Transcripts For CSPAN3 H.W. 20240706

Welcome to our audience on c span to the 2023 annual James Madison lecture. This year to bedelivered as dr burnett said by the distinguished historian hw brands, a lecture with the uh antiquarian but eerily relevantle, founding partisans hamilton madison jefferson, adams and the brawling birth of american politics. By the way, heres a, an advanced copy of the book um which will be in bookstores soon, i believe, which promises to be a provocative read. Professor brands is the jack s blanton, senior chair in history at the university of texas at austin, which is his doctoral alma mater is the author of over 30 books, two of which have been finalists for the pulitzer prize. And in discussing my introduction, he, he said hed be happy with a brief biography. So im not going to recite all 30 of those titles uh to you, but heres a sampling of them. The money man. Andrew jackson, the age of gold, the First American tr the strange death of american liberalism. What america owes the world. Lone star nation and the devil we knew. Henry william brands was born in portland, oregon where he lived until he went to college at Stanford University and studied history and mathematics. After graduating, he became a traveling salesman with a territory that spanned the west from the pacific to colorado. He says that his wanderlust diminished after several trips across the great basin. And he turned to sales of a different sort, namely teaching history. For nine years. He taught history and also mathematics in high school and community college. And, and i, if i may say personally, as an aside, having had the privilege of spending the morning with him and doing doing a constitutional conversation. Its evident from the first moment that teaching is a vocation, a calling, a true calling to dr brands. He loves it. He was born to do it and i think youll get that sense in, in this afternoons lecture. Meanwhile, he resumed his formal education, earning graduate degrees in mathematics and history. So i presume both lobes of his brain work equally. Well, something i cant say of myself. He worked as an oral historian at the university of Texas Law School after completing his doctoral work at ut and then became a visiting professor of history at vanderbilt university. In 1987 he joined the history faculty at texas a and m university where he taught for 17 years. And in 2005, he returned to the university of texas where he has been ever since. In addition to his books his articles have appeared in the new york times, the wall street journal, the washington post, the boston globe, the atlantic monthly, Smithsonian National interest american historical review, the journal of American History and Political Science quarterly American History, and many other newspapers, magazines and journals. So you can just get a sense from that. Hes a scholar who also writes for a wider public audience. Hes a regular guest on National Radio and Television Programs and is frequently interviewed by the american and foreign press. So please join me in welcoming giving a warm Madison Foundation welcome to professor w. H. Brands. [ applause ] this is intended to keep me from talking too long. Thanks very much jeff for that kind introduction. Thank you for the James Madison foundation for having me here. Im delighted for an opportunity to speak to any group that chooses to come listen to me. Youre all teachers and then im a teacher and i teach a large class at a couple of large classes at the university of texas. And i flatter myself to think that im kind of interesting and sometimes entertaining teacher, but i am fully aware that if my students didnt have to be in my classroom, many of them would not be there. I want to pick up on something jeff said earlier about uh sort of feeling that teaching is my calling. I dont know if you had this experience, and maybe youve had students who say they, maybe they think they want to be a teacher. And this happens to me all the time. This is typically students who are in their last semester in college and they got to figure out what to do with their lives. And they think, well, maybe id like teaching and very often its in context of, maybe ill go to history, graduate school. And o ok. Well, you talk about that a little bit and, and then i say, if you do go into history as a profession, as an academic, a large part of what you do will be spent teaching. Now, many of them think i want to be a historian. I want to write books. Ok. Thats fine. But the way its set up in the United States for the most part you also teach and, and the question i asked them is, have you ever been in front of a classroom yourself . Theyve all been on the student side of the classroom. But, i asked them if theyve ever been in front where theyre in charge of the class where its their job to focus the attention of the students. And i say that unless youve done that until youve done that, dont even consider teaching as a career because you dont know if youll like it until you do it. And i speak from personal experience here because i got my first teaching job was, i was a year out of undergraduate college and i talked my way into a job teaching in a private school where i didnt have to have particular credentials. I just could, i got the job and i, i thought id kind of like it. Ive been a good student. I liked school but its very different thing when youre in the front. And i discovered by my third day in front of the classroom that i really liked it and i still do. I still, i, to me the very best day of my year is the first day of the fall semester. And i especially like it because i teach the students, you and your fellow High School Teachers send me as jeff said, i taught high school for nine years. And the reason i stopped Teaching High School is that i wanted to get myself in a position where the Job Description would include time to write. I thought i wanted to write. And i know from having been a high school teacher, you dont have time, you, its a full time job teaching. So i thought this would be great. I will say this too that when i first started Teaching High School, i was five years older than my oldest students. And i taught at an all boys school. So, there was, at least at the beginning, some of this, you know, you cant make us do that stuff. So its a little, you know, its a little bit of the, the alpha male with a subtle context around it. But, sort of once we got that settled, then it all went very well. Now, strangely, strangely, my students have been getting younger and younger over the years. So i was almost their age peer when i started teaching. I have had children of students in my class. The age difference is enough that conceivably i could have. But i dont think i actually have had yet grandchildren of the students that ive taught. But i, i think about retiring, im old enough to retire. But, as long as i get that rush on the first day of the semester, i tell you some of you maybe have this experience. Certainly, teachers have been in the business for a while. Its what keeps me young because its also what keeps me from getting well, you study history enough and you see all the stuff that happens and its pretty easy to become jaded and think, oh, man, we got these problems that just dont go away. Fortunately, most problems, you know, dont become fatal, but were just dealing with this and then the students come into my class and they are full of enthusiasm. Theyre full of optimism, theyre gonna change the world. And some of it rubs off on me now. I dont, i dont tell them the worlds pretty hard to change and a lot of people have tried it before you. Ill let them figure that out on their own. But its still, i consider it to be a real privilege to teach young people. I, you know, its in some ways when i did Teach High School and i would go to the, you know, back to school night meet the parents. And i would tell them that there are certain times when im gonna be spending more time with your child than you are at this age because they are, they have to be in my class, but they get away from home as much as they can. And thats, that is a real responsibility, but its also a real privilege. Ill also tell you. And this is, i enjoy teaching college. I really like Teaching High School. How many of you are . Are there any middle School Teachers in here . Ok. My hat is off to you. Youve got the hardest job in the world because i have occasionally sort of substitute sat in teaching in middle school. And i thought, well, i thought the way that i kept the attention of my High School Students was i sort of had to generate more energy on my own than the whole class of them could generate. And i could do that with 15 and 16 year olds with those middle school students, i didnt have a chance. So, really congratulations to you. But, but anyway, so the longer i teach, i teach history, i used to teach history and mathematics and i never could find a connection between the two. Its just, i had these two interests and i liked them both and actually i found it easier to get my first job teaching math because Everybody Needs math teachers. History teachers a little bit easier to come by. And perhaps this, i probably shouldnt tell this joke or say this line in front of a bunch of High School Teachers. But youll get it. This is especially true in texas where ive been living these last 40 years, i grew up in oregon, but it is, it pro im sure its true of and some other places that, that a lot of people when they get out of high school and years later, they cannot remember the last name of their history teacher, but they do remember that the first name was coach that doesnt apply to math teachers, you know, you have to know something about math. But anyway, so the longer i teach, the