Panetta lecture series. Before we begin, i want to first ask that on this memorial day, we have a moment of silence in honor of all those men and women who have died while serving in the United States armed services. Thank you. This season we are discussing the health of american democracy, and it is very fitting that we recognize the individuals who have given their greatest sacrifice for our freedom and our way of life. We honor their commitment to country. Our guests in our discussion this evening are particularly fitting for this holiday because tonight we will conclude the 2019 lecture series by looking back to the founding of our nation and to the men who first took up arms to fight in the name of liberty and give birth to our republic. In the wake of victory, they understood that they had to create a system of government that would preserve and protect the values for which they had fought. What were their motives and intentions . Asking this question, it is important to recognize that the founders had a long list of conflicting objectives. Many were the descendents of immigrants who had fled persecution and felt a deep allegiance to liberty. However, a large portion of them were also slave owners. The founders feared a strong executive branch, but at the same time, they acknowledged that the articles of confederation, which had deeply favored states rights, were insufficient to protect the republic. They believed in free will, but they were also fearful that democracy unchecked would lead to mob rule. It was with this combination of contradictions and compromises that they drafted the constitution. The question we ask tonight is how successful were the founders . And more importantly, how well are we doing in preserving and protecting the democracy they created . Has the system of checks and balances ensured that no one branch grows too powerful . Or has history seen an executive branch that grows more and more powerful and a legislative branch that is failing in its role of oversight . Has the balance between the house and the senate led to fair representation between small and larger states, or has it created an environment that breeds gridlock and dysfunction . What was the hope of our forefathers . Has it worked . Tonight, leon will pose these questions and many more to two of the nations leading president ial historians. Its a discussion that will get to the heart of the issues weve been discussing all season. And wz we look ahead to the 2020 president ial election, the topics we cover tonight will help us consider who we are as americans and the values we have always fought for. Our first guest is a renowned law professor and scholar of American History. Presently, she is the Charles Warren professor of american legal history at Harvard Law School and a professor of history in the faculty of arts and sciences at harvard university. She has also taught at the new York Law School and at Rutgers University in new jersey. She has published six books. Among them, which won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in history and the National Book award for nonfiction. She is also the author of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings an american controversy, which was a nonfiction finalist in the First Annual Library of virginia literary awards. Among her many honors are the National Humanities medal, a macarthur fellowship, and the National Organization for women in new yorks women of power and influence award. She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of arts and sciences in 2011 and is a member of the academys commission on the humans and social sciences. Please welcome annette gordonreed. [ applause ] our second guest is a celebrated author, teacher, and scholar of American History. He is a professor at Rice University and cnns president ial historian. He has published bestselling books on the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, jimmy carter, and Ronald Reagan and has covered subjects including American Foreign policy, the louisiana purchase, dday, the vietnam war, the civil rights movement, and hurricane katrina. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him americas new past master, and the New York Historical society named him their official United States president ial historian. His recent book, cronkite won the spurbur prize, while the great deluge received the robert f. Kennedy book award. He has received a grammy award for president ial suite and seven honorary doctorates in american studies. His two volume annotated work the nixon tapes recently won the arthur s. Link warren prize. Hes a contributing editor for vanity fair, the Los Angeles Times book review, and American Heritage. Hes also a frequent contributor to the new york times, the new yorker, and the atlantic monthly. Please welcome douglas brinkley. [ applause ] and of course moderating our discussion is the man who created this lecture series, the former congressman for this district, director of the office of management and budget, white house chief of staff, director of the cia, and secretary of defense. Please welcome leon panetta. [ applause ] good evening, and welcome to this, our fourth and final lecture for the 2019 panetta lecture series. Today is memorial day, and its a moment not only to remember those who fought and died for this country, but its also a good time to remember the values and principles that they fought for. Many of those values and principles are contained in our constitution. The constitution provided for our system of checks and balances, and thats been the theme of our lecture, checks and balances, will our democracy survive. Weve