Good evening, and welcome to so important and interest, slavery and the United States constitution. I want to welcome you to our final event for our constitution weekend. You may know me as the programming lead for the actor interpreters and many recognize me from my time around Colonial Williamsburg portraying free and enslaved black people, but this evening i had the pleasure of serving as your moderator. I am also joined by ali larson and hope wright and hope right, hope right, my Dear Colleague began her career at Colonial Williamsburg when she was in the third grade. She was a performer in a play on my own time and the black music program. She has collaborated with many other departments at the foundation as well as with other museums over the course of her career. She has worked with a variety of educational institutions as an actress, storyteller, writer, researcher, and mentor. Please welcome hope wright. Our special guest allie larson is a professor of law and director of the institute of the bill of rights law, since she joined the faculty in 2010, she has received many awards including the statewide outstanding faculty award in the rising star category. Professor larson is a scholar of constitutional law and legal institutions for the focus on how information dynamics affect both. Her work has been featured multiple times in various publications and these are just a few of her accomplishments, please help me in welcoming allie larson. Our discussion may be about an hour long and it may feel uncomfortable at times, that is ok, you may feel angry, that is ok. You may feel sad, that is also ok. All of these feelings arose for me when i was researching for an event and it is ok to feel something. This reminds us that we care. While slavery is not the beginning of the story, for the purposes of trying to dive into large topics in a very little bit of time we will start our evening with a woman from the time period who resided in her home speaking with elizabeth. Did you know that help portrayed her . Elizabeth there was a free black woman, she lived with three daughters and a Property Owner. Someone who did quite well for herself as a free black woman in williamsburg. Thank you so much. Lydia was legally enslaved, one of the delegates who attended the Constitutional Convention. This is behind us and in this interpretation, it is september 19, 1787. We find lydia in her own sharing some Important News with elizabeth. It says, be it known unto all men by these presents, that i do emancipate and set free night my negro woman slave, lydia. Given my seal, this 20th day of august in the year of our lord 1787. [laughter] good day, i am lydia and i am a free woman. I dont know where my emotions will go. My mood is a pendulum swinging between elation and despair. I have yearned for freedom ever since i was young. As you know, elizabeth, the path to freedom for one born a slave is very difficult, almost impossible. When they told me of their plan to join the british during the war, i thought on running, too. Then i thought better of it, what was i going to do in a british war camp . I shudder to think of what they have endured, what has become of all the people who saw their freedom sought their freedom by aligning themselves with the so called enemies of their socalled masters. No, i thought, it is not my path. And benjamin agreed, and so we waited. We waited for his words and deeds to arrive. Eloquent talk of these gentlemen about the rights of men is enough to make anyone hopeful. And i was hopeful and the declaration of independence said all men are created equal, but nothing changed for us. As the war started raging, my thoughts turn to survival. Freedom lingering in the back of my mind. Weve moved through the devastation that war brings. Freedom in the back of my mind when i learned of the law that was passed in 1782 about the of slaves. Surely i thought, now is the time, mr. Witt must free us and so we waited. Another five years, elizabeth and for what. The death of my mistress . I will never know what they discussed in private, was it her dying wish to see us free . Or was it her living wish that kept us enslaved . Am i glad to be free of her . Interesting choice of words, elizabeth. It is complicated. I do mourn my mistress, it is hard to believe that she is gone. She and i developed a way of being with one another throughout the years, i ingratiated myself to her, perhaps this is a matter of survival i have to manage her household with the utmost skill and i will receive few comfort in this place. For that, i am grateful. However, a mistress is a mistress. You remember when i begged her to let me travel with her as her servant. That was 11 years ago when they traveled to philadelphia. Yes, when the traveled to philadelphia on the convention for the declaration of independence, i wanted to go, i wanted to go so badly, of course benjamin was driving them and he would be gone for as long as they were. I so wanted to immerse myself in the free black population of philadelphia. The free blacks outnumber the slaves there. And paris, paris was so young, im sure that fannie would have preferred to stay here and care for her child. The mistress reminded me of my place. You are a housekeeper, lydia, your job is to tend to the house. What need is there for you to travel . Fanny is my maidservant, she will travel. You will stay here, and that is that. This beautiful home has been my prison. When benjamin returned from philadelphia, the stories he had about encounters with the free blacks there, how