Items off the menu first. Todays program is just one of many exciting programs coming up here in the fall season at the National Constitution center. Next week we will tackle the question of is the constitution judeochristian which would be a great discussion. awe moderate that discussion and in just two weeks we are hosting conversation on president ial legacies with Robert Strauss author of the new book worst president ever, theories after this. James buchanan the potus game and the legacy of the least of the lesser president. That should be a, sorted again, a scholar and resident will be moderating that. He is a specialist on some of the more spirited president s. That will be a terrific discussion. Finally the complete schedule of our upcoming tom hawley event. Please visit constitution b7 work for pick up a flyer on the registration table. I also want to thank the members of the audience thank you for being here. And for all you do for the constitution center. If youre interested in being a member please visit rebecca outside at the table. You can about some of the benefits of becoming a member of the constitution center. Then i hope you will join both of our speakers for a book signing upstairs after the program. But otherwise, just a couple of logistics of the bill of rights patricks 0 is the librarian and he is editor of the volume of the American Revolution, the American Revolution reborn. We are not covering this book but i wanted to plug the book here, the politics of war in early pennsylvania. Give a great National ConstitutionCenter Welcome to mike korman and patricks bureau. Patrick. Thanks for coming. As i said what we are going to talk about today is rethinking and refashioning americas founding. With that in mind i would like to start with you. What do you take to be the traditional narrative when most americans think about the American Revolution what kind of story do we tell ourselves about . We know the story really well, beginning in 1765 with the stamp act, colonies coming together for the first time to announce their opposition to the policy, it leads to the tea party, the boston massacre and independence and the story is focused on the eastern seaboard and is focused on boston itself was there is this emphasis on boston representing the American Revolution writ large and what scholars are trying to do is expand the narrative to look at other cities and in the countryside and beyond, understand why the American Revolution happened, what it did and why it include these other areas as well. Bringing in your book you have a provocative title, the framers coup. Why generally, what was the impetus behind authoring this book . The title mostly goes to the marketing people at Oxford University. You spend four five years working on a book and the marketing people give you 24 hours to come up with something with fewer nouns in it. I wanted to call it Something Else. I had the idea to write a short book that Oxford University press does call the inalienable rights series and they didnt have a volume on the constitution, making the constitution. I had written a volume before on racial equality and looking for 50,000 word books which are short books, i made the mistake in getting primary sources so i did a lot of secondary literature and found the more i got to the primary sources the more it occurred to me there are not just areas that not a small book on the founding but one book tells the whole story, there are lots of bad books on the Philadelphia Convention like the articles of confederation, the bill of rights but nobody is trying to tell the story between 2 covers between the articles of confederation to the Philadelphia Convention through ratification and the bill of rights. It is a marvelous book, highly recommended to everyone. One of the issues both of you explore, the degree to which the American Revolution on the one head of the constitution on the other hand where a product of the American Publics preferences versus something other than that. What both of you do is complicate the Public Opinion around the project so would love to start with you. How did the American Public divide over the American Revolution . One of the lessons to take from the American Revolution is it mobilized and motivated minorities to make a huge difference. Generally speaking, john adams is famous for saying a third of americans support the American Revolution, a third opposing the third are in between somewhere, 60 of the population was opposed to the American Revolution and that is a lesson i think when you look at abraham lincoln, received 39 of the vote, mobilize and motivated minorities to have a huge impact on american history. If we are thinking about cleavages in the American Public in terms of demographic groups or any other cleavage, what who can support the revolution and who tended to be neutral . That is what historians are starting to ask now and part of it is reexamination of the American Revolution, to say we have to look at it as an event that is multifaceted and doesnt have clear answers. Many people were neutral at the beginning of the revolution and as war past through it they began to support the cause. In the beginning they were opposed to it. Generally speaking areas the war had not affected they were especially in the Countryside Farms were largely neutral. Seaports affected by imperial policies were generally supportive of it except the elite who are part of the Imperial Administration or apparatus and on the frontier, those closest to native americans tended to be very supportive of the American Revolution because they saw the empire trying to restrain their expansion west so is divided throughout the country. Every colony has its own story and that is what historians are looking at. Turning to the constitution itself, if we are thinking prior to philadelphia, who were the main folks pushing us towards the Constitutional Convention . At that time, where might the public have been between retaining the articles of confederation versus