
 00:16:33.063 --> 00:16:36.125
 about the president twice
 
 00:16:36.625 --> 00:16:37.726
 at the very beginning when
 
 00:16:37.767 --> 00:16:38.847
 they couldn't decide how to
 
 00:16:38.868 --> 00:16:40.568
 get him elected, so they said, OK,
 
 00:16:40.589 --> 00:16:41.928
 let's go to something else,
 
 00:16:43.210 --> 00:16:44.051
 was that they couldn't
 
 00:16:44.130 --> 00:16:46.412
 figure out exactly that,
 
 00:16:46.591 --> 00:16:47.932
 how to elect the president.
 
 00:16:48.493 --> 00:16:49.673
 They were sure George
 
 00:16:49.754 --> 00:16:51.794
 Washington would be the first president.
 
 00:16:56.106 --> 00:16:58.048
 There was no national newspaper.
 
 00:16:58.408 --> 00:17:00.168
 There was no national media.
 
 00:17:00.609 --> 00:17:02.370
 If you lived in North Carolina,
 
 00:17:02.409 --> 00:17:03.770
 you had no idea what was
 
 00:17:03.831 --> 00:17:05.330
 happening in Massachusetts.
 
 00:17:05.431 --> 00:17:06.991
 If you lived in South Carolina,
 
 00:17:07.011 --> 00:17:07.811
 you didn't know what was
 
 00:17:07.872 --> 00:17:09.313
 happening in North Carolina.
 
 00:17:09.752 --> 00:17:11.114
 People didn't get a daily
 
 00:17:11.173 --> 00:17:13.414
 newspaper delivered to their doorstep.
 
 00:17:13.555 --> 00:17:15.996
 Many states didn't have newspapers.
 
 00:17:16.476 --> 00:17:18.217
 A lot of people didn't read.
 
 00:17:20.769 --> 00:17:22.289
 If you nominated someone
 
 00:17:22.329 --> 00:17:23.931
 besides George Washington,
 
 00:17:24.411 --> 00:17:25.412
 people would say, who?
 
 00:17:25.432 --> 00:17:28.053
 And what they knew was going
 
 00:17:28.113 --> 00:17:31.615
 to happen is that every
 
 00:17:31.835 --> 00:17:35.517
 state would nominate its own local hero.
 
 00:17:36.038 --> 00:17:38.159
 And so there would be 13 or
 
 00:17:38.159 --> 00:17:39.318
 14 or 17 or 19.
 
 00:17:39.318 --> 00:17:42.201
 And then how are you going to pick?
 
 00:17:43.281 --> 00:17:45.502
 James Wilson came up with this idea.
 
 00:17:46.374 --> 00:17:46.933
 crazy,
 
 00:17:47.054 --> 00:17:50.395
 complicated idea of the electoral college,
 
 00:17:50.955 --> 00:17:52.135
 which when I was a child,
 
 00:17:52.215 --> 00:17:54.096
 I thought was the electrical college.
 
 00:17:55.057 --> 00:17:58.719
 And he meant it as a kind of
 
 00:17:58.739 --> 00:18:03.319
 a stop gap because we can't
 
 00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:04.401
 think of anything else.
 
 00:18:05.500 --> 00:18:08.442
 And when he first proposed it, people said,
 
 00:18:08.563 --> 00:18:09.403
 oh, are you nuts?
 
 00:18:09.544 --> 00:18:11.865
 That's really not going to work.
 
 00:18:12.266 --> 00:18:14.346
 And then at the very end of the convention,
 
 00:18:14.386 --> 00:18:15.268
 they realized, oops,
 
 00:18:15.347 --> 00:18:17.148
 we haven't come up with a
 
 00:18:17.189 --> 00:18:18.549
 way to elect the president.
 
 00:18:18.609 --> 00:18:21.752
 And they adopted James Wilson's plan.
 
 00:18:22.898 --> 00:18:25.442
 And the reason that it was a
 
 00:18:26.782 --> 00:18:28.444
 structural problem more
 
 00:18:28.484 --> 00:18:30.926
 than anything else was that they said, OK,
 
 00:18:30.946 --> 00:18:32.648
 Washington will be the president.
 
 00:18:32.930 --> 00:18:34.030
 Who knows how long this
 
 00:18:34.090 --> 00:18:35.432
 government's going to last?
 
 00:18:36.032 --> 00:18:39.036
 And maybe someone will get
 
 00:18:39.096 --> 00:18:42.159
 to be known across the country,
 
 00:18:42.239 --> 00:18:43.840
 and the problem will be solved.
 
 00:18:46.371 --> 00:18:47.692
 It's interesting that, of course,
 
 00:18:47.731 --> 00:18:50.173
 here we are 200 plus years
 
 00:18:50.413 --> 00:18:51.354
 on and the Electoral
 
 00:18:51.394 --> 00:18:53.174
 College still looms large
 
 00:18:53.255 --> 00:18:55.215
 in our political system.
 
 00:18:55.516 --> 00:18:55.736
 Well,
 
 00:18:55.796 --> 00:18:58.718
 some of it is this absurd reverence
 
 00:18:58.897 --> 00:19:00.858
 for everything the framers did,
 
 00:19:00.939 --> 00:19:02.140
 and this is one of mine.
 
 00:19:03.279 --> 00:19:06.061
 They did not expect people
 
 00:19:06.622 --> 00:19:10.023
 to view the convention's
 
 00:19:10.104 --> 00:19:11.644
 decisions as the Bible.
 
 00:19:12.494 --> 00:19:13.316
 They said,
 
 00:19:13.576 --> 00:19:14.536
 we don't know what's going to
 
 00:19:14.576 --> 00:19:15.656
 happen in the future.
 
 00:19:16.017 --> 00:19:17.278
 We have no idea.
 
 00:19:17.678 --> 00:19:19.819
 And that's why they put in
 
 00:19:19.920 --> 00:19:21.540
 an amendment process.
 
 00:19:22.161 --> 00:19:22.741
 They said,
 
 00:19:23.221 --> 00:19:24.083
 I don't know what two
 
 00:19:24.143 --> 00:19:25.604
 generations down the line
 
 00:19:25.743 --> 00:19:27.444
 this country will need so
 
 00:19:27.484 --> 00:19:29.506
 they can change the Constitution.
 
 00:19:30.125 --> 00:19:30.707
 They were confused.
 
 00:19:31.701 --> 00:19:34.261
 they would be stunned at the
 
 00:19:34.362 --> 00:19:36.521
 originalist argument today.
 
 00:19:37.342 --> 00:19:38.981
 They didn't have that kind of hubris.
 
 00:19:39.021 --> 00:19:40.022
 They didn't have that kind
 
 00:19:40.063 --> 00:19:42.182
 of confidence in what they had done.
 