more im convinced that teaching history, the study of history is at least the way i increasingly do it. This perhaps doesnt apply to anybody else, but that history is a form of applied philosophy and what, the longer i do it, the more i conclude that what were trying to do in history as students of history, as teachers of history, as writers of history, were trying to figure out what it means to be human. And this is the same thing that artists do. This is the same thing that writers do. Its the same thing that psychologists and social scientists do. What does it mean to be human . Now, a lot of people, when they talk about, what does it mean to be human . Theyre speaking in the present tense. What does it mean to be human now, we who deal in history, we have an advantage. Weve got a much larger sample to draw from. What has it been like, what it has, what has it meant to be human over time . And if we want to get sort of interesting about this, has that meaning of what humanity is about . Has it changed over time . Its something that those of us who teach history and write history at least have to, we have to have kind of a rule of thumb for a theory of human nature. Because if im trying to explain to my students what it was like for James Madison to organize this Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787. And i can read from his letters, i can include passages from his letters in my books and the readers can read them and we read the words and we imagine, i think everybody does this when theyre trying to understand somebody else, they say implicitly or explicitly that ok, if i had said that heres what i would have meant, heres what i would have been feeling when i said that. And the question is, and its a question i dont have a firm answer to. Does that, does that actually work if somebody says a certain sentence today in the year 2023 im living in that time and we share that context if somebody 100 years ago says something thats persons coming from a slightly different place. 200 years ago, 300 years ago. Is there such a thing as human nature . And does it change over time . Ok. So this is, this is what i conceive of is what i do. And its also one of the reasons that as i teach, i increasingly ask my students to imagine that they were alive back in the time im talking about and imagine that they were, lets say a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. And theres this argument about whether the new congress under this constitution should be based on population, should be apportioned by population, or should it be based as the model under the art of the confederation by state . So, what would you have thought . What would you have done . And in fact, when i teach my classes, i have my students, they always have a piece of paper handy and they simply write down their response. And so at the end of the end of the hour, they turn it in and it serves as a proxy for taking attendance. But my, but no, but that actually my point is that i want them to think about what it was like to be alive in the past. We can only get it imperfectly. But unless you try to do that, then you cant, you wont have a hope of actually understanding what it was like. Now i asked them, ill ask you, oh, well, ill put it this way. I will demand of them and i demand of you that if you want to understand what it was like to be in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to be in George Washingtons cabinet in the early 1790s, it is imperative that you abandon something that comes naturally to anybody interested in history. And that is you have to abandon the advantage of hindsight. You have to forget that, you know how it turned out because unless you take that away, then you cannot imagine what it was actually like to be there and to make the decisions that people made, not knowing, how were they, how it was going to turn out. And this is one of the reasons, its one of the reasons that, well, i will admit to being somewhat impatient sometimes more than just somewhat impatient with people who take what i consider to be cheap shots at important figures from the past. Ok. So they maybe they did this, but look at all those things, they did wrong, look at all those bad things that they did. Well, this is well and good to say if you know for example, that this instance, were talking about the constitution, if you know, the constitution is gonna work out, if you know the American Republic is gonna hold together and that were gonna be here in the year 2023 and theres still gonna be a United States of america and we are all relatively secure. We are all by world standards, very prosperous and speaking sort of against the background of humanity. Weve really got things good. So i, i dont tell my students not to criticize people who came before but bear in mind that in addition to their imperfections, they did stuff that made it possible for us to be here. I mean, sometimes in a literal sense that its like, its like criticizing your parents, you can ok, kids criticize your parents. This is what kids do, but if not for your parents, you wouldnt be here, you wouldnt be alive, you wouldnt be in a position to criticize. So, as a historian, as a, you know, to withhold your judgment, as a citizen, as Something Else on your own time, sit in judgment on the past, but before then simply try to understand what was it like. Ok, now thats all kind of preface, im going to ask you a question and the question is this. Is there, should there be Something Like a statute of limitations on much like a rectifying past wrongs or changing, going back and fixing things that went wrong in the past. So that doesnt make any sense as ive told it. But lets try this. So i dont know if you do this in your classes. I find that it works with my students and that is to connect the past to the present so that were not simply talking about something that happened 150 years before my students were born, but it does have some relevance. Its connected to something. The United States today is firmly in support of the government of ukraine and its army against the government of russia, which has attacked ukraine and is trying to re attach ukraine into Something Like a russian empire. Ok. And most americans appear to be in favor of the policy, at least in favor of the idea behind the policy. There are some questions as the United States getting involved too deeply, but on the whole, most americans have registered the position that ukraine is in the right on this. Russia is in the wrong on this. And therefore, if we, if the United States is a country can help the ukrainians all to the good. Again, we can argue about the cost and what the risk might be. But i would suggest to you. Well, i guess i could ask for a show of hands, but i wont. Just imagine that ive asked for a show of hands. I dont want to require anybody to reveal their views. Do you think that Abraham Lincoln was justified in using military force to hold the union together starting in 1861 . Ok. Just register in your head. Im gonna guess that most of you think. Yeah. And, and the way that it turned out was better than if the union had fallen apart. Now, im going to suggest to you, im not stating this as a fact. Im just putting it out there for you to consider that what lincoln was doing in 1861 was essentially no different. Then what Vladimir Putin is trying to do in 20 well, starting in 2022. That is to prevent the secession of part of the what the former soviet union. And if youre like most audiences, you say, well, yeah, lincoln did the right thing and most of you probably are saying, well, putin is not doing the right thing. So, we can argue about the differences. But im gonna, im gonna suggest one fundamental difference and that is lincoln waited only three months. So there was three months between the last of the secessions that is be before fort sumter and the time lincoln was inaugurated and essentially declared war on the south, we are going to force you to stay in. So there was no time for this new status quo, this new the status quo being the confederacy to emerge, ok . And therefore he sort of crushed it before it had a chance. Now, Vladimir Putin is on record as saying, the decision on the part of soviet leaders in 1991 to allow the republics to split off. That was a mistake and hes simply rectifying the mistake, but hes a little bit late. And thats, i would argue that thats a fundamental difference. Does that actually, should that make a difference in the way we observe these things . You might wonder what does this have to do with James Madison . The constitution . Heres what it is. What was James Madison trying to do when he and Alexander Hamilton called together, those delegates summoned the delegates to philadelphia for 1787 after they had tried in annapolis the previous autumn and nobody showed up, or at least not enough people showed up to constitute a quorum. So very cleverly, hamilton and madison pivoted and said, no, no, no, this wasnt really the convention we had in mind. This was just the preliminary convention. So were gonna try again. So, what did they have in mind . Well, what they had in mind was, oh, what did they say they had in mind . They said that they were going to propose amendments to the articles of confederation. What did they really have in mind . What they really had in mind was . Well, if we state it sort of in the mildest form, they were gonna rewrite the articles of confederation. But in fact, what they were plotting and what they accomplished was the overthrow of the government of the United States, they were undermining, they were going to undo, theyre going to abolish the existing government of the United States. Ok. Keep that in mind because when they got to philadelphia and once everybody arrived or