Transcripts For CSPAN3 Rethinking Americas Founding Narrative 20240713

Pleasure to welcome you tonight for our program. Before we get started, just a couple of quick things. If you have electronic devices, now is a good time to turn them off. As usual in our programs, theres no photography and filming. Also, if youre wondering what all the equipment is, its cspan. So, show you an isis smile and brush your hair, and get ready in case you get a cameo. When we get to the q a part there is a microphone in the back of the room, and will let you know when theres time for that. Just lined up there to ask your questions. And a politically rest of times its always worthwhile revisiting the documents that set us apart from british rule and created the framework for our government. Tonight, our guest speaker, Kermit Roosevelt explores these documents and shares their interpretation of the meeting. Professor roosevelt teaches constitutional law at the university of Pennsylvania Law School he was born and raised in d. C. And attended harvard and yale. Before joining, he served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice David souter. His book sets standards by which citizens can determine whether the Supreme Court is abusing authority to interpret the constitution. He also teaches creative writing and is the author of two novels. In the shadow of the law and allegiance. Please join me in a round of applause for professor roosevelt. [applause] thank you. Thank you all for coming. Happy super tuesday. [laughter] as you know, it is super tuesday, the democrats are in the process of choosing their nominee. Later on we will have the general election and choose our president. That choice will reflect something about who we are as a nation. That is what i want to talk about tonight. Who we are, how we decide who we are and what our sense of ourselves means for our relationship to the constitution and our sense of ourselves as a country. So, who are we . We are americans. This is the most american slide i could find. [laughter] what does it mean to be an american and how we do we decide that . What gives us a sense of what america means . The first point i want to make is that stories tell us who they are. They organize the world for us. This is true of individuals. When people think about their lives they think about them in narrative form. They find meaning in experience. They find themes, heroes, villains. James joyce said this is the artists task, transforming the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of everlasting life. In that sense we are all artists. We are the authors of our own stories. Not because we decide what happens we dont get to decide that but because we decide what it means. We decide how it is interpreted and usually we pick interpretations that flatter ourselves. We end up being the heroes of our own stories. This is true for individuals and also true for nations. People have a sense of National Identity that comes from stories about the nations history. That is what im going to talk about. I will talk about different stories of america. Where they come from, how they relate to each other, but before i do that want to say one thing about stories. They are powerful. I am a law professor and before that i was a lawyer. I was doing appelate litigation and it was my job in some ways it is still my job to make people agree with me about the correct understanding of the law. I learned something while working as a lawyer. That has been reinforced from experiences with legal scholarship which is that sometimes, on some issues, you can present a strong, logical argument and people will change their minds. Sometimes the voice that persuades is an analytical voice. That is not true all the time. In particular it is not true if youre dealing with an issue that relates to peoples identity, their sense of self. In those situations you can make the most logical argument in the world and it will not have any effect. Logic does not make people change their minds about who they are. There has been social Psychology Research on this and it shows people are actually incredibly resistant to logical argument if it conflicts with their narrative of the world. If the conflicts with the story they tell themselves to make sense of the world. They did a study where the two people with certain beliefs and it was about climate change. They took skeptics and believers and they took each group and exposed them to facts that suggested their beliefs were wrong. They got different information and in each case they got information that challenge their belief. You would have thought this would make them less confident. The result was the people on both sides expressed greater confidence in those beliefs. They felt a threat to their identity and they responded by reaffirming it. Those beliefs were not just factual beliefs about the world, they were beliefs that signal membership in a community. Because of thats they were part of peoples identity, part of the story they told themselves. Heres an ordinary factual question is it raining outside or not . Your belief about that does not relate your identity and with questions like that, people do change their mind if they are presented with contrary evidence. With other things, beliefs that are connected to identity, you cannot dislodge those beliefs by fact. The analytical voice does not persuade. What does . This is another thing i learned as a lawyer. I think it is the most import thing. It is what i try to teach my students in the creative writing seminar i teach. If you are wondering why there is a creative writing seminar at the law school, this is why. The narrative voice persuades. To change beliefs connected to identity, to the story we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it, you have to offer a different story. You have to offer a story that opens a different way of understanding the world. You can change peoples mind if you talk to them the way their interior voice does and for most people, the interior voice is not giving arguments. It is telling stories. Stories tell us who we are both as individuals and as countries. Stories are powerful. Frequently they cannot be dislodged by reasoned argument or logical analysis. You might have heard some people say it takes a theory to beat a theory, i say it takes a story to beat a story. What i want to do now is tell you some of the stories about america. About who we are. These different stories say Different Things about the past but, perhaps more important, they have different ideas of the essence of america. What it means to be american. Im going to compare them, analyze them, i will be doing some logical argument i cannot really get away from that but in the end, i hope you like the same story i do. Not because of the arguments but because it is a better story. It shows us in a better light. It is more inclusive, optimistic. It is, i am going to say, more american. I am going to start with what i call the standard story. According to the story american history, the history of america as a nation, starts with the declaration of independence. Here we go. In a standard story should be similar this is what we say in our civic religion or basic celebrations of america. The standard story says long ago, back in 1776, our great founders wrote down wonderful principles. They called these selfevident truths. All men are created equal, endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our founders fought a war for those principles. They built the society around them and the constitution was their vehicle for carrying those principles into execution. Hold on. Theres the constitution. The constitution, according to standard story, sets out our fundamental values. What are those . Liberty and equality. It tells us what it means to be american. It tells us who we are. From where the 200 years, our constitution has served us well because of the wisdom of the founders. Our tasks as americans is to live up to their example. To fulfill their vision of america. To be true to the principles that started in the declaration of independence were codified in the constitution. American history, the standard story, has not always been easy. We have not always looked up to those principles. We had slavery which is in direct conflict with the declaration of independence. But we fought a war for those principles again. The civil war was fought in the name of the principles of the declaration of independence. How do we know that . Abraham lincoln said so. That is an actual photo of lincoln delivering the gettysburg address. It is not very good but he is there somewhere. [laughter] in the gettysburg address, lincoln looks back to the declaration as the birth of the nation. It takes a little bit of arithmetic to figure this out but he is giving the address in 1863 and says four score and seven years ago and subtract that from 1863 and what you get . You get 1776 and the declaration of independence. Lincoln invoked this principles and says the nation is conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. The civil war is a challenge but also an opportunity for americans to move forward, to realize the promise of the declaration. Of course, the standard story concedes that even after the civil war, work is not done. Racism and discrimination persist. The Civil Rights Movement rises up to challenge the starker aspects of American Life. It does so again in the name of the declaration. The Civil Rights Movement sponsors the march on washington in 1963. Martin luther king give says i have a dream speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This is a much better photo. [laughter] he talks about the founders, the architects of our public, the people who wrote the magnificent words of the constitution and