That was built in the 1730s, about 40 years before there was any such thing as the United States of america. Pennsylvania was a british colony. This was its capital building. Capitol building. They would make laws for pennsylvania and each of the 13 colonies has its own government. These are the issues in a lot of ways that will lead to the creation of the United States, most of which will happen in this room, because the colonies , as time goes forward, or at least many people in the Political Class of these colonies will start to grow , dissatisfied with the way the British Government is treating them, is affecting their lives locally, and one of the other side issues is americans living in the colonies do not get to vote in british elections. So when the parliament in london makes laws for americans, the most famous being various taxes you get to learn about in school, we will say this is taxation without representation. It is that idea you are not getting the voice. Thomas jefferson would write in the declaration of independence about government existing with the consent of the governed and americans are feeling like they are not getting that consent. When it starts disappearing locally as well as connected with the home country in london and britain that they are really going to get this growing dissatisfaction. So, this room is long in use by pennsylvania, but, by 1775, pennsylvania will essentially be inviting the Continental Congress into their state. The Continental Congress had met in philadelphia about a year earlier although they chose not to meet in independence. They met down the street at carpenters hall. The first set of meetings is sort of the first sit down of these different colonies and it is this idea of expressing to the British Government what would be under british constitution and bill of rights at that time this notion of redressing grievances we would have as british subjects and ultimately the right to theely they write king. We are loyal british subjects in america but these things are , happening, we have these grievances over loss of rights, loss of connection with the government. The fact they are taking away some of our local government, closing down our local courts, giving us these rules to follow that we have no say. They write this letter to the king, which, again, perfectly within your rights under british law. They agree as a group on an association that these 13 colonies will kind of Work Together in the future on these big issues. What happens is they go home after that meeting set of meetings in the fall of 1774. Communicating across the ocean in the late 1700s will take a little while. They will not come back to philadelphia until the spring of 1775. However things have changed in , those few months. In the area of boston, you will have the battles of the towns of lexington and concord in april. When congress is coming back to here to philadelphia, this is sort of the news. They are actually finding out in some way about some of the conflict that has begun. Suddenly, things being a lot more serious leads to more serious circumstances when Congress Starts to meet in this room and may. In the first big thing they may. Will tackle is this notion of working as a group but the idea of maybe fighting for those rights, actually taking that militia, Minuteman Army up around boston and making it an american army, the continental army. In june of 1775, one of the really first big steps that will be taken as far as changing the world is going to be creating this continental army, this american army, 13 separate colonies that had run their lives separately and for years had not resisted together but it never worked out that they wanted to Work Together at the same time. They finally create this army june 14, 1775, taking the , beginnings of the army up in boston, that had fought against the british already making it , the american army, and taking picking George Washington to be the commander of that army. That is one of the most important decisions made in this room. Because, if you think about the way this war will go for the young United States, it is 8. 5 years. George washington will be the only commanding general we have for all of those years. At the end, he will succeed. Back in they are still figuring 1775, out what they are fighting for. That leads to one last letter to the king. We called this one the olive branch petition. Again like they had done before, it starts off with the idea that we are loyal british subjects fighting for our rights, again going, following the chain of command in britain to the king that asks that he assist us in redressing these grievances. The other thing they will write is a declaration called the declaration of the causes and necessities of taking up arms. Both of these things will be written in july. It is putting out there to the world exactly what we are looking to do, to correct this situation we feel has gone against us and our rights are being threatened or taken away. Well unfortunately, the british , government in london will decide that they will not communicate with the Continental Congress. The king himself will announce that there is this rebellion in america, and the British Government will essentially issue this letter to americans that says if you will be involved in this rebellion we , will view you as a traitor. Treason, is serious then as it is now, could lead to a death penalty. By early 1776, that news arrived in philadelphia. It is getting very clear that negotiating, talking is not particularly solving anything. And of course you do have this , very radical bent of men in this room that are pushing more and more toward this idea of independence and finally you get the