All right, everybody, welcome back. And thank you for joining us for our second panel, which is on the democratic declaration. Im adam white im a senior fellow here at aei and i want to echo my colleague. Youve also thoughts at the outset of this. Were so grateful for everybody who made of todays event and the series that will follow possible. Thank you for all of us all of you for joining us. Everybody joining us online and on tv. And thanks especially our authors in this volume of the series and especially the two authors joining me on this panel the least to offer some opening remarks, and ill introduce them one at a time. In the order that theyre speaking and were beginning with danielle allen, danielle is harvards james bryan conant, university professor, and she directs harvards allen lab for democracy renovation. We might get back to that later, by the way. She previously was a professor at the institute for advanced study at princeton. In 2020, she was awarded the library of congresss john w kluge prize. And before that, in 2000, one, she was a Macarthur Foundation fellow. Shes the author of a number of excellent books, most recently justice by means of democracy which i think came out this year and in 2015, she wrote our declaration a reading of the declaration of independence in defense of equality. And i guess that brings us to your remarks. Thank you so much for joining us. So much out of so stand up here for the sake of establishing a pairing with my co panelists. Its and i guess i dont need this actually do i or do i. This one. Its an honor to be here a privilege to. Be a part of this conversation. And it was such a special opportunity. Be able to listen to professor woods. Thank you, yuval, for giving us. The chance to hear that expansive conversation. And professor wood, thank you very much that. I am speaking about the declaration of independence this morning and sharing with you my plans for an essay for the volume. I have been working and writing about the declaration of independence for 20 years. At this point that was not anything i ever actually expected to occur in my life. It emerged actually because of an accident. I taught the declaration of independence and a night course for low income adults as of course in the humanities that had the purpose of giving them chance to reconnect with the educational system based on an approach to education. That is about reflection, agency and empowerment really intense engagement with good texts, liberal arts style. The course was one where my students many had not completed high school. So there was a sort of conundrum how do you give a sort of university of chicagos style education to night students in this way and the solution was the end of the day, not to compromise on the quality of the texts that we teaching, but to go ahead and compromise on length. The declaration is a scarce 1337 words, and for that reason alone, i am embarrassed to admit we began teaching it in every unit, the history unit, the unit, the writing unit. It was electrifying as a teaching document. It was electrifying because as you all know, the declaration tells the story of a group of people who survey their circumstances. They they analyze the course of events, the course of human events, and determine that an alternative course is necessary. And then they proceed to articulate a vision and some commitment to set their direction on that new course. All of my night students were in that class because they too had surveyed their circumstances found the course of events in their lives, wanting and set their faces in a new direction. So they understood immediately claims about human agency, the claims about human Decision Making and responsibility, shaping the direction of a community that. The declaration of independence lays out. So i have them to thank my students. And theres a very democratic beginning for an engagement with the declaration. I have them to thank for my own journey with the declaration over these last 20 years. That journey, though, has taught me some really important things about the declaration that are not common knowledge. And so i intend to make it my purpose in the volume to share some of those important learnings that are not, but i hope will be common knowledge. The relevant learnings im going to share this morning, turn around the figure john adams in particular. So i have three particular lessons to communicate. The first is we have gotten into the habit of thinking of the declaration as Thomas Jeffersons text. He was, of course, the leader batsman. He was by no means solo intellectual architect of document. And if anything, i would make the case that john adams was the much more significant intellectual architect of the document. You trace adams writings throughout the course of the year. He is developing the case for the language of happiness as an orienting ideal to shape how a community can talk about a shared vision for south. Populate premium access to the idea that the and wellbeing of the people should be the supreme law. He is drawing on that tradition, using the concept of happiness to articulate it. He makes an articulation of the relevant principles that is quite like the declaration of independence in shape in january of 1776. In massachusetts and of course, during 1775 and 1776, he and Richard Henry lee are the prime motive force linking virginia and massachusetts, moving the politics of independence forward. So its really adams and lee, who architect the politics of, the period from midapril through july 4th in april. Adams releases his essays and thoughts government. He makes the case that the the end or purpose of government is the same as the end or purpose man. And thats happiness. And the like. Its not just the word. Its a whole architecture, though. Underneath it, the concept of constitutionalism thats attached to it, the structure of the grievances and the document also flows from adams is thought not jeffersons one can show that through comparisons of how their arguments about law unconstitutional wisdom were developing over the period the two years before 1776. So adams is, of course, on the committee. Hes number two on the committee after jefferson. Jefferson was young, not very busy in philadelphia, you know, generally