#ConstitutionDayLive: The Bill of Rights Institute’s Constitution Day 2019 Live Stream Webinar

Hello and welcome to Constitution Day Live here at the Bill of Rights Institute. I’m Gary Coletti. I manage the student and teacher programs and I’ll be taking a classroom approach and just a general interest approach in the day. Happy birthday. 232 years young, not a day over 220. And with me is… Our Constitution. Our Constitution. Right here is Kirk. I’m Kirk Higgins. I oversee the development of all of our curricular content and I am going to be hopefully providing some insights into things that our experts have to say today. That’s a really good segue, yes. So we say it live and we mean it right now and throughout the next four hours we will be available for your questions and comments and ideas that will come through to us through YouTube. But we also have some special treats. We do have some experts, some really great interviews coming up. We have sets of them throughout the day we’re going to be interspersing. One of our first ones is with our own president, Dr. David Bob, here at the Bill of Rights Institute. And he’ll be talking about his thoughts on Constitution Day. Absolutely. We’ll also be talking to Julie Silverbrook from the Constitutional Sources Project, who will be shading or providing us with some good historical analysis and for the build-up to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Yeah, I really like that there’s a nice balance today of history and theory and really diving into the Constitution to celebrate the day entirely, which will be really exciting. Yeah, absolutely. As we were thinking about what to do for Constitution Day, Gary and I just kind of kept, and all of us here at the Bill of Rights Institute, kept coming back to this phrase, e pluribus unum. in thinking about what that unum, or one out of many one, really means and how it is that the Constitution fulfills that role in our society in some ways, but in other ways it doesn’t quite. Right, exactly. And it goes from big theory to very specific ones. One of the interviews you’ll see later is with the members of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Maria Monserrat Al-Sperado and Mark Rienzi. Really interesting how they bring it to a very specific part of liberty, specifically religious liberty, but then it of covers everything yeah and religious liberty will be interesting for us to delve into again as an exemplar of uh different freedoms different things that are expressed in the united states in ways that uh throughout our history we’ve grappled with those um those challenges um and sort of laying the foundation for how we grapple with those challenges uh we’ll speak with nicholas cole uh from uh Pembroke College in Oxford who works on something called the Quill Project, which has been a really interesting project in analyzing the actual sources and the actual debates of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and looking for ways that that construction actually helps to develop discussion, develop conversation, and ultimately steer us hopefully towards good ends in government. Yeah, that’s a really nice balance of what we’re looking at. The celebrating 1787, but not forgetting what it’s like today and sort of seeing how

it’s a very alive document that keeps going. Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned it before in the topic. So E Pluribus Unum is the theme of this year that we’ve sort of selected because we thought it really hit upon some of the big principles, of the Constitution that we like to explore and really delving deeply into the meaning of that. I mean, so, I mean, really one of the first questions then is how at the surface do we understand what the UNAM is? Right, exactly. And how is it that our Constitution relates to that? And I guess it would probably be helpful for us to talk a little bit about where that phrase even comes from. Yeah. And we actually see it on the Great Seal of the United States, which was commissioned at the very origins of the country. The same one that is on my dollar bill. It very much is. Even though you might not use dollar bills very often, the Great Seal is on there every time it is. And it means, out of many, one. The other phrase on there is “novus order seculorum,” which is a new order for the ages, which is a whole other conversation we could get into. But it’s interesting. And the original designer of the Great Seal of the United States wanted it to mean, out of many states, one union. But as we’ve seen throughout the United States, what that union is, what it represents, how it responds to the interests and needs of the people of the United States has changed and evolved over time. Yeah, I mean that was first proposed at committee in 1776 and it goes right back from the beginning. But I think what I’m excited to explore today is how that has stayed the same and how that has changed and how the understanding. Trying to get into the heads of people in 1776 is both interesting and tough. And so we’re going to spend a few hours trying to do that. Absolutely. It’s both a complicated thing and a simple thing. It is one union, and yet lots of interests, lots of diverse people and ideas are all represented in that government. And how it is that we ultimately move towards that that unum and that more perfect union, as we’ll also get into, is really interesting. And I think we’ll be guided today by several constitutional principles, not the least of which is the rule of law, which outlines our Constitution, why we appeal to it as a legal document. Also federalism, which is a structure within that. And we’ll dive into federalism a good bit. And then in addition to that, sort of separation of power. So those legal mechanisms that divide the different branches of our government, their different responsibilities. But in another sense, hopefully we’ll dive into more of that unwritten constitution, more of what it means to be involved with those documents and with our constitutional structure as a citizen. What do you say we dive into it right now? You’ve already said a number of interesting things that I want to dive into. One of them being the idea at first it seems like the simple answer is there is one union made out of many states, whether there are 13 or more than 13. But then we also said it could be the people, it could be the branches. Could we dive more right now

into sort of Are all the understandings of the unum the same or should we lean on one versus another? Yeah, I think not only are they all the same but also are they symbolized anywhere? Is there any place where we can say like this represents the unum? And we’re located here in Washington, D.C. Right. The D.C. metro area has many places that I think have great visuals for what we mean by out of many one. I think we should bring in a staff member here. I think we should. I think we’re going to call Chris Hansen in for us. Chris, we have something that we. Hi, guys. We’re going to try to squeeze in here. That’s all right. Welcome. Hello, Chris. Chris Hansen. We’d like you to do. You haven’t introduced yourselves yet. What are you doing here? Chris Jansen. I’m the Marketing Communications Manager for the Bill of Rights Institute. And happy Constitution Day. Happy Constitution Day. Thank you. Thank you. We’re excited to have you. We’re excited to have you help us celebrate the birthday of the Constitution. So as you overheard from standing literally right over there, we are in the DC metro area and we would love what I think is a pretty simple task. For you to live tweet today and find what you think is the best symbol geographically of this idea of e pluribus unum and post that on Twitter. Alright, so it’s going to be sort of like a scavenger hunt for the unum. Yeah, imagery with direct constitutional connections as the 10×10 square, which is now slightly smaller, was called for within the Constitution of the United States to be founded. And so if anywhere there is built an unum physically in the country, we figure it’s gotta be here in the Washington, D.C. area. – Right. Now, speaking of Twitter, if you could help– – I have a challenge. – Yeah, it is a challenge. I believe in you. – Yeah, thank you. – Speaking of Twitter, I think we have a number of accounts. Do you mind sharing for our audience how we can kind of follow? – So @BRInstitute is our Twitter handle. and we’re using the hashtag #constitutiondaylive. Okay. So you can follow us on our journeys around the mall. Sarah, our Another staff member will be helping me and we’re going to go down and we’re going to search for the Unum on the National Mall. Great. Well, terrific. So follow along and we’ll be tweeting and checking in with you. Great. I believe as well, right? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we’re going to give you some calls later on just to see where you’re at. And this is all happening live. So we’ll be responding with that. So there’s Twitter, Facebook too. People may follow along there. Sure. Facebook.com/billofrightsinstitute, I believe. Terrific. Great. Should be easy to find us. So lots of ways to see your adventures out there with Sarah. That’s true. Absolutely. Fantastic. Great. All right. Well, I’ll talk to you guys soon. Good luck, Chris. Yes. We’ll call you in like an hour. Yeah. Okay. Let’s see what you find. I’m intrigued. All right. Ciao. Great. Well, that’s exciting. I’m interested to see what he gets up to. And of course, if you have any questions for us throughout the day, or if you have any suggestions on where Chris could go, please feel free to leave a comment. And

we’ll be answering your questions throughout the day, too, because we really want this to be a conversation. We really think that that’s going to be essential for us, trying to really nail down what the unum is and how it is that it’s expressed. in the United States? Yeah, that conversation is sort of key. I mean, not only are we actually having a conversation, but we want to highlight that as as a big theme, a sort of a format of what the Constitution is about, right? Everything from the convention that formed it until, you know, how it deals with things today. So I think that might be an interesting sort of segue into maybe the first conversation that we had with Chris, who you just met, and our president, David Bob. They sat right here not that long ago and talked about thoughts on e pluribus unum and the founding. So what do you say we take a look at that? Let’s take a look. I would start today, David, by talking about the understanding of the phrase “e pluribus unum” out of many one that the founders would have had, what that would have meant to them, the concept, and how it informed their crafting of the Constitution and the founding documents. “E pluribus unum” was something that many of the founders had reflected a great deal on, and they knew from hard-won experience just what the many meant. The many meant that there were plural viewpoints on matters of religion, on how we should structure ourselves as a polity, on the way that society should be best ordered to conduce to the common good. Think of all of the different ways that people had organized themselves throughout human history. And what the founders really had seen in their studies is that most of the regimes throughout human history had been organized according to force and accident. That is, they were organized according to not a principle, not according to reason, but according to might makes right. Their query was, can we be different? Is it possible for a nation state to be founded on the idea that all human beings are created equal and that each should enjoy liberty? That was a radical idea and it was that that brought the kind of sense of unity. Not that you would get rid of the plural viewpoints, but that you would come around enough of a common understanding of where your regime should be founded. That was really interesting. Correct me if I’m wrong, but part of what David was talking about has a lot to do with Federalist Papers? Yeah, the first Federalist Paper, in fact. So today, September 17th, we’re celebrating the day that the convention signed the document and sent it out to the states for ratification. So in the Constitution, it called that the, excuse me, that nine of the 13 states would have to ratify

the Constitution, have conventions for ratifying it. In one of those states, New York, there’s a series of papers that were written, the Federalist Papers. And in the first Federalist Paper, Alexander Hamilton invited the American people into a conversation as to whether or not good government could be established by choice or whether or not we were doomed forever to have our governments forced upon us by accident and force. Yee. Yes. So that brings up an interesting question about the founding and about how we unified. And I mean, that seems like a pretty tall order. I think we should check with Julie Silverbrook from the Constitution Source Project and see what she has to say about that. Let’s check it out. Well hello everyone. Welcome to our Constitution Day Live programming. I’m here with Julie Silverbrook. Julie, why don’t you introduce yourself? Hi, I’m Julie Silverbrook. I am the Executive Director of the Constitutional Sources Project, or CONSOURCE for short. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about CONSORCE? What does CONSORCE do? CONSORCE is a non-partisan, non-profit educational organization that connects citizens of all ages and people around the world of all ages with the history of the U.S. Constitution. We do this through our digital library of historical documents tracing the creation, ratification, and amendment of the U.S. Constitution. and by creating educational programs and resources for students and teachers, lawyers and judges, the press, and the general public. Can we talk a little bit about the colonists? And they’re kind of… So the colonists were not a uniform body. What do you know about the particular terms of their economic, social, and educational differences? Yeah, so it’s really interesting because I think a lot of people, when they think about the colonists, they think about them as sort of being united against the British during the Revolution, which of course they eventually become something of a united force. But each of the colonies is founded first of all, in different regions and for different purposes. So the southern colonies, for example, were primarily founded initially as financial ventures. So the goal was to exploit natural resources to make money for themselves and for mainly companies in the mother country, which was England. And they end up exploiting the land to grow cash crops. like rice, indigo, and tobacco. Their economic structure is based on indentured servants which are paid to come over. And of course slavery is a huge part of the economic system in the South. The economy, because of the way that the South develops with larger plantations, it tends to be more geographically spread out. So people aren’t communicating the same way they do in Boston towns, for example. And

so the social structure is much more diffuse. It’s rural. Again, it’s sort of economically motivated. The social structures are within individual plantations. rather than sort of across the plantations, although there is some trading and interaction that happens across the plantations. The New England colonies were founded primarily for religious purposes. So these are sort of what you think about when you think about New England as you think about the Puritans coming over and settling for religious reasons. Because of that, they tend to be more community oriented. The economy of The New England colonies is less plantation-focused and is more based on shipping. There’s a big harbor up there, so that facilitates that shipbuilding. And then eventually, because of the climate in the region, they end up producing mills, which leads to manufacturing. The middle colonies are more of a mix. They are founded for a number of reasons. So you have like the Quakers in Pennsylvania that are there for religious reasons, but you also have just the fishermen and merchants that are settling in the middle colonies. The middle colonies and New England are from just sort of a societal structure and educational perspective more similar in that they tend to be more densely populated and therefore you see communities interacting more and because of that you see the development of common schools. This starts in New England. New England is the first region to require compulsory elementary education and to provide public schooling for the young people in those colonies. You see similar things happening in the middle colonies, more in Pennsylvania, again, where you have that large Quaker population, than in places like New York, which were much more sort of commercially focused. And then in the South, again, because the Tracks of land that people farm on are much larger. They have these large plantations. Most of the schooling is happening within the plantations themselves or they’re sending their children to England. And in some cases, if you don’t have a lot of money, you have a small farm, you’re doing some really rudimentary education on your own. So they’re quite distinct regions during the early colonial period. But there are common things that happen across the colonies, which I’m happy to talk more about, that starts to make these colonies seem more similar. What really struck me was from the very beginning the question of economic, social, educational, the idea of diversity and how it played out in the colonies. And of course, that makes me think of throughout the past

years. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. It’s inherently a challenge for people with different views and different backgrounds to all agree around something. I mean, I think we see that in our own classrooms, in our own communities all the time when we have differences of opinion. Trying to get all of those groups together to form a single government is a major challenge that they had to tackle. And it’s pretty unique. somewhat to the colonies. I mean, among those areas, I mean, there are so many areas of diversity, but I think religious diversity is a particularly interesting piece that we could take a look at. Yeah, particularly at that time period, the religious diversity and the passion which those diverse groups had were great. And so I think this is actually a good segue to talk to Mark and Motsi at the Beckett Fund and see what they had to say. Yeah, great. Can you explain in layman’s terms what the concept of religious liberty is perhaps today and how that may have shifted over time? And maybe think from the founding to now, what kinds of evolution do you see in that understanding and how has it manifested itself in law and perhaps in culture? Sure. So if you think about the founding, right, people coming to America are leaving a Europe in which people are killing each other over religious differences, right? Whether the Catholics are in charge in one country or the Protestants in charge in another country, the truth is they’re all killing each other because they’re all convinced they’ve got absolute religious truth straight from God and that people shouldn’t be allowed to live out their lives the other way and that they should use the government to punish them. the generation that comes over and founds the United States, sometimes they commit the same sin. Sometimes they say, well, religious liberty for me and not for you. But over time, we see America grow in its understanding of religious freedom to the idea that it shouldn’t be the government that answers these questions of of who God is or what does God require of us, that’s not something that the government should decide. That’s something that individual people and family and civic institutions should decide. So that religious liberty is really the way a bunch of very different people, which is what we have in the United States, a bunch of very different people with very different beliefs can live together in peace because we say there are certain subjects that the government doesn’t get to decide. And certainly one of them is who God is or what God is or what God thinks or what God requires of us. That’s not something anybody can resolve at the ballot box. That’s something people and their children and their families need to decide for themselves. And I would add, Bate, on that trend of what has changed, how has it shifted, it’s two different things. One is misunderstanding freedom of religion is simply freedom of worship. It’s not just that. It’s more than that. Freedom of religion has to do with what you think, but also what you do. Not what you do inside the walls of your church, but in your community. And the second piece of that is no one questioned before that faith-fueled works. that you were compelled by your faith to do good things, to work at the

soup kitchen, to help in adoption and foster care, to work in a school and teach and volunteer. No one questioned that those things were fueled by the religious impulse, by a duty to God. And that’s definitely in question now. Really good points were made. about religious diversity, particularly at the founding. I’m thinking about how Mark was saying, was talking about how America grew in its understanding of religious diversity and how that compares, or how that compares to our understanding of of worship, of what that means. Right, yeah, exactly. And how personal belief really is. How that is really at the core of what it means to be an individual is to have your own thoughts and ideas and how challenging or dangerous, frankly, it can be when those ideas can be impinged by an authority that’s outside of you. Right, it leads you to wonder how the Constitutional Convention worked to create a document that helps to unify or create some kind of unity in this attempt. And he brings people together to talk about people that haven’t been born yet. Yeah, and put structures in place to help defend against those infringements. So let’s take a look at Tony and Nicholas’s conversation about the Quill Project and the Constitutional Convention. Yeah, I think we wanted to take seriously the thing that the framers themselves, the founders themselves, were most proud of, which was that the Constitution had come out of a rational process of debate that was serious and formal and involved iterative discussions of language over the course of a long period of time and that that was a much more rational way of designing a Constitution than asking a very wise man to go into a room and write a constitution for them, which is what the ancient Greeks had done or other states had done. The Federalist Papers, right at the very beginning of the document, reflects on how remarkable it is that America will be governed through reflection and choice. And what they’re really referring to is the fact that this wasn’t just the creation of one or two individuals. It was a compromise reached with great difficulty and sometimes some very heated debate by a group of people who had very different perspectives on how America should be governed. And we really wanted to take that idea seriously and help lay it out for people so that we can better understand really what compromise meant at the end of the 18th century. How did those compromises shape the convention? Well, I suppose that, you know, one thing to say is that the The typical way that