last big push, which is Thomas Paynes book common sense, selling tens of thousands of copies to the colonies and his simple argument is we do not need those guys in london. We are better off on our own. We could run america better than the british ever could. This idea of independence swells through that spring. By june, virginia introduces a resolution for american independence. They decide to not address it right away in june. They are going to want to consult their home governments, their home colonies or states, if we want to call them that because we are getting to that , point. At the same time, they want to put something on paper. While they are each consulting home to see what home says they should do, they will also form this fiveman committee, john adams of massachusetts, probably in a lot of ways one of the most significant guys in congress those early days. He is pushing for the creation of the army in 1775. Also the navy in the fall of 1775. He is pushing in the spring of 1776 that each of the colonies write its own constitution, which is another step towards independence each colony getting rid of that old charter from the British Government, creating a new, independent constitution. He is one of the leaders in this movement. Also on the committee, a man named Robert Livingston of new york, who actually goes back 10 years to meetings held over the stamp taxes. You have a man from connecticut named Roger Sherman who ends up signing not only the declaration of independence, the United States constitution, but also the articles of confederation. There are only two men who can make that claim. Benjamin franklin from here in philadelphia, who is a far and away the most famous american at the time at 70 years old, oldest , man in congress, and one of the younger guys in congress, our fifth member Thomas Jefferson, 33yearold, that growing reputation for his writing and political thought. The committee deciding what they want to say decides jefferson should be the writer. He works for 17 days on the declaration of independence, and he will especially go to john adams and Benjamin Franklin for some of their ideas and critiques of his writing. But generally it is generally his work. But generally it is his work. He is building on a lot of other things both he and others have written. Some of the grievances they talk about makes up the big bulk of the declaration of independence. By june 28, the declaration is back here in the assembly room. But that is a friday. They will wait to the next monday to start debating. July 1 begins debate on independence. The first thing they will debate is not the declaration but the idea. They will start discussing is this really the best thing for us to do . Should we become these free and independent states . Most men in the room are at that point where they are ready to make this step. But there are others they are not loyal. They are not going to have loyalists in the Continental Congress. But they are men who are maybe a little bit more conservative who say this might not be such a good idea. John dickinson is one of the most important. He was the author of the letters of a pennsylvania farmer, which is against some of those various taxes and acts, the stamp tax and so on. He is one of our bestknown political writers of the day. He is sort of pulling back, saying the idea of how are we going to win the war against the british . This does not seem like the best idea in the world. This completely cuts off any chance of negotiating with the british. Others might look at the idea others might look at the idea that we do not have anyone helping us. Again britain is one of the , great powers of the world. America, 3 Million People and there are a chunk of them remaining loyal to the crown. There will be battles in this war, after all, with just americans on both sides. Some saying we should slow down , but most of the men are ready to move forward. On july 1, they will hold a committee nonbinding committee of the whole vote. The vote is on the question of being free and independent states. Heres how voting works in the Continental Congress. You have 13 states or colonies. Each gets an equal vote, one vote per state. They have different numbers of men at each table. Some states allow their delegates to decide amongst themselves. Some states will give delegates specific instructions. Here in the room on july 1, you will have nine of the delegations voting yes that we should be free and independent states. Two will vote no, and two will be either divided or not voting. New york is still waiting for formal instructions, so they will not vote at all. Delaware is divided. They have two of their delegates in the room, 14, 1 against. One fo r, one against. Pennsylvania and South Carolina will vote no. On the rest of the first and into the second, the second is the date they want to take the binding vote, the official vote. The politicking is we want to make this unanimous. New york, they are going to ignore. New york is going, we have to wait until they tell us what to do. Delaware, fortunately has a , third delegate. He is at home, so he rides overnight through the storm. Delawares quarter has a guy riding on a horse, his name is caesar rodney. He is the guy to break the tie in delaware. Delawares vote yes for independence. Pennsylvania and South Carolina, South Carolina has got three delegates. We assume it is two to one. South carolina will be on board. Pennsylvania is more complicated. They have got one of the bigger delegations. When that vote goes south for pennsylvania, what they will do is convince two of the guys to walk away when they are ready to make the final vote so that it can be unanimous. They do not have to vote against