They touch the lives of an individual, or in which an individual person makes a big difference to the pattern. We had been reading a book on valerie hansen, and the voyage of World History and we know that there are all kinds of big patterns and we know that it is the job of students and professional historians to figure out what the big pattern is, because of what happened in our lives, it is so chaotic and quick, we cannot figure out the overall trajectory. Some of the patterns we have been looking at our things we are looking at is the effect of the environment on us, whether it is all of the things that nature hurls at us, whether it is a hurricane, tornado, famine, or Something Like ebola. We also looked at things like mechanical things or technological inventions, those are also big patterns. For example, the ways in which farming, farming does not seem like technology, but the ways farming and the plow replaced hunting and gathering. That replacement led from the neolithic into the paleolithic, wow, what is bigger than that . And other technologies that have really affected our lives, such as the invention of the spinning wheel, steam engines, what do they do . They led to the replacement of manual labor with machine labor. As we know, as you already know that gave us the industrial , revolution. Those are giant patterns. Those are patterns that are easier to see, partly because they are outside ourselves, they are like objects we can see. And feel, and touch. Sometimes the most important patterns and the one in here, the ones we do not see, but they profoundly affect our understanding of our lives. Our basic assumptions. What i want to talk about today is the way in which a certain very old set of assumptions about how the world works. About violence, power, order and government, how those changed radically, and how we today go about assuming that certain things are the way they are, but we know they have not. What is that big pattern, and what are the assumptions that have been changed and have been replaced by Something Else and how does that relate to the man on the 10 bill, Alexander Hamilton, who by the way is the most interesting man of the American Revolution. I know this, i am actually publishing a novel on him, this he is a fun and interesting guy. One big change in the last 23 centuries has been the replacement of certain ideas by others. The first of these assumptions is that power is something that once you get you hold onto it tightly. You do not share it. Why would you share it . That is the old assumption. The old assumption is that whenever they can, other people will try to seize your power from you. I know. This takes me to my first picture. This is an old idea, that people who will steal your stuff first is your neighbors. This goes way, way back. Very deep into human history. This is not an actual cave painting, but i think it is funny in any case. That ties into another idea. Nations, groups of people, have no right to exist as a separate group of people with their own government. That is something that you win. You defend it yourself. No one will defend it for you foro one will defend it you. The first people who will try to rob it from you, who . Your neighbors. Whether that is the mongol invasion of poland, or aztecs conquering other nations, or napoleon conquering almost all of europe, with the exception of mighty england. Or, the Japanese Invasion and defeat of china in the 1930s. That is a pattern into has been there forever. Now it is replaced with something really weird. I say weird because to replace it with something that is so unusual in World History that we take it for granted today, that we have to say, why dont we operate that way anymore . What has replaced that set of ideas . There are several things, i think you will recognize these. All these assumptions are kind of deep in our bones. But the newer set of assumptions is that actually, every group of people has dignity and the right to self rule. Has the right to their own borders. Who are the first people who will defend those for you . Your neighbors. For the most part. Ukraine, we will not talk about that right now. But for the most part, it is the people around you and they have solidarity with you. They will protect you. And also the assumption that if you have a problem, the best way to deal with it is not by getting up and slugging the person next to you. Dont do that. The best way is to talk it through, arbitrating, mediating, by in some way working out. That is very different from the caveman drawing. Now that is a world, that is the world we live in. For example, the United Nations, the idea is not perfect, but people come, people beg to come, countries want to be represented by the United Nations because they know that is the place where your sovereignty will be defended by a community of people. Exemplified by things like the european union, which has the flag that reminds me of the old American Flag there, because they do not have 50 stars yet. Wait until they get 50. I predict it will be Something Different than a circle. But the situation today, people really do not like each other, who might be building bombs, might not, like iran, will come to the United Nations, on american soil, and will have a conversation. The conversation may not go as we like, but there is not an immediate resort to the first weapon, because you know that your neighbor will try to overrun your borders. Instead, you know, basically you are safe as a nation. You have problems, but you are basically safe. You might say ok, so, how do we get there . In history, we often rely on what i would call proximate