blazing out a new . There is consensus among most americans thinking the articles arent working very well. Congress doesnt have taxing power and can only ask the states for money and states declined to contribute. Congress only has the authority to requisition troops, cant forcibly raise troops, Congress Makes treaties but has no coercive authority to enforce treaties within the states, the state systematically denying enforcement if they dont agree with a particular treaty provision, most americans agree some change was needed. What happened in philadelphia as patrick was saying, spirited minorities wanted a very different system, decided not to adopt incremental reform but to go for a massive overhaul system. They were sent to philadelphia to revise the articles and ended up scrapping the articles from day one, created a different system of government, it was a shift of power from the state and local level much more dramatically to the National Level most people anticipated or wanted and along another dimension he was a fundamental change, madison, hamilton and washington wanted to constrain popular influence on the National Government, and direct elections to large constituencies in an effort to prevent ordinary americans for a direct role governing themselves, less they had taken from 1780s which was a time of severe economic turmoil, too much democracy, better farmers get state legislatures to pass better money laws and most of the elite framers thought those laws were irresponsible confiscation, redistribution of wealth, direct democracy was very troubling and wanted to set up a system to constrain it which is where the idea of the framers coup comes from. We dont know what ordinary americans fought. They supported the constitution, most americans in the middle, they thought the articles they thought the constitution had gone too far in the opposite direction. They would have preferred an intermediate option, framers were quite skillful, one of the wonderful things about a terrific set of essays is the degree to which the essays themselves bring the American Revolution to a human scale. We think of it as a war for independence, affecting the lives of everyday americans. How the revolution was performative. Two questions, how did the revolution transform america and think about this. Philadelphia in an occupied city. What is it like to to occupied cities . New york city, and those who were loyalists and those who werent, the degree to the patriot cause, what is it like to live through that experience, and in the carolinas when all of a sudden you have competing british forces, taking your supplies you are supposed to feed your family with. What was the American Revolution like as a lived experience, separate from how the revolution transformed america, transformed history. The declaration of independence and the constitution to see the transformative effect of the American Revolution. There is the war itself, the coming of the revolution and this legacy can that is legacy rest in the declaration of independence, all men are created equal in the constitution which is to say we have a federal government and the constitution by which we are all governed by. That is the transformative part. I think we moved past them. To what degree should we as americans think about it as from the American Revolution to the articles, the constitution, the bill of rights, to what degree should we think of that as a continuous narrative like what you get from hamilton versus Something Else . I dont. I consider myself a historian of the American Revolution is my specialty is studying 1755 to 1785 i do see the constitution as a different period informed by the revolution but i cant create a coherent narrative around it because it does change the way people behave. What i am looking at in the 1760s and 1770s, the documents available, much smaller than after the American Revolution, this explosion of evidence, sources and newspapers, looking at it historically, you have much better and different sources available post revolution then you do before the American Revolution. I think the colonists had a different mindset, the government was different. All those factors, a different era. One thing i am excited about is you have a continuous narrative that begins with the revolution and to come here for the constitution. Returning to something you said earlier, can you talk a little more about how democratic the constitution was, connecting patrick, the state constitutions, and constitution of other nations. From our perspective it doesnt look that democratic, women didnt participate in politics, africanamericans mostly enslaved, didnt participate, poor people often didnt participate because you needed a certain amount of property but from the perspective of the world it was one of the most participatory democracies the world had ever seen, there were states when 80 or 90 of adult white males participated, the constitution in massachusetts was ratified by delegates and by town meetings and virtually everybody was enfranchised. Having said that you have to understand the constitution as a counterrevolution against even more Democratic Forces set in motion by the revolutionary war. Pennsylvania has the most democratic constitution adopted in the nation, adopted in 1776, you had annual elections, only ate one house legislature, there was no upper house because they didnt want an upper house constraining the will of the people, there was an incredibly weak governor, no veto power, judges only held the term in office, there were requirements for public meetings, unlike the Philadelphia Convention which sat in the state house and was closed to the public, they had requirements about laws being published that elections had to give people a chance to express and opinion before a law could go into effect. The elite framers like madison, hamilton and washington were aghast that so much democracy had led to these paper money laws in the 1780s and they wanted to move in the direction of a