looked at the rule of law. Weve looked at the congress. We looked at the mueller investigation. We looked at the courts, the press. Weve talked about the president s role as commander in chief. But tonight in many ways, we go to the heart and soul of this issue, which is the constitution. And what our framers had in mind when they provided the system of checks and balances. Our framers, founders of our country, were the children of the enlightenment. This was a period in time when there were philosophers around the world who are talking for the first time about democracy and the rights of people to be able to governor themselves. And it was based on what these philosophers were saying that our founders decided to really put together this experiment in democracy. But they knew that if this experiment was going to work, that they were going to have to limit power. So thats why they created the system of checks and balances. Has that system worked . What are the lessons to be learned from history . If jefferson and hamilton and madison were around today, what the hell would they say about whats going on . Those are the questions that i want to ask our two distinguished historians. And let me begin with the first question, which is, obviously this whole system of checks and balances, the constitution doesnt have the words checks and balances, but obviously in the first three articles dealing with the congress and the executive and the courts, they tried to define and limit the powers of each of those branches. I guess the question i wanted to ask you is why did the founders feel that it was necessary to limit power . What were they afraid of . And are their worst fears being realized today with regards to whats happening with our checks and balances . Well, what they were trying to do and what they were afraid of was setting up a system that basically reconstituted what they had before with a monarch. It was a big thing to go from a world in which kings and kings rule to a system where the people were supposed to rule. The idea was you did not want to concentrate power in any one individual because it would replicate the thing that you had with a king. You wanted the people to be sovereign. So they were trying to set up a system. They had read philosophers before that talked about mixed government, the three types of the three stations states in the society. These are the people who would check one another and make sure that one person, one entity didnt become too powerful. So they were concerned with having another king. They wanted to move away from that, do something different. Yeah, if you read the federalist papers, James Madison talks about how to make sure we dont have tyrants. That is the key concept and word. Tyrants, dictators, and monarchs. We decided this checks and balance in our Constitutional Convention is the smartest way, the best way based on the enlightenment principles you talked about. But you know, one of the things weve got to be careful on checks and balances is we become critics of, you know, well is the president getting too strong that we now have the executive power, judicial, legislative, but madison talks about constitutional education, which is what the Panetta Institute is doing and what were doing here tonight, meaning that you have to have Civic Engagement, and you have to have an educated public to understand the checks and balances. You have to have a Civic Education that a democracys only going to work. You can write a constitution and do three branches, but if you dont have an informed and activist citizenry, its going to be for naught. I am constantly amazed at the wisdom of our founders of our constitution, of madison in particular, but we are in a kind of crisis point right now that theres seeming to be you know, congress as i speak to you today has a 15 Approval Rating. The executive power keeps getting stronger and stronger all the time. The courts are getting very polarized. So its timely as we head into 2020 to start thinking about what did we mean with our constitution . Is it working for us now . Yes, were all here today. Our constitution in many ways is working, but its under intense strain. I think its made very difficult by President Trump because he doesnt seem to care about the constitution because he didnt do constitutional education in his own life. So hes operating as a gut player and an action player. And that at times can be dangerous. Thats a road to being a tyrant. John adams famously noted, and i quote, there was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide, unquote. Youve talked about kind of the president s, you know, view of his powers and how hes dealing with the congress and rejecting their appeals for information under checks and balances. The congress itself, republicans and democrats, are probably more partisan and divided than theyve been in a long time. And the result is that the president and the congress are not governing major issues, whether its immigration, whether its infrastructure, whether its the budget, whether its health care, are not being addressed. So i guess the question is, are we in danger of, you know, undermining our democracy . Well, certainly the founder i know the most about would be jefferson. His idea was, as doug said, that a democracy required an educated populist. Thats why he wanted a Public Education system in virginia. He thought that you couldnt do it unless peopling read and understand their rights, understand history, and see how it applied to themselves. I mean, things may seem bad today with politicians, but a lot of it has to do with the electorate. I mean, if people are involved, if people were