D. C. Abwere here to celebrate he 225th anniversary of the bill of rights. Behind me you can see a printing 1788. Back in this was how everybody shared news of the day. I have steve and bill and were go back in time to have Thomas Jefferson and alexander amilton tell us about exactly why we should or should not have a bill of rights. Bit of to set a little ontest in 1788, we have successfully revolted from england. A new rying to form nation. We have articles of confederation which working tely are not very well. We have a government but its tenuous. Ad we think we need to create new constitution to bring us all together but the question is ratified. Be is it good enough. And mr. Hamilton, i hear you opinions very strong about this. Theres a rumor you might have writing under the name in some newspapers. About why we me should or should not sign off to this new constitution . Clearly the new constitution was not the best constitution written. Ld have been it was the best that could be achieved under the conditions we were operating. I had long known that the articles of confederation were working as early as 1780. I proposed that we have a convention. Al that we write a constitution that would actually do what needed it to do. I think most of you realize we got through the american as if by a miracle. We should not have won. Ut when it was over, we were absolutely devastated. Our credit was nonexistent. To service loans. Wed issued bills to soldiers. Honored. Not being it was a terrible time. Colonies ce between tenuous. We were called states by then. James madison and it became abundantly clear to us we needed to do something so we proposed that there be a trade the states. Between only five states showed up. Ut it gave us the opportunity to say we need to revisit the articles of confederation and we summer thatollowing we would meeted in philadelphia that. O from the very beginning, we try to that we would revise the articles of confederation. New nted to write a constitution. Im not sure most of the other were certain. Americans with the greatest prestige to participate in this process. Ome of the greatest minds in the country were there. Mr. Jefferson would have been servinghe not as the minister of france. We knew we needed a new form of because without it we languishing. Backdrop to the Constitutional Convention. Of the over the course summer. Month away. Than a by then, i already realized that the government that we were going to have were this to be wasnt going to be perfect but it would certainly be better than what we many. I also had my own ideas about how to knit ourselves together a better federal union which is of course a better story. Time, i r the course of was the author of more than half papers. Ederalist there were 85 of them. John jay wrote five of them. Mr. Madison wrote around 30 of them. I wrote the remainder of them. Public relations blitz answering the critics of those who did not want a new ratified and at the same time trying to explain what the new government would do. Hamilton, so i understand one of the things you bring t would do would everybody together so that we ould have a federal government that could better protect and serve everybody and it sounded like a really good idea. Campaign was quite convincing. Received a copy of the new constitution in 1787. That it was an excellent start. On which ood canvas only a few spots needed retouching. Was entranced by some of the improvements, some of what they accomplished. The smaller states. The Electoral College was good until americans to be able d enough to handle the authority to senators andir own the president which wont take but a few generations. But there were some things in it staggered all of my dispositions to subscribe to it. Or instance, there was no limitation on the number of the elected y of serve. Als could heres people would want to elect the same people, the same families over and over again and we would create essentially at in practice what would be a suspect who serves for life perhaps his son would serve and so on and we would not improve on those who would come before. I also very much did not like the absence of a bill of rights. I was most concerned about the lights. A bill of rights that should be freedom from a permanent military. These rights should not be left inferences. They should be explicitly stated. Weakness in rrible the document. Im hearing from you that the constitution while it was a good start was just too vague. Specific limitations ritten in, we could be on a an pery slope back to monarchy. Fear of moving back toward a monarchy is imminent and constant and a rational fear to have. I cant imagine that you with this. Believe it or not, i actually if the government bynt become something owned all levels of society we would ail and not only did the ordinary people subscribe to hat we were doing so did the rich and well born. Let me just back up a little we didnt think that a bill of rights was necessary. Virtually all of those of us at the Constitutional Convention present at the end when mason that george we needed to guarantee freedom we took a vote. It was defeated 100. Taken lt that we had not any rights away from people and and dnt need to enumerate guarantee any of them. Mr. Jefferson, im a little concerned. A little heated. I dont want a duel to break up. No worries about my entering into a duel. Mr. Hamiltons choices are completely his own. Well but i will not challenge anybody in that way. Your ld you explain challenges . I will though challenge ideas. One of the ideas is that they taking away arights. Press ght to freedom of and speech and to petition the government. We did not put those in the constitution as rights that given explicitly to your government. Of efore, why have a bill rights . You cannot list all i say have half a loaf than no bread at all. That a government so ours is sketched out as will follow the direction of every government which is to more and more power to itself. Consolidating that power, an powerful government and taking those rights from the people. Here are certain rights that are so successful, they must be drawn out explicitly or they can be too easily