 00:19:42.643 --> 00:19:44.304
 They wanted the structure to
 
 00:19:44.403 --> 00:19:45.163
 stay the same.
 
 00:19:45.183 --> 00:19:46.243
 They thought that was pretty
 
 00:19:46.304 --> 00:19:47.124
 good because it was
 
 00:19:47.263 --> 00:19:49.325
 borrowed from England and
 
 00:19:49.384 --> 00:19:50.704
 from the state governments
 
 00:19:50.785 --> 00:19:52.305
 and from the colonial governments.
 
 00:19:52.384 --> 00:19:54.986
 It's absolutely nothing new.
 
 00:19:55.605 --> 00:19:57.645
 I love when my students say to me,
 
 00:19:58.526 --> 00:19:59.507
 checks and balances,
 
 00:19:59.547 --> 00:20:01.326
 the constitution invented that.
 
 00:20:03.683 --> 00:20:05.805
 rotation in office, the Constitution,
 
 00:20:06.565 --> 00:20:08.266
 independent judiciary.
 
 00:20:08.286 --> 00:20:08.326
 No!
 
 00:20:08.846 --> 00:20:11.145
 England had an independent judiciary.
 
 00:20:11.487 --> 00:20:13.707
 England had a bicameral government.
 
 00:20:14.146 --> 00:20:17.827
 England had checks on the king.
 
 00:20:19.128 --> 00:20:20.648
 The state governments all
 
 00:20:20.709 --> 00:20:23.130
 had governors and upper
 
 00:20:23.170 --> 00:20:25.690
 houses and lower houses and judiciaries.
 
 00:20:25.871 --> 00:20:27.431
 Even the colonial governments did.
 
 00:20:28.071 --> 00:20:30.913
 The only original thing in
 
 00:20:30.952 --> 00:20:34.174
 the Constitution is federalism.
 
 00:20:35.895 --> 00:20:36.675
 Federalism.
 
 00:20:37.217 --> 00:20:39.057
 And when Alexander Hamilton
 
 00:20:39.116 --> 00:20:40.798
 heard that they were going
 
 00:20:40.817 --> 00:20:42.739
 to have some powers were
 
 00:20:42.818 --> 00:20:44.920
 exclusively the federal governments,
 
 00:20:45.540 --> 00:20:47.922
 some powers were the state governments,
 
 00:20:48.241 --> 00:20:50.103
 and some powers they changed.
 
 00:20:51.020 --> 00:20:51.762
 Hamilton said,
 
 00:20:51.823 --> 00:20:53.867
 I like to think of him saying, oy vey.
 
 00:20:54.548 --> 00:20:57.336
 He got up and he said, this is never,
 
 00:20:57.615 --> 00:20:58.858
 never going to work.
 
 00:20:59.180 --> 00:20:59.520
 Never.
 
 00:21:00.215 --> 00:21:00.576
 He said,
 
 00:21:01.016 --> 00:21:03.477
 you have to have ultimate sovereignty.
 
 00:21:03.537 --> 00:21:05.336
 You have to have somebody,
 
 00:21:06.357 --> 00:21:08.938
 some body of government who has,
 
 00:21:09.038 --> 00:21:10.939
 and they all said, and of course,
 
 00:21:10.979 --> 00:21:11.439
 Hamilton,
 
 00:21:11.479 --> 00:21:13.239
 who was so not in touch with the
 
 00:21:13.278 --> 00:21:14.740
 popular mood,
 
 00:21:14.779 --> 00:21:17.119
 he had no understanding of what,
 
 00:21:17.220 --> 00:21:18.099
 and didn't care.
 
 00:21:18.119 --> 00:21:20.621
 He thought, I know what we ought to do.
 
 00:21:20.760 --> 00:21:22.201
 Shut up and let me do it.
 
 00:21:24.501 --> 00:21:24.902
 He said,
 
 00:21:25.142 --> 00:21:26.903
 the only solution is to just
 
 00:21:26.982 --> 00:21:28.202
 abolish the states.
 
 00:21:30.500 --> 00:21:31.501
 It's interesting because one
 
 00:21:31.521 --> 00:21:33.163
 of Washington's, you know,
 
 00:21:33.202 --> 00:21:33.943
 it's one of the things that
 
 00:21:33.963 --> 00:21:35.164
 I've come to really revere
 
 00:21:35.204 --> 00:21:36.386
 about Washington is his
 
 00:21:36.446 --> 00:21:38.388
 foresightedness in certain
 
 00:21:40.125 --> 00:21:40.866
 And in particular,
 
 00:21:40.906 --> 00:21:42.268
 one of the first general
 
 00:21:42.407 --> 00:21:43.367
 orders he issues when he
 
 00:21:43.407 --> 00:21:44.888
 comes up to Cambridge to
 
 00:21:44.949 --> 00:21:46.829
 take command is to
 
 00:21:47.130 --> 00:21:49.730
 encourage the officers and
 
 00:21:49.790 --> 00:21:53.853
 men to set state pride
 
 00:21:53.952 --> 00:21:56.054
 aside and to embrace the
 
 00:21:56.153 --> 00:21:58.174
 idea of being a united
 
 00:21:59.195 --> 00:22:00.876
 group of men fighting for
 
 00:22:01.037 --> 00:22:01.836
 rights and liberties.
 
 00:22:02.877 --> 00:22:03.657
 Absolutely.
 
 00:22:03.718 --> 00:22:07.240
 You know, when he became president,
 
 00:22:08.652 --> 00:22:10.814
 He understood his role.
 
 00:22:11.733 --> 00:22:13.736
 He understood that his job
 
 00:22:14.375 --> 00:22:16.337
 was to be the unifier.
 
 00:22:16.978 --> 00:22:18.859
 He understood that his job
 
 00:22:19.539 --> 00:22:21.761
 was to transform people who
 
 00:22:21.842 --> 00:22:24.284
 thought of themselves as Marylanders,
 
 00:22:24.884 --> 00:22:27.946
 Virginians, Connecticut men,
 
 00:22:28.267 --> 00:22:29.327
 as Americans.
 
 00:22:32.163 --> 00:22:34.204
 for a sovereign people,
 
 00:22:34.965 --> 00:22:38.728
 that is the task of his administration,
 
 00:22:39.307 --> 00:22:40.348
 is to do this.
 
 00:22:40.969 --> 00:22:44.611
 And that he did it earlier reflects,
 
 00:22:44.691 --> 00:22:45.211
 by the way,
 
 00:22:45.270 --> 00:22:46.711
 the fact that most of the men
 
 00:22:46.791 --> 00:22:48.032
 at the convention who were
 
 00:22:48.113 --> 00:22:49.354
 true nationalists,
 
 00:22:49.473 --> 00:22:50.933
 wanted to create a nation,
 
 00:22:51.575 --> 00:22:54.155
 had served in the Continental Army,
 
 00:22:54.676 --> 00:22:55.817
 and they had gone with
 
 00:22:55.876 --> 00:22:57.458
 Washington the length and
 
 00:22:57.597 --> 00:22:58.939
 breadth of the country.
 