how they feel. John dickinson is one of those guys that will not vote amongst the pennsylvania delegates. Instead of one vote loss, it becomes a onevote win, pennsylvania is on board, and it is 12 to nothing. On july 2, 1776, they vote more or less unanimously, with new york waiting to approve the , notion of being free and independent states. That is a day that john adams would write to his wife. This is what we should celebrate with parades and speeches and so on. Sadly for july 2, it never gets particularly remembered. The second, the third, and the fourth are the days of debating on the declaration of independence. The declaration, and jeffersons draft is about four pages long. , in jeffersons draft is , about four pages long. They will go through every word. They will make a significant number of changes, but they will not change the basic nature of a lot of what jefferson writes. They will add words here or there. The most famous part is that opening paragraph or two. Most of that remains intact. The early listing of grievances, the things we have been talking about for several years as far as what we are worried about the british doing most of that , remains intact. Probably the most famous section that gets changed is the section about the slave trade, specifically slave insurrections. One of the big arguments virginia makes is there governor governor had essentially said in the early days of the war that slaves should kill their masters and seek their own freedom, which for a slaveholding state, slave insurrection is a frightening thing. That is very much on the minds of jefferson and other virginians, so this idea of slave insurrection bringing more , slaves into america becomes a part of that. We do not want to have more slaves to worry about. He goes after the slave trade, blames the king for importing these folks. That is a bit controversial in this room because you have a fair number of sleep holders and slaveholding states that do not want to talk about this. And slaveholding states that do not want to talk about this. It does get put aside. It is not an attack on slavery but slave trade and some of these things they were worried about the british doing that would affect the lives in america. As you get into july 4, they are going through pretty well every bit of that declaration of independence, but finally taking , a little bit out, adding words here and there but they get to something that all of the men in this room representing all 13 states can agree. They are ready to vote. On the fourth, it is the same boat. Vote. It is 12 to 0 with new york waiting. July 4 becomes for americans our day of independence. It is the day we literally have something concrete to hold up to the world. It is the day we said here is , what we are fighting for. Again when we look at the , declaration of independence, we focus on that opening section. All men are created equal, the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is that list of reasons why they are doing this. Independence. It justified a war against their own government, which is what they started out being. This is all of the things they did that are not legal by british constitution, british bill of rights. We are acting the way we have to act because we got to this point where we cannot stay under this rule anymore. And so they had something that on july 4 they voted yes, and they voted right away to send it out. They said we want this to go to , the states, the army. We want people to know what we are fighting for. And that is really what they needed because if you pull back to the big picture in the summer of 1776, we are not winning the war. The british army is invading new york invading new york that summer, massive. Hundreds of ships, tens of thousands of men sweeping down through manhattan, new jersey. We had aof 1777, general in washington that would keep going in difficult days. We had an army that managed to survive those bad winters and we managed to keep ourselves long enough that we could make changes. Roomther thing about this that people expect is that i will tell you that they signed the declaration of independence on the fourth of july. Sadly, they did not. The simplest explanation is that nobody thought about it that day. They had not gotten to the point of preparing a fancy handwritten one. They wanted the words agreed to, they wanted it voted on, and they wanted people to read it. They sent it to a printer. Technically the oldest , declaration of independence was printed on a Printing Press and has no names on the bottom. Jump ahead a couple of weeks, and one of the men here in the room will make a proposal that we the word they use is in gross engross. You make a formal version and to be signed by the delegates. Most of the men in the room said why do we not think of that sooner . They will have it handwritten, and by the beginning of august it is done. It is checked over. They make sure it is right. They make sure it is right and they will start signing it. About 50 guys signed it on august the second, and a few more in the next couple of weeks. One might not be for a couple more years. That is the one if you go to washington, d. C. , that is the one most of us think of as the declaration of independence. It is one that we just kind of, like everything they will do in this room, get through by process rather than some massive master plan we have at the beginning. They are making it up as they go along and figuring it out as they go. The other big thing that will happen that late year of 1776 is that Benjamin Franklin will go to france. And he is going to be the guy that will help convince france to come to the war on our side. While the british army is in this room in