Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the New York Historical society. Im louis mirrer, the im thrilled to see you this evening in our beautiful robert h. Smith odd terrorism tonight. s prom give me liberty a history of americas exceptional used i part of the distinguished Speaker Series and as always id like to thank mr. Swartz for his great generosity which has enabled to us bring so many fine speakers to the stage. I also want to thank all of your Chairmans Council members in attendance this evening and to thank you for your great support i tonights program will last an hour and it will include a question and answer session. You should have received a note card and pencil as you entered the auditorium this afternoon, this evening, and if not, my colleagues will go up and down the aisles with note cards and pencils. The note cards will be clerked later on in the program with you questions. Following the program there will be a book signing in the ny history store and copies of the books will be available for purchase. Tonight we are thrilled to welcome Richard Brookhiser back know New York Historical society. A senior fellow at the National Review institute, Senior Editor at the National Review, and the author of numerous books including john marshall, the man who made the supreme court, and Alexander Hamilton, american. I got to know him when he was our historian, chief historian curator on the blockbuster show, Alexander Hamilton the man who made modern america in 2004. We were way ahead of our time in the hamilton craze but it caught up with us. So, Richard Brookhiser was awarded the National Humanities medal by president george w. Bush in 2008. And his newest book, give my lisch, history of americas exceptional idea was pushed this week. Congratulations. Our moderator this evening is our own trustee, akhil reed amar. Before joining yales faculty, professor amar clerked for judge, now associate justice, stephen briar. In 2017 professor amar received the american bar foundations annual outstanding Scholarship Award as well as the howard r. Lamarr award. The author of numerous books including the constitution today, were grateful that professor amar is our very own as i said, a trustee at New York Historical. As always before our speakers begin their conversation, id like to ask that you make sure that anything that makes a sound, like a cellphone, is switched off, and now please join me in welcoming our speakers this evening. [applause] good evening. Its great honor and personal pleasure, a treat to be here with one of my heroes, Rick Brookhiser. Ive admired him ever since the first time i saw him. It was my very first week at yale college. Just turned 18. That week. And listened to rick hold forth in the Yale Political Union and i have been following his words ever since. And his latest is, as you heard this book, give my liberty. And its dedicated to the american people. And its a bigger its slender, has your trademark pith and wit and incisiveness and also a big book in a way because most history books dont try to take on such a broad sweep of time. Talk about the choice that you the choices that went into the basic framing of the project. Right. I making an argument in this book im saying that the characteristic of american nationalism is our concern with liberty. Thats the thing that makes us not canada, not mexico, not whatever. And this has been going on a long time. It began before we were a country. It began in our colonial past. So, in this book i take 13 episodes, each of which produces a document of some kind, and the first one is 1619 and jamestown, and the most recent one is 1987 and berlin when president reagan gives the tear down this wall speech. So its four centuries of concern with this concept of liberty, defining at some times fighting for it, announcing it, and i three of the episodes are colonial. They are before our independence, before the declaration of independence, because this concern of ours goes back that far. You have to trace it back that far to begin to get a grasp on it. Now, you wont be surprised, i expect, to learn that there are 13 different episodes. You describe them as snapshots in an album, over these 400 years and we cant do all 13 probably in the time we have today, so since this is the New York Historical society well focus on the new york aspects of your story. But why dont you just before we focus in on that line, tell us what the 13 episodes are if you can. Its a test and can you do all 1. He 13 are, the first is the minutes of the first meeting of the General Assembly at jamestown, the Jamestown Colony in 1619. Number two this fleshing 1657. Number three, is the trial and particularly the argument to the jury at the drill of john peter sanger in 1735. Number 4, the declaration of independence. Number five is the constitution of the new york mission society. Thats 1785. Number six is the constitution. 1787. Number seven is the monroe doctrine, which is 1823. Number eight is the seneca falls declaration of sentiment, 1848. Next this gettysburg address. The next is the new colassal which is written for the pedestal of the statue of liberty. And the poem has to be seen with the statue but the poem is written in 1883. The next is the cross of goaled speech, 1896. The gold speech. The input little map with the fire saad chat and the last is the tear down this wall speech, berlin, 1987. Well done. 13 out of 13. [applause] so were not going to talk about 1619 and jamestown. But we are going to talk but something that ill be honest with you, i had never even heart of before. You helped teach me, the flushing re mon strands. This is when new york is still new netherland. Its stale dutch colony and it is being governed by the man who turns out to be the last governor, peter stuyvesant. I live near stuyvesant spark they happen a cat to it and captures his personality, vigorous, energetic, he