reclusive. Adams was basically on every committee that mattered. So as a result, he was too busy to be a drafter. He did admire jefferson on a number of dimensions and again worked for the politics to have the result that jefferson get the most votes when it came time to select a committee to write a preamble for declaration of independence. So the declarations, i believe, properly understood as adamss declaration. Thats the first and most important point that then leads to a second important point, which is the one professor would made at the very end his remarks. And i was so glad that he did that. It is indeed the revolution brings us the beginning of the end of enslaved it. And its adams who is a part of that as is ben franklin, also on the committee of five that drafted the declaration. And so immediately before the end of the revolution. So before we get to even eight states having a boston slave man before the end of the revolution, both massachusetts and pennsylvania done so in different ways. Pensilva anyhow, with graduated emancipation, but nonetheless, both have committed in that fashion the massachusetts story is particularly important. There drafted the state constitution. The language of the declaration flows straight into the massachusetts state constitution. The language of the declaration and constitution were immediately used in massachusetts by abolitionists, free africanamericans, living in boston at the time. They put petitions to the assembly to end enslavement. They took the case to the court. The supreme judicial in massachusetts. And by virtue of a judicial decision in 1783 that ruled that enslavement was incompatible with the massachusetts constitution on the grounds of the language in. The constitution that came from the declaration of independence. Enslavement was abolished in massachusetts. So thats the second important lesson of the story. The Abolitionist Movement had to grow greatly in force over time, obviously, before it became what we know of it in the 19th century. But as they say, it quickened in that moment. That is when it came to life. It was born. There had been prior writers and thinkers going as far back as the early 18th century. James otis, who famously gave us the slogan no taxation without representation, also argued that the africans on the shores of the atlantic, there coast rather had the same rights as englishmen, and should be respected as having the same rights as englishmen. So the intellectual foundations had been growing, and then the politics quickened in the of the revolution. So our founding in other words, ive always called it a double voiced founding. Yes, we entrenched enslavement various ways. And at the same time, we embraced abolition and we certainly put two positions on a collision course right from that early point. So then the third message or learning that i have about the democratic declaration and again that was really john adams this declaration relates to the arguments that he had with key people about how to think about the idea that all human beings have natural rights yet. Clearly the societies that structured did not operationalize that view in terms of how that power was allocated throughout society. And what ive come to from sort of studying various exchanges of letters is that theres a key in the declaration that really explains how it is. We could simultaneously, as a as a country, have endorsed concept of natural rights all men being created equal, all men meaning human beings in that formulation. How could we have endorsed that . And also up a system for operating governments that placed power in the hands only of some primarily man, primarily white men, primarily property holders, with some variation in that from state state. The answer i believe comes in the last clause or the second sentence of the declaration. Professor wood knows im a close reader of texts, so im just going to remind you of the whole second sentence, but ask to listen to the last clause. All right. We hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights are instituted among men driving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes offensive, becomes destructive of these ends. It is the right of the people to it or to abolish it and to Institute New government, laying the foundation on such principle and organizing its in such form as to them shall seem most likely effect their safety and happiness. All right. So that last portion, what when government becomes destructive of the end of securing our rights, we get to change. But the job is to lay the foundation on principle and to organize powers of government in a form necessary to deliver on those principles. Its that split the foundation on principle and the question of how to organize the powers of government that structures the thinking of people and the founders about the relationship between natural rights and the structure of government. So adams, in a letter to Abigail Adams and in a letter to somebody named James Sullivan, who was advocating for full inclusion for people without property workers having the vote as well to both of them, he writes back and says the rights, the principles, the concept of the natural liberties do apply to everybody. But the question of how power is exercised to adam, to abigail. He says, we were going to preserve our masculine system. Thats his phrase for how we organize the powers of government to. Sullivan he writes back, and he says, power to be directed by people who own property. And so thats the place. Thats the place where, from my point of view, they made the mistake. They established a commitment to basic natural rights for all human beings, but believed was possible to secure those and deliver those in ways appropriate to different people in different circumstances, based on the reservation of power to a few, abigails challenged. Abigail rather challenged. Adams said to him, you know men have not a good track record with regard to their exercise of power over or for women or husbands actually put it over wives habit of tyranny. So what she to paraphrase but she was ready to give him and his colleagues another chance but that you know if it did not deliver as promised she expected that women would to, in her words, foment a rebellion for a voice and