we dreamed of freedom then, whispered about what we would do with it, plotted about how we might get it. And now we are free. And polly will be free when she matures and charles is free. But kate, rachel, lydia, lucy, bob, jamie, penny, paris, isaac, rose, they will not be free. He is giving them as a gift. They are to be divvied up amongst my dead mistresses nephews and nieces. I want to cry or scream or punch something, how can i celebrate my freedom, benjamins freedom when so many i love are still slaves . Lydia was grappling with her newfound freedom, but she has been enslaved for most of her life. As it relates to lydia and this time period, what is the definition of slavery . How would you define a slave . An enslaved person is someone who is bound by slave laws and i think that is important to point out that slavery is entrenched in the laws here in virginia and all colonies far and wide reaching, it changes peoples classifications, it puts limits on what they can and cannot do. It is not just one law or a handful of laws, it is hundreds of laws that are amended and strengthened over time. Can you speak about the laws that codified slavery here in virginia or anywhere . Before we talk about the laws, there are a couple of cases that set precedent. One is in 1640 and it involves three men in servitude. One was an african man by the name of john punch, the other two were men of european descent, victor, a dutchman, and James Gregory a scotsman. They were all in servitude, they ran from virginia to maryland, were caught and returned to virginia so they all committed the same crime. They were runaways, all together, did the same thing. You begin to see racial differences in treatment here with this case where victor and James Gregory were made to serve their original owner one additional year in the colony of virginia for three years, john koch was made to serve his owners and his owners assigned wherever they live for the rest of his life. And he was black. He was black, he is referenced as african in this record. You have another case that turns out different in 1666 where you have a woman by the name of elizabeth key and she had a mother of african descent and a father named thomas key who is of english dissent and rather prominent. In english law, traditionally, everything goes through the father and she had been baptized as a christian. So there were restrictions on how christians could be held in bondage, the type of bondage they could be held in and thomas key made arrangements for his daughter that after he died, if she was under the age of 18, she served in this family and be considered free at the age of 18. However, a great deal of time had passed since her 18th birthday, she sued for her freedom on the fact that it had been a breach of contract but also two very important points that she had been baptized as a christian and her father was a free englishman and we see a different outcome with this case where elizabeth key was found to be a free woman and she was also paid in bushels of corn i believe, barrels of corn for the additional time served. These are two legal cases with different precedent and when the first law is passed you can actually tell it is a little reactionary because the first slave law in virginia when it is passed in 1662 says where there have been questions as to the status of children born of an african woman and a white father, this law of 1662 states that the status of the child is that of the mother. Which is Something Different that what you see in English Common law . Yes, everything goes to the father, the first son inherits the most as rights titles would have you, so this is something very different and this is something that will be important as we do get closer to the constitution. You have set into motion a system of servitude that is perpetual and that is hereditary. By the time you get to the 1780s, most people who are large slaveowners, they have gained those enslaved people through natural increase, through inheritance, through wives and dowries. People are not still purchasing slaves, that is still something going on, but when you think of people who own hundreds of enslaved people, when you look at somebody who owns 200 it is likely they did not purchase 200. When you look at that property and assess the value to that property often times when you look at to the period, most of the value of people things that they own when they passed away will be vested in the slaves, that law alone has provided them a system in which wealth is built through the natural increase. Thats just one. Do you find other laws are there other laws that are codified in this time period that solidify or start to solidify the institution of slavery . Yes, with elizabeths case, one of the points was also she had been baptized as a christian, so in 1667 we see a law passed that says baptism does not alter a persons status. In her case there were other people and that is something that should be pointed out that like people were still very active in trying to use the legal system at this time. Even into the 18th century, but now this law in 1667 is closing another window and you still continue to see enslaved people being baptized at the parish closest to us in williamsburg and in other parish records, but often times this comes the way to keep track of the birth of an enslaved person because now taxes are being paid on enslaved people when they become 16 which leads to another law and more than just one law, the classification of enslaved people from the very beginning