has a wooden leg which he lost in the holland wars against spain, and he looks like you wouldnt want to cross this guy. Wants to be in charge of everything. And although he did new yorkers can be like that. He kind of reminded me a little of Rudy Giuliani. But some crazy and also very effective. Despite all the good he did for new netherlands, he was a bigot. He was a dutch calvinist, his father had been a minister and he wanted to impose that on his domain here in new netherlands. He tried to throw out lutherans and jews at different points but because there were lutheran and jewish investors and directors in the Dutch West Indies company which employed him, he was told to back off and let them alone. Then he decided to pick on quakers. There were no quakers on the directors of the Dutch West India Company so he had free hand for a while and quakers then were an extremely countercultural religion. They did not recognize rank. They would not doff their hats, used the same forms of address for everybody. They let men and women preach equal live because they believed everyone had access to the inner light and this made them very peculiar and threatening to peter stuyvesant. So they start appearing in new netherlands and he handled them in various way, expels a couple of them. Almost whips to death another one. And then he decides, okay, we cant have any of them in here. Just not going to let them in at all. And any ship that comes in with them is fine. Well send it back. Anyone here who harbors one in his house, that will be a crime. You cannot let a quaker in his house and he promulgates thence. Then 30 men in flushing, which then is now is same place it is now market of his domain, they send him a remonstrance, a public letter and say we cannot obey this order of yours and they say, its for religious reasons. We would do unto other men as we would have other men do unto us and this is the law of church and state. This is what god and the prophets tell us to do, and they send this letter to him, its a remarkable stand for freedom of conscience, and what moves me most about this, you can find this online. Six of them couldnt sign their names. They didnt know how to spell their own name so they made marks. But they laid down a marker. They were standing up to this guy, and he leaned on them. He had them arrested. He brought in the guy who is the actual scribe of the document, man named edward hart, the dutch kept very good records so we have the record of his interrogation of edward smart its like who told you to write this . No one told me to write this. Hough did you come to write it . I was just listen together the sentiments of the people. Where did they express their sentiments no place in particular. Where did you write this in so and sos house. Its an interrogation no beating up or tour tout but an interrogation. And he made them all crack. He did make them all crack. But quakers continued to come in in defiance of his order. He decided to send one to amsterdam to be tried. Wasnt going do it here. Going to send them across the ocean and then finally, his bosses, even though there were no quaker among them, decided, lay off these people, too. They said to him we dont like quakers anymore than you do but we want population. So, if theyre willing to come, in fine. Let them come in and finally does back off. So speaking of thin skinned people, running new york, like you mentioned Rudy Giuliani. The next one is the trial of john peter zanger. Not thinskinned person, now the governor, a royal governor. Royal governor. English. English royal governor. Telephone us the tell is the story a different hamilton than the one they heard you talk about before. Thats right. The english of course conquer New Amsterdam in 1664, and then in the 18th century, we have had a series of royal governors who have been sent over, some of them are worse than others. The New York Historical society owns a portrait of one of them in womans dress because he allegedly Rudy Giuliani on zazi saturday night live. Just saying. This man would allegedly lurk on the streets at night and tug mens ears in womens dress. This picture depicts him in drag, although its probably a forgery done by a hoax by his political enemies but there was another man, william cosby, who becomes governor of new york because he married the daughter of an earl, and when he gets this appointment it takes him six months to get over here from england, and during that time, the job of governor was filled by a substitute. When cosby arrives he says, well, you owe me my back salary for these six months i wasnt here. They dont want to pay him. It goes before the local court, presided over by a man named louis morris, the judge of the local supreme court. Approvals against cosby. Cosby fires morris and puts in morris place a much younger man, named delancey, as in the street down on the lower east side. And what morris does to fight back is he hires an immigrant name john peter zanger to start a newspaper, and newspaper culture has already started in the 13th colonies. There are the Franklin Brothers start ate newspaper in boston, james and benjamin, later much more famous than his older brother. Every significant town along the coast has one newspaper, at least one newspaper. Now new york has two. Because the previous one was the official one. It would print all the official notices and laws and whatnot, and obviously in the pocket of whoever the for was. But now theres a rival one, the weekly journal, and for a year it campaigns against governor cosby. Rarely mentioning him, but talking about arbitrary power and what a terrible thing that is. They run both bus bogus ads, an ad for a missing spaniel and that is one of cosbys supporters because spaniels are affection thats, loyal dogs. And cosby doesnt like this. He finally on his own say sew has zanger arrested and has issues of the newspaper burned and he does