representation. And thats exactly what happened and she was making a really important point in that letter that power is reserved only to some arbitrary power control over others, power corrupts as we know. You cannot deliver on the promise of protecting natural rights for all by reserving power only to the few. You need voice and representation for all in order to make a good on the commitment of principle. That is basically the First Official error and puzzle that i believe weve been wrestling through as a country for the sub6 250 years. So thats the shape of the essay i plan to offer you all and his colleagues, john adams declaration, that declaration and the politics of the moment did quicken abolition. They did bring us end of enslavement for the first time meaningfully in Human History and some portions of our country put the country on a collision course we all know about. And finally, about the key philosophical error they made was in not recognizing that that commitment to natural rights requires also full inclusion of all in sharing of power. Thank you. Thank you, danielle. And our next guest is gregory winter. He is president of assumption university, although today greg is speaking as an individual scholar. He was recently visiting scholar at aei as well. Before all that, he worked the senate ultimately for senator robert kerrey. So you could say greg has worked he works both in and in practice. Hes he also has written a number of wonderful books, including madisons metronome subtitle, the constitution majority rule and the tempo of american politics, and also old whigs, lincoln and the politics of prudence. And i suppose that brings us part the subject of your remarks today. So greg, thank you for joining us here. Adam, thank you very much. The the listing of, excellent books. I appreciate you omitting the mediocre ones. I too. Am grateful for to air to evolve to adam for for bringing this group together. I feel quite honored to be in the company of these these scholars, a scholar of of professor allens achievement on the on the declaration. I will say that he will listening to professor wood a dread began to dawn on me as i realized that some of the things i might about the declaration would constitute disagreeing with him in his physical presence. So i will invoke the the ancient wisdom to two speakers that dont worry when they walk out on you, its when they start start walking toward you that you should be concern. Were going to go right to q a, but right. So what i thought i would do is try to address the issue of individual rights versus democracy in majority rule by looking before the declaration at john locke at the declaration itself, and then ultimately and in fact, by way of beginning through the eyes of lincoln, lincolns fragment on the constitution famously compares the relation between the declaration, independence and the constitution to proverbs. Proverbs 25 elevens reference to an of gold in a frame of silver. His point is that the mechanisms, the constitution, the frame serve the ideals of the declaration, which is the apple. And its often understood to indicate lincolns emphasis on individual full liberty as the lens through which the constitution should be interpreted. Yet the timing of the fragment, which is presumed to have been written between his election in 1860 and his inauguration. In 61, suggests otherwise. At the same time, he was drafting his first inaugural, a full throated defense of democracy understood as majority rule. In fact, i add that this this is true of. Madison and in the vice memo as well as douglass even excuse me lincoln even when arguing was with douglass about popular sovereignty that the question was often the ability of national majorities to decide National Issues rather than local majorities to decide National Issues. So heres what lincoln says about rule in the first inaugural. He says a majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations and always changing easily early. And this is key with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments is only true sovereign of a free people. Lincoln continues to say that on any question over which the National Government has jurisdiction majorities of minorities. Naturally. Then he says this if the majority will not me, that may have been for it. It is the minority will not acquiesce. The majority must or the government must cease. There is no other alternative for continuing the government is acquiescence on one side or the other. The declaration says, i think something remarkably similar or if it is read in full to. See why i want to return briefly to the theorists widely presumed and not without good reason to be the most significant influence on the declaration. And that is john locke. The vast bulk of lockes treatise pertains to the purposes for in methods by which governments are formed. Now a reader who stops that explanation, much like a reader who the poetry at the beginning of the of independence, but skips the grievances. I think substantially misses the point. Individualist readers of locke ignore as you individualist readers of the declaration the difference between natural and civil rights. And that would, i would say include civil rights derived from natural rights. That is the independent rights of state of nature do not and in fact cannot transfer fully to a civil state that would defeat the entire purpose of a society banding together in the first place. In paragraph, in paragraphs 1995 of the second treatise, locke explains that human beings are natural, free and independent language that appears in the first draft of the declaration. Crucially, though, locke says this freedom and that freedom and independence exercised in not after the act forming society. He writes. When any number of men have so committed to one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporate and make one body politic where in the major majority have a right to act and conclude the rest. Now thats paragraph 95 of the second treatise, and i often ask students is professor allan might ask in the spirit of of, of assigning shorter texts why they need to read the previous 94 paragraphs if in fact locke is going to give up the game in paragraph f 95 and beyond. In other words, if thats where we were, if ma