has always been that of property. That is people if you are indentured or are an apprentice, you have certain rights by virtue of being recognized as human in the eyes of the law, but from the very beginning, enslaved people are never recognized as human beings. Thank you for that. You had mentioned inventories, taking note of people, and baptismal registries. When researching insulate people of those are places that ive used youve taught me to use them. So can we also get into lidia, she receives her freedom in that interpretation that you all saw, what were some pathways to freedom for enslaved people . Especially once those laws started coming down the 1660s, do you know of any enslaved people that received their freedom . The big revision in looking at slave laws also known as the black code, oftentimes it is individuals, one individual who petitioned the court or petitions the governors counsel. But when the black codes are solidified in 1723, you see a law passed that states that for an enslaved person to be enslaved that person must perform a service or deed and the main people that can confer the status of freedom can grant that manumission will be the governors counsel. We know there were probably about 5060 of those petitions that go before the Governors Council and they are approved at about two thirds or so, but that is still a very small number of people who gain their freedom that way. And that is just looking at virginia . That is just looking at virginia. Virginia was a very gregarious society and cash crops of the 18th century such as tobacco, sugar, rice, they lead us to believe that slavery was only in the south. Will you all be able to speak a little bit on the regional differences over slavery heading into the constitution . By and large there are two definitions of slave society, basically where over half of the population is enslaved, and that is mostly the south where it slave society. Exactly, tobacco, indigo, and rice that you mentioned, but the north is still a society with slaves where you have people working in homes, in taverns, skilled trades, not that that didnt happen in the south, but by and large the whole economy is based on the agriculture. There is never an absence of slavery ever in any of the 13 original colonies and actually the same time the john punch cases going on, massachusetts is the first colony to legalize slavery of the original 13. Did you want to add anything . I was going to say in the early colonies, the rate of slavery was equivalent in the north and the south, by the time we get to 1787, there are stark regional differences. There is a lot more enslaved people in the south than in the north for the reasons that hope suggests with the differences in economies in the agriculture and a longer growing season and districts thought you needed more slave labor to take advantage of that growing season. That sets up some pretty fierce battle lines when we get to the convention in 1787. Lets go there, lets jump right into 1787 and that time period. About how many delegates to the Constitutional Convention owned slaves . There are 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, we have all heard the stories, the hot summer of philadelphia, they take up the windows and of the 55 people, 25 of them owned slaves. That is almost half. I think it is important to recognize that even the delegates who did not own slaves, there is not a lot of talk of racial equality, it is not a racial paradise in the states were slavery is slowly being phased out. There is still a consensus as you are talking about that enslaved people were property and there is a lot of talk about Property Rights and the Property Rights of people that owned the slaves. That is shared among all of the delegates in the constitution, even the antislavery forces would stop short of saying that a National Government could divest people of their Property Rights. Is that something you want to share . You mentioned that slavery was starting to be phased out, supposed revolution we are several years removed from it, are there states that are trying to do away with slavery . Pennsylvania is the first, the quakers were the first, and then there were gradual emancipation schemes where you may not infer someones freedom right away but when they reach a certain age, then they are given their freedom. This is starting to happen in some colonies by the time we get to the Constitutional Convention, but it is not the norm. I think virginia even makes a law that makes it easier for the masters to manumission their enslaved people after or toward the american revolution. So now that we are in 1787, we are thinking back, what is the constitution trying to create, why the constitution . So, the constitution is the paramount law in the United States which means it trumps all conflicting laws and it also means it is really hard to amend. I think of the constitution in part as a mission statement, so it embodies values that we share as americans and we strive for. Another important part of the constitution was to set up the National Government. It is a long story, but the short version is that the government they were existing under, the articles of confederation, was failing. Congress did not have enough power, they cannot regulate commerce, they could not tax, instead they had to ask the states for money. It was operating more like a league of nations of 13 Different Countries as opposed to one United States of america. Is that how the articles of confederation were used . So the articles of