the Constitution is sometimes taught is by giving students the Virginia Plan and giving students the New Jersey Plan and asking them to find a compromise between the two positions and That’s often how this is taught and you can get a bright group of 16 year olds to work for about 45 minutes and they’ll come up with something that looks a bit like splitting the difference between the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. And then you have to ask, well, what was the convention doing for the rest of the three months? You know, if that’s all it takes, splitting the difference between these two plans, then what were they really up to? And as we worked through the records and built a model of them, what we really showed was actually the the process was so much more formal than that but also so much more focused on iterative improvements of the Virginia plan in different ways rather than trying to split the difference between the Virginia and the New Jersey plan so the the Virginia plan is is tabled for debate first and It receives debate in the Committee of the Whole for several weeks. That’s all of the members of the Convention working together, but with slightly less formal rules of debate. Their revision of the Virginia Plan is complete. They never really do a revision of the New Jersey Plan. They then reconvene as the full plenary session of the Convention, and they do the whole thing over again. And then that document is passed to the Committee of Detail, which further refines the plan. That plan is then debated further and refined. Then it goes to the Committee of Style, which is the point at which it really begins to look like a piece of legislation. That plan is then further debated and revised. then the final Constitution is adopted. So to teach this as the convention split the difference between the Virginia and the New Jersey plan really doesn’t capture the nature of that process at all. In fact, the New Jersey delegation makes relatively few contributions during the formal sessions of the convention. Of course, we know behind the scenes they may have been talking to people all the time. But as far as the formal process of debate goes, presenting this as a battle between these two delegations just doesn’t capture the work of the convention. And we’re very excited to find different ways to lay this out for people and different ways to help them explore how that whole process worked. But it’s much more a meeting of people who are used to writing legislation and used

to the processes of writing legislation than it is a meeting of philosophers debating abstract philosophical ideas. And very quickly the convention restricts itself to always debating in some way or other written proposals for specific language. This is not a meeting of philosophers debating very, very abstract points. That’s just not how they did their work. I just loved their conversation about the intricacies of what went into the writing at that time. Yeah, I think that the Quill project is really interesting and really the intricacies of the debate itself and of the structure of the convention are really interesting. Yeah, really are. Particularly what struck me was that idea of who these people were. Were they philosophers? I mean, he mentioned that, you know, ancient Greece That it wasn’t ancient Greece, that there wasn’t a time where there were wise men in a room just writing what is the case, but rather that it’s the process that really made it. And that the men who were at the Constitutional Convention had practical experience in self-government under British rule and in the lead-up during the American Revolution. They weren’t just academics sitting in a room, but they were really practical men trying to come up with a practical solution for what would guarantee to them Republican self-government. Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Yeah. a thing worthy of celebration. I think so. I’ve taken lots of notes for myself. Among them is a question that came in that I wanted to toss out. This one is from Tracy W. asks that students want to hear what is the most important part of the Constitution? Well, I’m asking you. For me, I think, and this is an argument born out in the Ferrell’s papers, but it’s the idea that not only is the government a check on sort of the over the passions of the people in a way that it helps to refine ideas that are being presented and create this process of debate, as Nicholas just talked about, sort of a formal process, but it’s also the people’s check on the government. that the people are the ones that are ultimately in control of legislation and those who are elected and can vote to amend the Constitution. That’s pretty good. Yeah. How about you, Gary? What do you think is the most important part? I know this is going to seem like a weird answer, but I want to say the written part. I know it sounds like a joke, but I think later on I want to talk about sort of the unwritten part and what Britain’s Constitution is. for the word that it is. But I want to get to that later because we are coming up on 29.7 seconds. You know what that means? 1,787 seconds. All right, we have reached our first one. 1787. 1787, happy birthday. Now we’ll take a look at a clip that is a trailer for one of the curricula that the Bill of Rights Institute produces, Founders in the Constitution. The signing of the Declaration of Independence symbolized a momentous step in establishing an independent nation. But what happened next? Founders and the Constitution, in their own words, looks at the remarkable stories and ideas of

America’s Founders. In Founders and the Constitution, students learn and explore each Founder’s unique role in securing our liberties and shaping the American government. Start now. Welcome back. Gary here with Kirk from the Bill of Rights Institute celebrating Constitution Day. For those just joining us, we’ve been in the middle of sort of a discussion, a conversation happening about the Constitution itself back from 1787 all the way through to today. And one of the ideas that we were leading off with is the idea of a written Constitution. What went into that written Constitution? Comparing it to Britain and how their, what we call a Constitution, it wasn’t so much one written document but a series of things from the Magna Carta to decisions that were made in courts and how they all constituted one idea. But the difference being that ours is in fact written. Yeah, that’s right. Britain’s Constitution was really a tradition of rights, stretching back to 1215 in the Magna Carta, on up through the English Bill of Rights in 1688. And that conversation is what the American colonists appealed to, and we codified it in a way. And one of the ways that, one of the challenges we had to overcome was how is it that you try and guarantee as many interests playing off each other as possible. We talked about the diversity that was around during the colonial period. How do you balance all those different interests without just developing majority tyrannies, which as the founding generation knew, studying classical Athens and Greek democracies, as well as Roman republics, that those majorities can truly be as tyrannical as a single individual. And so they took particular care in crafting Article 1 in the Constitution, which is the legislative branch. I was going to say students out there, as well as history enthusiasts, but specifically the students watching us right now, are probably familiar with Parliament, right? And that was something that existed prior to this time, but what about our legislative branch? How does that work? Parliament’s actually an interesting example, particularly because we’ve seen a a lot of discussion in the news lately about Britain’s Parliament. And one key difference is that our legislative branch and the legislative powers are truly independent from the executive. So in Britain, that executive is really in the form of the monarch, but in practice is now the prime minister. But the prime minister is actually a, I don’t mean this in a negative way, but a creature of the legislative branch. He is a member of that branch himself, and he assumes executive responsibility. We separate that out. In the legislative branch, process that of creating laws, debating and discussing in some of those formal processes that Nicholas Cole was just talking about is really key to our Constitution. Yeah, so that’s interesting. It’s a really good connection to what we were just saying in terms of the diversity of ideas, right? So that’s sort of a question that

comes up is how to balance those diverse ideas, those diverse interests in this new thing they’re building called the Congress. That’s right. And we have a truly bicameral legislature, which is odd. We have a lower house, which is the House of Representatives, which is the more populous house. Then we have the Senate, which has changed and evolved over time, but is the one that’s more removed, elected every six years versus elected every two years. And it’s the interplay of those two that is, in theory, supposed to come about in creating legislation that benefits all of us. And that slowing down of the process, the forcing of that compromise, is what eventually brings us to hopefully create legislation that benefits the whole of the country. You stole the word I was going to say about the idea of compromise. When you said in theory something should work, I think delving into what compromise is is really interesting. As a matter of fact, it came up in the conversation that Rachel had with Julie Silverbrook of Consource, and I believe they talk about compromise a little bit. Yeah, they do. And I think it’s pretty interesting how Julie delves into it. And I hope that we can kind of look at some different facets of compromise. Yeah. I think that’d be really interesting. Good question. Let’s take a look at the clip from Julie and Rachel. Terrific. So with all these different people, with all these different economic and educational backgrounds and needs, What allowed for them to come together? What did compromise mean? How did they come to the compromise that was the Constitution? Yeah, so I think it’s really important to understand that the Articles of Confederation basically weren’t working out in the post-revolutionary context. So you have this huge war debt that you can’t figure out how to pay because states are issuing their own money and it’s different. You have this sense, you know, the British are kind of still on the frontier. You have other European powers that are present in North America that there has to be something provided for the common defense for negotiation with foreign governments. But at the same time, states are kind of seeing themselves as their own little country. just loosely confederated through the Articles of Confederation. And some of the states are actually negotiating with other foreign governments. And so these economic issues, emergencies in some case with Shays’ Rebellion, where you actually have people go into open rebellion over debt and economic issues, really scare the governing class. during this time period and they decide that they need to call a special convention to address the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation, but they actually decide very early on to set aside the Articles of Confederation and create a new government, which is not an uncontroversial thing. They do this over the course of the summer of 1787.

They create a completely new national government that draws heavily on the state constitutions, state constitutional practice, Enlightenment era thinking, they look to Europe both for positive and negative examples of things to do and not to do. But in order to actually make this work, and again you have all of those regional and economic differences in place, they have to compromise. It’s the only way that they’re going to get this document together. And I have some really great quotes on compromise during the convention, if you don’t mind. I’m just going to read some of them. So, one of my favorite quotes is from Benjamin Franklin who actually says this during the convention. He says, “When a broad table is to be made and the edges of the planks do not fit, the artist takes a little from both and makes a good joint. In like manner, both sides must part with some of their demands.” And there are many other quotes. John Adams, who is not at the Constitutional Convention, writes to John Jay in December of 1787 saying that the Constitution was the result of accommodation and compromise, admirably calculated to cement all America in affection and interest as one great nation. Jefferson, talking specifically about the Connecticut or Great Compromise, says, I am captivated by the compromise of the opposite claims of the great and little states, of the latter to equal and the former to proportional influence. And then just one more, not to go too far, into the importance of compromise. There’s no too far with primary sources. Thomas Jefferson writes just two years before he passes away on the importance of compromise for a democratic government. “A government held together by the bands of reason only requires much compromise of opinion, that things even salutary should not be crammed down the throats of dissenting brethren, especially when they may be put into a form to be willingly swallowed, and that a great deal of indulgence is necessary to strengthen habits of harmony and fraternity.” So there’s this sense that compromise—well, they know from firsthand experience that compromise is necessary. We know that the people who participated either directly in the Constitutional Convention or the people who were being corresponded with secretly, because it was all meant to be secret, were being corresponded with about the Convention know that compromise is an essential part of the Constitution. It’s embedded in the DNA of the Constitution. We wouldn’t have it without compromise. At the same time, the framers are realists and they know that we’re not always going to be ruled by virtuous people. In particular, we’re not always going to be ruled by the virtuous men who are in the room

in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. So I always go to Federalist 51 where Madison famously says, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” So the constitutional design of separation of powers and checks and balances makes it so that the government is designed to drive toward compromise. What does compromise mean? Just like Franklin said, it means that not everybody’s going to be happy, right? So basically, if everybody’s a little bit happy and a little bit unhappy, you’ve probably become successful in compromising. If you think about it in your own life, You know you want an entire pizza and your sibling also wants an entire pizza and your mom says I’m going to split it directly in half. So you’re a little bit disappointed you didn’t get a whole pizza but you still got half a pizza and as it turns out a half a pizza is really actually all you needed. You’ve compromised. And so I think we can all understand compromise in a very real and practical way and understanding that there are constitutional mechanisms that drive at trying to find compromise, again, by having those natural ambitions counteract each other to to combat what Madison and a lot of the framers were concerned about, which was one political faction kind of overriding the other, was to make sure that everybody has a voice, that there’s some competition, and because of that, we always come up with a result that should be in the best interest of the greater good, but we’ve all lost a little something in the process. But by losing some things, we’ve gained toward the greater good. And I think that that’s a really important principle principle within the Constitution and I think our current political dynamic, compromise has become kind of a dirty word. And I would say if you go back to our history and you read these words about compromise, you understand its preeminent place in the writing of our founding charter, you may come to view compromise in a very different way. It is really interesting to chew on the idea of what compromise is. I mean, Julie had a really clear response to what compromise is. And yet that word, it’s like other big concepts like justice and truth. It’s such an interesting word of people’s understanding of compromise. Yeah, a little happy, a little unhappy is what she said. And I think that’s part of it. But I wonder, too, if there’s a little bit more to the story as well, because it’s in some ways a lot more complex, especially when, as Julie was talking about, we’re moving from the Art of Confederation, which had a very weak national government. So local governments, local state governments were much stronger, more involved in the day-to-day governing of individuals. And so now we’re moving to this

national government. There’s concerns about what that national government will be in charge of. And so, not that compromise wasn’t important before, but now it’s really magnified. And it’s not just that, you know, I think it’s complicated. It is. What’s captivating is that there is a project that’s tackling what the actual discussions were. If we hadn’t mentioned before, or if you’re just tuning in, the Quill Project is a really interesting project that can allow its users to see that compromise through the discussion right through the conversations that happen that’s right through really the formal process so looking at the actual notes the actual records of when decisions were made when votes were taken so that you can trace along with madison’s notes what the actual process looks like of compromise. How the sausage is made, if you will. Yes, exactly. That phrase, of course, meaning how many different people, all the processes that happen behind the scenes, as it were, or in this case hundreds of years ago, to actually know what each argument was is really interesting to trace. I feel like it’s a good time to check in with the Quill Project and sort of see what the discussion about compromise is with them. Let’s take a look. Right. And you’ve mentioned that a couple of times, how the 18th century or how the framers, how the generation of the founders viewed compromise. Can you elaborate on that a little bit more, please? I think we need to think what they thought would be a fair and legitimate process for reaching compromise. And the very first thing they do at the convention is they set up a rules committee that sets the rules of debate. and they abide by that. They don’t typically have many arguments about the rules. It’s interesting, we’ve done work subsequently on other Convention processes and many other processes have far more arguing about rules and trying to use the rules of debate to manipulate outcomes. One of the striking things about the Constitutional Convention is how little of that really goes on. But they bind themselves into a very formal process of debate that they trust will give them an opportunity to air all of the points that they really feel need airing. Although famously, of course, at different moments Hamilton walks out, certain delegations say, you know, if we carry on down this line, our instructions are going to lead us to have to walk out. You know, there can be threats like that. But by and large, I think what this generation thought was that if you did things properly, if you treated the process of debate with sufficient respect, and if you followed the norms of

parliamentary style debate, that that process would result in some kind of rational outcome that would be very much the best you could do. And the more I read these records, the more struck I am with the willingness of all of the participants really to engage with this formal process and see it through to its conclusion. I think that’s, if you like, how they managed to reach compromise. having started from positions that on the face of it simply can’t be reconciled. You know, if you think the states should be equally represented in the national legislature, or if you think a national government should be created that has a more direct relationship with the citizens of the United States, those are, at a certain level, irreconcilable positions. and take, frankly, weeks to work through at the convention to reach a point of compromise. And I don’t think it could have been rushed. I don’t think there was an easy, you know, let’s just take the plans we have in front of us, see where the common points are, and then you know, find the point in the middle of all the differences. I think it was a process that actually required time and many, many opportunities to air different issues so that people were sure that the document that resulted was really the most rational compromise that could possibly be reached. Very good. And would you say that this process of negotiation where you’re dealing with people from very different points of view, you know, famously North-South, the big states, small states, but just different cultural milieus, states where there’s religious freedom and states where there’s an established church and different economic points of view and so forth. How does this process of negotiation facilitate this idea of e pluribus unum? Out of many different opinions, many different backgrounds, we get one. We get this more unified view and understanding of the kind of government that they want and one that’s a national union out of these many different viewpoints. I think it’s striking how much, behind all of the, sorry about that, I have to edit that out. I think it’s striking that behind so many of the debates, there is a sense that the the states that are going to

form part of the Union are so different that some things are simply impossible. At one point James Wilson suggests that the president should be elected directly by the people of the United States. And that suggestion doesn’t really go anywhere. Not, I think, because the convention were anti-democratic, but because of an issue that also occurs when they’re thinking about how the electorate for the House of Representatives should be constructed, which is this: it would be very, very awkward for the federal government to involve itself in running elections when not only some states had slaves and some didn’t, but states had different property qualifications, and for the federal government to impose itself on the states and tell them who their electorate was going to be for the House of Representatives would have been a very awkward thing indeed. And so the convention finds a number of creative ways around that. For the president, of course, they invent the Electoral College, which is one way around this problem. And for the House of Representatives, they say, well, The electorate for the House of Representatives of the United States must be the same as the electorate for the most numerous part of the state legislature. So they sort of tie the federal electorate to the state electorate. and say, well, you can’t have a more restricted electorate for the federal offices without getting themselves involved in the question of defining who has the right to vote. And that is frankly a way of respecting the fact that the states are still converging even in the bits that we think of as the north and the most Democratic and Republican parts of the Union they were still converging on the idea of Universal male suffrage in this period and the the federal constitution has to respect the fact that that even northern states had different views on who could vote and By and large, the tempers at the convention tended to remain calm. There are some exceptional moments, but they tended to respect the fact that some language was going to work for some states and not work for others. There are so many things to talk about from just that one clip. I’m thinking about, I mean, mentioning the electoral college. I think we should get into that later. It reminds me of how we have that posted on some of our materials right now. We’ll get into that. His view of compromise is really important, too, to explore and sort of how they compare. The two clips we just saw. Yeah, looking at that

fair and legitimate process or the trust that the Constitutional Convention had in the process that they were going to go through, that it would ultimately result in a government that was reflective of the Republican principles that they were hoping to capture. Yeah, I think on Constitution Day, again, I’m thinking of the perspective of being in a classroom. I’m thinking about that there were existing processes and sometimes learning those processes are important to get to some outcome even if during the time he mentioned there were some false starts perhaps or when people wanted to walk out. I think that’s really interesting. Yeah, absolutely. And that representation was at the core of that conversation which is obviously critical in Republican government. Absolutely, which is trying to tackle the idea of pluralism. That’s right. Which is a great segue into the conversation between Chris and Dr. David Bob from the BRI, Bill Price Institute. Let’s take a look at that, and I want to talk about that afterwards. Let’s take a look. Very often today we’re sort of lulled into the belief that America is a melting pot, that all of the individualities are supposed to disappear and not be… not be seen, that we’re supposed to all come together and forget about our own national identities, ethnic origins, that sort of thing. And that’s really not what the founders had in mind. Well, at least when it comes to your different views on a whole range of issues, right? The national government in the United States was not to be an arbiter, for example, of religion. Let’s take that just and drill down for a second on that example because I think it’s in that area that perhaps is most emblematic of what it means to have out of many, one. The United States of America was founded on the idea not that we should Seek to do away with disagreement, but that we should manage disagreement You know think of even the way the Constitutional Convention itself was structured long hot months four of them from May till September You have a bunch of folks that are drawn from a variety of different interests variety of different occupations variety of different backgrounds each individual coming into that debate representing a state Now, the debate that ensued was tumultuous. It looked like at various points in that long hot summer in Philadelphia in 1787 that everything was going to collapse, that there was going to be no agreement and that there would be no way forward, just like it happened in Annapolis. The whole approach of that meeting, of that convention, was how do we manage this debate? How do we manage these plural perspectives? Not that we come to an agreement that would erase the identity of each state, that would say we’re all going to come into one super state and that would dissolve the differences. But rather it was an idea that we have