enough to get things going, they closed and locked the doors, they swore everybody to secrecy. And the first thing they did is to say, forget writing amendments. Were going to write a whole new constitution. Now, they didnt have authorization to do this. The congress of the confederation had authorized the proposal of amendments that would get, that would go through the ordinary amending process, but thats not what madison and hamilton intended. They were going to go around that because they knew that if they stuck to the regular amendment process, it required every state to approve an amendment, a single state could veto an amendment, which is why the small states that knew that something was up. They said, well, i, ok, um we can go along with this and if we dont like it, well just vote against the amendments that are proposed, but they got there and they said, wait, thats not whats happening. Theyre writing a brand new constitution. And moreover, it is going to be considered ratified when nine states, not 13 states but nine states give it their approval. Now, what exactly is this . What do you call it when people are actively trying to undermine and overthrow the government . Under which they live. Whats the common term for this . Right . Well, its insurrection. If you take up arms, its sedition. If you merely just undermine the government, it has been called treason in the past. Now, its not called treason under James Madisons constitution because madison and the other framers of the constitution, they knew that treason was this catch all charge that was leveled against this mere enemies of the government. And they would not allow that. This is why there have been a mere handful of treason convictions in American History. The constitution of 1787 defines treason very specifically, it is the carrying on of war against the government of the United States or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. And in some of the famous treason trials, when aaron burr was tried for treason, James Thomas Jefferson accused him of treason. He beat the rap because he had not waged war against the United States. Its why, despite what you often hear that. Well, the insurrection, the civil war, during the civil war, nobody got convicted of treason. Now, this is a very strange thing because werent they waging war . Well, actually, no, you know what lincoln called it . He called it the rebellion. He called it an insurrection. He didnt call it war until it was so late that everybody else was calling it war that he did. So heres the question i put to you was James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, were they doing anything different . Really . Jefferson davis attempted in 1861 basically overthrowing the government of the United States and setting up a new government. But, well, you know, we dont call it that because in the first place they didnt take up arms and one last thing. They won, it succeeded. You perhaps heard this old saying that goes back. Treason never prospers. And for this, for this, there is a reason because if treason prospers, none dare call it treason. If you win, if you kill the king and become king yourself, then nobody dares call you a traitor. So, i put this to you by way of sort of considering what it was that madison and hamilton and the others actually did in writing the constitution. They, they decided that they knew better than their peers than those that had gone before , to how this country ought to be governed. Now, i begin my story, this book that was that jeff mentioned, its called founding partisans. It talks about the emergence of Party Politics in the United States and it begins with the writing of the constitution, but it really begins a little bit before then when Alexander Hamilton is an aide de camp to George Washington during the revolutionary war. And James Madison is a member of the Continental Congress and they begin thinking about how we could do better than the people who set up the system weve got. Now one of the astonishing things about this is the boldness, you could sort of say the, the egotism of two young men like hamilton and madison hamilton when this starts is in his twenties. And hes saying i got this design for a new government for this country. This is a big statement for somebody. Hes not, hes not exactly just fresh off the boat from the west indies, but heres somebody who is certainly full of himself and he thinks i know better than anybody else and he starts lobbying for these changes. And madison comes along, they meet in the Continental Congress and they realize they have this same idea. We know better how to do this. You could imagine. Well, actually, ill ask you to imagine, could anything like this be accomplished today . So, first of all, Alexander Hamilton at the time, was seven or eight years away from being even old enough to be president United States. He was barely old enough to be a member of the house of representatives, but he presumes to give advice to George Washington on the changes we ought to make in the government. Madison is designing new schemes and hes really saying that this business of allowing delaware rhode island have an equal vote to my virginia in the government. This is absurd. So were going to change it. So they do, they come together and they write this, they write this new constitution and they put it to the states. And the deal is that if nine states ratify, then this new constitution will supersede the article confederation who gave madison and hamilton and the other members of the continent, excuse me, of the Constitution Convention, the authority to do this. Nobody. They simply assumed the authority. Now, one can say that there was kind of a backstop here, call it a moral backstop. The moral backstop was, well, if people dont like our work, they just dont ratify this new thing. And then we go on to living under the old one, but they were astute enough. They were clever enough to bring on board. Some of the heavy hitters in american politics. The big deal, the big catch was landing George Washington. For George Washington to give his seal of approval to this merely by showing up. George washington was president of the convention, but he was also astute enough to say nothing in the convention. He presided silently. George washington understood the power of silence. Unlike, well, unlike if you read the rest of the constitution of the notes of the Constitution Convention, there were people that just went on and on and on and on, but there were all sorts of, there were fundamental political problems. There were, so im gonna ask you, was the writing of this new constitution, was it an ethical thing to do . Was it a morally correct thing to do . Is it something that we justify only in the aftermath they did get their nine votes. Actually, the time they got their nine votes, they didnt have the two biggest states. Virginia and new york still hadnt ratified. They understood this new republic. If it doesnt have the two big states, new york and virginia, its not going to fly. Which is why, then they had to work so hard. Madison and virginia hamilton, new york to get those states to ratify. But if, but if it had failed the ratification, no, actually suppose it had been ratified by nine states, then what happens to the articles confederation nine states . Join this new thing to the four states. What are they left with . Are they just left out in the go . They understood that those four, whatever those four states would have been, would have been dragged along. So its, its quite a bold thing that they did. Was it the right thing to do . Now, heres where im going to come back to what i mentioned earlier about. We dont know in, in, when its actually happening, you dont know how its going to turn out. They didnt know how it was going to turn out and what would have happened to them would have they gone down in history as just these guys who thought a lot of sells and it didnt work. In fact, it did work. So do we give them, do we give them credit for the foresight in seeing that . This was something that the rest of the country would respond to. Could Something Like this happen today . There, are you aware that there are calls in now Something Like 30 states for a new constitution, new Constitutional Convention . Are you aware of this . And it originated back in uh uh about the reagan era where there would be a convention called to write a new, to write an amendment to the constitution for requiring a balanced budget. But then various things were added on to it just to keep the size of government from getting out of hand and all this. I am, i am gonna ask the first show of hands. How many do you think it would be a good idea to summon a new Constitutional Convention . And the new Constitution Convention would be called presumably under the premises, excuse me, under the premises of amendments to the constitution. Very much like the original Constitutional Convention. Were all going to philadelphia said madison and hamilton to propose amendments to the constitution. Thats not what happened. This new Constitutional Convention would be summoned to write a balanced Budget Amendment to write an amendment for this, that or the other thing. But there is nothing, there are no rules that constrain it to that madisons convention wasnt constrained. They wound up writing a whole new constitution. How many of you think, how many of you would have confidence in a new Constitution Convention . Raise your hand if you, if you think thatd be a good thing to risk . Ok. We got a very small vote in favor, but theres a reason for this. Theres a reason for this. See, we know how it turned out. We know that the constitution written in 1787 has lasted nearly 200 years. More than 200 years getting on