government that would be more constrained, more independent of popular opinion and could shutdown populist forces in the state, madison for example wanted to give the federal government absolute veto over any law passed by state, they did write a provision, article 1 section 10, which bars states from adopting paper money laws, large states from passing better relief laws and the idea was the National Government with very long terms in office, 60 your senators, there was nothing analogous to that, state constitution, legislatures pick senators, Electoral College picks the president , enormous constituencies, 65 members for the entire country, the lower house and Massachusetts Legislature had 350 delegates, the u. S. Congress, they thought the larger the constituency the more likely you would elect the better educated, relatively affluent people in the community and the larger constituency, the more independents a representative would have. They were profoundly antidemocratic, wanted to move from the more Democratic State constitutions in the direction of rule. They thought they couldnt trust the average person in government. That is why hamilton at the convention favored a lifetime tenured senate and lifetime tenured president. He is a on archivist is that was extreme at the convention but not that extreme. Four delegations voted for a lifetime because they thought Property Rights wouldnt be adequately protected in a republican form of government. One quick thing. As is often the case during president ial election years people often have questions how we got the Electoral College would take a bead on where that came from and what was the framers rationale . For most of the convention they thought congress would pick the president. That is how most state constitutions worked, the legislature picked the governor. For most of the convention they agreed the president would be selected by congress for a single term of 7 years but the problem with a single term is they thought it would deprive the president of the best incentive for Good Behavior which is the ability to be reelected. The problem with giving the president the ability to be reelected if he was picked by congress is hes been very dependent on congress for his reelection but the deck of having an independent president was to check congress was they were going to give the president veto but if the president was dependent on congress for reelection the president would be leery about exercising a veto. Another possibility would be direct election by the people but there were three problems with that. First of all they didnt trust the people with that important a task. One of my favorite quotes from the convention is george mason, an important delegate from virginia saying asking the people to choose the chief magistrate is like referring the choice of colors to a blind man. They didnt trust the people. That is one problem with direct election. Another problem is southern slaves would not count. They thought those slaves not to count in terms of increasing the souths political power in the nation and finally they thought if you had direct elections, a small state would never have a president. This is an era of poor communication, poor transformation, they were not assuming the existence of Political Party so they figured people in large states would just vote for their candidate. If you came from massachusetts you vote for john hancock and if you came from pennsylvania, the small states would never have a president. The Electoral College system enabled them to compromise lots of differences with one thing is you are not going to have the president picked directly by the people, you have state legislatures deciding how electors are chosen and they assume the electors exercise independent judgment, then they are portion the Electoral College so the south gets greater clout than in a direct election and small states have greater opportunity to elect somebody so the portion of the Electoral College, the number of house members plus the number of senators, virginia is by far the largest state, 12 times the population of delaware. In the house there are 10 virginia representatives, one for delaware but in the Electoral College, you add senators to house members which means 12 electors from virginia and three from delaware, 4 numb one advantage rather than 10 the one advantage, so small states like that, the slave states like that because house numbers include the number of slaves, the 3 5 rule and there are other complications. The only way to defend the Electoral College today, direct election no longer works because we have essentially a popular election which uses delegates, with the possibility of the faithless elector. With apportionment what the Electoral College does is gives voters in wyoming four times the power of voters in california so california has 55 electoral votes, wyoming as three, that is an 18 numb one 18 1 disparity, and unless you can provide a good account why wyoming voters are discriminated against a minority, deserve enhanced power in the Electoral College system there is no good defense for it anymore. It gives people inflated power choosing the president but the same objection why the same two senators as california, california has 70 times the population. That is the power play by the small states in the Philadelphia Convention. They tried to justify it with fancy philosophical reasons why the small states would be overwhelmed, and it is a powerplay. That is longwinded. We often think of the American Revolution is a war of independence was one of the ways in which your text pushes the narrative, you talk a little bit about why that narrative, the degree to which that is true. They are supporting the American Revolution, english civil war, reason for rebelling, to say this is the british tradition revolution and overturning a government that is tyrannical. People at times thought of the civil war, loyalists being targeted for but by patriots, patriots being targeted, you saw neutrality, a