to figure out how we’re going to come together without shedding who we are as individual human beings and then also how the states can retain their respective identities and different ways of life. The founders were acutely aware of the problem, but also the possibility of pluralism. They reveled in that idea. And what they didn’t want to do was extinguish what Madison called faction. Rather you multiply factions, right? You say that if there’s so many different competing interests, ambition will be set against ambition. And it will be very difficult for any one of those factions which are defined as acting in a way that’s inimical to the common good. Any one of those factions is not going to be able to gain power over the state apparatus. And again, think of what they’re reacting against. The whole of human history had mainly been about one faction, whether it was one person, a small group of people, or a larger group exercising absolute control over others. That kind of tyranny is what you want to avoid. What you want to get to is liberty. And so when it came to religion, the founders knew that there were a ton of different religious faiths. They were also cognizant of the fact that some people at the time of the American founding were what today we would call nones. They did not profess a religious faith. They were free thinkers, agnostics and atheists. They knew that every type of religious perspective should be protected under the United States Constitution. And that’s why in the written text of that document there can be no public, there can be no religious test for any federal office holder. Now did that mean that they wanted to extinguish the idea of religious faith? On the contrary. They wanted faith to flourish where it was conducive and conduced to the common good. but they didn’t want to stamp out those differences, but they knew that by not erecting one national church, that there was going to be a better potential for all of the different churches, all of the different denominations, all of the different faiths to flourish, also carving out room for those who wish to join none of them. And what I think is really remarkable about this is that it worked. The men and women of the American founding were practical individuals for the most part. There were some that were really oriented towards theory like James Madison. He really went to his John Locke. Thomas Jefferson did too. We can even see their notes, right? But they were all of them practical politicians trying to figure out how to forge a compromise in which human flourishing was the main end. And what’s remarkable, I think, is that they set up a system. So that clip makes me think a lot of how the Federalists and the debates that happened and

how they had to balance sort of varied interests. Yeah, and so again today, September 17th, is the day that the Constitution was sent out for ratification. And so throughout that process of ratification, the founders had to defend what they had produced, the framers, excuse me, had to defend the Constitution that had been produced. And they had these arguments, and the possibility that they saw in pluralism was also a challenge in that you have all these interests, And in 10 Federalists, James Madison has a great quote. He said that liberty is to air what fire is to or what liberty is to faction what fire is to air is to fire that was very no hey I suggest reading federalist 10 kids yeah but the idea being that when you have Liberty you’re going to have faction people are going to have different interests they’re going to have factions are going to form people are going to group together around ideas that they’re passionate about and so the Constitution needed to sort of take that into account. And one way it did that was by expanding the spheres. So by allowing for more factions to be present, they actually balance each other out so that you don’t end up with majority tyranny. Yeah, that interesting, that word faction, I think, has such a meaning now, but it really has a deep roots in that idea of difference of opinion when it gets serious enough that it’s going to have major impacts on lots of people. I think it’s one to tackle. We do have another question I’d love to get to. I’m looking at my notes because you’re talking about factions and you’re talking about different opinions and getting something through. We have one here from Janet Vianna C. who says, “Students want to know why there is no push for new amendments with so many changes in our society, especially with technology.” Yeah, and I think that’s a really interesting question and one that comes up often. And I would say that I think there often is pushes for some amendments, but I think it’s more interesting to look at how the constitutional process works. How is it that we adapt to these changes over time? The Commerce Clause, for example, is one that continues to function and regulate commerce regardless of the technology, whether it was horses and buggies or now cars. Sure. And we’ve also seen the development of different capacities within the government to deal with some of these technological challenges. The FCC, for example, the Federal Communications Commission, is a part of the executive branch. It helps to regulate signals technology and all kinds of different things. So the country adapts, but the Constitution itself sort of outlines these broad prescriptions and allows for us as the people to legislate on these things. I’m glad you brought up the first branch because I definitely want to delve into that. As a matter of fact, I think we have some materials on the first branch. We do. I’m wondering if we can share that and maybe talk about that and maybe talk more about the different

branches and how they address this big question that we have about this unum, this many out of one. Let’s take a look. Why does Congress exist? What did the founders intend the legislative branch to accomplish? Why is it so complicated? Want to help your students answer these questions? Check out the first branch, Congress and the Constitution, where we explore the complex workings of Congress and how it interacts with the other branches of government to uphold the Constitution. From the nature of representation, the Constitutional Convention, enumerated powers, checks and balances, and more. The First Branch, Congress and the Constitution, exposes the intricacies that keep the legislative branch working, or not working, under a constitutional lens. Get started today. Welcome back to Constitution Day Live. We’ve just passed our first hour. Not to worry, in case you’re just joining us, we’ve spent a lot of the first hour talking about our overarching theme of e pluribus unum, out of many one. Kirk, our go-to curriculum slash historian has really been helping us talk about that. We were talking a lot about the legislative branch, but I was wondering if we could pivot a little bit because we have not yet talked about the executive branch. And I feel like, you know, when one thinks out of many, one, the one face of of the country. A lot of people think of the president. Yeah, that’s certainly right, and especially in the modern era. The presidency has really assumed a character of, they are the person that we look to in a lot of ways. They are the most readily identifiable member of the national government, although that wasn’t always the case. It’s interesting. Sometimes we refer to the bearded presidents, right, from the 1880s and 1890s, people with such household names as Rutherford B. Hayes and Andrew Garfield. It makes me aware that we both are bearded as well. Well, this is true. But it’s interesting because the legislative branch was really the dominant branch at the end of the 19th century. But the personality of the president has become such now that they really have become that focal point. And they play a very specific role in our governing structure. Would you say that the role is as executive as one who carries out the laws, that they’re protecting the UNAM? Is that what you would say? I think it could be looked at that way. They have a certain responsibility to the laws of the United States and they all swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. And so in that way, they are charged with protecting that UNAM if the UNAM is our national constitution. And perhaps if that UNAM is also the right to the people. I certainly think they play a role. You mentioned the bearded presidents and how they compare to what the expectations are. Maybe the expectation isn’t to do so many things or whatnot. I’m thinking about the limitations. I’m thinking about we now accept that these, whatever they are accomplishing,

is in four-year stints. Why four years? Why not for life? Why not one year? Why not… It was debated at the Constitutional Convention, in fact. I had a feeling. And, yeah, funny enough, it was debated about life. Plural executive was also debated. But ultimately, what they came down to was they wanted an office that was responsive to the people in some capacity. They wanted someone that could be held accountable, and so that’s that four year stint, not a longer six or even eight years, as was discussed. But they also wanted someone that was separate from that legislative branch, who had that executive role in order to have the energy, as they would call it, which is to say that the enforceability, the ability to actually act and drive the country towards accomplishing the laws that it had passed. And so that’s why they settled on one executive for four years. Driving the country to that’s a really interesting point. Yeah, I Think it’s time to check in with Chris speaking of the the fact that we were talking about both the executive and the legislative We know that Chris is out there. Chris Jansen is out there. He’s a live tweeting right now I believe let’s see if he’s found a don’t know where he is. Hello. Hello, Chris. This is Gary and Kirk. Oh Hey Gary, hey Kirk. How are you? So for those just joining us, about an hour ago we sent Chris and Sarah out into the DC metro area to find the Unum. Chris, first question, did you find the Unum? I can’t say for sure that we have yet, although we’ve seen some interesting things. We just left the Supreme Court building and we’re now literally standing at the foot of the steps to the United States Capitol. And we’re looking up at Freedom, who sits atop the dome. Around her feet is the very motto that we’re discussing today, “I pluribus unum.” – Interesting, wow, very interesting. Well, how about that? – We’re surrounded by iconography, is that correct? – Sure. – Of national unity. Certainly the Supreme Court building, we were thinking about the concept of equal justice under the law, which it says over the frontispiece to the entrance of the Supreme Court, is one, idea or concept that unifies us. At least it’s a goal, an aspiration. Yeah, absolutely. It certainly does. And I’m struck by the iconography you’re seeing. The dome, of course, was completed in 1863 in the midst of Civil War. So it’s another thing that is sort of binding us, connecting us together. And tell us more about this freedom statue. So the Statue of Freedom is actually facing, you would think she would be facing the mall, but she’s actually facing in the other direction, which is interesting. I think the idea for that was that she was supposed to be greeting or welcoming people coming into the Capitol, entering the Capitol at the

time that it was originally designed. The building itself, you know, is sort of a representation of unity. It was a the cornerstone was laid by George Washington himself. And the idea originally was that our presidents would be buried in the Capitol. And there is actually a crypt. However, there is no one buried in the Capitol. George Washington, as many know, is buried at Mount Vernon. Of course, it is the building where our first branch of government works so the representatives of all of us work in this very building on two office buildings or the four I guess office buildings on either side. It sounds like you’re not finding the UNAMs though why do you think that is? Why do I think? It’s so hard to find. It’s hard to find but as I said we’re seeing a lot of you know representations of that and Yeah, we’re just walking around the Capitol building now. We’re going to head over to the… Well, actually, I’ll leave that as a surprise. Oh, I was going to ask where you’re going next, and now I’m slightly saddened. But I’m intrigued to find out. What do you say we check back in in our third hour? That gives you a little time to go wherever you’re going. Sounds great. And I’m excited for the people who are seeing your live tweets as you’re doing this. Yeah. Please follow us on Twitter, and you’ll see… you’ll see some photos. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to do that. Cool. Well, thanks, Chris. We’ll check back with you later. Okay, we’ll talk to you soon. Okay, stay safe. Bye. Bye, guys. Will do. It’s lovely weather out there today. Yeah, absolutely. We’re very fortunate. And that’s really interesting, and I think he’s touching on equal protection under the law, looking at the legislative branch, and then we just mentioned the executive. Right. How these different branches sort of interplay with one another in order to help uphold and protect and defend the Constitution and the freedoms contained within the Constitution. I think that’s a really interesting question that I feel like might be addressed in another part of the interview that happened with the Beckett Fund. I think so. What do you say we check in with Mansi and Stan and Mark and see if they talk about these things? Let’s take a look. So in reading some of Mr. Hassan’s writings, you get the sense that he didn’t just think this was up to the courts. He felt like the other branches of government had a role in this and that we do too. What does the executive branch have as a role here? What kind of a role does the legislative branch have? And what’s on us? Yeah, so, I mean, we all have a role, right? We have government of the people, by the people, and for the people, right? The people have a role. All the branches have a role. So what role does the executive have? Well, the executive is executing the law, right? They are carrying out the law. One of the laws they’re supposed to carry out is respecting religious diversity and religious freedom. And so they have to carry out their constitutional obligations. They have obligations that have been laid out by Congress where Congress

says, OK, federal government, when you’re doing this, you have to, for example, not steamroll the burial ground of the Native Americans, which is one of the cases we’ve had, where some agencies building a highway and they say, “Oh, we don’t care that this is sacred Native American ground. We’re just going to forge right through it.” Right? So the executive has an obligation to follow the law and respect religious liberty. Congress has an obligation. They are also sworn to uphold the Constitution and many, many times Congress will lay down rules saying when the federal government is doing things we have to respect religion in this way. Even in prisons, even in our prisons, people have done very bad things and earned their time in prison. We have said as a society that they get religious liberty and that’s a good thing. That’s a right thing because they’re still human beings. They still ought to get liberty and that’s because the Supreme Court and the Constitution and Congress have all gotten together and said we’re going to do that. Right, you may lose your rights, but you don’t lose your human dignity. Because that cues up. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, I think that was really interesting from the Beckett Fund. And I think that idea that we all have a role to play, even as all these branches are working in coordination with one another to get to that common good, that unum, we also have a part to play in that. We do. Yeah, that concept of common good is one we haven’t really touched upon, but I like that we’re making a connection between this unum and a common good. Again, it almost assumes a similar understanding of what good is, and yet to function one sort of has to. I think we should check back in with them because this idea of pluralism, I think, is something really important. Yeah, absolutely. Let’s take a look. So what’s on us as individuals? I mean, let’s think about this from the standpoint of just regular folks walking around every day, students walking into a classroom. How do you create a feeling of unity of any kind in a nation when one of our sort of touchstone rights is this right to be that different, all the way down to our core, what it is we think and believe and how we want to live that out? How does that work? It’s embracing diversity and so making sure that one, you’re literate in what other people believe. Just as you’re curious about what you believe, being curious about what other people believe is really important so that you’re not, like Mark said, steamrolling someone or crushing someone because of what they believe. A great example of a case that we had is a case on goat sacrifice where someone’s neighbors weren’t aware that what they were doing in sacrificing a goat was part of their religious tradition. The Yoruba tribes in Africa, when they came over, they had a mix with Catholicism that turned into Santeria practices. And this Santeria is a real religion. It’s practiced in many areas of the US, in Texas, and also in Florida. This person was being told that he wasn’t allowed to have these ceremonies, which is

how he passes on the faith from one priest to another. It’s a beautiful ritual. Some people found it annoying. Just because your religion is annoying doesn’t mean that the government has the right to stop you from worshipping and stop you from practicing it and from believing it. That comes with religious literacy. That comes with being curious about what other people believe and not just accepting and I actually don’t even like the word tolerating. I think it comes from love of neighbor. You want someone else to have the same rights that you have. It’s that charity and generosity. And can I say, I think it’s also self-preservation, right? I mean, like, we can all look around at our neighbors and find people who have different political beliefs, different religious beliefs, different thoughts about all sorts of things in the world, right? And they’re living lives that are different from ours. If we want the space to live our own lives the way we want to live it, then we need to be willing to allow our neighbor who’s of a different race, a different religion, a different political belief, a different whatever, we ought to be willing to allow them the space to do it. So I actually think, as you said, a core part of being American is the ability to disagree with your neighbor. I think that’s exactly right. But it ought to be sort of cherishing and embracing the idea that, hey, that’s what freedom looks like. I mean, we could have a world where we weren’t free to have different beliefs than our neighbors do. But I don’t think any of us really want to live in that world. I think we all kind of like the world where we’ve got the freedom and ability to see things the way we do and just live with the fact that our neighbors are different. That’s OK. That’s not a problem. So I think that’s really interesting and that idea that all of us as individuals inherently are different and I think that is really at the core of this American experiment in self-government and is what we touched on a little earlier when we were talking about that belief, whatever our own beliefs are, religious or otherwise, are really inherent to our own individual nature. Yeah, the idea of that plurality, that word I think It’s such a rich word to tackle about the idea of so many different, yet again, out of that one, let’s say common good for now. Yeah, I think that’s great. And you know, we got a really good question from Jan S. in Florida. She asks, “What do you think would happen if the Constitution was never made?” Wow, no constitution. First of all, this would be a very strange day to celebrate, but in all seriousness, no constitution. Having something written down, I think, really is important. I think having that idea of a common good is key. Let me think about this for a little bit. I believe Julie Silverbrook at Consource, in her conversation with Rachel, kind of took a look at that as well, and I think we’re going to come back maybe and answer that more fully. That sounds great. Well, let’s take a look at Julie. So, so much of what we have to look at from this period comes from the documents that are still preserved. What would you say is the importance of reading these documents or the importance of working with primary sources both on Constitution Day and throughout the year? Yeah, so these are the firsthand accounts of

what happened during that period. So go read the colonial charters so you understand the way that colonies were originally set up. It’s the absolute best way to understand that. the diaries and letters and firsthand accounts of the people who were living there. Go look at those early state constitutions. Look at how they were developed. You’re going to see similarities and differences between those state constitutions and our federal constitution. You’re going to see difference between those early state constitutions and your modern state constitution. These are the building blocks of who we are. These are the pieces of DNA that make up the American body. And I think it’s so fundamentally important to go and actually look at them. Ancestry.com and 23andMe and all of this impulse to do genealogical research to understand who you are as an individual, I think it’s the same thing to say I want to go back and do the genealogy of my country and understand who we are, warts and all, as Americans. So Julie brings up a really important point about That there are still state constitutions, right? So I’m tying in Jan’s question and saying that the codification is also a part of a bigger question of a federal Constitution Which I think is what the students were asking about and and the state constitutions What are your thoughts on federalism and all that? Yeah, I think it’s interesting. We have a divided sovereignty, which is an interesting thing to think about, which means that both we give authority to the federal government as well as our local state governments for very different reasons. And that’s partly to preserve that local control that the framers thought was really important within a Republican government. Yeah, and there still is a real importance to writing constitutions in terms of God, having all these states, the fact that at the time there were 13, right? And then… Now we have 50. Now we have 50 plus. Yeah. I think there is a real value to that. And that divided sovereignty thing is a really interesting, was a really interesting point in terms of, are they ever in conflict? That’s right. Yeah, are they, and what happens when they are? How do these disputes get wrestled out? And it’s interesting, even from the beginning, challenges about what was state authority, what was national authority were discussed. Even James Madison and Thomas Jefferson brought forth the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions in opposition to the Alien Sedition Acts very early on in the country’s history. And it’s figuring out how those two speak to one another is almost another level of compromise. Yeah, I’m thinking about Jan’s question or her class’s question as well, or Jan’s question. In terms of, I’m always thinking in terms of the school experience and the rules that