 00:22:59.622 --> 00:23:01.805
 And they knew that people
 
 00:23:01.904 --> 00:23:05.549
 were alike in those various states.
 
 00:23:06.109 --> 00:23:07.771
 Unlike many people.
 
 00:23:08.113 --> 00:23:10.816
 Patrick Henry left Virginia once.
 
 00:23:10.855 --> 00:23:11.576
 He didn't like it.
 
 00:23:11.596 --> 00:23:12.178
 He came home.
 
 00:23:12.198 --> 00:23:13.920
 Right.
 
 00:23:15.891 --> 00:23:17.811
 Yeah, so you talk about, you know,
 
 00:23:17.832 --> 00:23:19.071
 so the president is there
 
 00:23:19.092 --> 00:23:20.232
 to unify everybody.
 
 00:23:20.692 --> 00:23:22.534
 The House of Representatives, of course,
 
 00:23:22.594 --> 00:23:23.294
 is the direct
 
 00:23:23.413 --> 00:23:24.755
 representatives of the people.
 
 00:23:25.055 --> 00:23:26.115
 And then you have the Senate.
 
 00:23:26.615 --> 00:23:29.037
 And there's some expression
 
 00:23:29.076 --> 00:23:31.597
 of concern about the chief
 
 00:23:31.657 --> 00:23:32.919
 executive officer sort of
 
 00:23:34.837 --> 00:23:36.499
 conspiring with the Senate
 
 00:23:38.059 --> 00:23:39.359
 in ways that may be
 
 00:23:39.420 --> 00:23:40.961
 detrimental to the rights
 
 00:23:41.020 --> 00:23:42.061
 and liberties of the people.
 
 00:23:42.102 --> 00:23:43.142
 So I didn't know if you
 
 00:23:43.162 --> 00:23:44.363
 wanted to comment on that a bit.
 
 00:23:44.403 --> 00:23:44.682
 Yes.
 
 00:23:44.923 --> 00:23:45.723
 First of all,
 
 00:23:47.065 --> 00:23:49.766
 the biggest defeat to the Nationalists,
 
 00:23:50.386 --> 00:23:52.028
 they wanted the Senate as
 
 00:23:52.147 --> 00:23:53.407
 well as the House to be
 
 00:23:53.468 --> 00:23:54.868
 based on population.
 
 00:23:54.888 --> 00:23:57.671
 They did not want the states
 
 00:23:58.509 --> 00:24:00.530
 who we have to all remember
 
 00:24:00.711 --> 00:24:02.351
 were the most powerful
 
 00:24:02.990 --> 00:24:04.332
 governments at the time.
 
 00:24:04.811 --> 00:24:06.252
 They didn't want the states
 
 00:24:06.373 --> 00:24:09.594
 to have a house in the government.
 
 00:24:10.874 --> 00:24:14.835
 They wanted representation by population.
 
 00:24:15.214 --> 00:24:16.796
 And when they lost that,
 
 00:24:17.368 --> 00:24:19.109
 when the small states said,
 
 00:24:19.210 --> 00:24:21.491
 you do that and we're out of here,
 
 00:24:22.212 --> 00:24:24.273
 we want someplace where the
 
 00:24:24.413 --> 00:24:25.674
 states are equal.
 
 00:24:26.435 --> 00:24:27.676
 When that happened,
 
 00:24:27.896 --> 00:24:30.358
 the Senate went to the states.
 
 00:24:31.400 --> 00:24:33.060
 There were no political parties.
 
 00:24:33.780 --> 00:24:35.502
 So this was the house that
 
 00:24:35.563 --> 00:24:37.344
 belonged to the state governments.
 
 00:24:38.125 --> 00:24:42.268
 And the worry was that it would become
 
 00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:44.761
 It was going to be made up
 
 00:24:44.821 --> 00:24:46.743
 of the richest men in America,
 
 00:24:46.804 --> 00:24:47.604
 they assumed,
 
 00:24:47.724 --> 00:24:50.105
 and the most powerful men in America.
 
 00:24:50.906 --> 00:25:00.493
 They were afraid of.
 
 00:25:00.614 --> 00:25:02.796
 I'm sorry to say they simply did not.
 
 00:25:03.355 --> 00:25:04.196
 They feared it.
 
 00:25:04.636 --> 00:25:06.759
 So they feared tyranny of the one.
 
 00:25:07.914 --> 00:25:09.557
 like a King George or a Caesar,
 
 00:25:10.156 --> 00:25:12.599
 tyranny of the many, the few,
 
 00:25:13.161 --> 00:25:14.902
 an oligarchy, the Senate.
 
 00:25:15.143 --> 00:25:16.824
 They were desperately afraid
 
 00:25:16.884 --> 00:25:19.227
 the Senate would in fact
 
 00:25:19.846 --> 00:25:22.029
 pick a president and the
 
 00:25:22.150 --> 00:25:24.092
 two bodies would come together.
 
 00:25:24.730 --> 00:25:26.010
 And the third thing that was
 
 00:25:26.090 --> 00:25:27.371
 a threat to the Republic
 
 00:25:27.411 --> 00:25:29.432
 was democracy or what they
 
 00:25:29.471 --> 00:25:30.711
 called mob rule.
 
 00:25:32.173 --> 00:25:34.814
 So the fear of the Senate
 
 00:25:34.933 --> 00:25:37.214
 was very real for many people.
 
 00:25:38.494 --> 00:25:39.935
 Even at the convention,
 
 00:25:40.175 --> 00:25:42.777
 they were decimated.
 
 00:25:42.936 --> 00:25:43.557
 Madison,
 
 00:25:43.596 --> 00:25:45.657
 who was a big nationalist at the time,
 
 00:25:46.157 --> 00:25:48.659
 was heartbroken that they
 
 00:25:48.699 --> 00:25:50.000
 had to give in about the
 
 00:25:50.019 --> 00:25:51.380
 Senate and let it be the
 
 00:25:51.420 --> 00:25:52.641
 House of the States.
 
 00:25:54.458 --> 00:25:54.718
 Yeah,
 
 00:25:54.938 --> 00:25:57.099
 and he was also very concerned about
 
 00:25:58.980 --> 00:26:02.743
 getting a congressional veto established,
 
 00:26:02.804 --> 00:26:05.286
 which he didn't quite receive either.
 
 00:26:05.746 --> 00:26:06.467
 Yeah, right.
 
 00:26:08.327 --> 00:26:10.209
 He was very disappointed
 
 00:26:10.308 --> 00:26:12.050
 that things had not gone
 
 00:26:12.070 --> 00:26:15.133
 uber nationalist.
 