to 250 years in a little bit and its worked out pretty well. So it gives us a huge advantage over the people at the time who wrote it. But does that mean that none of you have the boldness . Well, well, in person exception, have the boldness of James Madison honor than Alexander Hamilton. How many of you next show of hands, please. How many of you think that the government of the United States is operating perfectly . You cannot think of an improvement that could be made. Ok. Im not getting any hands on that. So you think it could be made better . You dont want to do something to make it better . Whats wrong with all of you . You do . Thats right. Ok. So, so where are we, what do we do about this . How do we understand this . Because when madison looked at the, the operating the operation of the american government, he said, i dont think its working very well. Heres what im going to do. You dont think its operating very well. And with one exception, nobodys willing to, to take the risk. Why is that anybody have any suggestions . Why . Thats so, is it just that youre a particularly cautious group, if i lecture to another group tomorrow, would i get a larger show of hands . I dont think so. So, why not . Is it . Well, actually, so i was asked the question this morning, i get asked it all the time. So what do you suppose that people who live back in the old days, what would they think if they came back today or whos the modern equivalent of James Madison or alexander . Whoever it might be. And the first thing i say is, its kind of an unfair question to ask of people in the past. People who succeed in. Well, lets say in public life, but you could apply this to just about anything but people who succeed in public life succeed in a particular time and place. And one of the reasons they succeed is that they have their feet fairly firmly planted in that time and place, take them out of that time and place, move them to somewhere else. It could be a different country at the same time or the same country at a different time and theres no guarantee at all that they will fit. So heres, ill give you an idea. Alexander hamilton, Alexander Hamilton was in favor of a bigger, stronger central government. He thought bigger was better in government. So if Alexander Hamilton were revived and dropped down in the United States today. Would he have been in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act . Would he have been in favor of obamacare . Would he have been in favor of taking back 100 years . Almost Social Security . Would he have thought the government needed to be bigger than it was in the 1930s and the 1960a and the 2010, i have no way of knowing hamilton thought government needed to be bigger than it was in 1791. But the federal government in 1791 was miniscule. It wasnt the size of a county government in the United States. Today. Today, the government is so much larger than that. What he thought that even larger still would have been better or would he have been happy with government . Maybe 1 10 the size of what it is today, we still would have been much larger than it was in hamilton city. I simply dont know. But the other thing is that, and ill focus on this generation in particular. They, they knew that they were engaged in something that had never been done before. They created a country. Countries werent created, countries grew organically. France had emerged from the myth, the mists of the middle age in the middle ages with the acquisition of various territories in spain the same way. But the idea if you create a country, you sit down and on a piece of paper, you write down the way the government is going to operate. Governments operated until then they operated by tradition. They operated by precedent. They operated like the british common law. The british have a constitution. Its unwritten, but its all the precedents and practices and habits that have been established over centuries. They said, forget that were going to just write this thing down in a matter of one summer. And this is, it, it had never been done before, but they also had done something already that hadnt been done before. And that is, they staged the first anti colonial rebellion where a new country was carved out of this empire. Now, this would be a model for many, many countries to come all the way down to the 20th century. But you know, they, we, we destroyed this old government in war. Thats what theyre thinking. We destroyed this old government in war. Now we got to create new ones. They initially created governments for each of the separate states. So they wrote constitutions for each of the 13 states. Then they wrote a constitution for the United States against the, the art of confederation. And so theyve been writing constitutions left and right to write another one. No big deal. If madison and hamilton were brought back today, i think the first thing that they would be astonished by is the fact that we are still living under that creaky old constitution. They wrote back in 1787. They were not writing for the ages. They were writing maybe for the decades. The first constitution of the United States lasted all of six years before hamilton and madison waged war, not waged. They staged a coup against it. If the second constitution could last. Ok, maybe 15 or 20 years, thatd be good. And then let the next generation write another one. Thomas jefferson went so far as to say that no generation, no generation could in theory or in good faith bind subsequent generations weak. If, if you believe in Self Government, it means govern yourselves, not govern your children or your grandchildren, let them write their own laws and their own constitutions. Now, it didnt happen that way. I think, i think that if mattis and the others came back today and saw that were still on their constitution amended only a handful of times. I live in the state of texas. The texas, texas is on its sixth constitution and the current constitution has been amended Something Like 500 times. So it is as thick as a telephone book with all the amendments. One of the glories of the constitution is, oh, i forgot to bring how many of you brought your pocket constitution with you . Good. Ok. You can fit in your pocket and you know there it is, theres a story of hugo black when he was on the supreme court, he was walking up the steps of the white house and a reporter said, uh justice black, uh can you tell me uh something about, you know, your philosophy on the, the recently decided position of case . And black reached into his hip pocket to pull out his constitution. So im like, oh, wait, i forgot my concept here. Can you, can you show me yours . He sort of thought that everybody walked around with the constitution, their pocket. Well, you can, because its that small. But that is also, i mean, really, thats one of the secrets of the constitution. My book is about the writing of the constitution. Its also about the politics that emerged after the constitution. Im not going to go into that and i run over time too much. But i will say this, that what made the constitution work is all the stuff that emerged out of called the spirit of the constitution. But thats not in the constitution itself. So there are lots of habits that we have, there are lots of expectations that we have and theres also something that we have that. Well, at least in theory, appalled the framers of the constitution and that is Political Parties. They thought that Political Party was the worst thing that could happen to any country. They looked upon Political Parties as those things that had led to the corruption of government in britain and produced the terrible laws that drove the american colonies to independence. And they hoped and believed that the American Republic would be spared such things because they believed, as Benjamin Franklin put it, that the republic would survive only as long as there existed a sense of civic virtue. Where people, where citizens were willing to put the interests of the country ahead of the interests of themselves, their faction, their, they didnt even use the term party, but they didnt want that. They didnt want something to get between the individuals and the government. And people should, well, they should think of their republic, their country the way people think of their family. And it is simply expected that parents will put the interest, the welfare of their children ahead of themselves. This is what you do in a family. Its almost what defines a family. Youre willing to set aside. Boy, id love to go on vacation. No. No, you gotta make some money to send the kids to college. You know, that sort of thing. This is, this is what parents do. And there was this feeling initially that that was what would work, that was what would have to work to make this new country, this new republic survive. They created this republic. It was brand new in world history. Yeah, there had been a Roman Republic and there were sort of republics that were city states, but a bigger thing than that. No one had ever seen such an event. Such a phenomenon. Its significant. I think its very significant that this idea of civic virtue. And of willingness to set aside personal state sectional interests in favor of the National Interest emerged during wartime. The United States spends its first seven years at war. And even long after the revolutionary was over americans have had this willingness, the tendency to pull together during war time because there is this greater threat. And you can look at periods when the country had been bitterly divided during the great depression. And then along comes World War Two, almost, you know, as soon as the news about pearl harbor reaches the rest of the country, politics really goes by the board and everybody pulls