Benjamin Franklin 1778, is signing a peace treaty with france. That is changing the whole nature of the war. Because the british suddenly find they have to worry about a french navy. The United States does not have much of a navy to threaten the british fleet, but france does. The british have to worry about being invaded. Certainly guys like Benjamin Franklin working with marquita lafayette in france to get some invasion of england going. You will have to worry if you are Great Britain about islands in the caribbean. You will be fighting in asia, africa, you will be fighting all over the world. A lot of resources are not coming here to america, which makes George Washingtons life easier. We will get money, supplies from france. We will get french troops, plus that french navy. If you think of our victory yorktown, the biggest victory of the war we are not going to get , that victory without the french navy. Eventually, the war slowly turns in our favor. Back in paris, john adams and 1783, Benjamin Franklin sign a peace treaty. So it is really back in 1783, the Continental Congress can finally breathe that sigh of relief and know that we have achieved american independence. That would be nice if that were the end of our story, but of course there is more to do. Go back to 1776. Each colony, each state writes its own constitution. Each one is different. Each one has its own set of government. I will use pennsylvania. This room was pennsylvanias legislature. Pennsylvania decides to write a constitution that is so radical for its day that they get rid of the position of governor. They will not have a chief executive for pennsylvania. Fairlyll have a democratically run, one House Legislature as opposed to the , standard two houses that most states will use. Pennsylvania has got a very different set up. It proves to be too radical to work. Our 1776 pennsylvania constitution will only last about 14 years. They go to the traditional governor, two houses of legislature. This is the idea in 1776. Each state will start itself over. The problem is, being all a little bit different and one of my colleagues loves to talk about that today. We still have differences from state to state, speed limit, rules for driving will be different. We do still have vestiges there. But, the problem was, in those early days, they manifested themselves in ways that threatened what someone like George Washington, who is very nationalist, believing in this idea of the United States, thinking that could be bad for us. You have states fighting over land. They do not want to cooperate with each other. What do we have in the way of government . State governments very much hold the cards. There is our Continental Congress. The articles of confederation sets the rules for the Continental Congress. That is an idea that comes into this room with the Benjamin Franklin at the beginning of the war. It is an idea he dusted off from the 1750s during the french and indian war. He put together this idea of confederation between the colonies so they could work to defend themselves against enemies such as france. He dusts off this old idea, writes this first articles of confederation. Chose theter they committee to write the declaration of independence, they also chose a committee with a member from each of the states to write the articles of confederation. The first would be John Dickinson, who would be famous for trying to slow us down for independence. Makingsame time, he is those arguments, he is writing articles of confederation this , formal agreement between the states of how the United States is going to operate. Essentially, the congress would run the war, run foreign policy, but they would cooperate with each other and you wouldnt have to pay taxes and tariffs as you went from state to state. Problem with the articles of confederation, and ultimately what dooms it, you can see from how it is signed. The signing is going to take place right when the Continental Congress comes back in the comes back to philadelphia when the british army has left. The british leave philadelphia in june. The congress is back in july and on july 9, they are ready to sign the articles of confederation. The way the signing of that one works is a little different. The declaration of independence is signed by the delegates and most sign on the same day. The articles of confederation is signed as each state approves it, there delegates will sign it. Delegates will sign it. So they are waiting for the states to make their decision. About half or so are going to sign that first day. Over the next weeks, most of the rest will sign. Ultimately, maryland will hold out for close to two years. The signing will begin july 9, 1778. It wont finish until march the first of 1781. Youre talking about two and a half years of time. For most of that time, it is maryland by itself, saying no. Technically, this cannot go into effect until all of the states have signed. , mainly is feuding with virginia, their neighbors, over land to the west. When the revolutionary war comes to an end, we go from our old colonial valleys which would be old colonial boundaries, which would be the Appalachian Mountains though the colonies , figure they should keep going. Now we end at the mississippi river. Thats a lot of new land. If you think about the states between the coast and the mississippi river, the states are thinking going that would be , great, so maryland and virginia are arguing over who gets to use the Potomac River and maryland is going i dont want to sign this until everything is settled. There is your issue that arises. There will be others. There was a bill trying to pass through this room to raise money on essentially imports, take money from imports, theres a tax tariff and you put that to pain pain the soldiers. Paying the soldiers. It seems pretty logical. 