are there and which ones are written, which ones are understood, and then is there an agreement on them? And I think that’s a question I think out there I would love to hear more from folks. Yeah, I think it’s an interesting one to really wrestle with. What is it that the Constitution is actually doing? What does it constitute? How does it embody our civic society? What is its role for us? And how does it go about protecting our freedoms as we may appeal to them? And I think we’ll get into this later, but as… as we often see them as defined in the Declaration of Independence, you know, that idea that we’re, you know, have the freedom to pursue happiness, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How is it that the government is oriented toward helping to do that through a written constitution? Yeah, I think that’s really important. I think our next clip might address some of our questions. Let’s take a look at that. All right, let’s take a look. So we’ve talked about all these different ways that the different states were developing their constitutions. What was it about the act of creating a constitution that brought both the people of the states together, but then the states together as a unified whole? Yeah, so I think what’s really important to remember is that these colonies were set up by British charters and the British charters defined the way that they were governed. So during the Revolution, in some cases people just refashioned, the colonists just refashioned their charters to operate as government. But for other colonies that was not sufficient and so what they really needed to do was have a clean break. And if you already were established and governing under a written document, I think it is just logical that if you’re going to break from that and do something different, you’re also going to write that down. So I think that’s a really important act. And it is different than the British model, which is an unwritten constitution. But really, when states start writing their own state constitutions, and some of this predates the Declaration of Independence that was passed on July 4, 1776, that to me is like a real moment where the revolution is happening. You can’t really go back once you’ve written a new governing document and then you’ve agreed to it. That’s a huge watershed moment and this is people choosing to be a part of this body. So you know a constitution, what’s in that it’s constitute, it constitutes the body politic. Writing allows for you to disseminate it so that other people in the colonies now understand this new formation. government, it’s a compact that we’re agreeing to and you actually see the invention of a constitutional convention during this period where between New Hampshire and Massachusetts basically they come up with these special constitutional conventions. They’re specially elected bodies just for ratifying the Constitution and that’s something

that is obviously used during the federal constitutional model. So we’ve talked a lot about people coming together and our theme for Constitution Day is E Pluribus Unum. So Julie Silverbrook, what does E Pluribus Unum mean to you? Yeah, so there’s the actual definition which is out of many, one. And we are one American people. We are very, very diverse. Today, there was less diversity back then, but there still was diversity. And I think it’s embracing all that it means to be an American, embracing all parts of our history, the good, the bad, the ugly, the same way we do as individuals. So I always try to analogize this to self-actualization. It’s like, how do I become a fully actualized citizen? Is I have to grapple with the negative and the positive and to come out and say, this is who I am and I would like to become more perfect. And it’s right there in the constitution that we are ever becoming a more perfect union. That’s part of it. Uh, part of that E Pluribus Unum that that’s what we’re doing. And so I, I have, um, I think a very realistic sense of American history. Um, it wasn’t always, you know, sunshine and rainbows, uh, but that we are always becoming or trying to become more perfect. We are always trying to become more united. And that’s beautiful and optimistic. And I prefer to look at America in that optimistic way while being very realistic about some of the warts in our past. Yeah, I think that this working to become more perfect is really interesting and you know, some of the principles that work to help allow that to happen, I think were talked about by Nicholas and Tony as well. Yeah, the convention really shows how principles can unify and I’d like to dive into the principles idea, but let’s take a look at the clip first. Let’s take a look. Do you think that there were, what animating principles were central to the Constitution that emerged and to Constitution making? What sort of unified their vision and maybe facilitated negotiation? Were there basic underlying principles that were very important to them? They were all fundamentally Republican. Although people can find speeches which, taken out of context, you can start to present as a sort of secret coup by sort of anti-democratic forces at the convention. Fundamentally, the convention agreed that the people of America should have a real say

in how the nation was governed. And I think that’s just a starting point for all of them. And then the question is, well, how do you put that into effect? And that’s where they started to have some disagreements. But I think they could always fall back upon that. I think they also agreed that the principle of separation of powers was very important. So, you know, the least controversial thing, the first sort of serious framing proposition of the convention is that there should be a proper separation of powers between legislative, executive and judicial parts of the Constitution. And that’s just not controversial. Nobody argues with that. And that has two important consequences. One is they fundamentally agree that as a principle of good governance. But secondly, in creating those three branches of government, they are all agreeing, no matter where they sit on the sort of national government desiring or confederation desiring ends of the spectrum, they all agree that the new government should be a fully competent government, that it should have a power to create its own laws and a power to execute those laws and a power to judge those laws. And that’s really not in dispute. And I think if you think that the convention never really deviates from those broad principles that this should be a properly competent government, it should be based on the separation of powers, and that it should be meaningfully republican. then a lot of the work of the Convention is well working out how does that work in practice. But I think there is that consensus, notwithstanding what some people have sometimes said about, you know, viewing the Convention almost as a kind of counter-revolution. I think that’s just not a reasonable depiction of what went on. And so what are some of the central key points in negotiating historical texts? You say you’ve started to look at some others that you call projects. What have been some of the more successful ones in history and maybe some ones that are less successful? I think what started to interest us with the projects we’ve started to look at is how much formality has been a part of these negotiations that we’ve looked at. And by formality, I don’t just mean,

you know, there was a kind of obsession with rules and who could speak when and so on, but also that almost every speech made at the convention is made concerning a specific proposition of written text, specific language that is under debate. And that’s really one of the secrets to how these sort of processes work. We think of it as a great meeting of philosophers and the great paintings that depict the convention show sometimes what can look like quite a rowdy scene with people standing and talking. But actually, The secret to making this work was that it was always very clear at any particular moment what had and had not been agreed, and what was the appropriate thing to be discussing at a particular moment because they would work through documents line by line and paragraph by paragraph and so you would know very clearly when was the right moment to be raising particular issues and when maybe those moments had passed and you maybe had to wait for the next iteration of the draft. And I think that feature of the convention which we also see in the Bill of Rights debates in Congress and again at state level constitutional conventions in America or much more modern processes like the Indian Constitution that’s written 1946 to 9 or the creation of UN documents after the Second World War. All of these processes very paper-based and really dependent on a secretariat that is able to tell you what you have and haven’t agreed and that for me is one of the really fascinating features of these debates. Now of course we know that people have conversations outside of the formal settings and we know that all of that goes on as well but as far as the formal process is concerned it really is kept on the rails by this commitment to being very precise about what is and is not under discussion at a particular moment. And as we set the 1787 Convention in the context of other American state-level conventions or international processes of debate, that’s one of the features we’re finding again and again, that it’s that formality that seems to make these processes work. You know, I think it’s really interesting unpacking that process that the Framers went through

and showing how it is that they were able to come to compromise and how it is that they worked through these different conversations throughout the convention. Yeah, I’ve been feverishly writing down notes about that and how it compares to what we’ve been talking about before and this idea of how principles could be big ideas but also the principles of how you have conversations. Right, and speaking of those principles, let’s check out another brief teaser for another Bill of Rights Institute curriculum on religious liberty. Cool. Your freedom to worship, or not, as you see fit, is a cornerstone of America’s unique history. Religious Liberty: An American Experiment offers compelling coursework exploring religious toleration versus religious liberty, the First Amendment, Supreme Court cases, separation of church and state, and so much more. To make this timeless topic exciting for today’s students, get started now. So it’s interesting, we’re talking again about balancing these interests and how it is that in a plural society we don’t have any one group’s rights being trampled upon. And yet we are starting to, in our conversation, talk about having a commonality, right? Of being of, if not of one mind, but of a similar mind. If nothing else, agreeing on the idea of principles, whether or not they are what we have now come to say are constitutional principles or are the principles of how you have conversations, of that process that leads to something. So now, I mean, now that we’re in our almost second hour, we’ve got this story. strange tension between this idea of diversity of thought, but then also this commonality. Yeah, that’s right. And you know, it’s interesting to think about the preamble itself, right? Because that’s really a statement of principle. It’s what it is that the Constitution was laying out to do. You might think of it as sort of a mission statement, right? For what the purpose of government was going to be. And you know, I think the interesting phrase, and I know Julie touched on this, is working towards that more perfect union. And I think that’s always important to mention with principals is that they are something that we are pointing towards. But clearly throughout the United States history, there have been times when they haven’t been fully achieved, rights haven’t been fully recognized. And that’s where I think it turns on all of us as citizens to jealously guard these ideas and try to make sure that they are being applied as we would hope they would be. Absolutely. I mean at the time, and now I’ve grabbed my pocket Constitution here, which is from the Bill of Rights. Don’t leave home without it. It’s fun to just have on hand, particularly today. And you’re right, that preamble is really interesting. Even if you’ve read it a bunch of times, I think it’s interesting to go back to it, right? “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common

defense, promote the general welfare,” not Jennifer welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, do ordain and establish the Constitution for the United States of America. We take it so for granted, and yet it’s interesting going back again in time mentally to that time almost polarization do you think that was happening at that time? Yeah, and I think that’s again the inherent tension right and Mark and Monsi touched on this as well in one of our earlier clips which by the way if you want to go back and review any one of the clips that we’ve been playing throughout the program today all of them are available on YouTube and right now after after our recording today so So it’s interesting because it is that tension between all these different ideas, all these different interests, all these different backgrounds, and yet we’re trying to move in a direction that benefits everyone. Again, it’s coming back, if you think about it on a small scale, getting everyone in your classroom to agree on a certain project or a certain idea. Right. Even if some of those, we use the word factions, are so far apart, we don’t know how they would come together. That’s right. I think David and Chris talked about this. Yeah, I think so. Why don’t we take a look? I’m interested in this whole idea of persuasion being inherent in the process. Can you talk a little bit about the lesson that we can take from that today and in our own sort of politically divided, divided current society around how persuasion is an important part of the process? America today certainly is polarized. We’ve been more polarized in our past, and I think one of the misconceptions about the American founding is that there was unanimity. The historian David McCullough likes to say, you know, it’s like the founding fathers got to sit around and say, “Isn’t it great being the founding fathers?” Right? They didn’t know if their experiment was going to work or not. Today we wonder if it is going to continue. Because we are so polarized, it can feel like we’re flying off in 325 million different directions. That is a disconcerting feeling. We see that in the lives of young people at the Bill of Rights Institute, where they wonder, for example, if I have a friend, will I be able to maintain that friendship if we disagree about things? The lesson I think we can take away from Madison and Jefferson is that if you want to succeed, at coming to an UNAM, don’t use the power of the state to enforce that. And don’t be majoritarian about it either. Because let’s say you can cobble together a coalition of 50% plus one and ram through something that is inimical to the common good. That’s still a faction. That was Madison’s central insight, that you can have a majority that is still a faction, that is which is acting in contrary to the good of the whole, contrary to civil society’s well-being. And what they did in this long, hard-fought battle for religious freedom in Virginia, which by the way led to the establishment of religious freedom in the nation as a

whole, they worked very hard to cobble together a coalition of disparate interests. I’d say the main thing that we can learn from their example is Keep your eye on the North Star. Cobble together the coalition where you all are looking up to those same ideas that are found in that. In that idea of the Declaration of Independence’s promise of freedom and equality for all. By focusing on the big picture, it allows people to set aside those differences that really don’t have to be at the heart of a thing. They’re peripheral. And I think the question that faces the United States of America today is, can we regain a sense of what that North Star means for our lives today. Not in an abstract way, but in a real concrete way in which we can say on these things we agree. On these many other things, there is going to be rampant disagreement and that’s okay. But these are the things that can hold us together that really will be the core of the UNAM. I think that idea of persuasion is really interesting because persuasion is difficult to do. I mean, and the idea that that’s the direction our founders went in the framers of the Constitutional Convention were really serious about creating sort of democratic self-government is really interesting because it is a hard process, isn’t it? It is a hard process. And what you said makes me think of a number of different things. One, how when you use the word persuasion, there’s almost this emotional element to it. Right. Right. And I think what David and Chris were just talking about is really important to recall that these are human beings who don’t know how things are going to turn out. who have wants. The second thing when you said persuasion makes me think it often is I want this, you want that or not that and there’s a wall in between and yet as you said self-governance a huge part of that is the art of dialogue, the art of talking about it. Yeah, I think that’s really interesting and reminds me of another Federalist paper, Federalist 37, which is a little bit more off the beaten path. But in it, James Madison’s writing and sort of formulating some of his thoughts on the Constitution. And he says, you know, a faultless plan was not to be expected. You know, this idea that, you know, and then he goes on to say that also the people who are judging this also are faulty. I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind that we have opinions, our emotions often get bound up in them, but by no means are any of us the sole possessors of truth. No, no, no. And I also like that it’s a faultless plan. You mentioned Federalist 37 just now, you said earlier. Again, if you’re just tuning in, it’s totally fine. I know we’re going to be going throughout the day. So if your classes are new and just joining us, welcome. We’re just diving out. in throughout the day on this. And the idea of a faultless plan is an interesting one too because that makes me think there must have been successes and failures that happened, right? I mean, part of dialogue isn’t something immediately transfers into something else. Rather, there’s

a back and forth. Some things are left on the cutting room floor, as they say. And I think successes and failures are an important thing to consider. Yeah, and I think there’s certainly highs and lows. that with the Constitutional Convention, there’s certainly amazing things that they were able to accomplish. And there’s also certain things that they weren’t able to accomplish, that they didn’t get resolved as we probably would have wanted them to. And Nicholas and Tony, I think, touched on that. So why don’t we check back in with them? – What do you think were some of the great successes or failures or missions specifically of the American Constitutional Convention? – Well, the really, interesting success that they have that nobody had thought about or properly theorized before they started their work was the idea of meaningfully dividing sovereignty between a national government and state governments even Madison comes to the convention famously with these notes on ancient and modern confederacies in his pocket believing that for a confederacy to be successful the national government must be properly sovereign in the sense of being able to have the final say over what is and is not good enough or is or is not appropriate for the Union and there was no European theorist for divided sovereignty that they could quote This is something that they work out through a process of debate and working out what will and will not be acceptable to the different states. That’s an incredible thing to have achieved as a group. And it needs a lot of theoretical working out after the convention is over. And in a way, American theorists are still working out exactly what that means. sometimes those debates have not always gone very well in American history, but fundamentally that is one of the achievements of the convention is to invent this new kind of union that is neither really a confederation of states. And what do you think we’re… The final text is a clarification that nobody is enslaved by federal law. They make a very small clarification to the text to make it very clear that anybody who is enslaved is enslaved by state law, not by federal law. And I’m glad that that clarification was made. I think the Constitution is sometimes condemned now for having made too many compromises with slave-owning

states. And I think a fair reading of the record shows that the Convention didn’t really have the freedom to debate the morality of slavery, although many members of the convention did bring it up during the debates, but it wasn’t really a question of whether the convention would adopt slavery as a system for America or would rule it out. They were dealing with the fact that many states allowed for slavery, some states didn’t, and how do you form a union based on such different principles? And although they did make many, many compromises with slaveholding states to reassure them that the national government wouldn’t be a vehicle for abolition, and perhaps we can debate whether they went too far or not, I’m just very grateful that at the end of the convention they really do clarify that position that it is state law that they’re recognizing. I think the fundamental compromise that really shows itself in the Electoral College concerns the question of what weight should be given to the opinions of different voters in different parts of the Union. I think they they find a compromise on that issue that comes out in different parts of the text where they don’t say America is simply going to be governed by a kind of majority rule. And I think that’s very important for a nation that is as diverse as the United States is and remains. You know, I think Nicholas’s points there are really interesting. I think everything that the Constitutional Convention was able to work through is just fascinating. And that really, that drive to develop stability while having the requisite energy, again that word energy, necessary for executing and carrying out these laws for a national government was a big challenge. Absolutely. And he brought back something we had mentioned earlier, or you had mentioned earlier, about divided sovereignty and the role of the federal government and the states. And we had mentioned much earlier about federalism. And one of the ones that he hit upon that I think is important to note, and there are many societal issues that were being discussed and wrestled with and we can look back on and question. But I think one he talked about in this section that I thought was really interesting was the question of slavery. Yeah, and slavery was certainly there at the founding. It was something that was discussed and debated. There are very divided opinions about it at the Constitutional Convention itself. And then as, obviously, we move into the 19th century, those things come up. It is at the core of what leads to the Civil War, the Compromise of