cause, the thing that happened right next to us. In fact, we want to pick a date, when does this start . A reasonable one is 1945, the founding of the United Nations. The United Nations, on the left you see a poster here that was world war ii era, it was talking about the preamble of the charter of the United Nations, on the right in bigger print, it says we the peoples of the , United Nations determine to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as Good Neighbors have resolved that the parties to any dispute shall first of all seek a solution. You might say, ok, deal done, that is when it started. Actually, World History is not like a light switch in a classroom. There are no on or off switches. You know, the big patterns start somewhere further back, a moment in which a new template is laid. That trend picks up. There are things that war against the trend, but if a trend is powerful like farming, or the Industrial Revolution even though some people are , still hunting and gathering, that trend will ultimately prevail or become a dominant reality. We want to know where that starts in World History. Oddly enough, we need to go back to the American Revolution. This is not because the United States was the first post colonial nation, which it was, or the first modern democracy, which it was, or the First Federal republic, which it was, federalist republic in modern history, which it was those are remarkable things. They had precedents. It is important to remember that. One of the most remarkable things the United States to, the most remarkable thing, and ive taught classes from jamestown to yesterday, but if i look at the most remarkable thing that the United States did, it established a precedent for creating a durable peace between neighbors. The idea that neighboring states could not go to war with each other, could take down barriers, could even have a common citizenship, and low and behold a common currency and they could do all of those things. The focus of this topic is on the constitution, the story of the american constitution how it, created this precedents of sovereign states getting together, not going to war, cooperating, and building prosperity as a result. That is the story of how it took the life of its staunchest defender, Alexander Hamilton. So, this question about the United States, we always say the United States, but that is a modern thing. In the 18th and 19th century, if you would talk about the u. S. Usa these that sounds weird to our ears. When did these become the United States . How did you get one country out of these various state states . It is important to remember, and as we talk about the constitution, that the United States has had two lives. I realize it is easy to forget about the first life, because it was short. The first life was from roughly 1776 until 1788. A time of a decade or more, a confederation. Then the United States changed its government and it became a federation. A federal republic, and that is a key distinction. When the Country First started we say the country, but actually , the states all felt different, yes, they spoke the same language, sort of. But they felt very different and they were very different. I have to Say Something about words. We use words now in ways people do not use them before. Did not before. For example, the idea of a country, when you talk about a country, you were talking about yours state. If you were talking about the larger apparatus of the u. S. , you might use a different word, like empire. I will explain why. Partly because they did not have another word for it. They could not figure out a way to describe a coalition of countries. One word they would sometimes use was the word congress. Now we think of congress as these people from one country, they get together and have a parliament. No, that was not the original meaning, congress was separate a meeting ofas separate states, separate nations, separate countries. The congress of westphalia, that was a congress of independent nation states. For example, when George Washington, great hero of the American Revolution, when he retired the first time, he retired a lot of times. They kept pulling him back, poor fellow. When he retired the first time, he went to virginia and they had a big banquet and they said that they wanted to thank him for his great sacrifices on behalf of his country, meaning virginia, and on behalf of the empire, meaning this United States conglomeration. Even Thomas Jefferson, when you he wrote about virginia, he said my country. So the u. S. And the 13 states were initially part of a big british empire, only half of the british colonies went into revolution. There were a bunch of others. But you think, why didnt canada or quebec, or newfoundland, the west indies, why did they not join . They didnt. What happened when these countries, states got together, there were 14 of them come a vermont broke off from new york, no one acknowledged it. What happened is that they were, they felt, very different from each other. For example, i like to point out minnesota and jamaica, both british colonies, but they did not feel like they were part of one country. There was no automatic one country among these colonies, now countries, any more than today we would say that jamaicans and minnesotans are part of one country. Or that californians and canadians are part of one natural country. So, what happened is essentially after the countries formed, they began to operate as different countries. I say the country but really , they operated as separate entities. They had their own money. This is a dollar bill from georgia. A four dollar bill. Sorry. They