12 of the states agreed. One, happen to be rhode island, the smallest of this dates said no and failed. The smallest of the states said no and it failed. So the states individually have a lot more power and sometimes one can defeat 12. So a lot of people start thinking this is not working so well, including members of the congress. By the end of the war, you have members of the congress writing letters to officers in the army as the war is winding down, saying maybe the army should throw their weight behind something a little more strong together here in philadelphia because this is not working between the states. Maybe we need the strength of that army. Now, George Washington, of course is very much a believer , in this idea of civilian control. That is one of the great principles we have embraced from our beginning points and George Washington is a big part of that. One of what a lot of people would look at as one of his greatest moments is at the end , of the war, in newburgh, new york, hes going to call a meeting together as this word is maybe the army trying to change government a little bit, he is against it so he calls a meeting , puts some of the guys he feels are behind a lot of this talk in charge and says hes not going to be there. But then he shows up. Now washington is not a public speaker. This is not a man who wants to stand up and make speeches. If he can avoid it, hes going to do it. He starts making a speech and wants to read this letter, so he pulls out a pair of glasses and puts them on and says i have not only grown gray but half blind as well. He talks about what they fought for four years and that it not be ruined by rash actions at the end that hes got guys in tears and the whole thing, what we call the newburgh conspiracy , goes away. Even though the problems have been solved, this idea of military intervention in our civilian government fortunately stays out of view. Still washington does believe something stronger is needed but hes one of those guys thats going to go through the proper channel. George washington is a virginian. Is estate is his state fighting with their neighbors in maryland. He can have a meeting at his house, he can invite them to sit together. So he will do that. After the war ends, after a year about after he has the mount vernon conference, and they will sign an agreement together solving years of problems , between maryland and virginia, which leads to a reading in maryland and they will get five states to sit in annapolis. We call this the annapolis conference or convention. Again, the big result is it is going to lead to a bigger meeting. They are going to go and now our friend John Dickinson is going to go to the Continental Congress with a letter saying we , want have a big meeting in philadelphia and we want to really talk about the future and we want everyone to come. They are going to sit down starting in may of 1787, what we today call the Constitutional Convention. They are going to sit in the same room and address these issues plaguing the United States. It is going to start with about 11 states. New hampshire will show up late. Unfortunately, rhode island will never attend these meetings. This time, they are not allowed about to one state keep them from getting something done, so the way they are going to end up setting it up as they will pretend theres only 12 of them. Not only that, but when they vote, they will go to the people in each state, let the people vote on a special convention, and then the conventions will approve or not approve the constitution for each state, and you need nine states to put this into effect. These are guys who are definitely trying to engineer something because they know something needs to be done. They know, as separate entities, you go back to Benjamin Franklins design, the state is the snake is cut into pieces. Together during the french and indian war hes , calling for this union, join or die. That is this idea that a lot of these men are embracing that summer of 1787. The question that they will face in this room is what exactly is this that we want . The first days of meetings are these very esoteric debates about the nature of federal government, national government, whats the difference, what do we want . They are getting deep into these things and then we start saying we want this national government. They start saying then what . , virginia had come very organized. James madison is going to get credit for putting together a lot of the virginia plan submitted by Edmund Randolph, eventually our first attorney general. Another virginian is chosen by nomination from pennsylvania to sit in the back of the room and lead the Constitutional Convention and that will be George Washington. The big hero of the day equal of the day, equal now to franklin as far as american fame goes. Washington will take the lead fact the very chair at the back of the room behind me is the chair in which washington sat, which interestingly is the only item we have in this room we know for certain was here as part of those events. That chair was made in 1779 after the british left philadelphia. A lot of things were gone. Between the americans coming and going, the british coming and going, we dont have all the contents of the building anymore. So pennsylvanias government has to make new furniture, including the chair, for the speaker of pennsylvania. So that was in the room on that spot when washington took that position in 1787. So, the virginia plan three , branches of government, somewhat familiar to us today. Here are some of the issues that are going to face that plan as