1820, later the Missouri Compromise, all these things, or excuse me, the Compromise of 1850. All of these things are rooted in that idea and it develops a debate and there’s actually a really interesting discussion between William Lloyd Garrison, who’s a radical abolitionist, and Frederick Douglass, who someone will talk about later, debating just this question, is the Constitution pro-slavery or anti-slavery? And Frederick Douglass delivers a speech in Glasgow, Scotland in 1860 that tackles this. It’s really interesting to look into should you want to read more about it. – I definitely think being able to turn to resources like that are essential to continuing that conversation because there’s not a definitive piece or piece of paper that’s gonna address these things. And I like that you can take a look at these other works. – I think that’s right. And I think it shows something that Julie also touched on, which is the societal discourse. How is it that through our history, we’ve discussed and debated and wrestled with these ideas? And I think her and Rachel talked about that quite a bit. So why don’t we take a look at what they had to say? You mentioned these three groups, the ones that were satisfied with kind of the status quo, the ones that were concerned, and the ones that were an outright rebellion. Even as the war progressed, you still had these three groups interacting. What can you tell us about the percentages or how those three groups were interacting throughout the war period? So I think some historians estimate that it was about a third, a third and a third. So it’s pretty evenly divided. I think the people who were thinking there could be some kind of compromise eventually are won over to the revolutionary cause. They’re preaching from the pulpits to say this is preordained that we should be independent. They are publishing pamphlets like Common Sense. I just don’t think you can understate how influential Common Sense was in not just saying this isn’t just about attacking the current king’s actions. This is attacking monarchy, right, that monarchical principle. And then you have these state constitutions that are drafted where you have relatively weak executive branches because of the experience with the British monarchy. And you have these much more powerful legislatures, again, because the colonial experience was the these provincial congresses were what were checking British power during the colonial period. And so you see fairly robust legislative bodies put together during the colonial, or during that transitional period during the Revolutionary War. And that again impacts decision making at the Constitutional Convention. So I think that idea of societal discourse is really interesting and something that continues on now, you know, sort of within the framework of our civil society. Yeah, it’s really a good exemplification of our theme, right? This e pluribus unum. Throughout the day, that’s sort of the

theme we’ve been tackling this Constitution Day. And I think of discourse in terms of there’s one conversation happening, or maybe many, but they’re connected to each other. but it’s made of different voices. And I think that’s such an essential part of what’s being discussed today. Yeah, that’s right. And earlier we were touching on technology and how technology might affect some of these conversations. And obviously we live in the digital age, so we have things like Twitter, which feel free to tweet us and follow Chris as he’s going around the city. And we also have Facebook, all these different modes of communicating. And it’s interesting to think back at the founding period, the modes of communication were different, but the communication still happened. One of the most popular pamphlets in 1776 on the eve of the Declaration of Independence was Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published in January of 1776, wherein he lays out a case for why it is that we should break away from the empire and move forward. And that was his way, again, tying into what David had just talked about, persuasion. He’s working to persuade his fellow citizens that independence is the right course for the colonies at that time. – That’s right, talk about going viral, that pamphlets like that are the kinds of things that today still we think about and engage with as if it’s a conversation that’s happening currently. which I think is really, really interesting. Yeah, it certainly is. And again, it brings me back to some of those principles, you know, what Monsi and Mark had talked about earlier, which is listening and valuing the opinions of other people, right? That idea of civil discourse, that disposition towards which we want to invite that difference so that we can all discuss and debate and move toward that unum. Right, right. But this discourse has highs and lows, right? This discourse… works and goes and sometimes fits and starts. And that’s a really interesting thing about conversation is that as long as the conversation continues, there’s a great value to that. Yeah, that’s right. It’s never like we’ve reached the point and now everything is good. And so I think Mati and Mark actually talked about some of those highs and lows. So why don’t we check back in with them and see what they had to say. As you reflect back on the history of religious liberty here in America, do either of you have kind of a favorite story of a high or a low point that really encapsulates what we’re talking about here? I do. I thought you might. The Jehovah’s Witnesses not saying the Pledge of Allegiance during World War II. Fascinating story of cases. If there’s two Supreme Court cases I could get anyone to read, it’s Gobitis and Barnett. So Gobitis is a case in 1940 when a school district in Pennsylvania says to the Jehovah’s Witness children, “You must pledge allegiance to the flag.” And back then the flag salute was not this. It was like Heil Hitler. I think this was Heil Hitler and this was the American flag salute at the time. And the school district said to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, “You must salute the flag.” And the Jehovah’s Witnesses at the time had, and I think they still do have this religious belief, they thought that that was worshipping a false image. They thought that they shouldn’t do that, that God would be offended if they worshipped the flag. So you have these kids in school who say, “Sorry, I can’t do your pledge ceremony.” And you have teachers who were actually taking the 10-year-old girl and like forcing her arm up to hold her arm up

for the salute. And the Supreme Court interpreting the First Amendment of the United States Constitution said, That’s perfectly fine. School district is allowed to force the kid to do it. School district is allowed to kick them out if they won’t. And the reason they said that is the court said, well, nationalism is really important. And who are we as judges to figure out what’s the right way to make kids nationalistic? That’s 1940. Three years later, thank God, the Supreme Court got the answer right in a case called Barnett. In Barnett, the court said, well, wait a second. The point of the First Amendment is to say that there are certain things that are beyond the reach of the majority. They’re beyond the reach of the people who run your school. And the ability to force you to say or believe something is something that our Constitution doesn’t allow. After Gobitis, there were a lot of attacks on Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some were tarred and feathered in the streets. Some had their buildings burned down, the Kingdom Hall in Maine that was burned down. In the 1940s. In the 1940s. Not that long ago. Not that long ago, because the Supreme Court said, it’s okay to punish the Jehovah’s Witnesses and treat them differently. Just three years later, the court got it right in a case that I think really sets our First Amendment on a good path that we’ve been on ever since, which is the First Amendment exists, to protect people who have different beliefs and to say that the government cannot punish them for trying to live out those beliefs. So I think it’s really interesting looking at these highs and lows because, again, it shows that even though our rights are contained in the Constitution, even though the government, the roles and responsibilities of the different branches of government, this hour we’ve been touching a little bit on the executive branch, are laid out, the it still requires this constant conversation, this vigilance to protect our rights and to ensure that our rights are enjoyed by others as well. Right, and the conversation is not necessarily happening immediately. The conversation can be something that spans back years and in some cases perhaps is looking toward the future. Again, I’m frequently thinking in terms of the experience in the classroom and to think of activities that one could have and to think about how students, how I like to think many students are thinking about the future when they’re thinking about the past and how they, they, comma, Mark and Monsi, Focus on religious liberty specifically as there again many liberties many rights many responsibilities there, but to have that as an example I’m thinking back about the conversation about the Pledge of Allegiance and the experience that’s such a common experience in our country But even even in our own lifetimes has sort of changed how do we address it? and the fact that it in itself is not a It has not been one definitive way of happening in all these years. – Yeah, it’s interesting. And of course the first case, Gobitis, in 1940, comes at the eve, and again this is where sort of historical context is important to keep in mind, that it comes the eve of the Second World War, right? And so there’s this really a push for nationalism because although the United States wasn’t yet involved in the

war, The potential for us getting involved, seeing this worldwide conflict coming about, is clearly playing into the emotions on the court and people are thinking about these things. And so they pass this ruling that’s really compelling these students to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance that goes against their own religious convictions. And then only three years later in 1943 in West Virginia v. Barnett, you see that reversal. You see the court taking a step back and saying, you know, this wasn’t the right decision. You shouldn’t compel someone to do anything that goes against those religious beliefs. Court reversals are a really important thing to think about in terms of the big question of are elements final when they are decided or are there parts of the Constitution where they’re it? I mean, we’re aware of amendments, but it makes me think in our pursuit of the unum, in the e pluribus unum, and we’re looking for unity, I’m now thinking of a division that happens that’s necessary, right? There’s a division in terms of what is current and what is more timeless, right? So you mentioned 1940. Decisions and the way the world are There are really important decisions that are made because of the time they are in and yet the Supreme Court also has to consider that as well as the timelessness of their decisions and the principles upon which they make them which is super important. Yeah, I mean government is really the reflection of society and it’s interesting because society, society’s values in the recognition of principles changes over time. And one of the cases that Mark mentioned quickly was Plessy v. Ferguson, which is a case from 1896 that wrongly asserted that separate but equal was okay. And that was then reversed in Brown v. Board of Education. And in fact, we have a Homer Kelp video about Brown v. Board of Education, and why don’t we take a look at that? Yeah, and I’ll still talk about reversals in the Supreme Court. These are interesting things to chew on. Absolutely. Mark, you just discussed Gobitis and Barnett, a case where the Supreme Court said one thing and then in that instance within three years fully reversed itself or really significantly reversed itself Can you give us other examples of that happening here as it pertains to religious freedom and so on? Sure. So here’s the best example, which isn’t a religious freedom case, but it’s one that I think a lot of people have heard of, which is Brown v. Board of Education saying that the schools would be desegregated. In the 1890s, the Supreme Court decided a case called Plessy when it said, even though the Constitution guarantees you the equal protection of the laws— We’re going to say that we know who wrote it and we think people would really be more comfortable if we separated people out. But we know better than that. Separate but equal is okay. That was Plessy versus Ferguson. It took us 60 years to get that overturned in Brown v. Board of Education when the court said governments have to desegregate the schools. But what was important is that the court eventually said, well, my obligation as a Supreme Court

justice is not simply to the last decision the person who had this job before me made. My obligation is to uphold the Constitution because that’s what we the people agreed to. And if the court has gotten it wrong, of course they need to go back and fix it and get the right answer. I’ll ask. It’s interesting. So yeah, I mean, again, thinking about that process of thinking through these Supreme Court cases, thinking through how it is that this conversation amongst all the branches of government really plays out is an interesting one. Absolutely, absolutely. That makes me realize we’ve got a question. All right. The question is, and this is from Tony, “How does the court have judicial review if it’s not in the Constitution?” Yeah, I think that’s a great question, right? The framers at the Constitutional Convention are putting together Article I, which is legislative branch, Article II, which is the executive, and then Article III is the shortest of the three and basically says, “Hey, you know, we’ll need to form a judiciary.” and that’s not the complete story but but that’s one of the things that the first congress takes up the passion judiciary act of 1789 but nowhere in there does it say that the supreme court is the final arbiter of what is or is not constitutional the idea of judicial review was around. It was written about in Federalist 78. Alexander Hamilton touched on that in Federalist paper. But it’s not until, of course, the landmark Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison in 1801 that that actually becomes a part of our constitutional process. So the way we understand it today, the role of the court and the impact that it has on how we understand the way the government works is also kind of an evolving thing, is what it sounds like. Yeah, that’s right. I mean, early on, it was very much the Supreme Court tended to defer to the legislature whenever possible. And now, as we’ve moved forward, particularly after the 14th Amendment, in the process of incorporation of the Bill of Rights, it’s become much more common that the Supreme Court does strike down laws as unconstitutional. And in fact, we have a homework help video. Yeah, you mentioned before Brown v. Bordovet. I think it’s worth seeing the video because the way it’s set up really highlights that power. Let’s check it out. Racial tension related to segregation has fueled some of the most important court cases in American history. Maybe the most important case which dealt with segregation in the United States was the 1954 case of Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. To understand this landmark case, it’s important to appreciate some context. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment reads, “No state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” However, the Supreme Court denied equal justice in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson as the court used the idea of “separate but equal” to give official government approval to segregation

in America. Almost 50 years later, Thurgood Marshall, a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People led the charge in arguing that the segregation of schools violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Several similar segregation questions from different parts of the country were combined into one case, and the case of Linda Brown, a third-grade African American student from Topeka, Kansas, led the list. Just like many of the other cases that were combined into hers, Linda was denied acceptance into white schools close to her home and was forced to attend a school miles away. while separate was considered equal at the time. Thurgood Marshall argued for the African American families that white school facilities were often of much higher quality than the separate schools for blacks. Interestingly, in Topeka, there was really no difference in the quality of the two sets of schools. The school for blacks was equally well equipped and had excellent teachers. This focuses attention on the more important question: Can schools really be equal if students are segregated merely on the basis of skin color? The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in 1953, but the justices were deeply divided. They decided to put the case on hold to allow for new briefs and arguments. While the case was on hold, Chief Justice Fred Vinson died and was replaced by California Governor Earl Warren, who believed segregation was unconstitutional. Warren, understanding that many in the South would resist the decision, believed a unanimous decision was important to give the court’s ruling legitimacy. When the case resumed in 1954, the court was still divided. Most justices believed that segregation was a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equality Clause, but some believed it was a federalism issue and decisions about how to end segregation should be left to the states. The question remained: Can schools really be equal if students are segregated merely based on the color of their skin? Chief Justice Warren wrote and rewrote the court’s decision until he had finally achieved a unanimous opinion. Leaving the question of the equality of the schools aside, Warren wrote: “We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.” So, rather than focusing on whether there was equal opportunity to attend school, they looked at the ill effects of segregation on society. The court based this decision partly on controversial doll experiments used to make the argument that to separating students solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, the plaintiffs were deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Although some Southerners engaged in a massive resistance campaign in which they refused to follow the decision, many Southern communities gradually desegregated their schools in the coming years. The decision in Brown v. The Board of Education helped to chip away at racist social structure by outlawing segregation in schools. It helped to stimulate the

Civil Rights Movement, culminating a decade later in the Civil Rights Act, which banned segregation in all public facilities, and the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed racially discriminatory voting restrictions. For more information on this and many other important court cases throughout history, be sure to check out the other videos in our Homework Help series. you And welcome to Hour 3. Hey, welcome back. Constitution Day Live. You may be just joining us, and if so, do not worry. All of this will be posted up, and we’re just having a continuous conversation. But if you’ve been with us, welcome to Hour 3. That’s right, and welcome to all of you who are with us. And we’re excited to continue to answer your questions, because we want this to truly be a conversation. So as you have questions, send them in to us, and we’ll answer what we can. We just touched on there, Brown vs. Board of Education, we’ve really started talking about the court, and so we’ve Talked a little bit about the legislative branch and the process of compromise. Touched a little bit on the executive and sort of the execution of laws. And now I think looking at the courts role is an interesting one as well. Yeah, I think it’s also important to know that it’s something we wrestle with here. And we’ve got a series of new videos coming out too, if you like that other homework help video. We’ve got a whole series coming out pretty soon that we keep working on that have a really interesting structure. The idea that there is a court question, a core question that is, as we were talking about, relevant to the time but also part of more of a timeless question, but also is shows that there are multiple sides to it and how there’s a practical way to get through this question in a truly like building way. Yeah, that’s right. And those will start releasing in October. So we encourage you all to check them out. We’re really excited about it. We think they take a good narrative approach to looking at more landmark Supreme Court cases. And the idea is showing what the argument was. Because again, you know, as we’ve been talking about throughout the day, this conversation about liberty and equality and the protections that are there. There’s very smart people on lots of different sides of issues that are grappling with these things and showing the arguments in each case and also showing the majority in dissenting opinions that the court ruled on, we think is a great way to really engage with some of these landmark cases. Right, absolutely. And it’s really, it ties in nicely to the theme of the day. Again, if you’ve just tuned in, our overarching theme is e pluribus unum, out of many, one. And we’ve wrestled with them in different ways. Speaking of which, one of those things, and I feel like he was near the Supreme Court. Earlier on, we sent our colleague, Chris Hansen and Sarah out into the DC metro area. That’s right. And to find the Unum. And he did not succeed the first time around. Let’s check with him now. We’re hopeful he may have found something. We may have found something. So I’m intrigued to see where he’s at. Hello Chris, it’s Gary and Kirk here from… Hi guys. Hi, BRI headquarters. First question,

well first question is how are you doing? We’re doing great. Good, good, good. It’s a beautiful day out here. It’s a little warm. It’s gotten a little warmer, but we are enjoying the sights of a beautiful day on the National Mall. Excellent, excellent. And I was going to ask, where are you all? So I am literally at the feet of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. Right. Statue of him, I assume. We left the Capitol. We stopped briefly by the National Archives. Hoping to get in to maybe see the actual document, but there was quite a line. Oh, I imagine on Constitution Day. It is having a birthday. It is. Happy birthday. 232. Obviously, we thought if we couldn’t find the unum there, where would we find it? Very logical thought you had. But we ended up here at the Lincoln Memorial, which is a very solemn place. And, of course, looking at the president who led the nation during a time when we were almost, you know, we were literally torn apart and to kind of reunify the country during that time is, I think, appropriate, given our theme. It is, it is. And that’s wonderful. You know, speaking of our theme, There are obviously many statues and buildings. That’s right. Are there people on the mall? Are there you said there was a big line. Can you? Tell us what’s going on there. So there are a lot of people and you know, one of the things that that I’m super aware of on this day is the diversity, you know, especially given our theme out of many one you see young old every race color creed And actually from all parts of the country and all parts of the world gathered in this place. And also, I can’t help but think about the other important historical events that have occurred here. Marian Anderson’s iconic performance on Easter Sunday in 1939. And of course, Martin Luther King Jr.’s seminal speech, I Have a Dream speech, delivered from the very spot where I’m standing right now. It’s really quite moving. That sounds like it. I would say, I think it sounds like he’s actually getting closer to the union than I thought he would. I think we’re getting close. I feel like we’re very close. I would love… Go ahead. At this point I feel like we’re very close. If not, almost there. I think it’s time to bring you back then. If you wouldn’t mind terribly, we’d love to… Yes, I think you are close enough. We’d love to see you. So why don’t you come on back to the office and we’ll check with you here later on. Is that alright? We will see you soon. Sounds great. Good luck. Thanks, guys. Thanks.