together. And in fact, this is one of the reasons that World War Two is even still in the American Mind is thought of as the good war. Its a time when everybody was working together. Now that sense of communal feeling, that sense of common interest survived the war, but it turns out it didnt survive the peace. And then the people who wrote the declaration of independence who set up the first government realized, uh 0h, guess what human nature in america is not that much different from human nature in britain and other places, people have different ideas, people have competing ideas. People want to get to the top of the political ladder. They want this and the other thing James Madison, writing ahead in federalist number 10, talk about factions and how factions could be contained, how they could be neutralized. It was a big step for madison even to acknowledge the existence and the implication of the inevitability of actions theyre going to exist because they didnt, the under, in the spirit of the declaration of independence, there was a hope that those they wouldnt emerge in this new country, but they had by the mid 17 eighties during what was called the critical period of American History. And so he says, ok, they can be neutralized by other factions. Its a little bit of rationalization for this federal government because he has to explain how a republic can exist in an extensive area geographically. Until then, republics had all been compact where people knew each other and they could, you know, its ok. I like you, ill help you out that sort of thing. There would be a personal feeling you cant do that when youre spread across a continent. Factions emerged, factions became Political Parties and the first two Political Parties, what in those days were called the federalists and republicans. They had set in by the mid certainly by the late 1790s and madison whos kind of a key in this the story. At first, he thought he hoped there would be no parties. Then he, he uses parties and factions interchangeably so, but then the factions would offset each other. But then by the mid 1790s he has decided that parties, well, actually parties, one party is a good thing. My party is a good thing and my party is necessary to offset the evil tendencies and desires of those other guys. And so we get as a system, were not yet to a point where the members of the opposite parties are saying yes, a thriving two party system is the best for the country. It takes a long time before almost anybody accepts that idea. And if you look at politics today, youd have a hard time finding very many people who would raise. Say, yeah, thats what im for democrats would say we need a Strong Republican Party and republicans who say we need a thriving Democratic Party. In fact, though, that has been the basis for much of americas success under the aegis of the constitution. But you got to fill in all those other blanks anyway. So thats my story. I run over time. I hope there are questions, reactions, contradictions, anything. What do you think . What do you have to say . [ applause ] oh, and yeah, thank you for that. Thats not what i intended when i said, what do you think . No, what . Uh yes, theres a question up there and theres a microphone thats gonna come over. I think uh when you early lectured, link, what put is suing what Abraham Lincoln did. Our question is, where is getty . Where is this deck pen . Isnt the type of government to trying to perpetuate . Doesnt that take a claim to . Ok. So the question is Vladimir Putin runs an autocratic government. Hes not quite a dictator, but he doesnt consult with the people of russia. So its not at all clear that his policies represent those of the people of russia. So then that implies, suppose he were an elected, an honestly elected leader of russia. And suppose the russian people said, ok, we are going to suppress ukrainian separatism. So the implication, i think of the question is maybe that would change our calculation. The fact is hes a dictator and therefore he did this bad thing and thats what needs to be opposed. And thats a, thats a certainly an arguable position. Ill note though that, that had nothing to do with lincolns decision to suppress southern secession because the governments of the seceded states of the south. They were just as democratic as the government of the northern states and the confederacy, the confederate, states of america had a thoroughly democratic as the, as it went in those days form of government. So it wasnt that the government of the confederacy was bad in the way it operated. What lincoln said is the government of the confederacy is bad per se. The fact that it claims to be this independent government. So theres something to what you say, but it wouldnt have changed lincolns view. And i just should add that the United States has generally taken the position that the business of governments and when they operate within their own country is mostly their own affair. Now, this was kind of imposed on the United States and the world after World War Two. And the United Nations was founded on the principle of National Sovereignty within your boundaries. You cant do sort of anything you want, but the United States has no authority to tell the government of russia, you need to have this form of government. You need to have regular elections, you need to do this. President s of the United States have sometimes lectured other countries, the president of the United States well, and the United States has not follow this rule entirely. The United States invaded iraq in 2003 because it didnt like the government of saddam hussein. So, i mean, there are all those sort of exceptions to this. But my, the reason i put it out there is to just, just ask ourselves to think more carefully about how we look on things that happen around throughout history and i could have added. So the United States apparently at least if you listen to president biden, is prepared to defend taiwan against an attack from china. Now, taiwan historically was part of china. It was torn away from china in the 1890s by japan and it was under japanese control until the 1945 the end of World War Two. But china never said, yeah, we gave up china. So imagine imagine that the government of the United States at the time of secession did not act on its belief that the south did not have a right to secede and just let it sit for a while. And then a subsequent president of the United States said, oh, that was a mistake. And now were going to fight to bring the south back into the union. Now, i have hypothesized this situation. But in fact, that is exactly what happened in 1860 and 1861 James Buchanan was president when the first seven states seceded. And he said, you do not have the authority, do you not have the right . You do not have the right to secede, but im not going to start a war over it. And so the south, the, the first seven states said, ok, i guess were home clear, you know, they havent object. I mean, they havent acted on any objection. Now, then i say lincoln came in and he turned that around. But the, the position of the government of china today is we never agreed that that taiwan was independent. Weve all along said just the opposite. We couldnt do anything about it for a long time, but its still part of china and all were doing is what your president lincoln did to the south. Now again, there are details of it that that differ in time and place. But, the thing that i want to ask is, is it the longevity, ask the question about this status quo, if this thing has been in existence for two days, thats a different thing than if its been in existence for two years and for two centuries. But is there a point at which you say . Ok, that new status quo just has to be acknowledged . And thats that, and theres nothing we can do about it, or at least theres nothing were prepared to do about it to the risk of war. And its a question that again, we sort of deal with all the time. Taiwan is an example. Ukraine is an example. Mexico never agreed that the southwestern portion of the United States, including texas where i lived should be torn away from mexico. Yeah, the gun was put to their head and they signed the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo. But as late as world war one, when the German Government in the infamous Zimmerman Telegram said, if mexico sides with germany in a war against the United States, then were going to give you back texas and california. Well, this is one of the things that turned texas and california really against germany. Now, it had been about three generations that those territories had been part of the United States rather than part of mexico. But these, these questions of how long does this new status quo have to remain in place before it becomes accepted . How many of you are familiar with the law of adverse possession. Its a term in law and real estate in particular where if you build a garage on your neighbors property unaware that it is your neighbors property and your neighbor doesnt do anything about it for 10 or 20 years, depending on your jurisdiction, then it effectively the property becomes yours. So thats sort of whats going on here and its, it was just a rough and ready thing. We cannot litigate this stuff forever and ever at some point, we have to have closure. We have to say this is it. Anyway. Other questions, our reactions. Yes. Lets get one down here since the mic is close. Yeah. Hi. When do you think the two party system has worked best in United States history . Ok. So when do they work best in United States history . Well, i think they work best. First of all, when ill give you the conditions and ill tell you the time the conditions are when both Political Parties are healthy and active, when they, and