confederation required unanimity in order to change anything, you are never going to get that, rhode island was always the stinker they always held out. [laughter] it is a very different change from we these 13 sovereign states, all of whom have our own rules to, we the people, that was a huge change to have popular sovereignty. A big function of the Constitutional Convention was creating and instilling the National Government that we now know. We the people, so, knowing that we alluded to have slavery denies the humanity of people, where in the constitution is slavery mentioned . Is it mentioned, do they say anything about slaves . Yeah, it is an interesting omission, the word slavery is never used in the constitution. They use euphemisms like other persons. I think that omission is telling, think it shows that even if they were not willing to abolish slavery in 1787, there were plenty of them that were uneasy with it. Madison wrote to jefferson and said it would be the achillesheel of the country, so i think that omission is telling. Even though they dont mention slavery by name, there are three explicit provisions in the constitution that protect slave owners, the project slavery protect slavery. The first one is the one we are most familiar with and that is the 3 5 clause. You all remember the way our congress is set up, there are two chambers, the senate and the house. Reaching that was the great compromise, making sure the small states and big states were happy, all the states got two senators not everybody, every state. Good clarification. The house of representatives is apportioned by population, so this is the big fight about power. The Southern States would like to count slaves towards their numbers so that they have more representatives in congress and the northern states do not want that. It is a fight over who has more representatives in congress, but i want to be clear, it is not a fight about morality, it is a fight about power. Even the northern delegates they are arguing that slaves are property, it is really ugly and the southerners who are saying we want to count them as whole people, they are not doing it because they are treating the whole people, they are doing that because they want more representatives in congress. It seems like we see that throughout the 18th century as enslaved people being used to the advantage for slaveowners to gain power. Is the 3 5 compromise i think you touch on this, it seems like it is directly related to the great compromise because it was all about the numbers of people and trying to get more power. Neil nielsen was wondering, were northern or Southern States more responsible for the horrific 3 5 rule, what was the motivation for 3 5 rule . Does that show up anywhere else living up to this point . Madison had used it in a proposed amendment to the articles when dealing with taxes, he had used 3 5 of a person in order to count a person in order of taxation under the articles, that is where it comes from, but in terms of who is to blame i think theres is enough blame to go around. It was seen as sort of a very important steppingstone to actually reaching a constitution, to reaching a document that would tie all 13 colonies together. Without it, the consensus was that we would not have a constitution. Those 5 Southern States were ready to walk, we will never know. Do you think they would have really done it . We will never know. You had mentioned that there were three sections that directly related to slavery, what is the second . The second has to do with the importation of enslaved people, so this is the foreign slave trade and this was really controversial in the convention because under the articles of confederation, the earlier government, congress did not have power to regulate the slave trade and the Southern States wanted it to stay that way. The northern delegates were much more willing to fight to the slave trade today they were to fight the mystic slavery. I think part of the domestic slavery. I think part of that is the Property Rights we were talking about, there is no vested Property Rights when youre talking about the importation of people. I think part of it is just politics, the upper south, virginia, was actually making a fair bit of money selling slaves to the deep south. Virginia was started very much to make money. That probably did not change when they became states, especially after the war. What happened . Yeah. This is quid pro quo. In exchange for extending the sladve trade, Congress Gets the commerce clause, which turns out to be a really important source of power for the National Government. The Southern States did not Want Congress to have a commerce clause. They gave in on that as long as they got to protect their slave trade. Jefferson did eliminate the slave trade as soon as the constitution allowed him to do it. This is one of two provisions in the constitution that was not amendable. The fight was so vicious, once they meet that compromise, it is not amendable. It links in with what hope was talking about. A natural increase perpetuating itself, which was probably happening in greater rates than greater rates in virginia. People had a lot less of a Life Expectancy growing things like rice and indigo. Thank you. You said there was one more. The third one is the fugitive slave clause. This is the clause that gives southern slaveowners rights to have their enslaved people returned to them if they escape to the north. Here is the interesting thing about this. By the time we get to the civil war, this is a huge