Bye. You know, that was very heartening, first of all. I didn’t think I was going to be as moved as I was. I really like that he is really discovering that it’s the people that make it. Yeah, I think so. And so to continue our conversation about this, the court itself is a really good protection of these things. of these big controversial issues that people face when they come together. Yeah, as we all have a role to play, so the court has a role to play in this as well. And so why don’t we check back in with Mark and Monsi and see what they had to say about the role of the courts. Sounds great. Can you describe how Beckett goes about its work and as you do that, perhaps give us a sense for the role of the court, what it does do and kind of where the limits of that reach might be? Sure. So what the Beckett Fund does is we argue in favor of religious liberty for people of all faiths. So we’ve had Muslim clients and Jewish clients and Christian clients and everything else you could possibly imagine. And we look for cases that will help the Supreme Court to make good precedent on religious liberty. When the Supreme Court is interpreting what does the First Amendment mean, what freedoms does it give everybody to live out their lives, We want to present good cases to the justices so that they can reach the right results in ways that let the First Amendment do the work it’s supposed to do of allowing a bunch of different people of different beliefs and ideas to live together in peace and harmony. So, for example, we represent the Little Sisters of the Poor. These are Catholic nuns who feel like they can’t buy contraception and drugs that would cause early abortions for people. We brought their case to the Supreme Court several times. The Supreme Court has always protected them when it comes. And from our point of view, it’s very important to say, look, people can have all sorts of different beliefs about all kinds of controversial issues, but it ought to be clear that the government can achieve its goals without the forced involvement of Catholic nuns in something like that. So just finding cases that will clearly demonstrate the importance of giving people the freedom to live out their lives. If the Little Sisters weren’t allowed to act according to their faith, these are nuns who take care of the elderly poor. So poor people who have no place else to go, they come to Little Sisters’ homes and the sisters take care of them like family and care for them and love them until they die. Wonderful, wonderful ministry. If the sisters were not allowed to live out their Catholic faith in that way, where are those people going to go and who’s going to take care of them? And so finding cases that will demonstrate to the justices and demonstrate to society the importance of allowing people to have that freedom and what we would lose if we take away that freedom, I think that’s a core piece of what we do. So I’m listening, I’m watching this clip, and I think it’s a really interesting point that goes back to our timelessness versus the immediate and how diversity itself sort of fosters that pluralism. Yeah, and the idea that the First

Amendment, and now here we are getting into another part of the Constitution, which is the Bill of Rights, helps to foster some of that diversity. And also how, again, religious liberty is emblematic of that personal conscience. So the property and our rights that we have, that all these institutions, that the Constitution is meant to protect and prevent us from having violated. Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. And of course, again, throughout the discussion there are so many different liberties, but I think drilling down on religious liberty over time, particularly how it affects us today, is really important. And I think Monsey and Mark continue to talk about that. Yeah, I think they do, taking a look at how it is that religious liberty in these cases affect all of us regardless of our own faith background. So why don’t we check back in with them and take a look? Absolutely. I have a follow-up question, and you may be already ready to answer it. So, this is a very specific group of people. Little Sisters of the Poor is a very small order of nuns, if I understand correctly. so far so good. We’ve defended that right all the way up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court’s granted it. What does that mean for the rest of us that that has occurred? So something that Mark said earlier which is true about what you believe about religious freedom, believing for on believing that religious freedom applies to you as much as it applies to others. So even though you may disagree with someone you have to listen to and live with alongside someone who disagrees with you. You can’t you can’t coerce them, you can’t crush them, you can’t shut them down, or like we say now, you can’t cancel them. What’s most important about that is that legally, when we win a case for one client, we’re setting a precedent, we’re changing the law for the rest of Americans. So a win for the Little Sisters of the Poor is also a win for other faith traditions, for a Muslim prisoner, for a family that wants to have its business be according to their religious beliefs. And the other thing that’s really important about the work of the Beckett Fund is that we are nonpartisan. Religious freedom is not up for political question. It’s not something that was created because it belonged to one party or another. It’s a human right. It’s something everyone has gotten behind at one point or another in our history and that everyone should support and love because it’s the one thing, it’s the canary in the coal mine that protects us from all of these other people who want to come after you, who want to stop you, who want to crush you, who want to force you to change what you believe. I think these are really important points. You mentioned before that the court is the third branch and sort of has the shortest one, but the impacts and how they affect us today and what they mean in terms of disagreement and yet then getting along, getting further along in the conversation, I think is really impactful and really important. Yeah, that’s right. I mean, it really, the protection of, again, our own conscience rights, our own, the

idea that our own ideas are being protected, goes a long way towards, again, fostering this diversity, fostering the ability for all of us to live, together harmoniously as much as possible. And it also just reminds me, too, that it’s something that we always need to be working on, right? It’s always something that we’re striving toward and something that we need to be aware of. Earlier, Mansi mentioned that we need to be curious about what our neighbors believe, curious about what these other ideas are, and be willing to listen. And I think that’s really important. Yeah, it reminds me again of this time of year in a classroom and establishing a classroom culture, right? There are rules that existed before anybody showed up in September or August, but then there’s that continuous, defense is a strong word, but that continuous cultivation of the classroom culture and a way that you have these established rules, but then every day you are creating the context is the area for people to explore those rules to explore the experience and to have their own freedoms flourish within it. Yeah, that’s right. And that’s why I think, again, talking about another part of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights is interesting because it lays out those first ten amendments, some of our most foundational rights. That’s not to say that those are the things that grant us those rights, but it’s a good reminder for us to look at and say, you know, free speech, free exercise of religious values, you know, freedom from search and seizures, those are all things that are important for us to be vigilant of and for us to appeal to the court when we feel as though they’ve been violated. Right, and almost fight for, which I think is something David talks about. BRI, President David Bob talks about it with Chris, who we just talked to on the phone. Let’s see what they have to say about that. Let’s take a look. I had no idea in the end really whether it was going to work. They were taking a risk, but they believed in the principles. And I guess we could say the virtues behind those principles, which is perhaps a good segue. What would you say, you know, we talk a lot about the sort of virtuous, the civil society that’s necessary for this great American experiment to succeed, what are some of the virtues that are that you think are essential toward e pluribus unum, behind the concept, the whole concept of e pluribus unum and making making it real in the American government and in American society? Well I think of two in particular. One is prudence and another is courage. Let’s keep talking about this idea of religious liberty because I think we see in the example of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson both of these virtues at work. So the Bill of Rights Institute is an organization devoted to helping young people. We do so by supporting teachers across the country. When James Madison was in college, he was really sharp and he got through Princeton, what is now Princeton University, in about half the time that it took most students.

At that point in his life, he was called back to the family plantation where he was to serve as the tutor for his about dozen younger brothers and sisters. That was not a job he wanted to do. He was not excited about that prospect. And he wrote his friends, you know, who were off doing fabulous things after they had graduated from the same college. And he said, “I really don’t know what my life is going to become. I’m without really a guiding purpose.” And what’s interesting is Madison, living in Orange County, Virginia, what now is the Charlottesville, Virginia area, looked to the neighboring county and he saw something happening that really caught his attention. He saw that Baptists were being persecuted for just the fact that they were Baptists and wanted to practice their Christian faith in that particular way. The reigning power at the time in the Commonwealth of Virginia religious-wise were the Anglicans. Madison’s family happened to be part of that majority and they would be able to, the Anglicans, get taxpayer funds that supported that religious practice and that religious system as the official religion of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Now, young Madison, having read a lot and searched deeply into history about what does liberty mean, what does it mean to be equal under the law, saw that system, saw what was happening to those people. And I think what happened in his heart was something that stirred and moved him mightily. And he said, “That is an injustice. That is a gross injustice that those people merely by practicing their faith in a way that was not deleterious to the common good, that they would be fined and in some cases even thrown in prison. And what he said is, “I’m going to stand up for people like that. I’m going to make sure that majority tyranny does not run roughshod over the rights of minorities.” And what that set him on was a course of 40 years of hard work, both in his studies and in his action, in which he stood in the gap for people and fundamentally orchestrated an American order in which people like those would not have to worry about their life, liberty, property, or the pursuit of happiness, to use the Declaration of Independence as language. As I write my notes down, as I watch these clips, something struck me that David talked about, which is the values of prudence and courage, right, those principles. Really interesting, big meaty words. How do you think they tie into our discussion about the Constitution today? Yeah, I think it’s interesting. It’s sort of those those, as David

sometimes references, and I think we’ll touch on a little bit soon, the habits of heart and mind that make us good members of community, right? And so courage, I think, is something that is certainly necessary when it comes to defending our rights, because it can be really hard to stand up for what you believe in. It’s hard work, and it can be challenging. It can be threatening to reputations. It can be… It can be a difficult thing to stand up for these things. So I think courage is something to keep in mind. And then prudence. Prudence, I think, in the modern context is sometimes looked at differently. But if we look at prudence as sort of that wisdom, when to act, when not to act, I think that can be a really good model for our politicians and those who are in leadership positions at whatever level of our community to kind of gauge and know how it is, again, thinking about persuasion, which is something we’ve touched on quite a few times. How do we persuade our fellow citizens, our fellows within our communities to go in a certain direction? How do we get them on a path that’s beneficial for all? Yeah, among the many projects we work on here at the Bill of Rights Institute are projects that invite students and teachers and really anyone in the community to identify issues and to work on them. I think we’re going to talk about them in just a little bit, but I really liked what you said about prudence, that prudence isn’t just not doing something, or encouraged not doing something, but rather the consideration of the mindfulness that come before actions. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. It’s really thinking about our action and what is the most efficacious, or in other words, the most best path forward. Right, and sometimes that involves engaging with other people and listening with them and dealing with disagreement. That’s right. Which I think is another part that Dave and Chris talk about. I think so. Let’s take a look. I think that we know and we focus on the idea of speaking as a skill but not enough on listening as a skill. And really and truly listening to someone else, to listen to their perspective and their point of view takes an extra bit of effort. It’s really hard, you know, I think I don’t want to portray the founders as if they, this was the sort of halcyon period in which everybody had these amazing kumbaya moments, right? I mean, there were long knives drawn and people were mad at each other and there were lifelong disagreements that resulted in severed friendships. They are not paragons of virtue, but one thing that they did do and I think this might be especially applicable for teachers when it comes to questions of classroom management. You know the Constitutional Convention had a lot of problems and a lot of challenges in the way even that it was structured, but one thing that it did really well was set the parameters by which good debate could happen and that goes to your point about listening. You know, you have to sit and stay and even when it gets a little bit tough to listen, right? Hamilton gave a speech that went on for five hours. That’d be a little bit long, right, to carry on in any class. But if you set

the parameters of a debate up where every voice can be heard, even that quieter student that’s loath to speak, and that you pave the way for other students to gain that habit of listening. Because really what we’re doing in civics is trying to create a disposition, right? It’s a habit of heart and mind. It’s saying that I’m open to the viewpoints of other people. Truly open. That I’m going to be listening in a way. It’s by that means that civil society is built. That’s one of the remarkable accomplishments of what happened in the Constitutional Convention. Again, it wasn’t a matter of saying we’re going to figure out how this document will solve everything once and for all, that it will mean an end to disagreement. On the contrary, it’s going to be a means of managing the disagreement and of changing such as it needs to by the will of the people through the amendment process. That took a remarkable degree of humility, you know, because they could have said, you know, is wrapping up the Constitutional Convention, you know, we really don’t want to send this out to the states. That’s going to be a big, long, messy process where we have to persuade a bunch of more people, right? We’re the learned ones. Why don’t we just stick with this plan? And, you know, let’s just anoint this guy, George Washington, he did a pretty good job as head of the convention. You know, he did a pretty good job being general, leading us to victory in the Revolutionary War. Why don’t we just make him the governor the go-to, you know, we don’t have to call him a king, but the go-to leader for the next few years. Because this is going to be a lot easier and it’s going to be a lot less work. They didn’t do that. In an act of humility, they said, you know what, we’re going to put it out to the people. And if the people reject this plan, it is rejected. And, you know, it was a very close-run thing. Change of a few votes here and a few votes there and a few states, and the Constitution would not have come into being. But their idea was, let’s persuade, let’s do the hard work of politics, and let’s push this thing across the finish line so that it can really create an atmosphere of openness to other people’s arguments and ideas. You know, there are so many principles, values, big ideas that float around on Constitution Day as we contemplate the Constitution. One that struck me particularly in the conversation between David and Chris was this idea of humility and our understanding of what it is and the real impact that exemplifying humility is and has. Yeah, I think it’s interesting, particularly because humility is one of those things that we have to be humble. We were talking about listening and persuasion, being humble in our own ideas, being humble in regards to what it is we know or what it is we think we know. I think it’s something that takes a lot of practice and a lot of work, but But again, ultimately, we’ve kind of slipped into talking about what can almost be seen as the unwritten part of our Constitution, which is civil society. We walked through Articles 1, 2, and 3. We’ve talked about the Bill of Rights. But all of

that relates to our communities, and our communities exist both within those constitutional structures but also outside of them. And the relationship between those two things is almost indistinguishable. They kind of bleed one into the other. And I think in doing that, it’s important to keep in mind that, again, all of us have a role in this process. And so, you know, our Constitution Day is a day for us to reflect on that as well. Yeah, it’s celebratory. And in a way, it’s a way to start this process. start highlighting exactly what you’re talking about, that we all have a role in it. I think it’s time to mention that we actually have a contest we are launching. Why not talk about it now? To celebrate Constitution Day and in the lead up to Bill of Rights Day, of course in December, we’ve got a competition, not a competition, a contest. It’s kind of competitive. Basically, I’m reading off it. It’s three minutes or less. Tell us what unites our students. In other words, like what brings us together in a common constitutional culture. You can create a video. You can create some kind of product. tag us on a public video either here on YouTube or on Twitter on Facebook and the tag is #WhatUnitesUsContest. That’s right and all this information is available on the Bill of Rights Institute website so take a look there for more information and in the meantime we’re going to take a look at a teaser for another topic that’s tackled by Bill of Rights Institute curricula. I mean it’s something that David just touched on a little bit which is partisanship. Right. So let’s take a look. We never agree with one another 100% of the time. Conflicts of interest are unavoidable, especially in politics. Sometimes, during a standstill, a mediator can step up and squash the issue, even if they don’t agree with either side entirely. Working on a group project and two people clash heads? Dig in and be the mediator. So today we travel back to the late 18th century when major disagreements amongst America’s founding fathers had our newborn country in danger of being split before it could even grow. Today we discuss partisanship. This is America’s Constitution, signed by 39 of our most important founding fathers. Yeah, some of the handwriting is even worse than a doctor’s, but it’s still a big deal. However, just because many heavy hitters of the revolution signed this document doesn’t mean everyone wanted to in the first place. On one side of the argument were the Federalists. Federalists were really into the Constitution. They believed it was necessary improvement to the old Articles of Confederation because it solidified the power of the central government and provided a structure for America to grow. But not everyone agreed. This is where the anti-federalists come in. Anti-federalists’ main concern was

that if the federal government was given too much power, America risks becoming a monarchy like England, whose butts we had just kicked to gain our independence. Both sides had valid points, but they weren’t settling differences over cordial dinners. The Federalists and Anti-Federalists fought in newspaper essays, pamphlets, state ratifying conventions, and even in taverns and on street corners. Being partisan in politics is very serious business. Thankfully, a monumental compromise was made between the two sides when the Anti-Federalists succeeded in having the Bill of Rights added to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights appeased the concerns of many important founding fathers who felt the Constitution needed some tweaking. Despite this breakthrough, there was still tension. As disagreements over policy mounted, political parties formed, with the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party leading the charge. One major clash of ideologies came in 1798, when the majority, Federalist Congress, voted in the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts. Madison wrote a famous response to the acts in 1798 called the Virginia Resolution, which said that states had the duty to pull rank on the federal government and decide what was best for their people. States began choosing sides. States like Kentucky and Virginia said, “Get lost!” to the acts. Others, like New Hampshire, gave a thumbs up and deemed them constitutional. As America grew, so did debates on how to handle it. For instance, by the 1830s, the North and the South had different methods of making money. The North was becoming more industrialized, while the South remained dedicated to farming and agriculture. When Congress passed taxes that Southerners thought benefited the North and not them, they were none too pleased, especially South Carolina. Even Vice President John Calhoun hated the taxes, so much so that he would resign as Vice President under Andrew Jackson. That same year, South Carolina, led by Calhoun, told the federal government to take a hike with their taxes and even threatened to leave the union if violent action was taken against them. So what did President Jackson do? He threatened South Carolina with war. That’s what he did. Thankfully there would be help. At the zero hour the day was saved, at least for the time being, in large part due to a Kentucky senator named Henry Clay. Clay brokered a compromise between the federal government and South Carolina that lowered the tariffs and appeased the angry state. The crisis is over. Our country, for the time being, was settled down and ready to prosper. Sadly, things wouldn’t be so hunky-dory down the line. That’s

a story for another day. So partisanship is not a brand new thing? That is a lot to wrap one’s head around. Who’d have thought? Welcome back to the Constitution Day celebration here at the Bill of Rights Institute. We are coming up on what is 10:30 a.m. for Mountain Time, teachers and students and history enthusiasts out there. But in all seriousness, this conversation about partisanship and about discussion and about listening and all these ideas that we’re having having to do with the Constitution is really interesting because it addresses sort of the animating principle beneath it that we’ve not really addressed fully which is self-governance. Yeah, that’s right. And in the partisanship video we just touched on, they were talking about the debates between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. And earlier we had talked about those Federalist papers, which were essays written in the state of New York during the ratification debates there by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. And in it, in Federalist 10, James Madison talks about, again, that sown in the nature of liberty is faction. Which means, in other words, that if we’re going to have lots of different people and lots of different interests being represented in government, inevitably, factions are gonna form. Now that’s a little bit different than partisanship, partly because of this virtue of self-governance. So partisanship means being blindly adherent to something without thinking about what other interests may be at play or without listening, which again was another thing that we were talking about, which is essential for these constitutional mechanisms to work. And so thinking about self-governance I think is a good way for us to know that we need to, through virtues like humility, govern ourselves and be responsible to the idea that everyone in a community has interests, has different beliefs, and we should be respectful of those differences and of those beliefs. Yeah, for those tuning in, our theme is E Pluribus Unum, and I really like what you’re saying, Kirk, in terms of Just the nature of self-governance almost mirrors what we’re talking about with the “I pluribus unum” with the “out of many one” because I think one interpretation often is governing oneself as an individual, but then there’s governing in terms of community and self-governance in terms of the freedoms and rights and responsibilities, but then there’s the state level, the federal level. So this term self-governance is not limited necessarily to the federal government. or the individual, but it’s a combination and an exchange in between. – Yeah, that’s right. And again, in the Federalist Papers, Publius, which was the pen name for Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, talks about the government being neither national nor federal, meaning it was neither just a national government nor a federal government. It’s sort of one of those things that, you know, if e pluribus unum is the union of the states for one government, it is but it isn’t, just like self-governance is for the government but also not for us as individuals. You can see why we’ve been wrestling with this question. Yeah, it’s not making it any easier, but it

makes the analysis and the understanding and the appreciation of the Constitution that much more fascinating because one can really tackle this. And part of our discussion about that is the idea of responsibility, right? If from what you’re saying is true, the responsibilities of government and the responsibilities of the individual and how they interact is a really important thing to focus on. Yeah. Yeah, and that it is an opportunity for us, too, that we have the opportunity to have this self-governing part of our lives is interesting. And I think David touches on that a little bit in one of our clips. So why don’t we check back in with he and Chris? Yeah. So one of the things that we talk a lot about here at the Bill of Rights Institute and that we value is self-governance. And I thought it might be a good… point to, sort of, take a moment to define what that means, what self-governance means, what it means vis-a-vis the Constitution and not only us as individuals but the society as a whole. Self-governance, I think, is a really important idea. You know, we’ve been talking about the American founding and e pluribus unum. There’s the idea that the states wanted to continue to be self-governing entities. Federalism allowed for that possibility. But more importantly, and I think this is really where we at the Bill of Rights Institute reflect on the importance of self-governance at the individual level. You know, from the perspective of ancient political thinkers, and I think the founders joined them in this, there was a challenge for young people and for people of any age, and that is how do you live according to the dictates of reason? That doesn’t mean that you don’t ever have passion, but what it does mean is that you have to channel those passions, right, that young people come to so naturally. into the right order and the right kind of ends. Justice is the end of government, Madison said. And what’s great about young people is that they have this sense that today there are many ways in which we are depriving too many of our fellow citizens, and for that matter, too many people around the globe, of justice. That’s a wonderful impulse. The question then is how do we get to the place where each person can govern themselves in a way that conduces to the good of the whole, that puts yourself in the position where you can help secure justice for others? Because first what you have to do is have a self-governed soul, and that’s a really hard thing to do. It’s a really hard thing to let that moral and civic virtue come to the fore in your own life in such a way that you can build for the common good. Because I think this is one insight that the founders had that really has struck me over the years. That human beings left to their own devices are largely self-regarding. But that’s not it, right? They didn’t leave it at that.