far as when you start debating. Other plans will get thrown out by other men. Me, one ofplan, to the biggest things is this notion of voting based on american people, seeing the states as artificial, everybody is american so whenever we do , things, we should just be americans. Why be virginians or somebody from massachusetts or delaware or anyone else anywhere else . Naturally, the other side of that coin is virginia happens to have more people than any other state, so voting by people is definitely good for virginia. A small state like delaware pretty much embraces one idea and that is every state be equal. The weight has always been. Delaware is digging their heels and they are going to refuse anything that does not involve equality amongst the states. You get the small states liking delawares ideas, the big states, virginias idea and that is an issue that will go on for the better part of a month. Off and on. Virginias idea of congress as is that we have these two houses. House, what lower becomes our senate and house of representatives. Again, it is based on population. But as you start debating it, you have others saying lets base it on states. Eventually when it seems like theres no answer to be found, it would be connecticut that would make the compromise. What we call the connecticut compromise or the great compromise. How about a senate where every state is equal, a house of representatives where we base things on people . Both sides getting some of what they want. Of course that is how it will , go, but not everyone he wants that. But not Everybody Loves that. You are not sure if everybody is going to go for that but that is how they slot in for congress. The president , there is another one. There are multiple ideas of president , executives, the virginia plan is ultimately a seven year executive elected by congress. A little bit different system than were used to today. Another plan, Edmund Randolph of virginia says how about having three president s at once . Then you have Alexander Hamilton of new york once a very strong executive. He says how about president for a lifetime, which needless to say, having gotten rid of king of a king, was not overly popular to these men. Eventually, they settle on a president for four years at a time. But then they have that level of Electoral College and we get a lot of questions about that. Why would they do that Electoral College . There are probably several reasons. One of them is simple distance. The idea of having states that and weeksnd days apart from georgia to new hampshire, with not a lot of great roads in travel can be difficult. So having this notion of sending people together to vote makes a lot of sense mechanically. Then also you have this idea that, with the Electoral College you are making sure smaller , states have a certain amount of say, so youre trying to balance a lot of different things. One of the things that will plague the young United States is something that does come up in 1787, this is the idea of slavery. Its the time to make that step and do away with slavery. Unfortunately, it was not. The Southern States are obviously fairly attached to it. They dont particularly want to talk about it. The word does not even make it into the constitution. You have one little notion of the slave trade, which they talk about in 20 years maybe we can discuss doing away with the slave trade. In other words, doing away with in other words, importing slaves from africa. Thats all the mention you get. Anyone who are antislavery, and there are guys in the room who are decidedly so, are not happy that we put this off for 20 years, the entire discussion, let alone action. Southern states would look at it that this is going to come up in 20 years and we are not happy with that. Again you have a lot of people , looking at sections of the constitution that are not very happy. Now who writes the constitution . , declaration of independence, Thomas Jefferson basically wrote it. The constitution, theres not that one obvious writer. Youre going to have a fiveman committee called the committee of detail, which name is exactly what it sounds like, the guys in detailsputting in the of what this government is going to be. Three of the five will be on the United States supreme court, one will be our first attorney general, so thats the kind of men you are going to have on there. Very much legal minded men. Probably the main guy is a man named james wilson from pennsylvania. Hes one of the signers of the declaration of independence as well and he will end up on the United States supreme court. More than likely, he came up with the words we the people at the beginning of the constitution. Nothing else that would be recognizable to us today, but he does start out with we the people. Now, as they go through this detail report they get to a , point where they work out how be so they form another fiveman committee and this is the committee of style. This is where your heavy hitters will be. You have your Alexander Hamilton and james madison. But the guy who is probably going to do most of the writing is a pennsylvanian by the name of Gouverneur Morris, a man with a wooden leg. Another one of these men, very gifted with the pen. And morris is a friend of George Washington. In fact there is a story that , comes from that summer with morris and Alexander Hamilton and basically there is a bet made that hamilton makes with morris. In washington is this formal guy. He does not like to shake hands. He prefers to about. Kind of a bit on the aloof side, especially in public. Hamilton is like youre never going to do that. I bet youre not going to do it. So of course he goes up and does it and washington gives him one of his glaring