declaration of independence. They promised, he said, black as well as white would be guaranteed unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have fallen short, he says, he points to segregation, denial to the right to vote, and reaches of the promises made. He dreams of a day when we will rise up and live out the true meaning that all men are created equal. Maybe that day has not come yet. The standard story concedes but it is getting closer because the story of america is living up to the ideals of our founders. The ideals that started us on this journey. We move forward but we are guided by the past, by the spirit of 1776. We remember, as john f. Kennedy said, that we are the heris of that first revolution and carried that banner. The flag of freedom, the flag of equality. Here you have three men marching forward and in the background, the betsy ross flag. This is what i am going to call our standard story. This is what we usually tell ourselves to explain who we are. We are the herirs of the first revolution. American history starts with that declaration. It starts on a high note and we are basically trying to sustain it. We are trying to live up to the ideals of the founders and signers. We are following their wisdom and for 200 years it has pointed the way to a better america and a more perfect union. I am going to tell you a couple of other stories. First, want to say a little bit about this one. The first thing to note is that is it is a backward looking story. The declaration is the central document in the story, it may be more important than even the constitution. The foundersconstitution is important too. The constitution has the answers to our current problems. America seems to be adrift, people think. What is the solution . Go back to the wisdom of the founders. Focus on the constitution. Focus on the original understanding of the constitution. Live up to the ideals of the founders, be more like them, the way forward is by recovering the greatness of the past. First, backward looking story. Second, this is a Success Story. Yes, we have had our difficulties but if you look back, america always succeeds. We always triumph and why is that . It is because of the wisdom of the founders and the ideals of the declaration. The civil war is probably the best example. It is a terrible war, yes, that the ideals of the declaration triumph and we improve. We take a big step forward toward more fully realizing those ideals. Backwardlooking, success, and story continuity. It goes from the signers of the declaration, to the drafters of the constitution, to us in the present day. We are the heirs of that revolution. This is related to the fact it is a Success Story because it is telling us we are the same people we have always been. We are the same nation. The signers of the declaration, the drafters of the constitution, they got it right. We are living in the world they designed. We are fighting for the ideals they championed. This is a nice story in a lot of ways. You can see why it appeals to people, i think. It says we are basically good, we americans. We start with good ideals and we dont always live up to them but we are Getting Better. There is a sense of inevitable progress and when things look dark answers exist if we look back to find them. There is authority in the past. In a moment of unity everybody can rally around, everyone can sharon. Everyone feels a connection to the founding. One problem is that it really is not true. I know i said logical arguments do not dislodge stories, but im going to give you a logical analysis of the story. Which might not change your mind. I hope that it will provoke you to question the story a bit. Im going to present you with some claims you will find surprising. That you dont hear in the standard story, you dont here very much at all. Heres the first one. The declaration of independence does not actually set out our modern values of liberty and equality. In fact, it is consistent with slavery. This should be a surprise. I dont think anyone else says this. Often if you are the only person saying something, its crazy and you are wrong. But hear me out. I have become quite convinced of this. Generally speaking people say, of course, there is contradiction between the declaration of independence. But let us look at the declaration and think about what its values actually are. Here is the preamble of the declaration at this is what people Pay Attention to. That is appropriate. After the preamble and a little bit of political philosophy we get grievances against king george. Bad things he has done. Those are not as important. That is evidence the founders are setting out in support of their argument but they are not the argument. The declaration of independence is an argument of political philosophy. There is an argument that tries to establish the companies are justified in declaring independence and throwing off the authority of the british empire. To understand the declaration the crucial thing is to understand how the argument works and the use it makes of these fundamental principles. I am going to talk about the argument the declaration makes in a second. First, i want to talk about the argument it does not make which is the against slavery. Why do people think the declaration is inconsistent with slavery . Because of these selfevident truths. All men are created equal. They are endowed by the creator with inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now, are those principles inconsistent with slavery . You can start with them and make an antislavery argument. It would go like this. People are created equal therefore no one is entitled, by birth, to demand someone else be his slave. Someone might have the power to enslave someone else. Doing so could be considered a form of liberty just doing what you want to do but it conflicts with the slavesnatural right celebrity liberty. That is an infringement on natural rights. That strip. s trip. That is true. This is not justified because in the political world there are lots of infringements upon natural liberty. If you use your liberty to steal someone elses property, we will lock you up. We take away your liberty. If you commit a serious crime, will take your life. That is what we do even to our own citizens. Members of our Political Community because those deprivations of natural rights are justified. In fact, the hallmark of Civil Society is that when people come together to form a society they surrender aspects of their natural liberty. Their natural liberty is taken away from them. This is true of the people who form a community, of the insiders, and even more true of people outside our Political Community. How does our nation relate to noncitizens . Sometimes quite harshly. If you are an enemy soldier, we take your life without worrying too much about your natural rights. That is justified because we are protecting our Political Community. Different factors come into play when we talk about outsiders. The argument gets even more complicated. It is even more complicated if we are talking about a system where slavery exists already and the choice is not should we start slavery, but should we end slavery. It is possible to think and Thomas Jefferson did think best that the answer to the first question was no, slavery should never have come to america. The answer to the second question was also no. Given that slavery existed maintaining it was the best option. So, what if i said so far . I said that from the principles of the declaration you can get an argument that slavery is a violation of human rights. That does not actually tell you slavery is wrong. Some violations of natural rights are justified. That is particularly true if youre talking about outsiders, people not members of your Political Community, and more true if it exists already. To get to the conclusion slavery is wrong you need another step. You need to say the justifications put forward for slavery are inadequate. What were the justifications . Some people supported slavery as a positive thing. They said slaves get christianity, civilization. Then there were people who did not think slavery was good but nonetheless thought slavery in america should be continued. They said slaves, if freed, could not be assimilated into American Society. They would pose a danger to whites. This was jeffersons view. He said should be give our sleds freedom and a dagger . Those are terrible justifications. They are not true. You dont need much of an argument to review them but my point is the declaration does not give you argument of that form. It gives you a totally different argument. It gives you a different argument because it is not concerned with the liberty and equality of individuals. It is concerned with the relationship between political communities. Between one people who wanted to dissolve the political bands that have connected them to thers and assume separate and equal station. This is what the declaration says in its first sentence. It tells you what it is about. The laws of nature and natures god entitle individuals to liberty and equality . No. The laws of nature and natures god to separate and equal status. Status as nations basically. The argument the declaration of independence does make is not about individual rights, it is about national independence. That is what the declaration of independence and not declaration of rights. They are not there to generate an antislavery argument. We saw what that argument would look like. What is the argument the declaration actually makes . It is an argument about when one people is entitled to declare independence. It is about when legitimate Political Authority can be thrown off. That is when people are entitled to rebel. How does that argument go . When are people entitled to rebel . In order to answer that question we need to know where Political Authority comes from. We have to know how it is acquired before we can say when it can be rejected. That is with the selfevident principles are about. Where does Political Authority come from . One answer would be from birth. Some people are just born kings. They are born to rule. That is a clean the British Crown might make. The British Crown says, you cannot declare independence, king george is your king, he was given the authority by god. This is what it means to say as the british monarch does king by the grace of god. Rebellion against him would be unjustified. It would be a sin. That is the theory of the divine right of kings. It is a bit of a strawman in 1776 because the english monarchy is no longer claiming find authority. The idea has been attacked by thinkers from milton to locke to thomas payne in common sense but jefferson thinks he needs to deal with it. He does with this proposition all men are created equal. Nobody is born to rule. This is america, there are no kings. This looks like to modernize a broad moral principle. It is a compressed argument of political philosophy. We are going to see this again with the declaration. To modernize because we are not as steeped in political philosophy as the founders were, we tend to think of these as broad moral principles. They were understood the time tightly compressed arguments of political philosophy. All men are created equal, there are no kings. This is what i am going to call jeffersons equality. There are no kings but are there slaves . Yes, of course. Jeffersons equality tells you in a literal sense kings do not exist. There is no such person as a king who is entitled by birth to demand your obedience. Of course slaves do exist. Jefferson owned several hundred. Other founders did too and by the standards of the age you are if you freed your slaves when you died. Jefferson did not do that. He freed a small number on his death and they were his children. [laughter] but back jeffersons equality. It is not the idea there are no slaves. Slavery is not inconsistent with jeffersons equality. That only tells you that people are born equal. They are born equal but do not have to stay that way. People might acquire authority over each other. They might do this legitimately when people form a society by dividing themselves into the governors and governed. The governed have an obligation to obey. Or they might do it through force. They might enslave each other. But nothing in the idea of being born equal says that cannot happen. It does not even say it should not happen. That is a separate argument you have to have. Jefferson and the declaration reject the idea that some people can say to others, by your birth you are a slave and i am entitled, legitimately, to demand obedience. It does not reject or conflict with the idea that some people can say, by your birth you are inferior and in your best interest to be my slave. I can give you christianity, civilization. That was a common justification at the time and it fit pretty well with jeffersons views. His views were complicated but he did believe blacks were inferior, that slaves, if freed, cannot survive on their own or assimilated into culture and would pose a threat to whites. Jeffersons equality is very limited. It is the idea of political equality as a starting point. Political quality in the state of nature. It is not saying people will end up equal or free and not saying governments should try to make them so. It is just a theory, just a principal, about how people can legitimately become subject to an obligation to obey. It is not a moral principle about equal treatment by the government. If you think about that, and its relation to slavery, the principle that all men are created equal says Different Things to different people. To king george asserting divine right to rule, it says youre wrong. That is not how people are created. But to a slave who says what about my equality . The declaration answer is that complicated. We would need a different argument to decide whether or not this justified and the declaration does not give it. The declaration is not interested in that question. Exactly the same thing is true of the principle that people have inalienable rights including liberty. Once again, this is a compressed argument of political philosophy and it is responding to a claim the British Crown might make. That is the claim of an insoluble social contract. This claim would be yes, people start out equal, they start with natural rights including liberty but when they form a society, they irrevocably surrender those to the government. This is the social contract theory of Thomas Hobbes rather than john locke and it would have been familiar to people at the time. If you accept that theory, the colonists would say you have violated my liberty and king george would respond, you cannot complain i am violating liberty because you surrendered your liberty forever along with all natural rights in exchange for my protection. Again, the declarations principles say, you are wrong. The colonists did not surrender irrevocably. They could not have because that is inalienable. Inalienable is something that you cannot give away. If you look at the virginia declaration of rights, you get a more expanded statement of this principle. It says people have inalienable rights including liberty of which, by no compact, can that divest themselves or posterity. Liberty cannot be given away. Now, you can imagine a slave saying sort of the same thing. Saying, you have violated my liberty but the answer the declaration regifted that is, well, thats complicated. Sometimes they are justified. We lock up criminals and there is no philosophical error in that. Is it justified to enslave people . Of course not but the reason it is not justified is not that liberty is inalienable. Its the exerciseing dominion over another is wrong. And nobody said as king george might have that slaves voluntarily surrender liberty. The principle that liberty is inalienable is when the colonists can invoke against the crown against an indissoluble social contract we form a society and lose the right to change it. Again, it does not offer much help for the slave. In get to the heart of the declaration. People create governments to secure inalienable rights. When the government threatens those rights people can alter or abolish their government. This is the right of rebellion. This says that if the government threatens the rights that are supposed to protect, you can change it. This is the heart of the declaration not the principles that we find earlier on. If the government threatens your rights, you can change it. Rebellion and when it is justified is what the declaration is about. It is a declaration of independence. It is about the status of the colonies which are elliptical communities with respect to the crown. Another Political Community. This, you might think, has relevance to the slides. At the colonial governments protecting the rights . Of course not. But again, this is on another page. They dont claim to. They were not created by the slaves. Here is another fundamental point about the declaration. It is all about relations in the Political Community. Relationships between the governors and governed. Legitimate authority is based on the consent of the governed. The argument of the declaration is about when that consent can be withdrawn. Slaves never consented. They are held in bondage by force. They are outsiders. The Supreme Court was say would say there perpetual outsiders, the descendents of slaves can never become citizens of the United States. They can never be members of the Political Community. The argument the declaration is making about when it Political Community can be dissolved, when a legitimate government to be abolished, has nothing to say about the situation of slaves. What if i said so far . The principles of the declaration are not broad moral principles the way we often think. They are narrow political principles. Theyre pretty technical, compressed, this would have been familiar to people at the time. In fact, if you look the reception of the declaration at the time, people did not think the preamble was announcing anything revolutionary. These are not the ideals we now think of as fundamental to our identity. They are not our modern values of liberty and equality. They are not even directly in conflict with slavery. So, what next . What about the foundersconstitution . This is an Founders Hall philadelphia. Is this a statement of our principles as americans . Of the values we hold dear . No, its not. The it is not for two reasons. Second, the constitution is not our constitution. There is no line from the declaration through the constitution to us. We are not theheirs of the founding end revolution. That point is farther down the road. The main thing i want to focus on is the content of the constitution. What i just told you of the declaration of slavery as that, im not sure anyone else agrees. What i am going to tell you now is relatively well accepted. Even if you suppose the declaration contains these broad moral principles, they really did not make it into the foundersconstitution. The foundersconstitution contains very few strong statements of principles or values. We talk about it as if it does. We think that the founding constitution gathers together our american ideals, that it tells us what it means to be american. If you look at the document that was written, there are no undiluted principles. If there is an overarching theme of the constitution, its compromise. Theres compromise between big states and small states. That is how we end up with two houses of congress. One has senators and one has one based on population. It is compromise