sign of the civil war, if you were neutral, you couldnt be neutral of the war was in your backyard. The countryside became torn apart, factions against factions torn apart fighting each other, this is more about the revolution, and individuals, individual rights, it is about tearing down the monarchy, you see that expressed in the governing documents. It is less individuals but more about governing. You get the revolution back in you talk about electors which is about getting away from the people and getting the governing you. You wanted to move the Philadelphia Convention in the direction of a more powerful president than any state has a governor or so. On a couple stated governors with veto power, usually legislatures exercise the important power in the Philadelphia Convention, they agreed for a unitary executive, some proposing a plural executive, you could have three election and from different parts of the country, they want the unitary executive, it provide vigor and energy and hamilton was a big fan all the way back to the early 1780s, creating more powerful executive editors under the articles of federation. There was no executive in the articles of confederation, congress was to vote the legislature and executive and to create an executive with veto power because they thought if the congress does get over one by populist factions the president could veto that so they wanted a powerful executive and that is very different from the impulse ten years earlier which had been to tear down executive power. They are moving against the dominant thrust of the revolution by transferring power at the National Level, transferring away from the people, transferring it away from the legislature, creating lifetime tenure judges who will strike down legislation. The American Revolution we think of it in the public narrative as a battle between good and evil, the patriots and the british empire. What was the rationale for loyalists . Who were the loyalists . Why did they reject this Insurgent Movement . We are being filmed so i hate to say this but i might have been a loyalist. No matter if you were born in the 1750s in 1740s you are maturing in the wealthiest, most prosperous empire in the world, the world might have ever known. It is proud of its liberties which you have a parliament, you have a monarch but it works collaboratively with the parliament unlike most other models in europe. You have the idea of the british constitution and british liberty and the idea that you could throw that over, overthrow that i dont know if i would go that far so why would you be a loyalist . These policies are bad but look at the empire. We have the strongest most wealthy empire in the world. That is because of british liberty, economic freedom, individual rights. The stamp act you are asking us to pay is only 2 funds, the stamp act, the money raised from the stamp act is to fund the military on the american frontier. None of that money is supposed to go back to great britain, simply to offset the cost of the defense of north america. I would be a loyalist, surely we have to pay our fair share and support the militias of the military of the frontiers and we have a great trading empire and expanded into india and other places, why would i take this risk on this new thing that would up and everything we have known and possibly fail . Similar question to you. We revere the constitution today, but what was driving george mason and the folks who came out as antifederalist opposing the constitution. Maybe the principal antifederalist charge against the constitution is you will create an aristocracy, they think you are transferring paypal away from ordinary people, they dont like the idea that you will have six your terms for senator, four year terms for president , they dont like the idea of perpetual eligibility for reelection, they dont like the fact that you deprive people of the ability to instruct their representatives, to recall their representatives. They think there should be mandatory rotation in office. They worry this will constitute an aristocratic cabal and the people can no longer govern themselves. They are worried about taxes in the same way the revolution in some sense is about americans, as the americans fair share of taxes in support of the military that protects them. It is a fight over taxation. And at the state level. The federal government take over import duties, import duties and fund the national debt, the federal government and state debt and cut taxes, you wont have 2 hades taxes on land, taxes on head. 90 of americans are connected with farms if he gets congress and the ability to regulate International Commerce will pry open the market. They were shutting them out of the catering trade where they couldnt get the goods anywhere but from the United States we are buying fish. Once the United States is no longer a part of the british empire. We are now going to pry open european markets and the land will go up. They are saying to the farmers state legislatures had been very responsive. Theyve saved you from foreclosure of your land. Which are essentially just land banks. So then i have to get foreclosed upon. Thatll be shut that will be set up by the constitution. Youre not and had these people. Its good to be remote from your concerns. They will not allow you to get any more debt relief. The dispassionate thats not how this actually works. How the debate was actually structured. What we want our schoolchildren to learn. That would be important to transmit to the next generation of americans. They can be a noble enterprise. I think some of the most talented americans at the time into Public Service and i doubt if thats equally true today. Its become a different sort of enterprise and James Madison they are among the brightest and spirited people of the year. He hated to travel away from fairfax virginia. The only time he ever left virginia. He have retired from public life. The idea of Public Service we shouldnt think of them. There is the old explanation