looks and shrinks him down and im sure hamilton is standing in the corner laughing like mad but Gouverneur Morris is the guy whos going to write that we the people of the United States, in order to form a more Perfect Union that famous preamble we know. At the end, you have this famous you have this constitution. Four pages, and that is all it is four pages. There is no bill of rights at that time. They kind of talked about it. Alexander hamilton would say we dont need one, the whole thing is kind of a bill of rights. The government is only going to have the power we give it. Others would say thats all well and good but we would like to see Something Like that there. Even by the time they are finished, you have guys look at whole and say things like i dont like, that i dont like, i dont like this sentence, gives too much power to little states, the president is too strong, not strong enough, theres no bill of rights. You come in on the last day and its not certain everybodys going to agree. Remember these guys are sending , out for their states to vote on, so it is important to the group as a whole to try to have everyone on board because these are the guys that have to sell this new constitution to the people so that they will then put it into effect. So youre going to have Benjamin Franklin come in the very last a of meetings. Franklin is 81 that summer. There are days he is literally being carried in and out of these meetings. He can hardly walk. Fortunately for everyone, he is still the great sage, the elder statesman. On that last day, he brings in a speech, which he starts off by saying there are things in this constitution i do not approve. But then he says at present im , old enough to know its not are not my ideas perfect nobody in this room is , perfect, and we should basically put aside our doubts and sign our names on this thing. He said we should all doubt a little our own infallibility, which i always love another one of these typical franklin phrases. Anyway, he says one of his great famous statements in the room, he says we should all sign because i do not expect anything better than this. In fact, i am not sure this is not the best. To me, one of the most famous triple negatives in American History. Im sure some of the guys in the room were listening and said , what did he say . In the end, its hard to argue with franklin. Men are in the room that day. 38 men will sign 39 names. Theres a story to that one. John dickinson, who refused to sign the declaration of independence, again, not that he was loyal to the british, but he was saying this is not the right time, this is a bad idea. So he never signed the declaration of independence. He is sick the day the constitution is going to be signed. So he tells his fellow delegate from delaware, george read, d, look igeorge ree , want you to put my name on that thing when you sign it. So he signs twice. 39 men would sign the constitution. Three would not, different issues. You have Elbridge Gerry of massachusetts who made a speech saying there was an excess of democracy, which he called the worst of all political evils. The fear of democracy at that point in history is made evident a few years later in the french revolution when their new , government went to the point of renaming months and starting over at year and cutting off one 6000 heads. Thats the sort of fear of democracy, that it leads to some kind of chaotic anarchy which ultimately in history which leads to a dictator which is , what france does going up to napoleon. They went back to rome and saw the same sort of thing. Democracy was always a little tempered in the United States and britain, which is where we get our ideas of having that mix. We have a mix of states and people, a president and congress, we divide our powers. This idea there is no one place that has too much strength coming. Jerrys a little afraid democracy will overrun because he sees potential for revolution. He wont sign it. Edmund randolph wont sign it but hes always one of those guys who likes to hedge his bets. He ends up supporting it when virginia is voting on it but would not actually sign it in this room because hes afraid guys at home like Patrick Henry will go against him because he knows Patrick Henry is one of those guys that doesnt think this is a great idea. The other one, george mason is , looking at the idea of a bill of rights. He kind of wants to see that, so he is not crazy about parts of it. A lot of guys in the big states like massachusetts or virginia do not like that senate. There are all kinds of issues but most men put aside their doubts, as franklin hoped and , sign their names. September 17, 1787. Franklin looks at the chair where washington sits in looks sits and looks behind washingtons head, this carving of a halfs on the back of the chair and says all summer ive been trying to decide whether that half son is supposed to be rising or setting and i could not make up my mind and till now. Now, at length, i have the happiness to know that is a rising and not a setting sun. And he felt good. He had been working on this since the 1750s, this unity of the american states and he , finally sees it happening. One of the Great Stories that comes afterwards is he is supposedly asked what kind of government they have created in philadelphia and he says its a republic, if you can keep it. His last warning to the rest of us. Think about the United States one of the things i like to finish with this idea we are still using that same constitution. We are still using that same government, but it has also allowed us, maybe not quickly but it has allowed us to improve , because ultimately, slavery , does not really and by the does not really end by the civil war. Technically it is the 13th amendment. 