9, look around the world today. who is free in all the world? apart from us americans. not the russians, not the chinese, not the indians, not the turks, not the poles. british and maybe the swiss and that's about it. the netherlands are in the process of losing this. now why? by the way, what do the swiss have in common? not language. four of them. not religion, they have two which is enough to kill each other. these places have defensible orders. it's pretty hard to charge up a hill. britain is naturally defensible and before it was unified, gordon mentioned scotland, when you had the scots battling, there's no great wall of china. it's not a defensible border and before actually the union of scotland and england, the scots were on the english and the english were fighting back and mel gibson was coming down and the queen of france was intervening and playing and no one is safe in that world. the unionists in england means you don't need soldiers on the island. you just need a small navy that needs to be able to beat the spanish armada and navies are less threatening. my fellow americans, we need to emulate the model of england and scotland forming an indivisible union and here is what we're going to do. we will have this 3,000-mile-wide moat times 50 and it will keep the old powers at bay. we'll kick the brits out. a very small army, so small it won't threaten domestic liberty, kick the brits out, kick the spanish out, kick the french out. we'll kill the indians. we'll control the continent, manifest destiny. no one will screw with us. that is andrew jackson. by the way, you look at a map of the world in 1943, who is free. it's basically the brits and von trapps in switzerland is the same thing because it's hard to charge up a hill and hitler hesitates to launch an amphibious invasion because that's not so easy to do. it's what our friends in israel would call defensible borders. more democratic, more slave-ocratic. more about national security, more about -- andrew jackson's world. he can beat the brits, battle of new orleans. he doesn't like black people so much. he's emphatically pro-slavery, doesn't love the native americans. that's a structure of the constitution and it's not our world. i'm not -- i don't know which side i'd be on. i think probably the servile side in that world. why have i told you this story? so two ways of remembering the story and one challenge. if you forget, go to any atm, and you're going to get andrew jacksons. so that's just sort of remember our constitution. you're from the great state of oklahoma, and that's, of course, if you understand your state history it's all about the cherokee and the trail of tears and andrew jackson. living through its legacy today but here is the most important point. the story i've just told is really inspirational in some ways. we give the world more democracy than it ever had before and we're feeling the reverberations before today. your lifetime. the wall comes down. india. this amazing multicultural democracy on the american model inspired by people like thoreau and jefferson. we showed it could work. that's the inspiring part of my story. the challenge, though, is you need to understand, one, their constitution failed because they didn't really -- they wished slavery away rather than coming up with a credible solution to it. they could have. they could have said three-fifths now but two-fifths in 20 years and one-fifth, you know. now what are the issues today we are wishing away that might be the death of us? foreign oil, climate change. they fail because they ultimately -- hope is not a plan. for all their greatness we need to recognize that failure and then ask ourselves where we might be failing. that's one challenge i wanted to leave with you all. here is the second, the framers' vision was of an isolationist america, what made america safe is not the bill of rights. bill of rights wasn't even part of the original plan, it's not enforced for most of its history. it's not about the bill of rights even though i know that's what you were taught. what made america free for most of our history, we had no major standing army in peacetime of any significance. until world war ii. we don't have these military thugs using other military thugs to sit on us the way saddam hussein sat on his people or gadhafi or thugs from around the world. that's what made america free. and 50 years ago this year general eisenhower, my son understands is like george washington. we've had three george washingtons. we called the second grant and the third eisenhower. three national generals and vic understood that at 6 years old so remember your presidents. you'll see interesting patterns here. so dwight eisenhower recognizes that the world he's handing to his successor is very different than the world he grew up in. we have to think about these things because you are facing a different world than the founders world, challenges of the military complex but the rest of the world isn't matriarchal any more and much of it is not oppressive anymore, it will be defeated, fascism and communism and the nazism. and so now the rest of the world is becoming more american. we are becoming more like the rest of the world. we're much more multicultural than ever before. we have immigration not just from northern europe but from all of europe and from south america, asia and africa, the world is becoming more like us, this is the challenge of your generation. i'm speaking especially to the students here in the audience to try to rethink in a big way the doctrines you've inherited in the same way and here i close, these young people in their 30s, madison and hamilton. is rethought, received inherited doctrines of their world. they were taught you can't have a continental democracy. they said oh, yeah? my claim is just as they had to really think hard about changes that were happening in their world that created unique opportunities, my friends, the same is true. history is still happening. there's lots of it to write and we can be founders for the future. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you, professor amar, for that engaging, entertaining and thought provoking insight into the framing generation, into our jacksonian constitution. we have time for a handful of questions. there's an open microphone so i would encourage you to come up. let me exercise the moderator's prerogative and ask the first question. i would like to turn the historical lens around and ask you to imagine, if you will, what the framing generation as well as what the jacksonian generation might think if they look through that historical lens at us and at the constitution we have today including all the post-civil war amendments, banning slavery, guaranteeing equal protection under the law, much later giving women the right to vote as well as brown vs. board of education, post-1937 that gave an expansive authority for congress to regulate the economy and many aspects of our daily lives. the one person one vote principle as well as perhaps more modern and controversial decisions like citizens united. what would the framing of the jacksonian generation think of the constitution that we have today and should their reactions matter to us? >> wonderful question. you're hearing from people from different disciplines, trained historians often hesitate to answer presentist questions, what would a historical figure think about today. they often emphasize the pastness of the past. lawyers use history. we have to because we have to decide the case either for the plaintiff or the defendant and so we have to figure out in the end does the history support more the plaintiff's vision of the present or the defendant's vision. historians have the great luxury of not having -- you know, you put ten historians -- you lay them end to end and they'll never reach a conclusion but lawyers actually have to -- and judges -- decide i'll answer that question even though the pure historians may sort of cringe. our constitution is an intergenerational project. the founders' vision failed. it gets reborn in the civil war and the story doesn't end. my claim is that the founding is like a big bang and it creates a tremendous democratic energy that sort of gives momentum for all that happens subsequently. so the bill of rights, which as i mentioned has five mentions of the word the people and the first amendment and then eventually look at the trajectory of amendments. isn't it interesting almost all of them have expanded liberty and equality and no restrictions with the possible exception of prohibition which, of course, fails. so no anti-flag burning amendments or anti-gay rights amendments or anti-catholic amendments or all sort of pro-liberty, pro-equality. it's striking. the constitution gives us a momentum. it gives us a narrative. gordon wood asked, why do we study history? and i think he said partly to understand who we are, a people without a history is like a human being without memory, amnesia. so who we are, where do we come from and presumably then where might we be going? it sort of gives us a sense of -- and what i'm saying is i'm so proud to be an american, so lucky that this country let my family in a few years before i was born because in the history of the world we are part of an epic project. there are very few societies, i think, where i could get up and say this year in the history of this nation is the hinge of modern history and not be laughed at. so it's an extraordinary project. i'll give you one other example how you have to -- so i think they would say we've actually been completing their project. they -- seven of the 39 of them were foreign born. and you actually could be foreign born and be a president at the time, alexander hamilton was fully eligible. otherwise i'm not sure he would have wanted -- he would have liked the thing. so they were far more open to immigrants than anyone before and if we made it still more open we'd be carrying forward their project in the same way that the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, legal immigration, the 19th amendment rosemarie zagarri told you how it is building on a certain tradition of more inclusion than what happened the day before. that's my claim about this year. it's more democratic energy, more free speech than we've ever seen before. so i think, although they'd be shocked at the leveling tendencies and the fact that leaders actually don't lead so much anymore but just follow. there are things i think and gordon wood captures a little bit of this, their sense that something has been lost, some of the aristocratic virtues. but for all of that, i think they would recognize in us their posterity, the continuation of their radical revolutionary project. [ applause ] >> because the confederation of the states was in jeopardy, they wisely chose to stress unification of the states rather than the controversial subject of the abolition of slavery. as such the constitution was not necessarily pro-slavery. do you have any other proof that the constitution promoted slavery and, also, what is so terribly wrong with minding our own business and not interfering arguments of other nations as the doctrine clearly states that america is to do? >> thank you so much for that very good question. so, look, the question is at what point the civil war becomes inevitable. historians often ask questions about inevitability. is this a greek tragedy? no matter what oedipus does he's destined to kill his father and marry his mother. he tries to escape his destiny. it doesn't happen the godfather is a tragedy because michael doesn't want to be like his father. that's my father's world. he gets sucked back in. that's why it's a greek tragedy. so the question is you see -- my claim is for geostrategic reasons you have to get south carolina onboard otherwise you have an undefended southern flank. how do you deal with that? you have to actually unify the continent geostrategically because that's actually important. but if in order to do that you have to make such compromises with slavery that it's eventually going to doom the project, then it's just for ordained failure. my claim is that actually wasn't the case, that it was a failure of state craft. there was a solution that was imaginable and they missed it. and it's the same solution in my view our dependence on foreign oil -- you see, slavery was -- we are giving billions of dollars to basically the most reactionary regimes in the world, these petro dictators. this is bad for the world. i happen to believe this is probably not great for our mother earth either. and we are addicted to it in the same way that they were addicted to slavery. that was part of -- so how do you solve this? here is how you solve it. in time using time, you have to compromise with evil now but this is lincoln's -- lincoln says two things. slavery is wrong. if slavery is wrong, nothing is wrong. i cannot remember a time i did not think so. then he turns around and says i'm not an abolitionist. how can you believe in both? he says because we're stuck with slavery. what's his solution? thesis, antithesis, i will put slavery on the path of distinction. eventually we have to get there. and so here is what they did for importation. you can import before 1808 but after 1808 congress can prohibit interslave. must rather than can. but they could have said, you know, slavery what exists is okay but you can't spread it to the west. you could have said three-fifths of the existing states but not in any of the new states. you could have said three-fifths now but two-fifths in 20 years and one-fifth but eventually you can't get extra credit for extra slaves. that's just wrong in principle. you have to use time because if we as moral human beings -- steven douglas says why can't we talk about morality? let's just -- and lincoln says because we are human beings and moral characters. we can't not talk about slavery. now once we all admit that, there's lots of things we can do. we may have to make