between free states and slave states. That is most notably the 3 5 copper mines which gives states 3 5 compromise. What about the values of liberty and equality . Equality is hardly in there at all. It is there mostly as a right of state. States are guaranteed equal representation in the senate. Liberty does a little bit better. There is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the bill of rights. But like all original bill of rights, the right to free speech and free exercise of religion are available only against the federal government. The states can basically do what they want to their own citizens. Another thing about the constitution in relation to liberty and equality, i said the declaration is not inconsistent with slavery. It is not concerned with slavery. It is neutral on the topic. The argument it makes simply does not relate to the practice of slavery. But the foundersconstitution is proslavery. There is the fugitive slave clause which says a slave escaping to another state cannot thereby acquire freedom but must be returned upon demand of the person to whom service is due. This strips the state of some degree of sovereignty in order to prevent them from freeing slaves. There is also a provision that protects the International Slave trade until 1808. Most important, there is the 3 5 compromise. This enhances the power of slaveholding states and the federal government. It gives them more representatives in congress, more votes in the Electoral College. Four of the first five president s come from the slave state of virginia and Thomas Jefferson would have lost the election of 1800 to john adams of massachusetts if not for the 3 5 compromise. So, what have i said . Being an american nowadays means being committed to certain values. Most notably the values of liberty and equality. I mean that in the sense that these are aspirations. We think people should be free, people should be equal, people are entitled to complain if the government infringes on their liberty or treats them unequally. But you dont actually find those values by looking back to the declaration and the foundersconstitution. They are not there. One problem with the standard story is that it is imposing on the past a set of values that did not really exist. If you want to look back to the declaration and constitution and tell a story about an american identity that was born then and endure through the years, you can do it but it is not a happy story. If you are looking for a continuous theme in american history, the theme is putting unity ahead of justice. Putting unity ahead of equality. This is a story about the shadow of slavery hanging over the nation. It is what i call the darker story. This story starts with the declaration which brings together the free states and the slave states. America is going to fight for freedom as one. We have to do that, we have to do that to achieve independence because the states acting separately cannot defeat the british. This is the most powerful empire in the world. It means that free states and slave states have to join together and that means the declaration is not going to say much about slavery. Jeffersons first draft does say something. First, it blames king george for the existence of slavery in america. Jefferson did think slavery should never have come to america. Then it also blends king george for inciting slave rebellions. Jefferson thought slaves cant be freed. They would be dangerous. The final draft takes out the attack on slavery itself but leaves in the complaint that king george encourage slaves to rebel. Even if the declaration announces principles inconsistent with slavery, i said i dont think it does, it very deliberately does not criticize the practice. You can see it, its in there, it gets taken out. Accepting slavery is the price of independence. It is also the price of union. After the revolution, we get the articles of confederation. Those are basically a treaty among independent states. The people who drafted the articles of confederation remembered the tyranny of the british. They set out to create a Central Government that is too weak to become a tyrant. They succeed in that. But the Central Government they create is also too weak to govern effectively. Government is needed. Once again, we have to get everybody on board. We have to get the free states and slave states together. If we cannot get one single, dominant nation, the european powers may pick off the isolated states one by one. France, spain, england will come in and dismember the United States. The foundersconstitution accepts slavery. It protects it in the ways i mentioned before. It rewards slave states with extra power in the federal government. One of the things i always do with my constitutional law students is i take the first few weeks of class, we read through the foundersconstitution clause by clause, we discuss just about every sentence going to the bill of rights and then i ask them, what do you think . Is this a glorious statement of american principles that has surfaced well for over 200 years . Wars and it or is in an agreement without . [laughter] they laugh. People always laugh. They laugh because they are surprised. Theyve been taught the standard story about how wonderful and successful the constitution has been and most of them have not heard the phrase, covenant with death and agreement with hell. Of those two descriptions, i think garrisons is closer. The foundersconstitution is a deal. You get an american nation but you must except slavery. That is a bargain with evil it does not work out well. The foundersconstitution is proslavery but not as proslavery as it couldve been. Not like the confederate constitution. It does not entrench slavery forever. Its protection of the International Slave trade, expires in 1808. Slavery gets pushed down the road. That road leads where . To the battlefields of the civil war. The civil war happened because the foundersconstitution compromised and did not resolve the issue of slavery. I mean that first in a political sense. The constitution couldve taken a position one way or the other. It could have said slavery forever. Maybe that constitution would for ratified. Or it could have said slavery will and. Not immediately, that would not have been ratified, but in a number of years. They could have done something to set slavery on a path to extinction in a way everyone understood. The most obvious way to do that probably would have been to modify the 3 5 compromise so that it changed as the years went by. The slave states would inevitably lose their power over the federal government. That mightve been acceptable but it was easier to say nothing. That is what the founders did. The constitution is structured to support slavery. The slave states controlled the National Government. Up until 1860 there are only two president s the adamswho oppose slavery. Then things change. The north grows in population. Even with the 3 5 compromise, the free states start exceeding the slave states in the house of representatives. The north is increasingly controlling the federal government and the presidency. The south votes for James Buchanan and he defeats john fremont. Freemen, free soil, free land, it was a good slogan. But he lost. In 1860, the south votes for john breckenridge. He does not win. Abraham lincoln wins. Abraham lincoln, to an extent, is not the southern choice. [laughter] in 10 of the 11 states that are going to secede, lincoln gets zero popular votes. Not a Single Person votes for abraham lincoln. Why is that . Because he is not on the ballot. Nobody is willing to suffer the threat of violence in the social opprobrium that would come from putting him on the ballot. In the 11th, virginia, he gets 1. 1 of the popular vote. The south does not like abraham lincoln. The south seas the National Government falling into the hands of antislavery forces. They fear the National Government is going to end slavery. Which the republicans were trying to do. They wanted to do it. They did not think it could do it directly but they had a strategy. Seeing that coming the south secedes. The civil war comes about in part because of a political failure. You can also see it as a consequence of a moral failure, a consequence of accepting slavery. Abraham lincoln understood it that way. He said the civil war is a judgment upon us. That will last until every drop of blood will be paid by another drawn with the sword. After the civil war, we face a great task. What is it . You think it might be achieving true equality and for a while, during reconstruction, that did seem to be the what the nation was doing. There is a brief period where we are working toward Racial Justice but then National Mission changes. It changes back to what it was with the declaration, with the constitution, and what it was at the beginning of the civil war. That starts is a war for slavery on the side of the south but for union. The National Mission changes back to unity. Bring the north and south together. Heal the wounds of the civil war. How do we do that . In the same with the declaration and constitution did by sacrificing Racial Justice. With the compromise in 1877, federal troops withdraw from the south, the integrated government set up are overthrown by force, and southern whites take back control. It is southern whites like these. This is what people call the redemption of the south. What it means is the promise of reconstruction go unfilled for about 100 years. There is a different version of the american story the focuses on this. It takes redemption at the founding moment of america. There is a movie about the civil war and its aftermath that follows two families one from the north one for the south they fight on opposite sides but they are both americans. When the war