had their own militias, treasuries, tariffs, they had their own citizens. They were separate countries, but there was a problem with this. Confederation,se but it was so loose, this Continental Congress, they could not get people to show up for meetings. This was worse than a section on friday morning. I know that some of you are there on friday morning, you will know, it was very hard to get people to show up. In fact, when they got the peace treaty from great britain, they , congress could not get a , quorum to approve it. Why . Congress meant nothing. It was a security guarantee during the revolution. When its function was gone there , was no real reason to hold together as a country. But there were reasons, this Continental Congress, it needed to have more power than it did. You see, the moment in which this empire broke apart into 13 states, this post colonial moment, it would have been perfectly fine come of little states getting along on their own. If that had happened in after 1950, the u. N. Was formed, because these little states, no matter if they had a great army, it would not matter. There would be neighbors, might be even the United States to pull out their army and navy to defend sovereignty. When kuwait was invaded in 1990, the u. N. Unanimously said we all have to rush to the aid of kuwait. That was a moment they could be protected. That was not 1787, and it was not 1776. There were a lot of problems. Most of them had to do with the way the colonies treated each other. We know that usually what happens in a post colonial moment lets say there is a big empire that falls apart into pieces. The United States we see the 13 , looking at this map we see the 13 colonies, this space here, vermont and new york does not exist. Doesnt even have a name. Vermont knows it has a name, but no one else is acknowledging it. Look at this. This is land the british gave the United States after the revolution. They were so bighearted, they said take the whole enchilada. What happens . Neighbors start a fight over it. That is what neighbors do. Massachusetts, connecticut, new york, georgia down there in the mix. Spain there are foreigners , too. By the way, florida was spanish, it had been british, then it was spanish, it goes back and this fourth. Was not a colony that wanted to come with the United States in 1776. That was when it was still a british colony. That was before it went back to florida again. So that was a problem. And this had always been a problem going back to greek city states. I hope youre a member World History 100 here. That the greek city states, whenever they had persia ready to clobber them they could get , together and attack the bad guys. Go away persia and what happens, then your worst enemy is your neighbor, the spartans. It is always your neighbor. They start to look at each other after the revolution. There are trade wars. New york, being a big stage, cut down on trade with new jersey and connecticut. They said, you will have to pay a tax, we want our farmers to sell goods. We dont want your farmers to sell our people goods people goods. Shays rebellion was one of the most notable. There were other conflicts within the colonies. We will now call them countries. You have to understand, in this time, even true today, there were really only two functions of government. If your government does not do these two things, it has no right to exist. Although today, the u. N. Could protect you. In this time when no one was there to protect you, that 2 basic functions of government were to keep internal control, and keep away predators. Internal control, keep out the bad guys. If you cannot do that, you will not exist. You will be over. Shays rebellion was a situation in massachusetts. Massachusetts had no army or navy, they had a militia. They called on the militia, nobody came. I cant remember the numbers, Something Like 5000 people were supposed to be in the militia. 22 showed up, or something. That is not the exact number. But it was a glaring. But what about the Continental Army . That does not exist under the confederation. In fact, after the revolutionary war, the Continental Congress disbanded the army, George Washington went home. The army went down, they sold their last naval ship in 1784 to a private buyer. No navy, no coast guard, no army. These states were supposed to defend themselves. They could not, these states could not keep internal order. The Continental Congress ponies up a little money and some states help out, but cannot do this function of government. Keeping internal control. Nor will they be able, and a in a real showdown to defend themselves from the really big powers the world, the countries that mattered. I got this picture, because this shows something that was very common. This is the story of poland. I know some of you heard me talk about poland, because it is an interesting country from a historical point of view. In the 1780s and 1790s, polands neighbors began to slowly gobble away at poland. You see catherine the great of russia, a beautiful woman. You have frederick the great of prussia. You have russian advisors. What are they doing . They are looking at the map say and, i like that part trade part. We will start to gobble it up. Why . Because poland cannot keep internal order and they could not defend itself from outside predators. They had a sort of democracy at the time, but what happens in this particular graph, what youre seeing in different shades of blue, is the gradual elimination of poland which did not exist between 1795 and 1919. Why . Because they could not guarantee their own sovereignty as nobody owes a country a living. You have to