written hundred years ago that they were lining their pockets. They wanted a federal government that could raise taxes and they would enrich themselves. They are not trying to make a buck. They have a vision of what is Good Government and good Economic Policy there is a big difference of opinion between elites and non elites. These are incredibly talented and public spirited people we need more people like that going into government. Part of what i think it is is trying to draft new narratives. We are looking to translate it to lessons for our schoolchildren. From this new scholarship. I think there is a real need for that traditional narrative i talked about in the getting. In the coming of the American Revolution. Its a clear narrative. That is still important but i also think that as they mature and get older they start having different issues. Thats one of the things that this book does. And what i argue in the other book is that there are two revolutions frontier we find all of those stamp acts. In overturning those policies. Its a very different story. Comfort gates that more wellknown narrative. To show that america was always a very diverse a place has a place in the education system. We always had to remember and not forget it. I think one other things that have thrown out not just as the glorious thing but as a war. That part of the human toll. The American Revolution was an extra nearly messy affair. Theres all these different diplomatic entries. The grandeur of the American Revolution. I will kick off one to you the panels discussed the paper money did Foreign Affairs help lead to the connect convention. They have very different views. A lot of the framers they thought they were always going to get subject to possible changes. Thats how they defended that taxing power. Compared to the articles where they have no taxing power you can raise an army and navy and call the state militia into service. The United States he needed to be able to raise taxes. Nobody would lend you money. They tended to respond that it was much less likely. They werent that interested in the United States playing a Large International role. To some extent it was about different visions of the country and how to risk that. If he didnt have a constitution the country was going to fall apart. If they had two or three different consent better sees. They would constantly be at war with each other. If they are constantly at war with each other you need strong governments. Then they said youre crazy. Youre just making stuff up. We could peacefully devolve into that. There is no to give a reason to think would always be at war with each other. One thing they differed over one side was exaggerating the threat because they needed to defend radical reform. The other side was saying we dont need dramatic change. And so this one is to you. Does a sense of every day include all colonists thats one of the things that this book does it do. Instead his families that are torn apart. By the American Revolution. There is this grand ball held this is an opportunity for women. They come out and participate in this. I would will be they been pressured to be a part of this british up there. One of the most Untold Stories happened in the occupation. I see three hands here. One of the things that happen is a group of with charles wilson. Targeted the wealthiest quakers in philadelphia. They were then suspected of being loyalists and they were arrested. They were brought to the freemason building. And then they were shipped. They spent several months interned. They partitioned george washington. And they freed them. Theyre ushered back in. But this is an incredible story that cuts across all of those lines. Native americans they were at the core of that story. One of the articles and here it looks at the way slavery was treated. In fact is enslaved with the patriots. To capture slaves who had the patriot hands. Thats exactly the narrative were trying to tell. It is multifaceted. And you cant really get a single simple way to summarize all that happened in that. Of time and this is for you mike. That is a great question. The first thing to note is is not inevitable that it would pass. A couple of states voted against ratification it was going to vote against. It was incredibly close. In new york the vote was 32. In massachusetts it was a hundred 87268. Those are three of the five largest estates. There is a very good chance the union could not had been successful. You could even say that it was rigged little bit. One advantage was the media there were about 90 newspapers in the country at the time. Only 12 of them were able to find the literature. The cities were published entirely cities for obvious economic reasons. And often the subscribers in the advertisers they would threaten to withhold that. If they dared to publish any federalist estates. It was the federalist. They could barely barely get their opinion heard. And especially in South Carolina. The population moved less. They would resist that. They started on the eastern seaboard. But the legislators did not reapportion them. 20 of whites along the seaboard who are overwhelmingly also the wealthiest slave owners. Those 20 elected 60 of the delegates. It would have voted now because so much of the population have moved west. The convention in South Carolina voted toone in favor the will educated they overwhelmingly supported ratification. The backwards farmers they were often intimidated out of speaking in the gifted adversaries. And finally the creative some of their own luck. Once nine states had ratified it goes into operation. That contrasts with the articles where you need to get all 13 states to ratify any amendments. Nine states can put into operation we have the thing about what pressure would be. Once it had ratified and there is a new nation. If you choose not to go along and some of the states held out for a while your can be denied a federal military protection. You might be in subjection like you are a foreign country. The