is over the reunion of the nation symbolized by two marriages between these families, the bonds of matrimony knitting up the wounds of war. The movie is birth of a nation. It is about the birth of an american nation. It is telling us that founding america broke apart into two legitimate sides. It came back together in the moment of redemption and that we can all go forward happily together because in the end, we are all american. It was controversial but very popular in its day. Including with president woodrow wilson, the First Southern president to hold the presiency since the civil war. If you look at it today, its pretty horrifying. The part of the movie were tensions are rising, things are getting worse, that is reconstruction. There is a climax. That is a battle in which the ku klux klan defeats the integrated militia and police force. That is the legitimate government of the South Carolina town where the movie is set. Then there is the falling action which shows you that everything will be all right. That occurs the day after the battle. The town holds a new election, the freed slaves turn out to vote, they are met by armed klansmen standing in front of the polling and turn around to go home. That is supposed to be a relief. The resolution is the wedding. This reaffirms the nation can go forward as one, not so much because we are american but because we are all white. This is the dominant story for a while. This is the standard story. From 1915 to about 1980 when scholars start to reassess reconstruction. That is in response to other changes that make it harder to see redemption as the founding moment. The Civil Rights Movement comes along in the mid20th century, the warren court, this is often called the second reconstruction. Congress enacts the Civil Rights Act prohibiting Racial Discrimination, the Supreme Court issues brown v board of education which bans segregation in public schools, loving against virginia. Here are some headlines. The second reconstruction, like the first, is divisive. The 1960s, 1970s, are tumultuous. The america is being taken from them and the Republican Party campaigns against the warren court. Ronald reagan talks about welfare queens, strapping young bucks using food stamps. He said the Voting Rights act was a humiliation of south. He kicks off his president ial campaign praising states rights where civil rights workers were murdered. Reagans presidency is notable because it brings so many people together. Obviously the Electoral College overstates this. Reagan wins two crushing victories. The pattern repeats itself. It is fading i think and if you want to tell a story of progress you could tell it in that way. But if you want to look back to the declaration and founding for a basic theme of the american story, it is not liberty, equality, it is purchasing unity at the price of Racial Justice. If you listen closely, you can still hear that theme. My main point is that if you look back with clear eyes, the story of america is not so much a burst of idealism that casts light into the present day as a primal sin. A betrayal that echoes down the ages. Our standard story tries to put a happy gloss on this but it is not really accurate and the more accurate it gets, the closer it gets to the birth of a nation, which is much less happy. I want to explore why this is so. How did this come to be our standard story . Why is it is the one we tell ourselves . It is largely because of this man. Abraham lincoln puts the declaration front and center. He did this really consistently through his life but most notably during the civil war. Why does he do this . Part of the answer is necessity. Lincoln is at the time of the gettysburg address, fighting slavery. Like i said, the civil war did not start as a war against slavery. Lincoln famously said, if i could preserve the union by freeing all the slaves, by freeing none of the slaves, i would do it. But the time of the gettysburg address it has become a war for freedom. What is the justification . The battle hymn of the republic casts it in religious terms. As christ died to make them holy let us die to make them free. Religion is on the other. In the south, people are appealing to religion. What can lincoln invoke that is undeniable . Not the foundersconstitution. That does not protect equality. It protects slavery. Lincoln turns to the words of the declaration. Even though they do not really have the values hes appealing to either. Second, by harking back to the declaration, lincoln is making a strategic move. He is saying the civil war, like the revolution, is a war for america. It is a war for the idea of america conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition all men are created equal. I dont have part of the gettysburg address, it is a war to determine whether a nation so conceived and dedicated could long endure. At the time of the civil war pretty much everyone looks back fondly on the declaration. Following the revolution there was a purge and the people who opposed independence were largely driven from the country. The people who are left in america support the declaration. They look back fondly on the revolution and it lincoln is trying to convince people that in the civil war the union is fighting for the declaration. It is a good thing if you can convince people the declaration and foundersconstitution are on your side because a lot of people subscribe to those documents. After lincoln this practice continues. In 1963, Martin Luther king makes his i have a dream speech. It starts by echoing the gettysburg address rhetorically. It is given from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and king starts out by saying five score years ago. Lincolns counting back to the declaration but king is counting back to the emancipation proclamation. Then he goes back farther. He talks about the architects of our republic. The people who read the constitution and the declaration of independence. They promised, he said, that all men would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Well, both lincoln and king are wrong. I have said both lincoln and king are wrong about this. As ive said already the declaration do not have the values that link win and king are trying to put their. The mistake is a little bit more severe even than that. Think about it, for a second in the civil war, whose side is the declaration on. The answer is pretty clear it is side of the rebels who marched on washington and 63 . The Civil Rights Movement did in 1963 as i just said but before them, the real champions of the ideals of the declaration are these guys, the confederate soldiers who marched on washington and 1816 three for the real errors are the southern succession us. This is Something Else that you dont hear that much, but actually within the professional act of the community is relatively will excepted if you are looking for a evidence it is abundant if you look at this accession letters that the Southern State sent congress it is overwhelming lee invoking the declaration of independence and they were right to. Because the heart of the declaration, as ive said is not a moral principle it is the political theory that people form governments to protect certain rights and if the government threatens though the rights they can rebel, the Southern States joined the revolution. And then they joined the union to protect rights that they value, and high on that list was the right to own slaves. They might have feared that the british would take that away just before independence, there is a decision england saying that slavery could not exist, Abolitionist Movement was starting. If this Southern States win independence they no longer have the fear that britain will and slavery. When they started to fear that the federal government would do that they left the union in exactly the same way that they left the empire they started the second American Revolution the second American Revolution, the civil war, and there is a big difference between the first revolution and the second, because the rebels won the first war, and they lost the second. I want to talk about the similarities, these are wars fought in the name of the declaration, under the political theory that people foreign governments to protect ranks and can rebel if the government both cases the right to owned slaves is one of the rights and peoples minds. The declaration is on the side of the south what about the founders constitution this is a little harder to say, but again that answer is probably the south, so what is supposed to happen . When the states fear the federal government and take up arms to fight . Who should win that contest . In the minds of the founders the answer is clear, the founders think that a distant general government might become a threat, it might start to oppress its citizens, thats what king george did when that happens the states stand up to defend their citizens, thats what the state militias did. They fought off the red coats. In that war, the revolutionary war, is the model that is built into the constitution. That is what the Second Amendment is about, the well regulated militia that is supposed to protect the free states by fighting off the federal army it. Along comes the second American Revolution, the state stand up for their citizens, the states are supposed to win. The south is actually supposed to win the civil war. Abraham lincoln did a lot of remarkable things but the most remarkable is this sort of he makes things think that hes the one fighting for the declaration and the founders constitution when in fact he is against them, if you draw a line from the declaration of independence to the founders constitution it does not go to us. It goes to the rebel south and it stops there. We are not as john f. Kennedy said the heirs