controversy. It is a huge divide between the north and south. The northerners really hate having to return formerly enslaved people back to their owners in the south. At the time of the convention in 1787, this was not controversial at all. It was introduced at the end of the convention i is South Carolina delegate by a South Carolina delegate. There was no quid pro quo. There was no debate. Another example of how even if there were antislavery voices at the convention, and there were, ben franklin, those voices stop short of thinking you could divest a Property Owner of their property. It is really jarring today to think of it that way. I imagine in that time period, they have been practicing this mindset of denying the humanity of enslaved people, and so, if it comes down to their property or what they believe to be their property, or the humanity of people they are telling themselves are not human, it does not make sense to me. It still does not make sense to me. I am a 21st century kind of woman. There is an obvious tension between the all men are created equal rhetoric and treating humans as property i do not want it to come across like they did recognize it. There were plenty of people that recognized the tension. Abigail adams recognized that tension. It was a nonstarter, i guess, to think in 1787, the practice would become so ingrained that they were going to come out with a constitution that abolished it. Thank you so much. We have a question. They want to know what was the total number of representatives and what percentage insisted on keeping slavery . Five of the 13 colonies are in the south and they are not going to ratify an antislavery constitution. And everyone knows that. There were 25 of those men, almost 50 of those men actually owned slaves. Even the ones who did not were not pushing for racial equality. It is a very different world than the world we know. It is sometimes hard to put yourself back into that perspective. Yeah, there were five states that would not have signed a constitution. That became inevitable. Before you had mentioned about it is gone now about choosing to see them as property and not as people and about how that is how they saw them. Even in ads we have considered, you see the social recognition of their humanity in some cases, referencing people who have gone to look for their wives or husbands, even though legally, enslaved people could not marry. It seems, whenever it is in the favor of the delegates, they choose whatever is best for them. Which is human, right . They were people, just like the enslaved people where. You mentioned about the compromise. If you want to add a little bit more on how compromise or how you see compromise affecting our constitution and how it affected people at the time. Do you have any examples . One thing to think about, you can think of the constitution in two ways. They were writing a political document, a document that was a political compromise. There would be concessions, not everybody was going to be happy. The northerners think it has put slavery on the road to extinction. The southerners think it is protecting slavery. That is an example of an effective compromise. Another way to look at the constitution is as a statement of values. If you look at it that way, they did not want to write the word slavery in it. They were uneasy about slavery, even if they were protecting it. There were several delegates to the convention that very much hoped slavery was on its way out. Lets not throw them a parade. It is not cost to celebrate, but i do think you can look at it they did not want to taint the document with the horror of slavery. When you think of compromise you think of these 55 men in a room making compromises with each other but it was at the expense of so many, especially of enslaved individuals where decisions were being made about them. They were not even at the table to have a position to have a say so. Once a law is written, we see this is the definition of property was written into the law and it still has all of these effects 100 plus years later. When compromises have to be made, it is at the expense of free and enslaved black people. We often get these questions about, what about women . This is not to be confused with women because women, because women come in all shapes, colors, and complexions. We are focusing on women of african descent. That goes back to the first question you asked. What is slavery . It is legalized ownership of another human being. Buying, selling, abusing, and having the legal right to do it. Thank you. You said that perfectly. When you mentioned gone to his wife even though it was not something legally recognized, being defined as property, that classification alone cuts you off from so many things. From being legally married to someone. As a mother, before you even bring children into this world, any children you do bring forth, they will automatically go to the person that owns you. Just that classification alone, it reverberates. And what it means to you and what you are restricted from. The benefits and privileges and rights that you do not get because you are not seen as human. We continue to deal with the effects of choices made in the past. According to gary nash in his book the forgotten fifth, the argument that slavery could not be abolished reeks of the odious concept of inevitability. The idea of historical inevitability is a winners weapon as old as the tales told by ancient conquerors. I think you touched on this a little bit earlier but i will go ahead and ask, was