 00:26:16.134 --> 00:26:19.076
 He, Gouverneur Morris, James Wilson,
 
 00:26:20.997 --> 00:26:22.077
 Alexander Hamilton,
 
 00:26:22.898 --> 00:26:25.720
 The men who were the tip of
 
 00:26:25.740 --> 00:26:27.681
 the spear of nationalism,
 
 00:26:29.321 --> 00:26:31.722
 many had not been born in America.
 
 00:26:33.104 --> 00:26:35.065
 They had served as military
 
 00:26:35.204 --> 00:26:37.165
 officers in the Continental Army.
 
 00:26:37.425 --> 00:26:39.767
 They had been educated abroad.
 
 00:26:40.186 --> 00:26:40.787
 In other words,
 
 00:26:40.906 --> 00:26:44.568
 they had a perspective on
 
 00:26:45.169 --> 00:26:48.191
 America that localists or
 
 00:26:48.290 --> 00:26:50.672
 provincialists did not have.
 
 00:26:51.469 --> 00:26:54.211
 And so Madison really wanted
 
 00:26:54.550 --> 00:26:58.833
 to cash in on this nationalist vision.
 
 00:26:59.512 --> 00:27:01.253
 And he only got so far.
 
 00:27:01.594 --> 00:27:01.994
 I mean,
 
 00:27:02.875 --> 00:27:05.016
 there were people there from
 
 00:27:05.876 --> 00:27:07.998
 especially the small states who said,
 
 00:27:08.938 --> 00:27:10.778
 if we do it by population,
 
 00:27:11.098 --> 00:27:12.380
 we're going to be smothered.
 
 00:27:12.958 --> 00:27:14.598
 Because the other big thing
 
 00:27:14.660 --> 00:27:16.740
 to remember is the states
 
 00:27:16.861 --> 00:27:19.002
 weren't all buddies with one another.
 
 00:27:19.703 --> 00:27:22.625
 They were competitors with one another.
 
 00:27:22.645 --> 00:27:24.248
 I mean,
 
 00:27:24.448 --> 00:27:26.269
 you only have to know that Maryland
 
 00:27:26.308 --> 00:27:28.211
 and Virginia had gunboats
 
 00:27:28.471 --> 00:27:32.134
 on the Potomac River and did each other.
 
 00:27:40.201 --> 00:27:42.644
 And Connecticut and New Jersey,
 
 00:27:43.284 --> 00:27:44.184
 it was rumored,
 
 00:27:44.526 --> 00:27:46.287
 were planning a joint
 
 00:27:46.428 --> 00:27:48.210
 attack on New York City.
 
 00:27:48.230 --> 00:27:52.954
 I mean, let us all get along was not yet.
 
 00:27:54.215 --> 00:27:54.476
 Well,
 
 00:27:54.576 --> 00:27:56.018
 and Rhode Island wouldn't even come
 
 00:27:56.038 --> 00:27:56.558
 to the table.
 
 00:27:56.818 --> 00:27:57.700
 Right, exactly.
 
 00:27:57.859 --> 00:27:58.980
 Rhode Island said we're not
 
 00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:01.403
 coming to that convention at all.
 
 00:28:02.746 --> 00:28:05.366
 Do you see that as the real
 
 00:28:05.406 --> 00:28:07.768
 divide in this constitutional convention,
 
 00:28:08.147 --> 00:28:09.208
 those sort of people who
 
 00:28:09.268 --> 00:28:11.028
 had a more worldly
 
 00:28:11.088 --> 00:28:12.930
 experience versus those who
 
 00:28:13.549 --> 00:28:14.430
 are a little bit, I mean,
 
 00:28:14.450 --> 00:28:15.590
 I know you say you can't
 
 00:28:15.691 --> 00:28:17.651
 define them as liberal and conservative,
 
 00:28:17.711 --> 00:28:19.731
 but is the real difference
 
 00:28:21.972 --> 00:28:24.693
 experience versus provincialism?
 
 00:28:25.773 --> 00:28:27.214
 Yes, I would say that.
 
 00:28:27.595 --> 00:28:30.278
 I would say that if you do
 
 00:28:30.377 --> 00:28:32.019
 the biographies at the back
 
 00:28:32.078 --> 00:28:33.220
 of A Brilliant Solution,
 
 00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:34.901
 I have biographies.
 
 00:28:37.083 --> 00:28:39.765
 People who have studied law
 
 00:28:39.805 --> 00:28:41.605
 in the inns of court in
 
 00:28:41.685 --> 00:28:44.167
 London have a different,
 
 00:28:44.288 --> 00:28:47.590
 or who were born in Ireland, have a,
 
 00:28:49.531 --> 00:28:50.153
 it's like when,
 
 00:28:51.201 --> 00:28:52.903
 uh astronauts say when you
 
 00:28:52.982 --> 00:28:55.104
 see the earth from up in
 
 00:28:55.144 --> 00:28:56.885
 the sky you see that we are
 
 00:28:57.086 --> 00:29:00.249
 one world that's the kind
 
 00:29:00.288 --> 00:29:01.769
 of analogy to what these
 
 00:29:01.849 --> 00:29:03.932
 men saw they said we can
 
 00:29:04.192 --> 00:29:07.154
 all be americans and that
 
 00:29:07.214 --> 00:29:09.477
 will be good for us but
 
 00:29:09.517 --> 00:29:11.959
 there were really people
 
 00:29:11.999 --> 00:29:14.441
 like patrick henry and others who said no
 
 00:29:16.311 --> 00:29:18.373
 I want to know by first name
 
 00:29:18.532 --> 00:29:20.972
 every person who decides to tax me.
 
 00:29:21.733 --> 00:29:23.534
 And you can't say that they
 
 00:29:23.594 --> 00:29:26.394
 were reactionary or conservative.
 
 00:29:26.795 --> 00:29:27.855
 You can just say that they
 
 00:29:27.914 --> 00:29:29.115
 had a different vision
 
 00:29:29.195 --> 00:29:35.157
 about what was best for the
 
 00:29:35.218 --> 00:29:36.317
 people in their state.
 
 00:29:37.403 --> 00:29:37.663
 You know,
 
 00:29:37.682 --> 00:29:39.683
 there's been an accusation that
 
 00:29:39.743 --> 00:29:41.224
 people in Massachusetts,
 
 00:29:41.365 --> 00:29:42.986
 everybody wanted to be a lawyer.
 