grant him a trial. So zangers supporters hire from out of town the best lawyer in british north america who is a man named andrew hamilton. No relation to alexander but a lawyer in philadelphia who comes up to defend his client. Now, as a law professor, youd be very interested in the courtroom drama here because the law, the relevant law, is the law of seditious libel, which at the time was a recognized law in angloamerican law, and it criminalized criticism of rulers on the grounds that could cause violence and upheaval and rebellion, and we obviously dont want that, so therefore we will not permit criticism of rulers. And that is the law of the land, both in england and its colonies. So what hamilton does its a brilliant performance he basically asking for jury nullification forks the jury to ignore the law. He cant say that and there are times when the judge pulls him up short and wont let him make a certain argue. What hamilton does hes twice as old as delancey and will apologize and then make the same argument later in a slightly different form. Its a brilliant performance, and its also a very eloquent performance. He sang what other recourse do free men have if theyre being misruled. They have to have the right to complain because how else can anything be redressed if nobody knows what it is and nobody can talk about it . And if you dont allow this, the only alternative youre allowing is revolution. And he mentions the overthrow of the roman kingdom by the first brutus, he mentioned the english civil war, but he keeps coming back to this point that the right to complain, to oppose and expose misrule, is something that every free man has. And the jury agrees with him. They leave the box for a very short time, they come back, these 12 ordinary new yorkers, i give their names, its an impressive group. We never heard of any of them. But they, again, like men of flushing, they stood up and acquit zanger. And the effect of this is that colonial governors will not bring actions for seditious libel after this because no jury is going to bring in a conviction. So the effect exthat the press in colonial america will be the freest in the world. So this is in 1730. 1735. And one of the things about your book, you mentioned the names. You do that throughout. You want us to know the names and some are recognizable but today many are not. Now heres a name you mentioned before. You mentioned the name of louis morris. Right. The backer, zangers backer. The next chapter isnt really completely a new york story. It happens down in philly texas declaration of independence, but in my copy of the declaration of independence since i look at the names, theres a louis morris there. So, same guy. Grandson. Grandson; okay, i and theres going to be another Family Connection soon enough. Youll tell us about. So, we are going pass every the declaration of independence. You focus on the ode to liberty in the declaration of independence. Declares independence, for example, which has International Law significance and all the rest but hell jump over there so you have to read the chapter for yourself to get his views on the declaration of independence. But now lets leap frog to the constitution, not of the United States yet but the constitution of the new york and even hyphenate like the New York Historical society the new york manumission. Some of the chapter are about filling gap. I argue this concern with liberty is centuries long and central to our experience and of course we have also violated nit numerous ways and had to correct those violations over the course of our history. And the largest inflammed issued in the civil war most painful was chatle slavery. Human chatle slavery. And i want this wasnt just a southern thing. New york was a slave colony and a slave state after independence. I learned in writing this book that new york city had more slaves than any American City except charleston. Thats partly a fungs of our a function of our size, the large city, but that is a startling and shameful statistic. So, after the revolution, there was a scandalous event where some free blacks living in new york were about to be lured aboard a ship and taken either to charleston or the behave of bay of honduras where slave trading win on. And new york and other free towns were prey to man stealers or black birders they were called. People look for runway slaves and if theyve couldnt find a runaway slave they might pick up some free blacks and carry them off into slavery. So the authorities stopped this. It was a scandalous event, and so there was a meeting in new york of an interesting combination of people. There was the elite of the city and of the state, governor George Clinton was part of this, first postindependence govern, mayor james wayne, john jay, the great diplomat and patriot, and the young and Alexander Hamilton who had been on washingtons staff and you can see the musical. But these men were also working with new yorks quakers, who appear several times in this book and theyre always on the outs, always outsiders, and by their own choice because their own religious vision is so radical and to what extent should they participate in what the rest of the world is doing. This is an ongoing debate within the quaker community, but at this moment, the two of them see a common interest in trying to rectify new yorks situation with respect to slavery. The feel this is a violation of the principles of the revolution, for which some of these men have fought not the quakers but people like hamilton did and they want to set new york on the path of manumission, so they write a constitution which is very eloquent. Is resembles the famous opening of the declaration of independence. Its much more explicitly religious. Jefferson talk about the laws of nate tour and natures god. The constitution of the New York Manumission Society brings of the benevolent crate youre and father of men. Th