abolishing slavery ever something they intended with the constitution . The difficult answer is no. The honest answer. There is a lot of truth in that statement. I do not mean to excuse the man in that room that made the decisions they did. According to the debate records, it was a nonstarter. It was not something that Alexander Hamilton or ben franklin even if they were willing to fight for it, this is something i shouldve mentioned. Not just the Property Rights idea was entrenched, but the idea of state sovereignty was so entrenched. It would not be a National Solution to this problem. It would be individual states with the authority to decide when slavery was abolished, if slavery was abolished. Even the antislavery voices were not going to push for a National Government with power to abolish slavery. Thank you. We know, as you mentioned, that about 25 of those 55 delegates in the room, they did own enslaved people. Slavery was still present in the United States. Even today, with researching this topic, looking back over 200 years and trying to find information about not only the debates but the people that those gentlemen owned, i i have been hitting a lot of walls. You are going to see an interpretation of something that takes place in philadelphia in 1870 takes place in philadelphia. Do you remember me . Perhaps you know my master. He met here at Independence Hall with 55 other gentlemen. For months, day after day, they met in philadelphia to debate the ins and outs of the constitution. Now, those debates and discussions have ceased. For the moment. One of the men, the father of the country, and my master will be known as the father of the constitution. Can you imagine him sitting there, doing his best to take notes of the discourse, secret notes, which were not to be released until the members had died. Did he write down everything . He wrote that pennsylvania protested that slavery was a nefarious institution. He noted that South Carolina said if slavery be wrong, it is justified. He even wrote the words of john rutledge, a man of that same state, he said, if the convention thinks north carolina, South Carolina, and georgia would ever agree to the plan unless the right to slavery be untouched, the expectation is in vain. The people of those states would never be such fools. As to give up so important an interest yet my master and the other gentlemen were very careful not to mention this interest by name. None of our names. He thought that to write the discourse and debate as they drafted this new constitution but did not mention whether or not i was in the room. He did not mentioned if i opened the windows, lit the candles, offered refreshments or stood there ignored. Ignored as i have always been. Unless, of course, something goes wrong. I am the first to be accused. Thanks to history and those who chose to write me out of it, you dont even know my name. James madison owned sarah, william, sooki, just to name a few people. George washington owned abram, adam, alice, and anthony. And the list goes on. George mason owned samson, bridget. Charles pinckney owned john, helena, peter, hester, and many others. These are just a few names that we can remember today. George washington knew the subject of slavery was unavoidable by the time of the constitutions ratification. By that time, the institution was already thoroughly mixed into the foundation of our new nation. Skipping ahead from 1787 and 1788, what happened to the constitution after the civil war . The constitution was radically changed after the civil war. There are three amendments that were ratified. We call them the civil war amendments or the reconstruction amendment. The 13th amendment, which abolished slavery in 1865, the 14th amendment, which is the one we probably know the best, it attached a bunch of civil rights to all people, but particularly for formerly enslaved people. You find the guarantee of equal protection under the law and the guarantee of life, liberty, and property, and without due process of law you cannot be deprived of it. The 15th amendment in 1870 guarantees the right to vote regardless of race. Cumulatively, these three amendments completely changed the relationship between the states and federal government. Before the civil war, the idea was that the states would protect your rights from the big, bad, distant federal government. After the civil war, it is the federal government given the power to enforce these protections against the states. The 14th amendment is used to dismantle jim crow laws. The 14th amendment is the source of authority for brown v. Board of education in 1954. Before we get too far, i want to go back to the 13th amendment. It abolishes slavery. If i recall correctly, it has an interesting word, phrase. Do you know what i am speaking of . The word would be except. Except as punishment for a crime. As we consider the constitutional legacy and the items we talked about leading up to this point, that exception is one that is very important to consider as we think about the effects of our history and the effects of years and centuries of prejudice that accumulated over time. Is there anything else i cut you off again, im sorry. You definitely see that exception in the immediate aftermath of the reconstruction amendment. Then you move into jim crow, where except as punishment of crime, who is determining what the crime is . A crime could be loitering, for instance. You see people being arrested and jailed for that. You see prison labor for hire, which many call slavery by another name. You