It wasn’t just a dark dystopian view that every person left to their own devices is going to spin out of control and society will be anarchy. Because there’s enough in each human being that justifies esteem and confidence, justice, courage, prudence, responsibility. those things that make us self-governing human beings, that we can construct a form of government, a regime around those things and build on those virtues. Education is about the cultivation of those habits. It’s really hard to get to those things. It takes a long time. And I think the difficult thing is that we are naturally impatient as well. And so here I think of somebody like Frederick Douglass as a guide. who had to go through in his own life, and if you have a chance to read his autobiography around this Constitution Day, I think it’s one of the best guides to how to become a self-governing individual. And he relates those struggles inside of him when he was completely out of whack and when he was completely out of balance. And what brought him back into balance and brought him back into a place where he could be effective for other individuals was an effort to chasten those passions, those desires, for example, that would say to him as a former slave, “I want to exact revenge upon those who did injustice to me.” Do you know that he was able to write the two main individuals who held him in captivity and forgive them? He wrote them and said, “I hate slavery, but I love you.” To do that was an exercise in self-governance. And it was an example to his fellow human beings, both then and now, that we too can come to that place. Whatever is hard in your life, work to master it. And each one of us has things that are hard. Rarely are they as hard as what Frederick Douglass went through. But there are things that we have to tackle every day where we can say if we’re truly interested in building other people up, we’re going to have to work on ourselves and become self-governing so that we can get to that place where we can also have a self-governing society and state. What David has to say about self-governance makes me think of something we’ve been discussing throughout the day, which is the humanity of these great people and also their capacity for reason. So I’m thinking about how this whole conversation we’re having about the Constitution is working toward an alignment of reason and passion, for lack of a better word. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think that One thing that the Framers had very much in mind was that we’re all human and that in the process of living our lives, we have moments where we’re passionate. We have

moments where that passion can sometimes cloud reason. We can get caught up in things. And so one of the things they were very deliberate about doing at the Constitutional Convention was trying to set up a system that would refine this passion through reason. Because we can’t do away with passion. Again, earlier we were talking about, you know, liberty is to faction what air is to fire, right? And that idea that we’re all passionate individuals, that’s not going to change, nor should it change, because again, we don’t want to limit what an individual can do. So how is it through our governmental institutions can we refine that passion that’s innate in all of us and come away with a decision that is the unum, right? Is working towards that common good. Right, and luckily the Quill project worked on that conversation and took a look at that combination of reason and passion in the actual discussions. Let’s check in with the Quill Project and hear what they have to say. Thank you. Excellent. So what lessons do you think that teachers, students, citizens, maybe those policymakers creating constitutions today or in the near future, what can we learn through using the Quill Project? I hope people will get excited by the idea of exploring really the level of detail that went into the creation of America’s Constitution. In our model, just in terms of number of decisions made, there’s well over a thousand opportunities that the convention had to approve or reject particular forms of language. There are an almost equal number of amendments to text that are proposed in different ways. really are working through the detail of these documents. If you think that the American Constitution is about four and a half thousand words long and in order to model that process of negotiation digitally it takes us about two and a half thousand events in our timeline to model all of this. That really gives you a sense of just the level of detail. But I hope we’ve presented it in a way that is informing rather than overwhelming. And what we’ve really found that excites us very much is that students of all ages are able to use the tools that we’ve put together to see how particular language evolves. And you know, rather than having to spend months in college trying to get to grips with difficult records, we really can put the questions that they’re interested in on the screen and show the context in which that kind of language emerges and what were the debates going on when that language emerges. I mean even something as simple as showing, you know, if there’s a controversial speech that they’re reading, well, did that

speech carry the day? You know, did the vote that follows that speech actually adopt the position of the speaker that they’re quoting? Because sometimes when you read narrative accounts of the convention, of course, the narrators tend to pick out the have said, but often those speeches don’t seem to have carried the mood of the room. So we can really help students work through how the process of debate unfolded and get a sense of, well, how did the back and forth work? And I think for some of the more advanced students, one of the points that I hope they’ll start to understand is that It’s not the case that, you know, a point was raised, it was debated, you know, the wisdom of a particular decision was decided and then the convention moved on. Often, you know, half a dozen arguments are in play at any one time about why something might or might not be a good idea. And you can’t quite tell when the final vote happens exactly which of those arguments wins the day, because that’s not really how humans tend to debate each other in these settings. You tend to get people throwing a lot of arguments into the ring and then taking a vote. And it’s not as neat and tidy sometimes as we might wish. And I think it can be quite exciting to try and put yourself back in the mindset of people sitting in the room. And of course, in many instances, although Madison records quite a lot of detail about the points made in particular speeches, he’s condensing speeches that lasted sometimes for hours to maybe a couple of pages of notes. And again, one of the things that our model can do is help students to in a way escape from the idea that Madison has given you a sort of verbatim account of things and to look much more at the sort of process within which the snippets of information that Madison gives us really sit. So we found when we’ve worked with students of all ages that they’ve found things to really get excited about through being empowered really to explore the records for themselves. The incredible work that the Quill project is tackling, all of those details are so important because they really highlight the big picture, right, and allow us to get into the

details of it. I think that’s really important. One of the things that struck me is that there is this rational process that’s happening and that is clearly mapped out. And they create great governing documents like Constitution. Hey, happy birthday. But does the work end after the convention? – Yeah, I think it’s interesting. I mean, even the work that the Quill Project is doing, it’s almost like the story within the story, right? You have the traditional story of the Annapolis Convention leading eventually to the Philadelphia Convention because there are these challenges with the Articles of Confederation that Julia touched on earlier. And sometimes James Madison is referred to as the father of the Constitution because he arrived with the Virginia Plan, which, as Nicholas has discussed, was the plan that most of the conversation centered around at the convention. And yet you have, through Nicholas’s detailed analysis, really seeing the process of how that came together and showing that although James Madison was a major part of that, significant certainly, it was those different decisions and that working through those compromises that really brought about the document that we have. And in that way, it takes all of us, right? And that work continues. Even once the Constitution is sent out to the states and ratified, the work continued. Disagreements erupted almost immediately. David just was talking about the partisanship that was there at the founding. immediately after the ratification of the Constitution. And it shows that we all continue to have a part to play in this process. – Yeah, what I always liked about that is exactly like you’re saying, that part. What I always liked as a young student was thinking much like Nicholas was saying earlier that it wasn’t just brilliant people sitting in a room and immediately coming up with this perfect thing. but rather we’re all contributing to it because we’re all testing it, we’re all adding to it, and the possibility that a young person could have an idea that affects everything nationally. It’s almost as if that it’s a thing in development. And that’s something that Mark and Manasi talk about, about whether or not it’s ever final. – That’s right, and we the people all have a part to play. So why don’t we take a look at Manasi and Mark’s clip and see what they had to say. – Yeah. – So is this discussion ever final? And if it’s not final, Where does it go from here? What do you see coming? I think it actually falls to each and every generation of Americans to make sure that they protect their rights. If you think that the rights are important, if you want to live in a society where you have the freedom to believe and speak and interact with people as you like, you have to be willing to fight for it and protect it. The framers knew, right? The reason we have a Bill of Rights is that they knew that the natural temptation of government, the natural temptation of majority rules, will be to squash out ideas that make people uncomfortable, that they don’t like, that are minority ideas or practice. That will always be the temptation of the majority and of the people in power. And so it’s up to every generation to both be vigilant for protecting their own rights But also be cognizant of the rights of people around you. In

other words like one thing that I think is really great about America is that we actually have a pretty good track record in recent years of being willing to accept people having different beliefs and different ideas than we do and not seizing the power once you have the majority to crush somebody who’s different from you. That’s a good thing, but that takes work, that takes education for people to understand the rights, takes people learning about civics and learning about their societies so they understand how to value the rights, and it takes some self-discipline, right? Just saying, “Well, just because I’m in power doesn’t mean I’m going to beat up everybody who disagrees with me.” Those are not natural human things. They’re things we all have to work on. But if you want a society where you and your kids and your grandkids have that kind of freedom, then we all have to invest in making it so. What I’m hearing a lot on Constitution Day and from this clip, it makes me think about how responsibility and rights work together and are part of the same thing. And it makes me think of sort of the optimism inherent in the system. Yeah, that’s right, because it’s not just a responsibility like, oh, I’ve got to go do my chores. It’s a responsibility that involves all of us, that we all have the opportunity to participate in, when aligned rightly, to pursue– this liberty that eventually allows for justice and ultimately human flourishing, right? It’s this opportunity for all of us to be involved in this great conversation that ultimately protects rights, that values all of us as individuals, and really is a hopeful thing and is something that I think is really worth reflecting on on Constitution Day. Yeah, that idea of what one looks like for the future. Let’s check back in with this interview with Mark and Mansi and talk about the future a little bit. Mark, you sound pretty hopeful. Monse, as you look across the country, what do you see in kind of the rising generation and just generally in the culture that gives you an indication of some hope that we’re kind of aware of this, that we get it as a people, and that we’re protecting the freedom and the pluralism that this amendment was designed to preserve? I think it’s a What makes me hopeful is an interest in history. People are very much interested in role models, who they were, how they lived, what they believed. If you think about being brave enough not to abuse power, George Washington is a great example of that. Deciding that he had built something that didn’t need him anymore. I think focusing on that and thinking about and leaning into that really discovering who they were and what they were thinking and what their view of our country was and is for us and feeling that charge, feeling that weight on your shoulders as an American because we are privileged and we do live in the greatest country in the world and we have to understand why we live here, what it means to live here and what our constitution actually says so that we can defend it when the time comes. And I think this generation is very much equipped for that and should be looking for opportunities to learn more. And I think one thing that this generation

seems keenly interested in is fairness, right, is making sure that it’s not the big powerful guy stomping out the poor little person. That’s something I hear about a lot from my students. You know, if you think about the First Amendment as basically a question of fairness, of not letting the majority decide that somebody else is too different, is too small, is too weak, is too undeveloped to get your protection. Right? Instead saying, “No, we’re going to treat all people the same. We’re going to give all of our brothers and sisters in humanity equal protection. They all have the same rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” I think that commitment to fairness from the younger generation is very important. It’s something we all need to work on how we live it out. But I think it’s something that bodes very, very well for a strong protection for freedom and diversity, even for people who aren’t quite like you or who are smaller and less—have less strong defenses than you do. Well, what really struck me, particularly what Mark said toward the end there, is about sort of the power of the individual, right? And it makes me think of, on this Constitution Day, how the system is set up in a way for people, as they embrace self-governance, to think about choices that they have, right? All of us face choices all the time, but upon what basis decisions are made on those choices, I think really reflects sort of what we’re talking about all day today with this out of many, just this one culture that we have. Yeah, I think it’s interesting. I think sometimes the Constitution is portrayed as this mechanical system that you can drop an individual in and they kind of do a little Rube Goldberg machine and they come out on the other side a perfect statesman and good laws come out on the other side. Right. If the system itself is great, then it should work out. – Yeah, and I don’t think that that’s quite right. Partly because the system itself needs to be maintained, right? And we have to continue to value and appreciate the freedom and opportunity that is provided by the Constitution. Otherwise, it just merely becomes parchment barriers. You know, often people cite other constitutions around the world, notably the Soviet Union’s constitution, which had this long bill of rights, and somehow those freedoms weren’t protected. And so that pivots back to us, right? It makes us reflect on what our own roles are and who we can look to to help guide us in thinking about that role. Right, much like how our conversation of the day is how do you build unity out of a plurality, there’s also how do you build a system that allows for freedom of choice within it. It is a complicated matter. Yeah, it certainly is, and it’s not something that’s easy. I think Winston Churchill once said that the democracy is the worst form of government except all others have been tried, right? Which obviously he was being very tongue-in-cheek and kidding, but it is a challenging thing that we’re working on and something we think about a lot here at the Bill of Rights Institute. Yeah, and it’s a perfect example. opportunity of taking a look at him and his story and as a narrative and what we’re talking

about in terms of choices and how those choices can produce dare i say heroes and villains why don’t we take a look at a clip of a bill of rights institute curriculum that talks about heroes and villains sure in times americans seem to be deeply divided over a range of issues especially politics what civic virtues are necessary to a healthy civil society in a republic and bring greater unity to americans In Heroes and Villains, the Bill of Rights Institute explores the virtues and vices that have shaped American history and defined who we are as Americans. Through 20 dynamic historical narrative-based activities, students will learn about virtue and vice in the dramatic story of the American past and understand how to look at these narratives through the lens of virtue. All available for free through Voices of History. Get started today. And we are into hour four of our celebration of Constitution Day. It is a delight celebrating it here today. And again, whether or not you’ve just tuned in or not, I believe it’s, what, 10 a.m. on the West Coast? So all the teachers and classrooms and history enthusiasts out there, welcome. Hello. Don’t worry if you’ve missed some of the conversations so far. We’re just going to keep rolling with it. And we were talking about the idea of choice. our overarching theme being e pluribus unum, out of many one, and how this unity within the United States on Constitution Day, how it’s made up of a lot of diversity of thought, but also a diversity of choices and that freedoms that baked into the system. Yeah, that’s right. And You also have the choice to look at some of these clips after we wrap today too. So if there was something that you missed or you want to go back and watch again, feel free to check out our YouTube page and you’ll be able to find all those clips there. Right, the very page you’re on right now. All the videos you’re seeing today I think are already there. That’s right. And you know, Nicholas Cole in… from the Quill Project has talked a lot about choice within the Constitutional Convention as it’s been constructed, as the convention was being discussed and debated. And I thought in the last clip you talked about that it wasn’t as though there was one thing that was being debated and then it was decided and then that was it. It was really interesting because it reflects how we continue to debate and discuss these things today. I mean, if you watch the news, we go from issue to issue to issue and we have all of these concurrent conversations going on at the same time. And I think it adds It’s a richness, but it’s also just a reality of life that there’s not really a time when we’re just thinking about one issue and debating it. And that requires of us certain things. It requires of us taking an interest in what’s taking place in the world. It requires of us that self-governance we were talking about, the humility that we talked about, being able to know that you don’t know everything all the time. None of us do, right? We are all fallible. And I think that’s what our curriculum, Heroes and Villains, which you just saw a clip on, touches on as well. And I think it’s something interesting for us to continue to reflect on. Yeah, you had quoted Winston Churchill before. I will

counter that with a quote of my own from a Mr. Stan Lee quote. to paraphrase his famous quote, “With great responsibility, there’s also great power.” That’s right. And I bring that up because I’m listening to this and I’m thinking about the power one has for change. You were talking about sort of the national conversation that’s happening. And you’re right, there’s nothing dictating that other than the power of the individuals together Making that something and if there’s something truly important it becomes part of a national conversation now can an individual sit that out sure but But there is great power to having that conversation with others and saying, you can see in the news, things bubble up. Now sometimes they stay and sometimes they go away. But sometimes they come back. And I think the process by which this conversation bubbles to the top, whatever is being discussed among your friends, whatever is being discussed at your school, in your community, is really, really important. I think the… there’s a coming together that happens when you’re part of that conversation. And I think it’s something that has been since before the beginning of the United States. That’s right. And again, looking at the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, which were passed by the first Congress immediately after the ratification process had taken place, it was something that was called for by a number of anti-federalists, those who were concerned with the adoption of this new national constitution. Looking at those, if we really sit down and think about what they are, we can look at what legal prescriptions they are and how they’re appealed to by the Supreme Court. But in another way, they’re highlighting rights that we possess, and they’re highlighting protections of that fundamental belief and that fundamental protection that all of us can believe what we believe without interference by the government. how we express that belief, how we talk about that belief, and how we’re secure, to borrow a phrase from one of those amendments, in our persons, papers, and possessions, I’m misquoting a little bit. – Sure, alliteration works. – But that we can’t just have those things be violated by the government without due process, which is another thing central to those First Amendments. And due process meaning that going through a formal process that is public, that we be tried by our peers, all of this, again, is an attempt to protect those things that are fundamental to what it means to be an individual and harkening back to those ideals as outlined in the Declaration of Independence that all of us are in fact created equal. Yeah, it’s interesting to contemplate how it changed from the English Bill of Rights, shout out to all the world teachers out there, which had happened prior to that, but how it evolved over time and how the British themselves had a huge influence in the unification that happens. – That’s right, and thinking about even before our Constitution, the American Revolution, sort of what brought us together and what drove us toward that moment when we broke away from Great Britain. And I think that Julie and Rachel in their conversation touched on this as well. So why don’t we check