this is crucial when they both accept the legitimacy of the system. And this is really key because what has kept americas constitution going is not the letter of the constitution, but the spirit of the constitution and the spirit of the constitution is we solve our problems by debate. We hash them out in congress, we take votes and if you get a majority, your side wins, we hold elections if you get a majority. And originally for senate, if you got a majority in the state legislature in the house. If you get a majority in your district for the presidency, if you get a majority in the electoral college, these are the rules we play by the rules. The, the importance of the constitution is simply the existence of the constitution and the agreement on the part of people. These are the rules we play by the rules. If you dont like the rules, you can try to change the rules, but you have to change the rules using the rules, which ill point out again is not what madison and hamilton did. They wrote their own rules. And if i wanted to get really provocative and i do with my students, my students sometimes want to know what my politics are. And i always say, well, theyre opposite of your politics, whatever your politics are because my job is to test you is to make you think about what you think you believe. But when i want to get provocative, id say, well, ok, if i had been a member of the january 6th insurrectionists, who would i have cited as my model . I would have said James Madison, he overthrew the government of his day. And thats what were trying to do. Actually, theyre trying to do less than that. They werent trying to overthrow the government, just reverse the, the election. But this is, again, ill, ill cite that one about treason. Never prospers because if it prospers. Its not called treason under other circumstances, under a different kind of government. James madison and Alexander Hamilton might very well have been hanged for treason if it hadnt worked now, it did work. And so thats why theres a James Madison foundation. This is, this is what happens. But, but the question is, i mean, its a reminder, im gonna ask you again if you want to understand history, you have to forget, you know how it turned out because they didnt and they knew they were taking a chance if this hadnt worked. Madison probably could have kissed goodbye any political future by the way. So i have to ask this because hamilton is one of my protagonists that the subtitle of my book is hamilton madison jefferson, adams. And the reason i choose those four is it gives me good coverage of both Political Parties, but it also shows the mix and match character because the beginning, hamilton and madison are allies in creating this new government. But then things change and madison shifts and he becomes an ally of jefferson against hamilton and against adams and jefferson and adams had been allies on the committee that drafted the declaration of independence, but then they become bitter foes. But so here is kind of a trick question, but you wont be tricked because youre very astute with this. So i am often asked, why is it that Alexander Hamilton was never elected president of the United States . How many of you know why Alexander Hamilton was not elected president of the United States . He was. Thank you. No. Actually, thats a pretty good answer. Thats the answer i give when people ask. So, why did Benjamin Franklin never become president of the United States . My answer is he died, he died before he really, before the constitution allowed him the opportunity, just shortly after the ratification. But so some people and i heard somebody say this because he wasnt born in the United States. He was born in the west indies. In fact, thats not the reason there is that provision in the constitution that says that only a natural born citizen of the United States can be elected president. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. Was George Washington born in the United States . No, he was not. Was Thomas Jefferson born in the United States . No, because the rest of that line is or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution. No, the reason Alexander Hamilton was not president of the United States was well, yeah, he got shot but you know why he got shot . Well, lin manuel miranda, notwithstanding, he was a jerk. People did not like him. He was pushy as could be even john adams who was his political ally, despised him because hamilton kept undermining john adams. And in fact, so hamilton could have been president of the United States if he ever, if anybody ever would have voted for him, but nobody would because they just didnt like him, which does bring up something thats really important in the context of american elective politics and the politics actually, of any democracy. If you think about it, elections and democracies are at the bottom, popularity contests. Who do you like . And i studied the presidency long enough to conclude that if you know who the two candidates are and you want to know whos going to win an election, dont look at the political platform that theyre running on. Dont look at their policy agenda. Dont look at their experience. Ask yourself one question. Which of the two would you rather go have a beer with . And the one that gets the most votes is likely to win. I was writing a book on Andrew Jackson in 2000 and you will remember the 2000 election and it was a, it was a close one, but even before the votes were cast, it was pretty clear that well, the two candidates were george w. Bush and al gore. And between those, i remember watching one of the debates between gore and bush, there were three Ivy League Degrees on stage, but each of the two candidates knocked himself out explaining that im just folks, you know, and in essence, im the guy you want to have a beer with. And it was, it was kind of a, a reminder that really, ever since, at least since Andrew Jackson, that has been the touchstone of political success. You have to like these people now, conceivably. No. George washington was not well liked. George washington was revered, but people didnt even expect to get close enough to washington. They didnt think they were in a position to state whether they like him or not. Its kind of like, do you like god . Thats not an appropriate question to ask. And in washingtons day, americans were quite happy to look up to their leaders. And so George Washington could stand on his pedestal even during life. But in a relatively short space of time, in no small part because of the emergence of Party Politics, especially the Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson, which would segue and be renamed into the Democratic Party with the election of Andrew Jackson. Americans made very clear that they wanted somebody who they liked somebody who is like them. You could, voters were willing to look up to George Washington. By the time jackson comes along, they want to be able at least in theory to look their president right in the eye. And in fact, you probably know this for a long time, the white house was considered the peoples house and they had an open door policy. You could just walk right into the white house. And they used to do this disconcertingly during the civil war when there were southern sympathizers all over washington and lincoln and he just wander in and look around. Hey, this president iran. No, no, no, hes not here today. Ok. Anyway, but one of the things, i mean, this is in large part, a consequence of Political Parties because Political Parties are really what historically have mobilized people and gotten out the vote. So you asked the question of sort of, when did Political Parties work best . I will say this is partly a dodge, but ill elaborate on it. They work best during wartime because then politics as politics, politics, as Party Politics and by Party Politics, i mean, the practice of people putting the interests of the party ahead of the interests of the country. Ok . Because otherwise, you know, otherwise its just politics, but thats the way our Party Politics work. You will. I mean, for example, when Mitch Mcconnell early in Barack Obamas presidency said our job is to make sure hes a one term president. And so you didnt say anything, at least in that statement about what the policies of the country should be. Hes the opponent and were going to oppose, thats what we do. Ok. So its worked best during wartime when there was a clear National Interest take that away and it doesnt work so well. Now there are other times, one could argue that during the 19 fifties, the Political Party system worked pretty well. Theres some big exceptions to this and big exceptions include the fact that black people in the south largely were not participating in politics. But its one of the things that sort of made it work, not, not simply their absence, but the fact that southerners could collaborate southern democrats. The, the south was the home, the basically the epicenter of the Democratic Party in the 19 fifties until really the 19 seventies and southern democrats could be quite conservative and they could co operate with a moderate republican. So in the 19 fifties, dwight eisen Dwight Eisenhower was president of the United States, a moderate republican. The speaker of the house was sam raeburn, a texan and the Senate Majority leader was lyndon johnson, another texan. And heres a somewhat little known fact, Dwight Eisenhower was a texan by birth. So this is when texas was riding high, but its also when congress and the presidency, the Democratic Party Republican Party, they collaborated fairly well as recently as the reagan administration. When a conservative republican president Ronald Reagan would basically sit down with tip oneill for an after work