of the founders we are the heirs of the people who rejected the theory of the declaration and defeated it by force of arms. There are several different ways to make this point but the one that i like best is an analogy to a plot device that you find in Science Fiction movies. You have the hero, and the hero is supposed to be hunting down some deviant, something that is not human, a clone, an alien this is blade runner. But anyway, the hero hunts this thing down kills it, is looking at the body on the ground, and suddenly realizes that is human. And then he realizes Something Else, then who am i . I am the robot. I am the bad guy. And thats the kind of realization that i want you all to have about america and the declaration. What happens in the civil war . Lincoln tells us we are fighting slavery, we are fighting the enemy, and that is what we look down and we kill this unamerican idea. But it was the declaration itself, the body on the ground at the end of the civil war is the declaration of independence. It is the founders constitution, they are dead. We are the ones who killed with him. What does that mean . It means several things, first our american identity doesnt come from the declaration, the moral principles that we think that was essential are not there. Jeffersons equality is not our quality. Second, american identity doesnt come from the founders constitution, our values are not there either. Not in philadelphia and 1776 or 1787. Pennsylvania maybe. But gettysburg, the civil war, reconstruction. The civil war of reconstruction rupture in american history. The rebels win the first revolution according to the declaration and the founders constitution they are supposed to win the second but they dont. That is the end of the theory. It is also the end of the founders constitution. The constitution we get after the civil war, after the Reconstruction Amendment is a break from the founders design. It is just as big a break as the break from the british empire. The founders had a basic vision that said the federal government is dangerous. That federal government is a threat to liberty. States protect liberty. Things didnt turn out that way. The government won, but they also didnt turn out that way because the states were the tyrants. The states oppressed people it was the federal government who fought for liberty and equality. The Reconstruction Amendments understood that they trust the federal government they gave it more power, they put new restrictions on the states. They give us our values of liberty and equality not as a narrow principles but brought once. They give us lincolns quality not jeffersons equality. It is also worth noting that the Reconstruction Amendments were forced on the south. So we upend the founders understanding. We totally change the structure of our government. Not really through the normal article five process by dissolving southern legislators and not allowing the representatives to return to congress. What happened in the civil war, i like to say, is the rubber lost the revolutionaries one at the beginning, i said, both sides are fighting for their understanding of the status quo, this doses we want to own slaves if we think you are going to take that away we will leave, the north says you cant leave we are a union. Both sides are fighting for the understanding of the status quo. But some point, the vision of the union changes. They are not fighting for union anymore they are fighting for freedom. Jefferson davis is leaving a rebellion lincoln is leading a revolution. The reconstruction constitution is very different. And it is the one that we live under so another thing i do with my students, i asked them to list big important Supreme Court justices once that defined the constitution for us and typically its come up, there is the Supreme Court, typically they come up with mostly the same cases. They say brown, love it, cases about Racial Discrimination, miranda, cases about the rights of families, maybe they say roe v. Wade, the right to abortion, the right to same sex marriages, and all of those cases have one thing in common, none of them couldve happened after the founders constitution because all of those cases of people against the states not the federal government. Which is something they can do only after the civil war. After reconstruction after the Fourth Amendment. What are the battles that gave us, hes a bunker hill. It is gettysburg who were the soldiers . Who died for our rights . Is it the minutemen and the Colonial Army . No. If youre thinking about the rights that we are able to enjoy its the union army. So the best way to do this i think, is to say that the founders constitution was a failure it has not so served as well for over 200 years, it failed cataclysmic lee and was set aside, we have a better constitution, more just one. We became a different nation the revolution, as lincoln says the gettysburg address, but it was not this one it was not our america. Our america is reconstruction america. The civil war. Why dont we say this . Why dont we look to reconstruction. Will lincoln couldnt. Reconstruction was in the future for him and it was a future he wouldnt live to see. But it was the new words for freedom. Didnt exist when he spoke it was coming quote what about martha looting king. There is something deeply odd about the i have a dream speech. King as i mentioned before talks about the founders and the declaration of independence, they made a promise they said that america is dishonor, he points to segregation, he points to race based denial, live up to your promise he said. I have a dream that we will rise up and leave a true meaning that men are created equal. What is audible this is twofold, first segregation denying blacks the vote, those are perfectly consistent with the declaration of independence. There consistent. Slavery is protected, these things are absolutely fine in 1789, but in 1963 there is something there that is not consistent, that is not a distant aspiration. Theyre inconsistent with the reconstruction constitution the 14 and 15 amendment say states cannot do these things, the Supreme Court said this about segregation and in 1957 there is 157 airborne to enforce its orders, so it is very strange that the king stream will rise up that all men are created equal in a very dubious relevance rather than maybe just looking down ring which says no Racial Discrimination with the right to vote, there is a promise airy note that the admission is dishonoring but the note is not the nation of independence Martin Luther king knew this. Once again theres evidence if you look at kings writing you will find an early one he wrote in high school in which he prefectures a lot of what he said in the i have a dream speech where he talks about the he switches at some point, he switches the focus of his rhetoric, why does he do this . As ive suggested before it is strategic the declaration with something that all americans prescribed to, it means something to everyone. The call to live up to the reconstruction of amendments, not so much. Certainly 1963, reconstruction is divisive and you can see this by asking yourself a simple question who won the civil war, most people will say the north and maybe they say that more consistently if theyre from the south but for, that is clearly not the right answer, because the north was not fighting in the civil war so from one perspective its the war between two nations and the Confederate States of america,. From the others perspective, its a war between the United States and traders. But in either case, the winner is the United States. It is us. We won the civil war but we dont say that and why dont we say that because looking back not everyone feels affiliated with the winning side heres a way to think about that that i think makes the point. You know this flake. That is our flag and you know this played. And most people would also think that is our flag. And you know this flake, and probably fewer of you will say that our flag. Some people would. Even if you wouldnt say that you know that flag. But what about this . Does anyone say this is my flag . No this is the union flag in the civil war. I have it put on a bug to bring to my constitutional luckless but i had custom design it so you can get an american with 50 star on a mob. You get a betsy ross with 13 stars, you can get a confederate battle flag on amok, but if you want the Union Civil War flag you have to special order it. People dont identify that strongly with the union side in the civil war. And that is true more so for reconstruction to say that is us, for it is divisive. And when you talk about the declaration, there is broader by and, when you first start thinking about this that seems obvious, it seemed unavoidable on a check shippable, because of course everyone can rally behind the declaration we and of course you cant expect that the same reports but neither of those things is true. When we tell ourselves this standard story we are not just using this convenient fiction, we are actually doing the darker story america shows. We are purchasing unity at justice. Few can everyone say Thomas Jefferson stated my deepest ideals . Not the real decoration. Not the real founders constitution. Not maybe the Thomas Jefferson that we have come to know through more detailed genetic testing. Black americans, or you know any americans who think compromising slavery is unacceptable may find it hard to rally. Because black americans are not included in the promises of the declaration, they are not included in the rights of the founders constitution. The Supreme Court said exactly that in the dred scott case. Blacks are not included, they cannot ever be, they are descendants of slaves and never will be u. S. Citizens. What is that . That is three white