 00:29:43.046 --> 00:29:45.728
 And, you know, Adams famously says,
 
 00:29:46.147 --> 00:29:46.327
 you know,
 
 00:29:46.347 --> 00:29:48.650
 if you want to understand the
 
 00:29:48.690 --> 00:29:49.830
 founding of the country and
 
 00:29:50.090 --> 00:29:52.471
 the whole process of revolution,
 
 00:29:52.912 --> 00:29:54.653
 you really need to read the
 
 00:29:54.712 --> 00:29:56.134
 town meeting records and
 
 00:29:56.173 --> 00:29:57.755
 the correspondence to the
 
 00:29:57.815 --> 00:29:59.375
 committees of correspondence.
 
 00:29:59.435 --> 00:30:00.876
 And if you do that,
 
 00:30:01.277 --> 00:30:02.038
 one of the things I've
 
 00:30:02.077 --> 00:30:03.219
 discovered certainly is
 
 00:30:03.278 --> 00:30:05.240
 just how deeply deeply
 
 00:30:06.641 --> 00:30:09.182
 knowledgeable the people of
 
 00:30:09.202 --> 00:30:11.005
 the average Massachusetts
 
 00:30:11.045 --> 00:30:13.067
 resident was about their
 
 00:30:13.166 --> 00:30:14.347
 rights and liberties as
 
 00:30:14.448 --> 00:30:15.348
 expressed in all the
 
 00:30:15.368 --> 00:30:16.789
 British constitutional documents.
 
 00:30:16.990 --> 00:30:21.673
 Much more so than in most of the states.
 
 00:30:21.855 --> 00:30:23.915
 I mean, kudos to Massachusetts.
 
 00:30:24.557 --> 00:30:25.738
 It was not true.
 
 00:30:26.378 --> 00:30:28.039
 New York City, in New York,
 
 00:30:28.460 --> 00:30:31.022
 had two well-developed political parties.
 
 00:30:31.796 --> 00:30:32.916
 who swung votes,
 
 00:30:33.557 --> 00:30:35.377
 the Delanceys and the Livingstons.
 
 00:30:35.759 --> 00:30:36.778
 So they were in the
 
 00:30:36.838 --> 00:30:40.281
 forefront of the mess we have today.
 
 00:30:40.981 --> 00:30:42.202
 But Massachusetts,
 
 00:30:42.262 --> 00:30:44.044
 because of town meetings,
 
 00:30:45.765 --> 00:30:48.886
 people understood politics
 
 00:30:48.906 --> 00:30:50.188
 on the most basic level,
 
 00:30:50.528 --> 00:30:51.729
 something you are not going
 
 00:30:51.749 --> 00:30:54.730
 to see in Virginia or in
 
 00:30:55.530 --> 00:30:58.053
 North Carolina or in South Carolina.
 
 00:30:59.898 --> 00:31:01.500
 It is really a tribute to
 
 00:31:01.580 --> 00:31:03.763
 New England that they had
 
 00:31:04.545 --> 00:31:06.106
 that kind of structure.
 
 00:31:07.469 --> 00:31:08.711
 They were still fighting in
 
 00:31:08.770 --> 00:31:10.212
 Georgia and South Carolina
 
 00:31:10.292 --> 00:31:12.375
 about organizing counties
 
 00:31:12.655 --> 00:31:14.519
 in the west of their state.
 
 00:31:15.391 --> 00:31:16.951
 The people from the coast said, no,
 
 00:31:16.991 --> 00:31:18.133
 we don't need to do that.
 
 00:31:18.492 --> 00:31:20.815
 You can just pay your taxes and that's it.
 
 00:31:21.214 --> 00:31:22.756
 And the same in Pennsylvania.
 
 00:31:22.776 --> 00:31:22.976
 I mean,
 
 00:31:23.016 --> 00:31:25.897
 there were uprisings about how come
 
 00:31:25.958 --> 00:31:27.239
 we don't have any power.
 
 00:31:27.778 --> 00:31:29.720
 Whereas in Massachusetts, you really,
 
 00:31:29.779 --> 00:31:31.060
 even though Boston and
 
 00:31:31.101 --> 00:31:31.921
 Cambridge might have
 
 00:31:31.981 --> 00:31:33.521
 dominated economically,
 
 00:31:34.042 --> 00:31:35.063
 really had people who
 
 00:31:35.123 --> 00:31:36.163
 understood their rights.
 
 00:31:36.644 --> 00:31:37.904
 I think you're absolutely
 
 00:31:37.984 --> 00:31:39.006
 correct about that.
 
 00:31:39.611 --> 00:31:40.692
 Yeah, and so, I mean,
 
 00:31:40.731 --> 00:31:42.353
 I don't want to get too far
 
 00:31:42.493 --> 00:31:44.295
 along without talking about
 
 00:31:44.535 --> 00:31:47.778
 Elbridge Gerry, who, of course,
 
 00:31:47.917 --> 00:31:49.579
 looms large in Massachusetts,
 
 00:31:49.619 --> 00:31:51.520
 as well as the Constitutional Convention,
 
 00:31:51.740 --> 00:31:52.942
 and, you know,
 
 00:31:52.981 --> 00:31:55.304
 sort of counterpainting him
 
 00:31:55.384 --> 00:31:56.726
 against Charles Pinckney.
 
 00:31:56.746 --> 00:31:57.946
 And I think those are two
 
 00:31:58.007 --> 00:31:59.307
 interesting characters who
 
 00:32:00.048 --> 00:32:03.611
 really drive the debate on
 
 00:32:04.031 --> 00:32:05.192
 adopting the Constitution.
 
 00:32:05.413 --> 00:32:07.414
 Well, Elbridge Gerry...
 
 00:32:08.323 --> 00:32:10.003
 I like to say is the Ted
 
 00:32:10.105 --> 00:32:11.885
 Cruz of the 18th century.
 
 00:32:12.807 --> 00:32:15.348
 Nobody in politics liked him
 
 00:32:15.528 --> 00:32:16.609
 except John Adams.
 
 00:32:16.809 --> 00:32:19.251
 John Adams and he were very good friends.
 
 00:32:19.332 --> 00:32:20.272
 Birds of a feather.
 
 00:32:20.712 --> 00:32:20.992
 Yes.
 
 00:32:22.294 --> 00:32:22.775
 You're right.
 
 00:32:24.153 --> 00:32:26.455
 Gary was like a dog with a
 
 00:32:26.537 --> 00:32:28.499
 bone when he had a view.
 
 00:32:28.940 --> 00:32:30.762
 When I wrote about the Bill of Rights,
 
 00:32:31.282 --> 00:32:32.705
 you should read what
 
 00:32:32.786 --> 00:32:34.167
 members of Congress are
 
 00:32:34.208 --> 00:32:36.029
 saying about Elbridge, Gary.
 
 00:32:36.250 --> 00:32:37.633
 I mean, they came close to saying,
 
 00:32:37.692 --> 00:32:39.555
 if only we could throw them in the river,
 
 00:32:39.635 --> 00:32:40.036
 if only...
 