drink and they would sort of hash out what it is, you can get it requires. And this is something that is absolutely essential to the operation of democracy as definitely as applies in the United States. It requires a willingness on the part of both parties to acknowledge that the opposing party has a right to its opinions and you dont get to tell them what they have to believe. They have a right to their opinions and they have a right to a place at the table and your function in politics is not to convert them, not to ram your policies down their throat. To recognize its more important that the game goes on then that you win this inning or this round because the game is bigger is more important than any temporary momentary victory. And ill, i dont know if were running out of time here. But one of the things i do want to get across here and it has to do with sort of not knowing how things turned out in the early days. Nobody could know that the constitution of 1787 was going to be the success. It has been. Americans have complained about it from the very beginning, but we still operate under it. And if you think that the government doesnt work very well under the constitution, you should be reminded, you should remember that the constitution is designed to make legislation difficult to make change, difficult to make changes. You have to line up all three branches of the federal government. This was by design. It was written by people who did not want government to be too active, who wanted americans on the whole to solve their own problems outside of government. Now, it has broken down when parties believe that, ok, if we have an edge this time, were going to push it for all its worth, we are going to deny the legitimacy of our opponents views. Now this, in this version, this really set in, in the mid 1990 s when Newt Gingrich decided to say we are going to make politics more of a constant war. And of course, each side blames the other for starting for firing the first shot. And you can read where we are today as combating from that period. And both parties have learned to play this game which does not conduce to respect for the government. And it certainly doesnt conduce to, uh which we say constructive approach to abiding problems. Ronald reagan. Ronald reagan is decried by Many Democrats for setting all this stuff in motion and, you know, giving the conservatives the edge, the edge that has caused them to drive forward. But reagan had this philosophy that i was, i wrote a book about reagan some while back. And i interviewed james baker who is reagans chief of staff and then his secretary of state. And i was sitting in Bakers Office in houston and, and baker is quite a raconteur. And he said, he, he said, he would tell stories where he would mimic voices and all this other stuff. But the one thing that i came away from there recalling is he said, if reagan told me once he told me 10,000 times, id rather get 80 of what i want than go over the cliffs with my flags flying. So reagan understood that the point of getting elected to government is to govern, not to prove a point, not to make a statement, not to build up your party, but to make progress toward a solution. You never get all of what you want, take 80 today and come back tomorrow and try for the rest. But it requires your willingness to accept that the other side has a right to its voice, has a right to its vote. Another time when the system worked well under difficult circumstances was during the 1830 1840 this was a time of crisis regarding expansion regarding whether for the states could leave the union. I happened to write about this in a book called heirs of the founders. And its about henry clay Daniel Webster and john calhoun and the secret of their success. And they are called the heirs of the founders because they took an inheritance from jefferson and madison, this gang and they carried it forward for another couple of generations and they believe henry clay was called the great compromiser. And in our day and age to be called a compromiser is a slur. Its a criticism. Its almost grounds for a lawsuit. But he understood that in a political system, in a democratic system, you dont get all of what you want. Its like living in a family where tonight were going to get chinese and tomorrow well get pizza. You got to keep the game going because they understood madison jefferson, even clay webster, they understood theres nothing inevitable about the permanency of this republic. It could collapse any moment. And in fact, i said the political system worked well under clay in that generation. In the decade after his death, it collapsed into the civil war so long. Answered the question. How long should we go on . Im quite happy to keep talking a couple more questions. Two more questions. Ok. Very good. Yes. Hey, what is in your opinion . Uh why did the framers not address term . Im sorry, why did the framers not address term limits or president did not address . Well, term limits. First of all are anti democratic, theyre anti republican in the sense that if people think youre a good president and they still think youre a good president after two years or four years or eight years, they ought to be able to vote you in as president. Now, it also has to do with the fact that they didnt recognize how parties were going to evolve. They didnt recognize that parties who create this system of seniority. They understood they sense that a president who was in office forever and ever would develop big advantages. But they didnt see how that would work out with senators or members of the house of representatives. They really didnt know how these things would turn out. Now, they were saved from what shall i say . Their inability to foresee the future by George Washingtons decision to leave office after two terms. Because if George Washington said two terms as president is enough, the no lesser mortal who came along afterwards could say, you know, i deserve three until franklin roosevelt. And he had a big lift to get past there. But that was, that was one where it was simply the case that, well, at the end of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franken stood up, he had been ailing and he, well, actually, so at the end of the Constitutional Convention, he wrote a speech that was read for him. He wasnt uh healthy enough to speak. But he said that i have been observing the deliberations and i have concluded that the constitution, weve written this charter that weve written is not perfect, but its the best we can do under present circumstances. Its better than what weve got. So let us all go forward and promote it as one to the American People to put it into effect, knowing that we can fix what doesnt work. So given the fact that they created this government in four months, they thought, ok, well, were not going to get everything right, but well come back and fix the things that arent working. Now. In fact, they did the first system for electing president s was really screwed up. It worked fine when George Washington was running for president because he was elected unanimously. But once it was contested, the in 1796 with john adams, Vice President against Thomas Jefferson, former secretary of state. And then again, in 1800 the fact that the electors all had two votes and the winner of the president ial race would be the one who got the most electoral votes if a majority. But they didnt foresee that people would run on tickets. And so my book concludes with the election of 1800 where jefferson and running mate aaron burr, they get most of the electoral votes, but they tie because each of the republican electors chooses both of them with both of his votes. And so the thing goes to the house of the race goes to the house of representatives. This was not supposed to happen and this is where burr was accused of trying to overthrow jefferson and get himself installed. Actually, that was mostly disinformation by federalism and by hamilton who despised burr. And that would lead to no good end for hamilton. By the way, by the way, when it is pointed out that american Party Politics today is pretty nasty and its not something that you recommend to other people in other countries. Its worth a reminder that yeah, people can speak in exaggerated tones, they can say nasty things about each other, but there hasnt been a decent political duel in the United States for over 100 years. So until we start, until the leaders of the parties call each other out and start shooting themselves. Then, then were at least not to there. When i wrote about, when i wrote about henry clay and webster and calhoun, i had the stock line that i developed when people say, well, so what did you learn about politics in that time . And i said, well, i have been to the 19th century and i return and i have good news and bad news. The good news is that there was a time when politics was even more bitter than it is today and we survived. The bad news is it took a civil war. So last question, one last question. Hi. Thank you so much. My name is Kristen Farrell and im the vermont fellow from the class of 92. Were here for our 30th reunion. Yes. I was really intrigued with your earlier question about whether we, we if you supported another Constitutional Convention and i did not raise my hand because i do not think that we can create a secrecy that they did for four months in the world we live in today. Theres a great story about goer morris dropping his notes and you know, whose notes are these . Washington says from the day as you referenced. And my, my thesis was all about vermont being born from a state of nature, had created self and the, the premise ultimately was legitimacy, the belief in the legitimacy. And now as we approach ai, chat gtp, all this