men marching forward together. This was painted in 1876. Which is not a coincidence, right at the end of reconstruction, the nation decides to forget the late unpleasant we move forward together, we go back to a moment when everyone felt unified. Well so what about reconstruction who feels exclude it the 14th amendment overrules the decision in its first there can be no hereditary outsiders. No matter who your parents were if you are born here you are one of us. That is inclusive. Who feels excluded . Well it is people who identified with the losing side of the civil war, who identify with traders, who made war against the United States to regime and preserve that regime built on slavery. It no longer seems obvious that we should agree to locate american identity of the declaration instead reconstruction. If we will exclude some people, and accelerate something that marginalizes them then we probably are better off to marginalize the traitors. We should be able to look at reconstruction and see ourselves. We should be able to ask who won the civil war and answer we did. We the people of the United States. We should have the battle of the republic as our national anthem. We should have the gettysburg address as our founding document. We should be able to say these men are the real heroes of our constitution. And the more that i thought about that, the case for black soldiers as the heroes of our constitution is actually pretty strong. Why is that . The civil war starts as a war for union, it ends is a war for freedom . How does that shift occur . Nobody is sure. But the answer is black military service. Once you have black human soldiers fighting for their country, it is the path to full citizenship. It became obvious to lincoln to the other people if you have black Union Soldiers, you can no longer have slavery when this war ends. Blacks have to be full citizens in the American Society going forward. What turns the civil war into the war for freedom . What gives us the push that leads to the abolition of slavery . It is black military service. What does this mean . We can tell a different story about america. It is a story about Getting Better, but it doesnt look back it is not about Getting Better to get closer to some mythical past. Lets make a better future. Making a nation that is more just. It is not a Success Story not yet, maybe not ever. It is the story of an unfinished project. Not a story of continuity. It is a story of rupture a break from the past. The america born in 1776 is flawed. It is flawed of necessity, its compromise is required, to win ratification of the constitution, but it is deeply flawed bites embracements of slavery. Then we get better. The improvement comes at a terrible cost of death and destruction. But the Reconstruction Amendments give us a bunch better constitution. We construction is blended and driven back, but generations later the Supreme Court and the civil rights unit start to promise reconstruction. We keep going. There is opposition, theres always opposition, and there is mistakes and there are setbacks. But what makes us american, our deepest ideal, is that we keep trying. America is born in attempt to find a new and better way, to escape the stare and oppressive monarchs. We dont get it immediately, but we keep going, we know that the america is not something that is given to us, it is something that we make. Something that we find inside ourselves. The true america is not handed down from the past but created a new by each generation, created a little better, what we can give the future is the opportunity to get a little closer than we did ourselves. That is the promise that makes us an american. That is the promise we must keep. Thank you. applause so now i think we have a question and answer period. It. I have one comment and one question. The emancipation proclamation was only passed because the north was losing too many battles. So thats why the emancipation probe occupation that we got black Union Soldiers. My question is this, if the 15th amendment protects the rights of all citizens to vote for why do we have today into bases society, so many antivoting problems . Thank you for the comment. The questions about the 15th amendment. The answer there is, the amendment is pretty narrowly targeted. The 15th amendment is related to race for the right to vote, for sex discrimination we needed the 19th amendment. Why do we have so much Voter Suppression nowadays . The 15th amendment is part of reconstruction almost immediately thereafter it is a dead letter. There are very overt and explicit refusal to allow blacks to vote in lots of places in the country a lot of the south, and other places. Eventually the nation moves forward a little better. It says you cant do this so explicitly. Rather than explicitly discrimination, you get tests that are given that are very difficult to pass because there are grandfather clauses. Which theres Something Like if your grandfather was allowed to vote you are not allowed to who does that affect . That affects descendants of slaves. So, how do you deal with that . It turns out to be very difficult for, because you know you can have people who sue the state directly for denying the right to vote, but how do you prove that a particular test is being administered in a racially discriminatory way . It is hard. If you are talking about that contacts of an individual election, can you get a challenge to the courts to get a chance to remedy this problem in time . The next election comes around and they are doing Something Else. Eventually congress and acts the vote to write act, one of the things that the voter right act does, is it says certain jurisdictions with a history of race based Voter Suppression must get approval from the Justice Department before they can make changes to their voting laws. This turns out to be enormously effective because now rather than trying to bring individual suits against the states, and trying to do things as the election is being held, you can stop the practices from going into effect beforehand. The Voting Rights act works well, it works so well that the Supreme Court decides we dont need it anymore. And the Supreme Court invalidates essentially the requirements. Following that a whole bunch of the states have been subject to that enact a bunch of restrictions on voting. They probably had would not have been able to do how they had to get clearance. It turns out, once again that is very difficult to challenge these things. For the answer is, there are a bunch of people who want to restrict voting and the National Government and the Supreme Court, oppose that for a while. And they are not opposing it in the same way anymore. The Thomas Jeffersons draft of the declaration of independence has a paragraph that says king george goes to human war against human nature itself for captivating and in slavery in another hemisphere. I dont think it was Thomas Jefferson who was against slavery Thomas Jefferson put that paragraph in their and not the members. That is in Thomas Jeffersons draft, the notes we have say that acting distance of representatives from South Carolina and georgia so it was taken. Out jefferson has this in his first draft courtesy using slavery. He blames king george for bringing slavery to north america. Its a little strange thinking about it in context. It was not objecting at a time, foot they seem to be willing participants. Im just saying i dont think it would be accurate to say that it was jefferson gleam in his eye, because he certainly wrote it down. When i said the passage for jefferson was about racial segregation and the right to vote, which are the things that Martin Luther king was objecting to in the i have a dream speech. The standard story for realization for the ideas of the declaration, that those things are inadmissible. But once you realize that the declaration has this passage criticizing but he does take it out, leaves in the passage that leaves in king germs at the and sort of off roads this with it becomes a little bit harder to say, those are the promise erie notes, that the nations are dishonoring. Why didnt king point to parts of the constitution that explicitly do condemn these things . Because there are constitution parts that do it. And the question becomes even more pointed when you realize as a high school junior, king won an oratory contest which focuses on the Reconstruction Amendments and talks about conquering southern armies but cant conquer southern hate. Why did they start out talking that way and then move on to optimistic unity based theme of i have a dream . He thought it would be more effective. But interesting later in his life king changes his mind again, he seems to have lost faith in the idea that appeals to unity, for the most effective way forward. He said that the superficial optimism needed to be reconsidered and he expressed greater frustration with honestly the consequence of the standard story, if you tell yourself, american ideals from the beginning are anti slavery or anti racist. You can look at the problems of racism and say its overt, its slavery, it is like aggregation, it is lynchings. Once we are not doing that again racism is over. It was an aberration. It is superficial and you can cut those practices out of American Life, and you have solved the problem. King said racism is more deeply embedded in American Life than that, it is part of our identity. That i think is true. The standard story that tells us it was an aberration, encourages a kind of complacency and the kind of unwillingness to engage with the depth and pervasiveness of racism. I have about 15 questions ill get to them real quick. The punchline of your story is very profound. Who that the black Union Soldiers are what created this country. I am a biologist