15th amendment will give equality in voting by color. The 19th amendment will give equality in voting by gender. So, through the years, maybe slowly, we have faced every issue that came up in our up and our constitution and it has allowed us to solve things and continue to move forward. I always think back to franklin and his rising sun and that is exactly what was seen through the years. This little humble room is everything the United States has been and will be. Its going to grow from the events that happen over 10 or 11 years and its amazing when you think of this humble place and the men who sat here and the things they did. It is really incredible, the things that have grown from this space. This Pennsylvania State house is the real name of Independence Hall and it was pennsylvanias capitol until 1799. Pennsylvania moves its government west to harrisburg. At that point, the building, they are using space in the building and renting it out. It is not the Capitol Building anymore, but the city of philadelphia had started building buildings on the block. By the early 1800s, essentially, the city is going to buy this building and this whole block is going to serve as our city hall. Through the 19th century, this is city hall. The second floor of the building would hold meetings of Philadelphia City council until 1895. But the first floor is one of the first places in the United States that becomes a historical place. By the 1820s, 30s, 40s, people are coming to visit. It gets the nickname Independence Hall. Probably this room was Independence Hall before the whole building became Independence Hall. One of the famous early is the marquis de lafayette, after the revolutionary war, returns to make this triumphant trip through the United States. Youre are talking to 1820s. You are talking the 1820s. We have very few of the Founding Fathers and soldiers that are left. In every town he visits, you gather the old veterans and anyone like Thomas Jefferson or john adams that are still alive, and they get together and celebrate lafayette. So its this wonderful exclamation of patriotic memory and probably one of the first times we are looking at embracing our history. It is that same time period where people are starting to purchase their copies of the declaration of independence and put them above the fireplace and we are celebrating the words and the actual document. So fortunately, this room becomes a Historic Place before theyve gotten to the point of totally getting rid of the building and tearing it down to build something new. So we are lucky it was in use long enough that it became important. By the mid1800s, this whole thing is a museum. One of the fascinating stories of this room, when the liberty 100, of course spent almost years in our bell tower, cracked they put it on display in this , room. Where else will we put it . Lets stick it in the room where the United States began. One of my favorite days thats not one of the days of the revolutionary war comes 150 years ago this year in april after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. His body lay in state in this room. He came here to philadelphia, washingtons birthday, 1861. On his way to be inaugurated, he made a speech at Independence Hall on washingtons birthday and said in this room he would rather be assassinated on the spot then fail the ideals of the Founding Fathers. Exactly the kind of strength america needed at the time. Sadly, four years later, he comes back having been assassinated, but having succeeded in saving the United States stop put his casket , literally, almost next to the liberty bell and ran 100,000 people through this building in a day to pay their respects to lincoln. In this space, you had lincoln laying next to the liberty bell in the room where the United States was born in the ghosts of was born and all the sorts of ghosts of the founding father present at that one time. Thats the kind of thing that makes this room so great. The park Service Comes in and comes in in the 20th century after world war ii and, unfortunately, the one thing that had changed, a lot of the walls, they made them fancier. It was a plain room and they wanted to have paintings up, so they had that oldfashioned museum filled with stuff. Our big thing was get back to the way it looked. We stripped it back down to the plain walls you see today. Again the main structure, fortunately, survived the years and we were able to figure out well enough the colors and everything else, so we were able to get it back to what we think is pretty close to how it looked. The furniture is from the time, not necessarily the original furniture because in those early , days, nothing was saved. The british Army Captures philadelphia. Nobody is thinking about the history until we have some and they keep using it for different things, so we dont necessarily have all the contents of the room, but we think everything here is a good match to what was here. As best we can tell from our investigation and research, this is pretty close to how it looks. [captioning performed by the [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this is American History tv on cspan 3, 48 hours of programming exploring our nations past. On september 17, the dwight d. Eisenhower memorial was dedicated to the nations 34th president , whos world war ii leadership and twoterm presidency are remembered at a site just off the National Mall and at the base of capitol hill. Speakers at the ceremony, in person, and by video because of the coronavirus, included memorial designer frank gehry, former secretary of state condoleezza rice, family members david and susan eisenhower, and eisenhower memorial commission