involved in these situations, were vigilant i know its difficult to do it. We have issues of voter suppression, the issue of money in politics, which i think they would not have anticipated at all. They would have thought this is bribery. That kind of participation, that this is what this is. So there are lots of modern innovations, things that might be necessary. Money could be political speech. I understand the court has ruled that. But there are a lot of things that are going on today that i dont think they obviously could not have anticipated and would have affected the way they saw how democracys playing itself out. A lot of this is a problem with politicians, congress, the president , but a lot of it is with people as well. If we were more vigilant, if we were active, if we were involved in these kinds of things, we might not have a sense that we are in crisis. And when you look at our constitution and we look at our three branches, the constitution was written, but they hadnt said anything about two Political Parties going through warfare in the way that we do. If you cult t to the election o 1800 with Thomas Jefferson and john adams, its just brutal. Theres a fear by some people that a democracy cant absorb this kind of name calling, mud slinging, tearing down of candidates. Once you elect a president , do we have an ability after that kind of heated warfare, like we had with Hillary Clinton, donald trump, can the new president be accepted as a real president . On close elections, it becomes problematic. I mean, when george w. Bush beat al gore, Many Democrats said al gore should have been president. He won the popular vote, and bush is not a real president. I see this in the early founders with a man named charles thompson, who was the secretary of the Continental Congress, meaning in philadelphia, he called everybody together. He was the one who chose the eagle for a National Seal and this sort of thing. He went with George Washington to his inauguration in new york city. And thompson in 1800 gets really worried that were not building the president s up enough. It becomes kind of a cult of George Washington. We name our Nations Capital after them, roads after them. You go to d. C. , and you study the monument. That was a kind of conscious way to build president s up. We now save homes of president s, birthplaces. They become like a super citizen. I, not that long ago, inforwas plains, georgia, at a house that says, this is where jimmy carter was conceived. [ laughter ] and now were in a society of celebrity due to television, the internet. Were in a celebrity culture, matched with the building up of president s as super celebrities. These two currents kind of meet. Now were in the age of the super president s almost. Well, the system almost gravitates towards that because you can know one president. You cant know all of the people in congress. You cant have a cult of personality about congress as a mass. You can do that with a president. So jefferson, as you mentioned, and washington, adams not so much, but jefferson, people can fixate on those individuals, fixate on them as a figure of hatred but also a figure of intense love. So even though they set up the system of checks and balance, that one person can come to embody the nation in a way that the congress cant. The president s authority for foreign policy, the face to the world also encouraging all of that. That was a seed of a potential problem by, you know, having this executive, and they really didnt know. A professor at stanford has talked about the presidency as the one branch that people didnt really understand what he could do, how do you have an executive without this person turning into a king. That was always the fear that might be a possibility. You mentioned this kind of cult of personality. John adams, who was kind of short and squatty, criticized George Washington, and he said, you know, George Washington was tall, he was handsome, he looked good in a uniform. He had good breeding. He had a large estate. And he basically said it wasnt his intelligence but his image that got him elected to become the first president. Weve had you talked about this kind of cult of personality. The fact is tlouhroughout our history, weve had president s who have been elected from that cult of personality. Ing you talk a little bit about that . In a lot of our precedents, what became the great generals. So you have general George Washington. Beyond his looks and stature, they all used to mock washington, many of the political leading lights, until washington walked in the room. Then they all sat like this. He was an imposing figure. But whether its Andrew Jackson or William Henry harrison or ulysses s. Grant, so many generals have become president s. We would build up the military service. Memorial day was a big calling card for being a president. So much so that Theodore Roosevelt becomes the rough rider and wants to be called the colonel. So you constantly would use war heroes as the big coin of the realm in American History. Not all. Not lincoln, who talked about not firing a weapon in the blackhawk war. But it was a big deal. Who are our celebrities today . Who are the larger than life figures . Somebody like President Trump has been in the public consciousness since the 80s. He was a celebritys celebrity. The apprentice coming into your homes. So the thing we have to watch is that were not just looking for president s like, im hearing many people say, the only person who could beat trump is oprah winfrey. That might be true, but were getting into this sort of you know, this powerful president thats using new types of media to be beamed into o