questionable about what is real and we are already in a misinformation, disinformation vortex. How, how do we fight that . But i, but i also think that again, the legitimacy is like you said, the spirit of the country and will we lose that spirit as more and more people believe its fake news. And so my question for you is how do we approach the change in technology and the a i and to work to legitimize who we are as a country . I dont have a good answer to the question. I will say this though, that america has faced crises after crisis, after crisis, after crisis in the past. And weve always managed to stumble our way through. Sometimes the stumble was really big like the civil war and given the fact that people have predicted the demise of the United States repeatedly in the past and its never quite happened. I take comfort and encouragement from that. I cant say exactly how were going to do it. But, i do think that if you can leave aside, i call them the political classes, the people who make a living in politics who make a living with opinions, who make a living on social media saying the most extreme things they can to get more views. Ok. Leave aside those because theyre very visible, theyre obnoxiously present, but i dont think theyre anywhere near a majority. And i think that there remains among the American People at large, a knowledge, an appreciation of the fact that for all of its flaws, the system fundamentally works, it doesnt work for everybody equally well, all the time. But if you can step back and look at American History against the backdrop of world history, i told, i mentioned several times that in 1776 and 1787 nobody knew how this was going to turn out. Well, it turned out astonishingly well. If, if i were to have to write a history of the world in three paragraphs since 1751 of the lead stories would be the astonishing success of the american experiment in Self Government which has delivered greater freedom and greater prosperity to more people than any other country in the history of the world. For all of its weaknesses, its drawbacks, its inconsistencies. Thats the big thing. Another way of looking at it is over that period. Whats the country that people from around the world have wanted to get into . What other countries do . People have to . Well, what other countries do . People have to put fences around to keep them from getting in . I mean, one of the big points of pride about the United States in the cold war was the countries on the other side of the cold war, put up fences to keep their people from getting out. So, people have voted with their feet for 2. 5 millennia nearly. And they have come to the United States, they still want to come to the United States. Why do they want to do this . Because they think they have a better shot in the United States than elsewhere. Its tempting. This is especially true of young people, whether they are critiquing their parents or themselves or anything else to have to measure something that gets a standard of perfection. But thats not the way it works in the world. The way it works in the world is, how is this against the alternatives . What are your other choices . And when that choice has been made, the United States has come out ahead again, i can be as critical of various things in American History as anybody else, but you cant deny that fact and thats the thing that sort of keeps me going. I cant say how its going to happen. I do believe though at some level and maybe this is just a statement of faith that there is an underlying common sense in the American People. Some of it is reflected in the fact that most americans dislike politicians of all kinds. So let the politicians say whatever theyre gonna do. If it can come down to just the American People, they will sort of insist that lets just lets just keep doing this stuff. And to some extent it reflects the fact as i mentioned earlier, that the people who wrote the constitution presumed the government was not going to play this enormous role in peoples lives. They do most of the stuff themselves. Now, there is a question and i dont know the answer to this question. I cant even say i have any confidence in the question, the answer that im gonna give you. But the constitution was written for a country of several million people. Just several million. Now, were a country of 335 million. I dont know whether a democratic system of government can work at that scale. There are some things, some phenomena in the world in life, that scale and others that dont. Now, its worked. Ok . Until now. If you look at the course of world history, there have been other forms of government, there are empires, republics and everything else. None has lasted forever. Theres no reason except maybe sort of american presumption to think that americas system is going to work forever. But if i put this question to my students, by the way, is that ok . How many of you think that the United States is going to be pretty much the way it is when youre my age, 50 years from now and theyre kind of flummoxed by the question, you know, to even think that far in the future is a little bit weird and i dont really expect an answer of them, but i do, i pose the question to them because to underline the point that whether it does or doesnt is largely on them. One of the things i tell my students, theyre 18 or 19 years old. You dont like the world today, blame me, blame me and my generation. If you dont like the world, 50 years from now, blame yourselves because were handing it off to you. This, by the way, is this, by the way is why there are those 500 students in my class because i by no means agree with everything that the legislature of the great state of texas does. But, one of the things that it did decades ago and it still does is require all undergraduates and public universities in texas to take two semesters of American History. So i get these students in my class on the first day of class, i asked them be honest, how many of you are here because you have to be and 95 of the students raise their hand. So they are the chemists and the premeds and the engineers and all this other stuff. Ok, i take that as my challenge because theyre here because they have to be by the end of the semester. I hope i have them there because they want to be and how do i do it . Well, it doesnt always work. But i tell them stories. I say, ok, i tell them the story of the Young Eleanor roosevelt and she thought nobody loved her. She would never be married and then along comes this dashing franklin roosevelt. Now, aside from the fact that he was her cousin, fifth cousin. Ok. But still, but anyway, so everybody is a sucker for a good story. Now, thankfully for me and this is, i, how many of you, how many of your students are tested on the annual test in history . A lot of places, maybe most places theyre not. Thats english and math. And thankfully in college we dont do that so i can do pretty much what i want. I assign the student a textbook to read and they take quizzes on their examine on that. But for the rest, i tell them stories. I told you at the beginning, i consider history to be this examination of what it means to be human. And so i asked students, what would you have done if you were the young James Madison, what would you have done if you were booker t. Washington . Youre arguing with w. B. Du bois or whats the approach to deal with the jim crow system . And what would you have done if you were drafted in 1970 to go fight in vietnam . You know, its all this stuff because im sort of giving them practice at what its like to be a citizen, what its like to sort of make decisions because i saidt condence, sort of in the good common sense of americans. Well, this is one of the reasons im still teaching because i hope to do my little part into giving the students, uh, an understanding of what it is theyre inheriting this country didnt just happen. Its tempting when something this big evolves, ah, you know, things could have been different in the past and it would have turned out the same way. No, no, there were moments in history where it would have turned out differently if Abraham Lincoln had not insisted on fighting to hold the union together, it wouldnt have held together and it would have looked a lot different and you can look at various other points in history. So, we got here because people made the decisions that they made. My students, your students will be the ones making the decisions in the future. If we can do the best, we can to prepare them to make good decisions in the future, then we can hope that this experiment begun by madison and hamilton. Well go for another couple of generations anyway. Thank you very much. American history tv, saturdays and on cspan. Exploring the events and the people that drove the United States. And a discussion about the United States constitution and how it has evolved over two centuries and then at 7 00 p. M. , a tour of the smith syrian exhibit. Illustrating the expansion of u. S. Interest and influence abroad. At 8 00 p. M. Eastern, Marquette University Political Science professor julia is area. And at 930 on the residency, a luncheon remembering pat nixon and betty ford who served back to back terms hosted by the Gerald R Ford and the daughter of mrs. Ford. Exploring the american story. Watch American History tv saturdays on cspan television. Or, watch online. Any time on cspan. Org history. Healthy democracy does not look just like this. It looks like this. Where americans can see democracy at work and citizens are truly informed. Republic thrives. Get informed straight from the source on cspan. Unfiltered, unbiased. Word for word. From the Nations Capital to wherever you were. The opinion that matters the most. This is what democracy looks like