 00:32:40.797 --> 00:32:43.920
 When he had something he wanted done,
 
 00:32:44.980 --> 00:32:46.521
 nothing could stop him from
 
 00:32:46.622 --> 00:32:48.383
 standing up every 10
 
 00:32:48.383 --> 00:32:50.684
 minutes and repeating what he wanted.
 
 00:32:50.704 --> 00:32:52.666
 And people would say, no,
 
 00:32:52.866 --> 00:32:54.387
 we voted not to do that.
 
 00:32:54.488 --> 00:32:55.509
 No, I want you.
 
 00:32:55.929 --> 00:32:57.411
 He just was the most
 
 00:32:57.510 --> 00:32:59.491
 persistent and aggravating.
 
 00:32:59.832 --> 00:33:01.394
 My favorite quote was from
 
 00:33:01.513 --> 00:33:03.214
 one of the Federalists who said,
 
 00:33:03.875 --> 00:33:05.396
 we could have done this
 
 00:33:05.936 --> 00:33:08.419
 much faster if Elbridge
 
 00:33:08.538 --> 00:33:10.260
 Carey were not wearing
 
 00:33:10.780 --> 00:33:11.541
 not here.
 
 00:33:13.042 --> 00:33:14.304
 And I, you know,
 
 00:33:14.344 --> 00:33:16.185
 if you look at the XYZ affair,
 
 00:33:16.665 --> 00:33:19.907
 this goes beyond the rep, he destroyed.
 
 00:33:20.348 --> 00:33:23.050
 And the fact that he promised Adams,
 
 00:33:23.691 --> 00:33:24.951
 when people heard that he,
 
 00:33:25.212 --> 00:33:26.513
 Adams had appointed him to
 
 00:33:26.554 --> 00:33:28.154
 be one of the three commissioners,
 
 00:33:28.194 --> 00:33:29.516
 they went to Adams and said,
 
 00:33:29.655 --> 00:33:30.696
 are you crazy?
 
 00:33:31.017 --> 00:33:32.999
 The man doesn't get along with anyone.
 
 00:33:33.019 --> 00:33:33.078
 And
 
 00:33:33.479 --> 00:33:35.160
 And Adams replies, no,
 
 00:33:35.220 --> 00:33:36.760
 I had a long talk with him,
 
 00:33:37.280 --> 00:33:39.662
 and he promised to be a team player.
 
 00:33:39.961 --> 00:33:42.522
 Well, that lasted about 20 seconds.
 
 00:33:43.202 --> 00:33:46.164
 And he destroyed the whole
 
 00:33:46.605 --> 00:33:50.326
 possibility of a new treaty with France.
 
 00:33:51.027 --> 00:33:51.186
 Now,
 
 00:33:51.287 --> 00:33:56.068
 I know that he became lieutenant
 
 00:33:56.148 --> 00:33:58.089
 governor in Massachusetts.
 
 00:33:58.509 --> 00:33:59.029
 But, you know,
 
 00:33:59.069 --> 00:34:00.851
 when he came home from France,
 
 00:34:01.030 --> 00:34:02.652
 Massachusetts people threw
 
 00:34:02.711 --> 00:34:04.692
 stones at his carriage.
 
 00:34:05.073 --> 00:34:07.593
 They were not really very happy with him.
 
 00:34:08.134 --> 00:34:10.054
 So I guess he was rehabilitated.
 
 00:34:10.153 --> 00:34:11.034
 But honestly,
 
 00:34:12.255 --> 00:34:15.657
 he was absolutely the most
 
 00:34:15.757 --> 00:34:17.396
 obnoxious person I have
 
 00:34:17.556 --> 00:34:19.458
 ever gotten to write about.
 
 00:34:19.557 --> 00:34:20.458
 So I loved him.
 
 00:34:20.538 --> 00:34:22.739
 I mean, I love to write about characters.
 
 00:34:22.759 --> 00:34:23.418
 He was one.
 
 00:34:25.085 --> 00:34:25.525
 And of course,
 
 00:34:25.565 --> 00:34:26.746
 he's one of the names that
 
 00:34:26.786 --> 00:34:28.266
 comes down to us through history,
 
 00:34:28.367 --> 00:34:28.726
 you know,
 
 00:34:29.168 --> 00:34:30.708
 in talking about voting
 
 00:34:30.748 --> 00:34:32.449
 districts and things like that, you know,
 
 00:34:32.528 --> 00:34:34.108
 the whole idea of gerrymandering.
 
 00:34:34.690 --> 00:34:35.369
 What about Pinckney?
 
 00:34:36.929 --> 00:34:40.731
 Charles Pinckney was not the
 
 00:34:40.791 --> 00:34:43.413
 brightest bulb at the convention.
 
 00:34:43.813 --> 00:34:46.653
 You know, often people seem to think
 
 00:34:47.358 --> 00:34:49.539
 who I give talks to, or students,
 
 00:34:49.860 --> 00:34:52.280
 that everybody there was a genius.
 
 00:34:52.721 --> 00:34:54.262
 Oh, they were just such.
 
 00:34:55.083 --> 00:34:57.063
 There were maybe five men at
 
 00:34:57.103 --> 00:35:00.226
 the whole convention, Franklin, Wilson,
 
 00:35:02.447 --> 00:35:05.849
 Madison, Hamilton, and Gouverneur Mars.
 
 00:35:06.327 --> 00:35:07.168
 who were brilliant.
 
 00:35:07.889 --> 00:35:09.929
 Everybody else was rich,
 
 00:35:10.449 --> 00:35:11.791
 and that made a difference.
 
 00:35:12.371 --> 00:35:13.652
 They were educated.
 
 00:35:14.411 --> 00:35:17.193
 They had vast political experience.
 
 00:35:17.253 --> 00:35:18.394
 When you consider that
 
 00:35:18.514 --> 00:35:20.496
 Edmund Randolph was the
 
 00:35:20.635 --> 00:35:22.717
 governor of Virginia, the biggest,
 
 00:35:23.757 --> 00:35:29.105
 richest state in America, at 25,
 
 00:35:29.105 --> 00:35:31.188
 When they sat down at the dinner table,
 
 00:35:31.708 --> 00:35:32.730
 they were sitting with
 
 00:35:32.809 --> 00:35:34.211
 fathers and brothers and
 
 00:35:34.293 --> 00:35:38.077
 cousins who had been in political office.
 
 00:35:38.577 --> 00:35:40.101
 So they knew politics.
 
 00:35:40.221 --> 00:35:41.623
 They knew the rules of
 
 00:35:42.103 --> 00:35:43.545
 parliamentary procedure.
 
 00:35:43.965 --> 00:35:45.889
 They had political experience.
 
 00:35:46.429 --> 00:35:48.469
 They were well-educated,
 
 00:35:48.789 --> 00:35:51.271
 and so they were smarter, quote, quote,
 
 00:35:51.570 --> 00:35:53.452
 than the average person who
 
 00:35:54.251 --> 00:35:56.172
 did not have all those privileges.
 
