Documents should include a bill of rights. Mr. Brookhiser explores the conflicting opinions of Founding Fathers george mason, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton while also addressing how the bill of rights were eventually ratified by the new states. The New York Historical society hosted this hourlong event. So tonights program is James Madison, father of the constitution, and its part of our carl menges lecture series in american history. Id like to thank carl menges for all his support and for helping us to create this series and for all he does as a valued member of New York Historical Society Board of trustees, carl, thank you. [ applause ] id also like to recognize and thank trustees lon jacobs, cy sternberg and all our Chairmans Council members with us for all their great work and support as well, lets give them all a hand, too. [ applause ] so the program tonight will last an hour and include a questionandanswer session and there will be a formal book signing
His brother, who i mentioned was an older brother, and being an older brother, would not let franklin write for the newspaper. So franklin ends up writing under a pseudonym, Silence Dogood. He puts a pen name on it and slips the essays he does under the door of his brothers print shop. And the brother and his friends. Running the print shop, have no idea where theyre coming from. And franklin has put on the persona of a widowed, elderly woman living in the countryside of massachusetts and writing these essays. The triumph of the imagination, a kid who was then 15 years old and never left boston, but writing in this voice. And its a distinctly american voice. She begins and introduces herself in the first of the Silence Dogood columns in the new england current by saying let me introduce myself. Im a woman of Strong National sentiments. I really reject the notion of privilege, and i have a protective feel about all my rights. Thats how you know im an american. And it really is that sort
Makes him stop. And to cut the story a little bit, Benjamin Franklin actually runs away. He breaks his apprenticeship he had signed to be an apprentice with his brother for seven years and runs away to philadelphia. Now, this is an important thing, because boston was very theocratic, one with very little separation from the puritan churches and the government. But philadelphia was a place where there was a great diversity of people. There were moravians and anglicans and episcopals and screws and slaves an freed slaves, and they all worked together in a place called Market Street. They all came to shop. And it was the first place of brotherly love, where you saw a diversity of people trying, people who are all immigrants, including the anglicans and episcopalia episcopalians, but all of them had come for a particular type of freedom, and they had to Work Together in what was the first ethnically diverse society. An ethnic and religious and background diversity truly leads to creativity