challenged. Toisnt the government going be run by people that the public have chosen to elect them . We just assume that theyll have the best interest of the public at heart . One would hope but i realize are elected tole office the system will not work needs to work. Mr. Madison and rights e that a bill of which mr. Madison called a not ment partition would stop a government from doing whatever it wanted or needed to time of war and i think as one looks at the quasi france in 1798 to 1800, the passing of the alien and sedition acts which laws i did not support or favor violated entirely the bill of rights. The government took it upon do it and it did it. Governments will always do that when they feel threatened. They will remove these parchment walls. But what has separated us from the people who have come forward . From the constitutions that have come before . May be in legends certain people who have written constitutions but were not sure who, we know who wrote this constitution and the fact that rules down, the rules by which the government must abide. Wrote that down at the beginning. Our wise men gathered together discussed coolly their nformed educated rational concerns and planned a government based upon their experience, knowledge, and ages. Dge of the this set us apart from all history and governments that have come before. Rules. E down those that is why we must also write down the specific limitations of the government. If the government threatens more rights than stipulated we add with amendments and eventually with each generation entirely new Constitutional Convention. In that occasion why freedom of press, religion . There are some specific already ns that have been written in so why these ones . Throw that to either of you. I think it is habitual for because generations, this is generations have become it. Ustomed to this is not something i think will depart from human nature turn to our government as if to find what our rights are. You have ngerous when a government by the people. It is though a source of a threat and a source of my why i believe we have to write some of these rights down. The following error. They wonder do i have such and such a right. Check with my government and constitution and of theerein the writings government or constitution it says i have that right. That is the opposite of how how s work and especially our constitution works. The way our constitution works articulated in the ninth amendment is the following. If youre wondering whether or not you have a right, unless you at that constitution and you see that you gave in writing you gave that right to your government, you have it. O why do we have constitutions at all . We dont have a constitution to people. He we have laws to limit the people. Keep people from breaking each their legs and picking pockets. We have a constitution, bill of rights being an extension of limit our government. If we fall back into that old habit of looking into the constitution to discover our rights, then, yes, right. Milton, we prove the lack of certain enumerated rights will be construed at them. Not having but if we hold to that knowledge that we have all the rights ritten down and given away then, yes, i think writing them own on paper in a bill of rights will give them an additional level of a barrier against being taken away. Hamilton, what do you have to say to that . Certainly im not opposed to it. Think mr. Jefferson is sounding remarkably enlightened. Once said the masses are changing and seldom judge right and its for that reason we need to keep all of out of what would clearly be the best interest of people. Ican me, it was clear this was not the best constitution that could have been written. We as simply the best that ould be able to enact given opportunity and as much your idea of meeting every we were actually able to ratify he constitution to use the power that had been given to the and the best ment way for us to become a single people. My time taxing was not taxing individual citizens. It was taxing imported goods and taxing luxury goods, not necessities. Few things we agree on. Well, since we have that, i to end on a note of hope i think for how we go. We have about ten minutes left and answer. We have a wonderful audience newseum and at the we have students online. So im going to open it up to questions. E to ask ill repeat those questions so online can hear and mr. Jefferson and mr. Hamilton help us work through any questions. From the audience. While theyre waiting to percolate up i would like to repeat what dr. Franklin said, is in place, it looks o be a sound document but the only things in life that are taxes. N are death and who has the first question . Tell us about your clothes. So a question from the students online. Ould you please tell us about what youre wearing . Taxes. Sartorial. Are both in similar fashion at least of the era. Clothing that i am wearing for the buckles on my era of the early 19th century. This would have been appropriate end of my ard the first term as president. Probably for the sake of the audience, um, if you look down at my feet and not effersons feet, we do have left and right shoes. There was a single shoe that was had to wear them frankly gh so that when you got past the wear date, gained a them and great deal more wear that way. Odd that we would be wearing the same shoe on both customt it was clearly a time. R wed also like to know what after the bill of rights was ratified. What happened to your friendship friendship . Hamilton never had cordial. Meetings whereet there was no we remained public though general ashington can attest to the momentary lapses in civility that occurreded in those cabinet meetings. That being said general mr. Hamilton i think it might nice for the audience to know that you had a number of busts in the chamber of monticello. Among those is one of me. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016]] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you were overheard to have told at least a few people that we were friends and had i lived longer, our friendship would have been much deeper. Mr. Jefferson as time went on, it is a shame you were not able to continue longer than you did. I know it is an awkward subject to speak about. I did come to agree with more of your ideas. Anna yes . Ashley would like to know how long it took to write the bill of rights. Mr. Jefferson a complicated question. I did not write the bill of ights. Mr. Hamilton did not write t. Those of you who are students, your teachers give you assignments to write drafts of papers and you think they are doing that just to torture you, which of course they are. It builds character. There are other reasons as well. The overall process by which the bill of rights was composed everyone fist this. Everyone plies this. Complementifies this. Exemplifies this. Amendments were proposed by each of the state. There were well over 100 amendments without counting repeated suggested amendments. Mr. Madison was pressing most for the bill of rights. He brought them together and got rid of the repeats and narrowed it down to a list of about 17 originally proposed to congress. That was narrowed down to a smaller list that went to all the states. Individual states ratified. The only ones left out of the 100 were 10. The third amendment is now what you call the first. Mr. Hamilton there was something occurring during that time, during the ratification process, that i refer to as a rage for amendments. The people who were opposed to the constitution were hoping to use the amendment process to derail it. T did not succeed. Mr. Madison said if this document is to be adopted, it has to be adopted in total and forever. He did pledge to his own virginia delegation that when he had the opportunity, he would see to it that a bill of rights was championed. In fact, he did. As a member of congress, he took responsibility for it. Mr. Jefferson he made sure he liminated the members that amendments that would weaken the government and kept only the amendments that had to do with personal rights. Clever of him. I want to know what would happen without a constitution. Anna what would happen if we did not have a constitution . Mr. Jefferson that is a lot like what we conversed with thomas paine about. I read in his writings. Mr. Hamilton Thomas Hobbes said it best. We would be living in a state of nature where life is nasty, rutish, and short. Anna we would have no government, anarchy. Mr. Jefferson it bears repeating. Your constitution is not meant to limit your rights. If you are wondering whether you are allowed to do something, do not look to your constitution to find if you have permission. If your government is wondering whether it has permission to do something, it has to look at the constitution and show where it is written to allow them to do that. You look at laws that are passed to see what you are not in what you are allowed to do. If you do not have a constitution, perhaps there would be chaos. I think people would still gather together and Work Together in small societies. However, the bigger threat would be your government would see no limitations to its power and would become over powerful, worse than a monarchy. You would have the old roman dictators. You have tyrants, at radical government with no limitations on power. Anna a student question. Mr. Hamilton, could you sing for us . Mr. Hamilton i know this reference is probably as a result of the hit play, hamilton. But believe it or not mr. Jefferson they are writing plays about you . When do they do that . Mr. Hamilton you are not shown positively, i am afraid. I did sing. I was known for singing. The week before i died in a duel, i was sitting in a meeting of the society of cincinnati. Next to me was aaron burr. I was asked to sing my favorite song. I sang a song of campaigning called the drum. I doubt that you knew it because you were not a soldier. Mr. Jefferson do you ever chant in a rhythmic meter to rhyme . [laughter] anna any last questions from he audience . You are talking about how the government, we should not look to them for rights. How do you prevent people being oppressed by other people who live in a country . If you let people do whatever, how do you prevent how do you ensure a equality . Anna the last question is, should we worry about oppression not just from the government but rom the people themselves . Mr. Hamilton hopefully, the system of checks and balances would hold. When the many were oppressing the few, it could be addressed. When a few are being oppressed by the many, it could be addressed. That was the system of having a house of representatives and a senate. That was the intent behind that. The executive branch was a check on the legislative branch. The judicial branch, the particular chagrined to mr. Jefferson, was intended also as a means of providing checks and alances. That was the way the system was intended. Our system of laws would enable people to get redress when they deemed it necessary. I know you did not agree with that always. Mr. Jefferson though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable. The minority possess their equal rights which laws must protect. To violate would be ppression. A government ought to in its most essential form be constructed for the primary purpose of protecting your rights. Your rights end where another persons rights begin. If you use your freedom of speech intentionally to harm someone else, that is only using your right to infringe someone lses right. This is perhaps definitive of individual liberties. The government should be a tool used by the people to protect from oppression. Anna that is all the time we have today. We would like the audience to know, if you would like to see more about the debate on the bill of rights, i encourage you to go to our free website. Newseumed. Org. We have front pages from the time, including tragic announcements of a certain duel and its outcome. We also have lesson plans for teachers as well as videos on the creation of the bill of rights. I would like to wrap up today by saying our sincerest thanks to steve edenbo and William Chrystal for joining us. We hope to talk to you again oon. Interested in American History tv . Visit our website, cspan. Org history. You can see our Upcoming Schedule or watch our recent shows. R