 00:35:57.074 --> 00:35:59.173
 Charles Pinckney's a good example of that.
 
 00:35:59.193 --> 00:36:01.474
 He came from a distinguished family.
 
 00:36:02.576 --> 00:36:03.856
 He was a gentleman.
 
 00:36:06.476 --> 00:36:07.217
 He was no...
 
 00:36:10.623 --> 00:36:11.023
 In fact,
 
 00:36:11.342 --> 00:36:14.784
 he was just an average guy who had
 
 00:36:15.606 --> 00:36:18.246
 a very distinctive sense of
 
 00:36:18.306 --> 00:36:19.307
 his own honor.
 
 00:36:19.327 --> 00:36:21.528
 And when he went to France
 
 00:36:21.588 --> 00:36:23.650
 as the ambassador and they
 
 00:36:23.710 --> 00:36:25.351
 refused to acknowledge him
 
 00:36:26.251 --> 00:36:28.833
 and he came home with a
 
 00:36:28.952 --> 00:36:30.434
 chip on his shoulder that
 
 00:36:30.474 --> 00:36:33.815
 was huge and he went back
 
 00:36:33.896 --> 00:36:35.016
 with Elbridge Gerry and
 
 00:36:35.036 --> 00:36:36.356
 John Marshall and they
 
 00:36:36.416 --> 00:36:37.777
 couldn't achieve anything.
 
 00:36:38.347 --> 00:36:40.329
 I think what drove Charles
 
 00:36:40.568 --> 00:36:42.190
 Pinckney really for the
 
 00:36:42.231 --> 00:36:44.711
 rest of his life was anger
 
 00:36:45.192 --> 00:36:47.813
 at how he had been mistreated.
 
 00:36:49.775 --> 00:36:51.556
 And, you know,
 
 00:36:51.657 --> 00:36:53.418
 he went back to South
 
 00:36:53.458 --> 00:36:57.119
 Carolina and he was
 
 00:36:57.219 --> 00:36:59.222
 respected as a wealthy man.
 
 00:36:59.362 --> 00:37:01.202
 And I don't think he did much else.
 
 00:37:01.802 --> 00:37:03.925
 Gary, at least, you know,
 
 00:37:04.264 --> 00:37:06.186
 continued to be politically active.
 
 00:37:07.264 --> 00:37:08.068
 aggravating,
 
 00:37:08.168 --> 00:37:13.507
 but Pinkney just woe is me to himself.
 
 00:37:14.853 --> 00:37:17.273
 Well, in Massachusetts,
 
 00:37:18.054 --> 00:37:19.054
 being disgruntled at the
 
 00:37:19.114 --> 00:37:22.956
 French is part of our social makeup.
 
 00:37:23.297 --> 00:37:25.297
 So I can sympathize a little
 
 00:37:25.318 --> 00:37:26.057
 bit with Pinckney.
 
 00:37:27.259 --> 00:37:29.338
 I don't want to leave before asking,
 
 00:37:29.418 --> 00:37:29.619
 I mean,
 
 00:37:29.679 --> 00:37:32.740
 you have really set such a high
 
 00:37:32.820 --> 00:37:34.521
 bar for historical scholarship,
 
 00:37:35.202 --> 00:37:37.222
 particularly in the roles of women,
 
 00:37:37.302 --> 00:37:40.284
 which is still unbelievably
 
 00:37:40.384 --> 00:37:42.385
 still underrepresented in
 
 00:37:42.485 --> 00:37:43.726
 our national discourse.
 
 00:37:45.469 --> 00:37:46.449
 And I didn't know if you
 
 00:37:46.748 --> 00:37:47.789
 would care to share some
 
 00:37:47.849 --> 00:37:49.929
 thoughts or suggestions to
 
 00:37:49.989 --> 00:37:51.429
 people who are setting out
 
 00:37:51.670 --> 00:37:54.030
 on this path about ways to
 
 00:37:54.170 --> 00:37:56.010
 uplift some of these
 
 00:37:56.190 --> 00:37:57.472
 underrepresented stories.
 
 00:37:57.512 --> 00:37:58.692
 I mean, you're such a great writer.
 
 00:37:58.711 --> 00:37:59.871
 You know,
 
 00:37:59.931 --> 00:38:02.452
 Bob and I often remark on the
 
 00:38:02.512 --> 00:38:04.952
 lack of popular media that
 
 00:38:05.032 --> 00:38:07.793
 is well-written and representative of,
 
 00:38:08.414 --> 00:38:09.414
 as you so
 
 00:38:10.503 --> 00:38:11.824
 you know terrifically put
 
 00:38:11.864 --> 00:38:13.025
 you know these are all
 
 00:38:13.106 --> 00:38:14.326
 characters you know these
 
 00:38:14.365 --> 00:38:16.668
 are all people with foibles
 
 00:38:16.788 --> 00:38:19.188
 and flaws and you know but
 
 00:38:19.208 --> 00:38:20.590
 they're wonderfully rich
 
 00:38:21.391 --> 00:38:22.771
 vibrant people and and I
 
 00:38:22.791 --> 00:38:25.193
 would love to see ways to
 
 00:38:25.253 --> 00:38:26.914
 break that into sort of the
 
 00:38:27.914 --> 00:38:28.954
 the public sphere a little
 
 00:38:28.974 --> 00:38:31.157
 bit more well in both black
 
 00:38:31.336 --> 00:38:32.717
 and in women's history
 
 00:38:33.237 --> 00:38:35.298
 books shelves now grown
 
 00:38:35.438 --> 00:38:38.320
 with scholarly works we have
 
 00:38:40.402 --> 00:38:42.063
 remarkable historians.
 
 00:38:42.182 --> 00:38:43.063
 What we need,
 
 00:38:44.543 --> 00:38:45.864
 I feel like Gouverneur Mars now,
 
 00:38:45.965 --> 00:38:48.626
 what we need is to sell it to the people.
 
 00:38:51.307 --> 00:38:54.710
 Some historians who can write well, oh God,
 
 00:38:54.750 --> 00:38:56.630
 I'm going to get angry letters,
 
 00:38:57.371 --> 00:38:58.632
 but I've said this before,
 
 00:38:58.711 --> 00:39:00.112
 some historians who write
 
 00:39:00.193 --> 00:39:02.173
 really well are afraid to
 
 00:39:02.273 --> 00:39:04.594
 write to the general public
 
 00:39:04.635 --> 00:39:05.556
 because then they won't
 
 00:39:05.615 --> 00:39:08.317
 sound as smart as their colleagues.
 
 00:39:10.074 --> 00:39:11.914
 I think that's a terrible mistake.
 
