Civics in a Civic | Part I

0:00 hey everybody Welcome to Civics in a Civic it’s Constitution Day and what better way to celebrate than by driving around the DC area in a Civic talking about civics I’m Mary Patterson your driver and asker of questions and with me in the passenger seat is Vera’s senior fellow scholar author my personal

0:22 Chad gbt Tony Williams Tony are you ready to talk Civics I I am always ready to talk Civics Mary hang on to your coffee here we go I got my coffee right here [Music] [Music]

1:06 all right Tony so I just want to say for your benefits that I do have a valid driver’s license and I’ve been driving for 20 some years and in those 20 some years I have never gotten any tickets no that’s not true I’ve gotten two tickets I think but neither of them were my fault

1:27 so um you’re in good hands well I was not actually worried about tickets really more accidents but I noticed you didn’t mention those no well I was in one accident but that also was not my life oh it never is so we are actually driving we are going by the Potomac River and the Tidal Basin so we’re gonna see some cool monuments along the way we’re gonna see at the Lincoln Memorial

1:49 we’ll see the Washington Monument we are going to pass Tony’s favorite Monument the Linden Beach Royal Brew that will be coming up right here on our right shout out to LBJ we’re celebrating Constitution Day it’s

2:12 a big deal here at the Bill of Rights Institute so my first question for you is going to what’s the big deal what is the big deal right I mean September 17th rolls around every year some schools universities kind of mandated to teach about it but I think I think it’s a good opportunity though I mean at Bri we reflect on

2:35 founding principles founding ideals pretty much every day right eight hours a day every day uh and and that’s what we do right but it’s a great opportunity I think for students teachers to uh true true and and citizens too right to just uh reflect on who we are as Americans right what do we believe in what unites us an anonymous

2:57 teacher in my days of teaching used to give out a constitution crossword puzzle on Constitution Day and that was the extent of the celebration so I like what you said about uh founding principles or this idea of ideas right so it’s not just the actual document that’s like you know in the National Archives can’t

3:18 steal it Tony’s tried um but these ideas that are always with us and they’re also a big deal capital b capital D here at Bri so what what are these founding principles these constitutional principles that you referenced I mean in Bri we talk a lot about um inalienable rights natural rights we

3:39 talk about um the quality and Justice and Liberty uh all sort of the the bigger ideals here but but then we talk about some of the more specific constitutional ideals like you know separation Powers checks and balances federalism all the good stuff all this stuff that gets me really

3:59 really excited about what I do as a senior fellow at the ri and I know it gets you excited too so I see you chuckling over there but I know you get pumped about it if I get more pumped I think about the foundational principles National rights the ones that we’re all born with because I think that’s that’s such a cool idea but again that idea at the time when the Constitution

4:21 was written was not something that everybody bought into so I think it’s I don’t know would you say it’s it’s fair to say that we take these ideas for granted you know I I don’t know I I think they’re there right I mean I think they’re always present Americans I think have an instinctual love of Liberty uh

4:41 you know we we love equality we want to see equality under the law um we all all want to live under just uh constitutional order have equal justice so so I I think that sort of our heart yearns for them not only as human beings but as Americans um but then you know we you know

5:02 sometimes we forget um some of the more specific ones like separation Powers checks balances you know federalism why should I care about these things bicameralism to house legislatures these seem somewhat distant maybe from our ordinary everyday experience that we don’t think about them but I I think those as you said those kind of natural rights principles

5:24 is really foundational ideals I think are there they may be a little latent but they’re they’re with us all the time [Music] thank you well while we’re at this red light Tony I would be interested in hearing a

5:45 little bit about the origin story of the Constitution because I am such a history nerd I love the back story on anything so we have this document Constitution it gets its own day like free cone day at Ben Jerry’s which is my personal favorite Civic holiday by the way so how did this document come to be give me the

6:06 Sparks note word well it came it came to be because we’ve we failed in our first attempt right I mean so I can identify with failure yeah I mean we all can right I mean they did they launched this this experiment in Liberty and it didn’t go real well at first right and they fought the Revolutionary War to a successful conclusion

6:27 and started off with the Articles of Confederation but as you know pretty much largely didn’t work you don’t need separation Powers check don’t need any checks and balances check don’t need a two house legislature check uh don’t need a very strong central government the states can run everything check I mean they were just checking all the wrong boxes what is the most egregious

6:50 thing the states were doing under the Articles of Confederation because they were kind of going Hog Wild is my understanding that that’s that’s a good one there’s so many right I mean they were almost at war with each other they were engaging on these trade Wars violating the peace treaty of 1783 passing tariffs on each other uh or

7:10 taxes I mean they you know they were basically doing everything to impede the national government and each other and and and just they were getting taxed and they’re like uh-uh not up in here they’re nothing we’re not studying the social government money if you could declare war on any state what would it be and why uh back then it would have

7:31 been definitely Rhode Island Rhode Island yes why because they were frustrating the whole thing right they kept voting no on everything and we’re just impeding all the workings of the government so yeah that’s that’s a no-brainer