not a lawyer. When i look at the laws that most lawyers pass based on the constitution, and i look at the future now, i want your opinion of the constitution going forward. Right now the constitution looks like a profoundly flawed document. It is based on the concept of independence, which exist nowhere in the known universe. From the current virus to that is threatening us, to climate change, to terrorism, whatever the threats are our independent agencies are independent states, and our states on a global scale, cannot deal with these problems without getting to the causes. It is my view from, what part about the laws of nature, dont you understand that. When i look at every religion, that comes from the golden rule we, and it is lincoln who said our declaration of independence is our golden apple. Our constitution is a silver frame around it and in order to form a perfect union, that thomas payne might say would give us our maximum freedom, we need to be responsible with our freedoms and we are not. The story we have on independence and our insistence on instead penance, our Fourth Amendment cannot protect us against terrorism. Privacy cannot be done. The moving forward on these flood concepts that dont fit with reality what is your view . The constitution is flawed, there are several things that i would change if i could. A fix term for the president is maybe not a good idea. It should be easier to remove a president. Especially when that is lost the confidence of the american people. Im not a big fan of equal state suffrage in the senate. That is designed for a big world from it is going to be the case, it is projected within a few decades, that 80 of the population will live in 18 states. There will be dramatic distortion through the senate. Not a huge fan of that. Particularly the Electoral College is a bad idea. [applause] conceivably, we could get around the Electoral College without many the constitution because if each state if enough state to constitute a majority of the Electoral College agreed to award their electors to the winner of the popular vote, baby could get to a National Popular vote without amending the constitution and there is an interesting contact where states are pledging to do this. Unfortunately, people think and i think you are mistaken, but people think this would have partisan effects. Anything that is going to have partisan effects, you probably cannot amend the constitution to achieve. Because it is difficult to do. The party system is the other real problem. The party system interacts with our constitution in an unfortunate way. The framers did not anticipate the party system. They thought that members of one branch of government would necessarily spill of loyalty to that branch of government and the members of the other branches of government as rivals. A number of Congress Look at the president and thanks, there is a vital for the affection of the people and i should try to govern wisely so people will likely more. Does not turn out that way when you bring the party system into the picture because now, if the matter of congress and president are the same party, the number of Congress Looked at the president and thinks, there is my captain. If they are from different parties, the matter of Congress Says they are the captain of the other team. Rather than checks and balances based on different assessments of the public good and independent judgments about wise policy, you get either single Party Compliance and an absence of checks and balances or you get this partisan infighting. In either case, it does not work out well. And i would say the point i think you were suggesting the idea of individual responsibility and the extent to which we have to be responsible and we should feel responsible for our government is also a very important idea. Benjamin franklin leaving the Constitutional Convention wasnt supposedly asked by some woman, what form of government had given us . Star franklin famously supposedly responded, a republic if you can keep it. That is something i think we need to bear in mind. I can ask you a question, i dont disagree especially about the constitution being flawed, and so much more of what we are now. But the constitution did have the bill of rights, the freedom of speech, religion, assembly, double jeopardy, and all that kind of stuff. Some of our personality, some of the positives can be traced back to the constitution. I understand a lot of those freedoms didnt come through until the 14th amendment was applied to the United States. But they were integral part of who we were. Well its an interesting question. On the one hand yes i agree with you. There are these amendments that placed limits on the federal government and protected values. It is also an interesting fact though, that the bill of rights was not understood in the same way as it is today until after it started being applied to the states. So if you look for early uses of the phrase bill of rights. You dont really get anyone calling the firsthand amendments the bill of rights until after reconstruction. , if you look at the content of those rights, it is very different, the bill of rights now has all of these really important rights and fundamental effects on the way the government has to conduct itself, but didnt really do that until those wright started being applied to those states. And part of that is maybe something to do with the way the federal government differs and maybe the federal judiciary was less interested in the federal government, but also a bunch of these rights were understood differently. One of the important things to understand about the bill of rights is that in its initial version, it is not quite as focused on individual rights as people may think. A lot is focused on empowering the states. The founders think the government is a threat and they trust the states, they think they will protect liberty. Or at least they dont want to interviewer state practices. If you think about the establishment clause, the establishment clause says Congress Shall make no law with about religion, that means there can be no official religion. Of course no official federal or state religion. Establishment clause gets invoked when states put up religious displays and crosses in front of their court houses or try to put Ten Commandments in the schools. We think of this as an individual right. But if you think about this before the 14th amendment at the time of the founding, why did they say Congress Shall make no law about religion, rather than there shall be no establishment of religion. They were trying to do two things. First they are trying to protect the federal government by stab lashing and national religion, but they were also trying to protect state establishments. At the time of the founding a bunch of states had official religions, and they wanted to point that congress could not this establish those. So this tablet shouldnt cause is the most vivid example of this but there are other constitutional rights, the Second Amendment is one of these, that changed their content and meaning when they get reflected through the 14th amendment and they become much more individual rights and much less as what they started out as which was protection for state authority. Youre very eloquent on the question. Isnt it true that the redirect is in the preamble was entry amp interpreted by many contemporaries as condemning slavery . And thats even many southern slave owners, benefited from it personally, felt it was an evil and would go into instant distinction. They thought that distinction. How was the declaration of independence understood at the time . The way that it looks to me, the best source is american scripture from, i depend on that research, if you look at how the declaration of independence was received at the time of it was propagated most people seem to understand that all men are created equally and liberty is equal. There is some sort of sarcastic commentary among the british about how ironic that the sleeve drivers are yelping about liberty, but i dont think that is a serious engagement with the argument of the declaration. When the declaration was celebrated, which it is, it tends to be celebrated not as a source of morals but as our independence and this changes basically around 1830. When the conflict over slavery is intensifying, and abolitionists are looking for rhetorical resources. How can we effectively fight against the slavery . It is effective to say it is inconsistent with our fundamental values that were there from the beginning. They say that, and i think they believe it, lincoln said it consistently, i think he believed it, but i also think it is a misinterpretation. If you read the declaration in the context of which it was written, would we expect jefferson to write something about how outsiders, people who are not part of a Political Community should be treated by the government. And that they cant be enslaved. That seems like a strange thing for him to do because it is inconsistent with the practice of every government that have ever existed. It has nothing to do with the argument that he is trying to make which is about legitimate wreath already can be rejected. Jefferson himself said he wasnt trying to write anything novel. He was trying to produce a boiler plate in light ten mint social contract of where legitimacy comes from. At particular moments he needs to distinguish between certain strands he needs to go with lock than cobbs, and he does that in a compressed way. For but part of the declaration that people consider important was not the preamble. Not until about 1830. Sorry. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020][captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] good evening. Im so glad you are here tonight. Welcome