always see these little loopholes being used. You still see the system is hard to shake. That is the reason why we needed the 14th amendment. The Southern States enforced these black codes, which were defective slavery de facto slavery. Breaking an Employment Contract was a crime. That is what i mean about the radical shift between the states and federal government. What happens with the 15th amendment . It is all about Voting Rights. It looks great and it is a big accomplishment but years and decades of fighting to actually enforce the 15th amendment. Not until the Voting Rights act 60 years later. Progress is not quick. When we get to those amendments, and we start seeing at least legislation and laws being put into place to try to make those changes possible in a way we were not seeing prior to that. Does anyone want to speculate and share more about the legacy of slavery on the constitution . I think it just goes to show that it cannot be separated from the founding document, from the start of our country as a newly freed country, not colonies, not under the british anymore. It is entrenched and no one is untouched by it. Even if northern states were affected differently but they were still a part of it. And we have to sit in that truth. Nothing is going to be gained by downplaying it, by denying it, by pretending it is not there. We need to sit in that truth and recognize what it was and what it is. I am grateful we are at a place where we can sit and have this kind of conversation honestly about our history and about our past and try to understand the laws, the constitution, slavery, what is happening right now around us. I am getting towards the end of our evening. I do want to ask, especially since this is the final event of our constitution weekend for this year, i wanted to ask if the constitution did not necessarily include everyone in the week, the people. If everyone was not included as the people in the we, the people. If everyone was not included as the people, why do we celebrate the constitution . I agree with hope that nobody is served by taking the constitution out of context. We have to appreciate it for what it was, which was a deeply flawed document that allowed people to own other people. You cannot separate that. You cannot whitewash that out. Nobody is served by doing that. If you think of the constitution as a mission statement, as laying out our values, of equality, liberty, government by the people, freedom of expression, that is worth celebrating. That motivates every generation to fight for it, knowing that it was not perfect, knowing that it is still not perfect. At least it is something that will inspire us all to be the better people worthy of the words. Thank you. I love that. We should not just celebrate something blindly without knowing why we are celebrating it. We have to examine it in order to appreciate it so we can continue to aspire to it. I think about how we celebrate. We mark a certain day, like september 17 was the actual day. Sometimes you see it on the calendar. There is so much that goes on before you get to that moment. There is so much aftermath that happens later. I think this is an opportunity to go back to something we probably had not thought about in a while. We deal with history every day, deirdre. Looking at the what the constitution says and what it does not, looking at all the decisions that went into certain parts. This is an opportunity to look and to know. Nobody gains anything by being ignorant of what this says. Whether it is explicit, good or bad, this is all a part of our history. It is only going to be to our gain to know what it says, to know what has changed, to know what people thought for to get the constitution amended and subsequent acts that had to be written to get basic protections that are in the constitution to be lived out. We owe it to ourselves, our history, and the people who came before us to do that. That was beautiful. I agree with both of you. We have only looked at our focus was slavery and the constitution. On this Constitution Day and henceforth, we can look at the constitution and in order to really appreciate those things, you have to examine it and have to know what it says. The question i pose to the audience that you can think about as we wrap up this evening is what do we do with our Constitutional Rights . Examine the constitution so you can know what those rights are. Weve only touched on a little bit. This is the tip of the iceberg regarding this conversation, and i am so grateful for the opportunity to talk with you both and to be here. Spaced out like we are. There is more to be learned and i know i also had to do some deep diving and received a lot of help from a lot of people. Some of the sources i came across that i really enjoyed and that were recommended to me that i will direct you to also are James Madisons website. There is an article on slavery, the constitution, and the lasting legacy. There is also a book that hope recommended to me, dark bargain, slavery profits in the struggle for the constitution. Perhaps you can take a class. William and Mary Law School one of my favorite books is leon higginbothams in a matter of color, race, and the american legal process. I am so grateful that we got to share with you, that we got to share with one another, and that we got to commemorate this constitution weekend standing on the shoulders of so many ancestors and our new angel, ruth bader ginsburg. Thank you for being with us. Thank you to everyone who supported this process. Have a great night