 00:39:12.255 --> 00:39:16.317
 I think writing trade books to the public,
 
 00:39:18.597 --> 00:39:20.577
 that should be your mission.
 
 00:39:21.438 --> 00:39:22.699
 When I hear historians say
 
 00:39:22.759 --> 00:39:24.159
 nobody listens to us,
 
 00:39:24.260 --> 00:39:25.099
 I say that's because you
 
 00:39:25.139 --> 00:39:26.501
 don't talk to anybody.
 
 00:39:27.380 --> 00:39:28.780
 You talk to the five other
 
 00:39:28.860 --> 00:39:29.981
 people in your field.
 
 00:39:30.873 --> 00:39:34.601
 Get out there and do what
 
 00:39:35.001 --> 00:39:37.846
 Eric Foner and what Sean Lentz and what,
 
 00:39:38.648 --> 00:39:38.947
 you know,
 
 00:39:39.349 --> 00:39:41.753
 I and get out and Mary Beth Norton,
 
 00:39:41.773 --> 00:39:43.356
 get out there and write books.
 
 00:39:44.577 --> 00:39:46.436
 persuasively to the people.
 
 00:39:46.556 --> 00:39:47.858
 And then I think everything
 
 00:39:47.898 --> 00:39:49.938
 that's on those bookshelves
 
 00:39:50.677 --> 00:39:55.818
 that we know will take on a
 
 00:39:55.898 --> 00:39:57.639
 life of its own,
 
 00:39:57.860 --> 00:39:59.480
 and it will permeate into
 
 00:39:59.500 --> 00:40:00.920
 the popular consciousness.
 
 00:40:01.400 --> 00:40:03.541
 But not as long as you think
 
 00:40:04.681 --> 00:40:06.641
 loading a book down with footnotes,
 
 00:40:06.661 --> 00:40:08.262
 because that'll make you look smart.
 
 00:40:12.760 --> 00:40:13.840
 As somebody who spent 30
 
 00:40:13.840 --> 00:40:14.960
 years in public history,
 
 00:40:15.501 --> 00:40:16.561
 seeing that look in
 
 00:40:16.621 --> 00:40:19.842
 people's eyes when they
 
 00:40:21.601 --> 00:40:23.001
 learn something or light
 
 00:40:23.081 --> 00:40:24.503
 dawns upon them in a way
 
 00:40:24.583 --> 00:40:28.023
 that is new and you see the
 
 00:40:28.083 --> 00:40:32.563
 enthusiasm well up in them for a topic,
 
 00:40:32.603 --> 00:40:33.824
 I think it's really powerful.
 
 00:40:34.005 --> 00:40:35.585
 And in teachers, too.
 
 00:40:36.780 --> 00:40:37.802
 I went all around the
 
 00:40:37.842 --> 00:40:38.963
 country for teaching
 
 00:40:39.242 --> 00:40:40.503
 American history grants.
 
 00:40:41.164 --> 00:40:42.324
 And when I would tell them
 
 00:40:42.364 --> 00:40:43.664
 what Gouverneur Morris was
 
 00:40:43.746 --> 00:40:45.947
 like or what James Madison was like,
 
 00:40:46.887 --> 00:40:47.768
 they would say, oh,
 
 00:40:47.807 --> 00:40:51.010
 my students would love to
 
 00:40:51.050 --> 00:40:53.972
 know they were like their Uncle George.
 
 00:40:55.592 --> 00:40:57.934
 And yet they did these amazing things.
 
 00:40:58.653 --> 00:40:59.414
 And I said, well, you...
 
 00:41:00.242 --> 00:41:02.403
 you need to teach the amazing things,
 
 00:41:03.123 --> 00:41:04.826
 but you need to also teach
 
 00:41:04.905 --> 00:41:06.927
 that they were regular human beings.
 
 00:41:08.027 --> 00:41:09.628
 And I think that that is
 
 00:41:10.030 --> 00:41:13.472
 what the next step for gay
 
 00:41:13.532 --> 00:41:14.974
 and lesbian history and
 
 00:41:15.173 --> 00:41:16.375
 women's history and
 
 00:41:18.335 --> 00:41:19.637
 African-American history
 
 00:41:19.757 --> 00:41:23.400
 and Indian history is to be
 
 00:41:23.460 --> 00:41:25.862
 the voice to the people of America.
 
 00:41:27.559 --> 00:41:28.320
 Couldn't agree more.
 
 00:41:28.420 --> 00:41:31.101
 Professor Birkin, on behalf of Bob Allison,
 
 00:41:31.121 --> 00:41:33.081
 let me apologize for his technical glitch,
 
 00:41:33.802 --> 00:41:34.902
 but thank you very much for
 
 00:41:34.943 --> 00:41:37.403
 being such a gracious guest
 
 00:41:37.884 --> 00:41:40.784
 on the Revolution 250 podcast.
 
 00:41:40.824 --> 00:41:43.646
 When we started this during COVID,
 
 00:41:44.126 --> 00:41:46.626
 some 210 episodes ago,
 
 00:41:47.387 --> 00:41:48.168
 we thought it was just
 
 00:41:48.208 --> 00:41:51.068
 going to be a local interest for people,
 
 00:41:51.128 --> 00:41:51.929
 but we actually have
 
 00:41:51.989 --> 00:41:53.070
 listeners all over the world
 
 00:41:53.869 --> 00:41:54.271
 Uh, we're,
 
 00:41:54.331 --> 00:41:56.391
 we're heard in over 90 countries
 
 00:41:56.431 --> 00:41:57.371
 at this point and in
 
 00:41:57.452 --> 00:41:58.713
 thousands of locations.
 
 00:41:58.793 --> 00:41:59.534
 And, uh,
 
 00:41:59.574 --> 00:42:01.554
 we like to thank a couple of people, uh,
 
 00:42:01.735 --> 00:42:02.815
 every episode.
 
 00:42:02.876 --> 00:42:03.755
 So, uh,
 
 00:42:03.815 --> 00:42:05.657
 for our friends in Newton and Walpole,
 
 00:42:05.677 --> 00:42:07.438
 Massachusetts, thanks for listening in,
 
 00:42:07.599 --> 00:42:09.719
 uh, Omaha, Nebraska, Houston, Texas,
 
 00:42:11.240 --> 00:42:14.623
 Maine, and Oklahoma.
 
 00:42:14.643 --> 00:42:16.905
 Uh, thank you all very much.
 
 00:42:16.965 --> 00:42:18.184
 Thank you, professor Birkin.
 
 00:42:18.445 --> 00:42:18.965
 And, uh,
 
 00:42:19.626 --> 00:42:22.128
 We will see everybody again next week,
 
 00:42:22.309 --> 00:42:23.309
 and we're now going to be
 
 00:42:23.389 --> 00:42:25.791
 piped out on the road to Boston.