certain compromises in the here and now but let's all agree one day our great-grandchildren should be freed from this blight. okay? so i'm saying that's what they could have done. and south carolina wouldn't have liked it. and the south carolinians with all due respect were nut jobs from day one. and in july 1776 -- the same month as the declaration, a south carolinian named thomas lynch, great last name, thomas lynch says to the other members of -- at the continental congress, you start talking about slavery, we're out of here. he's threatening to walk while the british are here. he would never persuade the south carolinians. here is what you could have done. you could have isolated them. you have to get the virginians onboard and some of the virginians, many of them, are reasonable. they're slave holders. they know that slavery is a bad thing. they don't want to actually pass it on to their children and grandchildren because they think it corrupts the souls even of masters. george mason says that. thomas jefferson says it but doesn't do stuff about it because his party depends on it. james madison understands this in his bone. so does george washington. and provides for the freeing of slaves in his life. the reasonable virginians understand their slave holders, that slavery is a bad business. you have to persuade them. then the north carolinians have to decide whether they're going to cast their lot with the nut jobs down south or with virginia and they're going to go with virginia and you isolate the nut jobs. that's how politics work today. there are nut jobs, they have to be isolated. at the time the center are the reasonable slave holders, george washington, preeminent among them, and you could have done it and it was a failure of state craft. it seems mean to emphasize the one thing but the system basically did break because of it. and we need to understand that because our system could be at risk today. see, i'm a presentist. i want to you understand they almost failed because we could, unless we, the people, today solve our problems in time, we need a 20-year plan. it took us 20 years, 30 years to get into this hole. it will take a while to get out. we all agree we're in a hole and here is a long-term solution. [ applause ] >> thank you so much. we're going to take a brief break and when we return we'll have our panel discussion with all of our distinguished guests today. so please come back in a few minutes. american history tv continues. wednesday at 8:00 p.m. historians consider who "time" magazine might have picked to be person of the year in 1862 when the country was in the mix of the civil war. among those discussed abolitionist leader frederick douglass, robert e. lee, and george b. mcclellan, the general who had a campaign to take the confederate capital of richmond. c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes our book tv and american history tv programming on the road. this past weekend featured little rock, arkansas. with book tv at the university of arkansas. >> the high school collected photographs and he was particularly, again, interested in the 19th century, the civil war in particular. these are two friends, union and confederate, who knew each other prior to the civil war, who fought against each other at the battle of pearidge in 1862, survived the war, came out alive and remained friends after the war and here they are age 100 sitting on the porch talking about the old days. >> american history tv looked at life in a world war ii japanese internment camp. >> a lady wrote a wonderful book called "the art of the gamman" and it meant surviving the unsurvivable, sort of. and she talks a lot about how the arts and the crafts were how they kept their sanity and it gave them something to do and about how depression was so bad in a lot of the camps and that people -- there was the high incidence of suicide and so people would make these things of beauty to give to each other to say we support you and care about you. >> the tour continues. the weekend of may 5th and 6th from oklahoma city on c-span 2 and 3. each weekend on american history tv learn more about the presidents, their policies and legacies through their historic speeches and discussions with leading historians. every sunday morning at 8:30 eastern and again at 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. here on c-span 3 and to find out more about the series and our other programming including our weekend schedules and online video. next, radio talk show host moderates a panel discussion on teaching constitutional history. david mccullough and gordon wood join a panel of five other historians and scholars at this event. it's a little over an hour. [ applause ] you know, i think we should begin by thanking david boren for this extraordinary day. [ applause ] as i enter the stand, he simply picks up the phone to david mccullough and says -- come out to the university of oklahoma. we need you to do this or any of these wonderful minds sitting here on this stage. as david has said our focus is teaching the u.s. constitutional history in the 21st century. i love akhil's story having his 6-year-old learn the names of the presidents. we had our son do exactly the same thing. it's a great way to start. i also loved his idea of having each one of us go to wikipedia to look through the names of each of our presidents to learn one fact about each of those. i find myself thinking that we are faced with a group of constitutional scholars who adore what they do -- adore the constitution, all of its inclusions, everything that was left out for most of us, at least i speak for myself. growing up in high school if somebody mentioned learning about the constitution, it was a big yawn. so we are now here in the 21st century where there is a great deal of talk of exporting democracy, exporting the sense of freedom that this country has developed over these 225 years and yet here we are learning today from scholars but perhaps not knowing very much ourselves. so i start with each of you asking you considering the fact that you are so excited about your topic what has happened to the interest in learning about the constitution, where have we as adults, where have professors, with where have teachers somehow fallen down on the job and how can we in the 21st century make it something exciting. i'm going to start with a person you've not yet heard from but will hear from this evening at dinner and that's david mccullough. [ applause ] thank you. very much. history is human. three words and i sincerely believe that is the essence of teaching history and of understanding history. and i also believe firmly that our teachers are the most important people in our society. they are doing the work. >> me, too. [ applause ] >> so i do not blame our teachers, and i object to anything that is proposed or enacted or becomes acceptable socially that makes the difficulties of teaching greater still. we should be doing everything we can to support our teachers and