important decisions. Whether to amend the constitution. The last four states and that been pressured so once nine states have been decided and most of the states that were most resistant came late the issue have already been resolved at the time i got to them. One of the other things do we keep the articles and amended what do we do. To support the constitution or not. To help the federalist immensely. That is critically important. They understood most of them thought they needed to be reformed there is the only alternative. Most americans would have preferred something in between. The constitution was very far into nationalists. Most americans probably wouldve preferred to put in the middle of the perspective. They try to give them an all or nothing choice because they realize that most americans wouldve preferred not with the federalist was giving them. And they were ridiculed and try to keep those off the table. You couldve have a Second Convention. The constitution was written in private. Now there has been a National Debate on them. Closer to the intermediate position. Where you could have ratification conditions. Rather than do with the federalists are promising which is ratify this constitution and we will give you some amendments down the road they say no lets ratify them. Because we dont believe your promise is about what were going to get down the road. I think the real reason is they knew if you have a Second Convention youre going to water down the document that they had drafted and as a document they want too. How they manage to get away from that is a good question. It wasnt ridiculous to say. We like to change a little bit. And they managed to convince people it was an up or down vote. This is a great question and the lights of that. Of the diversity. Im curious about your primary sources what and where are they. What other people use to uncover that. I think the first story was really told by what was printed in what was available. Like the one i oversee. It takes up 2. 5 miles of shelf space. We are trying to support scholars in support them to come in and give new meeting they give meeting to the old documents. That is where the other stories come into play if you are looking at slavery how do you get the voice of the enslaved they are wonderful sources. To get into the every day life of colonists in james allen. Here is somebody that i would call him out loyalists. He is opposed to every imperial policy you can if you just read those he is a patriot. Then all the sudden declaration of independence. At the same time their friends. They can give every everyday life in perspective. Those are the sources i like. It has been a project that has been ongoing since 1970. Now traneight seven volumes they are written by the french consul. They are reporting back to spain or france the great letters he is writing his college friends. Isnt there an irony here. It is been foundational for what everybody thinks about the founding. He wrote this. Its published in 1969. I think about him driving around in a beat up car i can sit at my computer and all this stuff is digitized. They are the papers in the main founders. They have their have their own collections. All of the footnotes. They make some offhand reference. They get all of these eager and talented students who want to do work. They check my sources and they make sure i have it butchered the quotes. Its just a luxury to have all the stuff its all available on your laptop for the university of i have some worries about that. Newspapers, pamphlets and the papers of the founders. They are good at prefer the comfort of their laptop screen i think it reveals the everyday experiences. Your neck in a diary of a woman on a plantation. Thats not part of that elite story. Worried about that Going Forward there can prefer that print. That is a concern i have. This is the threat. The kids right now arent learning cursive. The historians are not going to be able to read the original sources they will be wont be able to read their grandparents writing. I love it. I rely it on my own work. I have concerns. The cu in putting together your volume what was the most surprising thing that you learned. There is a story in here that have become an artifact. There is a young scholar thats working on a project the history of this piece of skin. She has that as a is a totally new approach to the sources. A great story. I dont know what the whole story will be yet. This is kind of a new field. Feel. How does the Environment Impact history and what theyre showing is because they rely on them so much gun power was provided by great britain. They detail the attempts by the patriots to create a homegrown manufacturing industry. They import most of their stuff from europe. Same question to you. What was the most surprising thing. It still exist. The thoroughly political nature of the debate the peals to interest they are arguing things under the articles import most of their goods through new york. Thats my date dont actually want to give the duties they have a great deal in the senate were jeanette doesnt like the constitution for exactly that reason. The kind of political argumentation they make arguments but in a different context they just flip. So in a state where the federalist think there can dominate the convention they say we dont need a detailed paragraph. Lets just had a boat. But when they outnumber them they think its important they have a thorough examination. They think theyre going to lose. There is character assassination. Some people are threatening to dual over the constitution. Then he says in the new york convention. He said to hamilton you wanted to destroy the states i resent that cast on my character. They think they can end up in a duel. They manipulate the accounts in newspapers people will quote each other but they will do it selectively. It isnt just like modern politics on that note we will leave it there. The framers to the American Revolution reborn. Thank you so much. It was great talking to you