back in with them? – So with all that diversity among the colonists, what would you say were the factors that best contributed to them coming together for the Constitutional Congresses? Yeah, so one thing to say is although they were diverse in that they settled here for different reasons, there was religious variation and economic variation and differences in their social structures, they’re all European of some variety, so that’s important to keep in mind. When they start to really unite, the incentives are first and foremost economic. So they understand they are each exploiting various resources that are in their colonial region. And that the best and most efficient way to exploit the various strengths of the different regions is to allow for specialization within the regional colonies. And so they start trading together, working together to manufacture off of things that are harvested in the middle colonies or the south. They’re using the ships that are being built in New England. So they have an economic reason to start working together in a way and gain familiarity with these colonies going sort of up and down the eastern seaboard of the United States. Then some things happen with England, right? So first is that during the early colonial period, England’s not super involved in the governance of the colonies. Because of this, the colonists start getting used to this idea of self-government. In cases where either the company, which is typically a British company, therefore ruled by British law, starts to try to assert themselves over the colonists, the colonists push back. In 1619, the Virginia Company, which is based in London, actually allows for the first time for Virginians to have a say in the governance of the Virginia colonies. And so what ends up happening is They continue to assert themselves and they say, “Your pay, colonial governor, is going to be based on our votes. So you better do the things that we want or we’re out of here.” Right? And this basically takes off in the other colonies, this idea of having representation, having that tied to decisions over taxation and pay. etc. So there tends to be this common seed of self-governance that’s spreading throughout the colonies. This is during what is known as a period of salutary neglect. British aren’t really all that involved. Anytime the British try to get a little bit more involved, the colonists kind of balk at that. After the French and Indian War, the British decide, well, it’s time to really kind of figure out what we want to do with these American colonies. And so they

become much more involved, largely because they need to pay for the French and Indian War. So they start to impose some tariffs. on the colonists set some non-importation laws in place and the colonists collectively really balk this. And when once you have the coercive acts in place where you actually have British soldiers, you know, staying in being quartered in the homes, involuntarily quartered in the homes of American colonists, there starts to be a sense that we need to really share our grievances with Britain. But still at this point, we’re not at that revolutionary moment. So there’s kind of three groups of people at this moment in time, right? So there are people who are like, I really would like to stay British. We are British. We have the rights of Englishmen, all of those sorts of things. I’d like the king to kind of back off and go back to the way things were. There are other people like the Sam and John Adams were like no and Thomas Paine no we need to totally rebel and have Independence and there are other people who just don’t have a problem with what the British are doing. This is totally rational they pay they Defended us in this war we should pay right and so as things start to heat up I see the Boston Massacre you have some other I actions that make news coverage across the colonies, there’s a decision to start thinking about talking with each other about a common defense. And that’s why the first Continental Congress is called. I think it’s really interesting. Julie earlier in one of her conversations was talking about the diversity amongst the colonies. And now seeing them come together, and also we’ve mentioned a couple times that the people who put together the Constitution, the framers, were really practical politicians. And this is in evidence of why they were practical. They had this experience of self-rule and self-government under the British Empire. Right. And that experience, I thought it was particularly interesting how, you know, things don’t happen just in a vacuum or suddenly. That the… there’s a long development that leads to that, and yet there are these touch points that change and that really impact things that I think are really important. I think the story of the time, the story of the British really are a huge part of this, how they came together and this concept that we have. – Yeah, that’s right, and British action is one of those things that further drove the colonies together. And I think Julie touches on that a little bit more, so why don’t we check back in and see what she has to say. So what would you say the British did to prompt the collective kind of gathering of the colonies together against them? So once they

start imposing tariffs, non-importation requirements, and quartering soldiers, that’s when the people across the colonies start saying, well, gosh, if we’re going to defend ourselves against the greatest empire on earth, to go back to the way that things were, right, that period of solitary neglect where we’re engaging in our own self-governments within our own colony, we need to band together to press the British government for at the very least concessions. And that’s really what the First Continental Congress is about. It’s about people coming together to say to the British government, basically, we’re not cool with what’s going on here. We want to go back to how things were. Here’s a list of grievances. Can we meet halfway? Can we find a way forward? They send this to the British government. Things don’t really change. Then Lexington and Concord happens. And this sends electric shockwaves through the colonies. They had already planned after the First Continental Congress to have a Second Continental Congress to kind of gauge how much the British government had responded to their initial set of grievances. At this point after Lexington and Concord, it’s becoming pretty clear that reconciliation is going to be difficult. There are still people within the Continental Congress and a large population within the colonies that would like to see reconciliation happen. So there is actually something sent to the king called the Olive Branch petition, which is basically saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, things have gone far enough. let’s cool things down. But at the same time, they’re putting together a Continental Army, Battle of Bunker Hill happens, and so the king then declares the colonies in open rebellion, at which point there really is no going back. And that’s when there are resolutions to cut the Gordian Knot, cut ties with the British, and declare independence. And even more than that, there’s a resolution from May 10th in which the Continental Congress actually calls on the colonies to create whatever forms of government they need to have their governments operate during the revolution. And this actually kicks off this incredible period of state constitution writing in the colonies. And this is really, The framers have these beautiful quotes about this. It’s basically the first time in human history that people are getting the opportunity to choose what form of government they would like to live under, and they are doing it actively during revolutionary hostilities. Like the New York Provisional Congress has to move a couple of times while they’re actively writing their state constitution. So it’s a really extraordinary period of time where I think Americans really become constitutionalists, period,

first of all. And then I also think, again, they’re developing this common identity because they’re sharing across states about the mechanisms for writing those constitutions, constitutional design, et cetera. And so you really see in this period an emergency draws them toward collective action. And that collective action leads to thoughts about how we’re going to form these state governments. And then of course that leads to ultimately when the revolution, as it continues, there needs to be some kind of national government. So actually in 1777, the Continental Congress agrees to the Articles of Confederation. Doesn’t get ratified until 1781, but it’s really the failures of the Articles of Confederation that leads to the Constitution, but it’s these early experiences in self-governance all the way in the colonial period and that drafting of state constitutions that gives some really raw material to the delegates to work with when they’re in the convention in 1787. I think Julie’s retelling of that is really interesting because it was a very deliberate process and that movement towards the Declaration of Independence. She mentioned the Olive Branch petition. Of course, in 1775, there’s also the causes and necessities of taking up arms. But even before that, you know, that deliberative process, an interesting founder, I think, to look at is John Dickinson, who in 1765, in protest to the Stamp Act, wrote a series of letters called “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,” where he advocates you know in favor of resisting british rule but yet maintains that he wants to stay in the british empire and up until the point in 1776 he’s at the second continental congress and he still votes against breaking away and moving to independence but then once the move for independence is made he accepts it and goes along which again is is this humility it’s showing a thoughtfulness it’s showing uh you know working through a rational process that involves self-restraint in a certain way Right. And that when we think of the colonists, it’s not this one unified thought that they’re all sharing, but rather that there needs to be demonstration of almost self-restraint or prudence as they make their decisions. Yeah, that’s right. And I think Nicholas Cole and Tony touched a little bit about on what this process looked like in regards to the Constitutional Convention. So why don’t we check back in with them? Well, it is a great project and we’re very happy that it’s out there for students and teachers. And one final question, you know, what lessons could be fruitful today. You know, we live in a world that seems very divided politically and ideologically, not just here in America, but around the world, around the Western world, but the entire world. In an age of social media and what are seemingly, you know, a lot of division,

How can that idea of negotiation that you’ve said, the constitutional convention, how can that maybe lend a little sanity and compromise and moderation to today’s politics? I think first and foremost, I think we need to better understand the processes that gave us the institutions that we’ve been busy for the past 30 years taking for granted and not really thinking about. I mean, I think many people of my generation didn’t study this kind of history in school or in university because Surely we learned all the lessons. We knew how democracies worked. We’d been given the institutions and we took them really for granted. And I think we’ve forgotten just how remarkable the emergence of the democratic capitalist order really was historically and what a brief moment it has been in world history where we’ve really enjoyed the liberties that we’ve enjoyed and the ability for citizens to shape the direction of government that we currently have. So I hope we’ll sort of stop taking it for granted. And that’s one of the reasons why when we were designing the look of the Quill project, one of the, if you like, rhetorical choices we made for the interface was to make it look very modern. We didn’t want a lot of pictures of people in powdered wigs to sort of alienate students from the material. And that’s incredibly deliberate. We wanted them to focus on the substance. and not the alien and 18th century nature of these debates, partly with a hope that they would see the modern relevance of the material. But I think the other thing that is really remarkable about 1787 is that, leave aside the question of slavery, where I think this point does not apply in quite this way, but for the most part, American Constitution is so short because it’s a document about process. It’s a document that sets up how political debate should happen. And although at the convention there were attempts to limit what Congress might or might not do concerning particular taxes or other questions of that nature, for the most part, the document that emerges is broadly neutral on what the policies of the new government will be. And that’s something that in modern constitution writing is incredibly difficult to achieve. Because whether you look at

the state-level constitutions that were written in the 19th and 20th century, or whether you look internationally, more and more later writers of constitutions have tried to write policy outcomes into their constitutional text. And I think one of the really remarkable things about 1787 was the restraint that the convention showed in not doing that. and really setting up a text that set the boundaries for discussion. Now they weren’t perfect, and some people did try and set in constitutional terms what federal policy might be on particular issues. But largely they didn’t succeed, and the document that emerges is one that provides a broadly neutral forum for debate. and then the subsequent Congresses have been left to work through those issues. And if I had a hope for the future in Constitution writing, it would be that we have the courage to do that more rather than less, and to trust the people more rather than less. And I think, again, for all that the Convention is sometimes criticized as not being democratic enough, They really did leave future Congresses enormous latitudes on policy questions that would be almost unimaginable today. If America were to have a constitutional convention today, I suspect there would be very definite attempts to try and write policy preferences into the base constitutional text. Nicholas Cole of the Quill Project at Pembroke, we thank you very much for your time and thank you for celebrating Constitution Day with us here in the United States. It’s an enormous pleasure, thank you. So I think that’s really interesting, this idea that they created sort of this broadly neutral forum for debate, and that they, in that, are sort of trusting that we the people will be the ones that are passing good legislation and directing the country in the way that we see fit. Yeah, it’s a really interesting point, I think. even I don’t appreciate on Constitution Day, that the Constitution of the United States is different in terms of what’s in it. It is concrete enough, but it does not have all this long list of policies in it. It tackles the structure itself. And I think that is really interesting, being able to have that foresight in a strange way, but at least that understanding balance of reason and passion we’re talking about is really interesting yeah and so I think the challenge within that then is is still how do we come together in this pluralistic Society what is it that unites us right um and I think Mark and Motsi uh talk touched on that as well so

why don’t we check back in with them and and see what they had to say we talked about all the difference that the first amendment protects how do we come together what what makes that work Sure. So I mean, the thing about other countries, right? Other countries around the world have a common racial bond between all or most of the people, or religious bond, or tribal bond, or a small geography where they’re all from the same place. The United States of America has none of that, right? We’re all on the same very, very large chunk of land. Alaska and Hawaii aside, right, we’re in the same very big piece of land. But we’re not united by any of those things. So what unites Americans, I think, is a common civic commitment to freedom, to freedom and equality, right? And so on one hand, you can say, wow, that divides us because we all have different ideas and different opinions. And gosh, how do people with different ideas and opinions live together? But the fact of the matter is we get that diversity because we all are committed to the freedom, right, to the freedom that says I get to come up with my way, you get to come up with your way, and she gets to come up with her way, right? So we have a common American commitment to a set of principles and ideas of freedom and equality, which by the way is the reason that people from all around the world want to come be part of it, right? They don’t want to come be part of it because we’re all the same racial makeup, we’re not the same religious makeup, we’re not the same tribe, we’re not all the same in any of those ways. ways. But we are the same or at least as much the same as you could be in our commitment to freedom and equality for people and really allowing pluralism and diversity to live and thrive here. And I think that’s a wonderful thing to United Country. It keeps our country together and strong. And we really have the First Amendment to thank for it. Yeah, I think that’s really interesting. And I think that what brings us together, thinking about that on Constitution Day and how it is that these ideas unify all of us around a single constitution is really interesting. And I think Mark and Monsey had a little bit more to say about this. So why don’t we check back in with them and see what they had to say. Yeah, I’m feverishly writing notes. It’s fascinating. How did you end up here at Beckett? I came to the Becket Fund as a graduate student and I was studying politics. I thought that the way that I would change the world is by going on the Hill and working with senators. And then I realized the power of the law. I realized that case by case, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty was building something that would transform the way that Americans got to live their religious liberty. And I wanted to be a part of that. I became a US citizen 10 years ago. And that wasn’t a decision that I took lightly. And it’s precisely for the reasons that Mark described that I wanted to be an American citizen. Because I understood the value and the freedom and the responsibility that comes with being an American. And that is why people come to this country, in search of true freedom, in search of true equality. Exactly why I wanted to be a U.S. citizen. Because of that freedom and the responsibility that comes with

our Constitution and our shared values. And that’s, it’s the most wonderful thing and the most wonderful decision to make. To know that you are coming somewhere that is different because it’s free. From when I was very, very young, I have always wanted to argue and fight about protecting people’s rights and protecting people who needed it. And I honestly felt like God kind of gave me a skill set that it was my job to not just take to go make myself a lot of money or something like that, but to take that skill set and try to use it to advance good causes and protect people. And so when I had the opportunity eight or nine years ago to come to the Beckett Fund to work with the best team of religious liberty lawyers really in the world to be honest with you and to fight to protect people who can’t protect themselves and to fight to protect something that I think is really an important part of our American legacy and of our human dignity is just as human people I you know leaped at the opportunity and have been delighted ever since that I get to wake up in the morning and represent the kind of people I get to represent and do my part to protect religious liberty. Knowing that when I go argue and fight against somebody, I’m not fighting against somebody who’s a bad person or who’s evil or who is an enemy. There are other Americans who have different ideas and who I think are getting something wrong. And the chance to go defend rights and defend liberties to try to get the court to have a broad protection for everybody, even for people who don’t share my beliefs, is really important to me. You know, I think Mark’s point there at the end is really interesting and one that’s important for us all to keep in mind, which is to say we can have disagreements, and that’s OK. That’s natural. It doesn’t make those who are opposed to us as enemies. You know, earlier we mentioned, particularly in Supreme Court cases, There’s very strong arguments on both sides of a lot of these cases. And that’s okay. That’s natural. That is what this process, what our Constitution is built to help us process through and work through. Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. And you caught me feverishly writing notes throughout that because that is true, and it makes me think of the role of all of us, right? they do speak in front of the Supreme Court, right? We may never get that chance, you and I, but everybody has a role. I also like from those clips about how finding your contribution to these bigger ideas can be in any job, where you are right now, where you’re going to be in your plans for the future. I wrote down that Yet there’s the commitment to freedom is sort of what drives and how you get to the diversity and how you pull from it to the plurality. Mine was going a mile a minute, and yet it was really interesting in terms of… Because the question is what do you want to do not only on Constitution Day, but the day after and the days after that. Yeah, that’s right. Absolutely. And I guess it’d be a good time. Do we have any questions that we…

I think we do. From the audience? Speaking of the right now, we’re at 29.7 seconds in this hour. That’s 1,787 seconds. 1,787 seconds. Happy 1787, happy birthday, Constitution. Happy birthday, Constitution. You do mention that we do have a question. This is from Leonard O. at Shadow Ridge High School. One of the students asks, “How does the veto demonstrate checks and balances?” Yeah, I think that’s a great question. We touched a little bit on the executive and the role the executive plays in our constitutional system of enforcing the laws. And we also touched a little bit on that federal governmental officials have to take an oath to uphold and defend and protect the Constitution of the United States, which I think is exemplified really well in the veto power. And I’m reminded of in the 19th century, toward the end of the 19th century, in the 1880s and 1890s, there were a lot of debates around the topic of immigration. There was new immigrant groups coming from different parts of the United States. There’s a lot of tension resulting from this. And so the executive was actually in the role of often vetoing laws that were passed by Congress that would put limitations on These laws, notably the Chinese Exclusionary Act was eventually passed above a presidential veto in 1882. But that interplay between those two branches in trying to talk about and debate what is good for the country, what is essential for the country, I think it’s an interesting one. Even there in a contentious issue of immigration, obviously something that comes up today, seeing that veto power work, to say no to legislation that the president ultimately thinks is going to be bad for the country is a perfect example of those checks and balances. Yeah, and a really good example of that prudence we were talking about earlier. If you just tuned in recently, first of all, welcome. But some of the big principles we discussed today tackled upon what’s required, what’s agreed upon to make things work. And I think Building in that veto power is a really good example of that. Building in for a future system that one is not yet aware what the details are going to be, how how immigrate we don’t know what a hundred years from now 200 years 232 years from now are going to be like and yet there’s a confidence that the document and the system that it exemplifies um can tackle those problems yeah that through the conversation through us discussing debating wrestling with these items we’re eventually going to going to move on a track that’s going to be beneficial for more people, that we’re going to move closer to this more perfect union, that we’re going to more fully realize those principles as outlined in the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness being protected for every individual, and that that fundamental equality of all of us is recognized. I mean, it’s a process. It takes work. And it’s certainly something to be thinking about on Constitution Day because it’s certainly work that continues well after Constitution Day. No, absolutely. And I think that’s a really important point, that there’s continuous work to continue to not only

maintain but to build on what has happened over the years and that the role, no matter who you are, that there’s some kind of role for that. What do you think is required to do that work? Yeah, well earlier Mark and Monsi mentioned education and that education about I think our historical past, understanding where we’ve come from, understanding our institutions like the Constitution, understanding our role in civil society, how we interact in our own communities. I think all of those are really important and I think a latent curiosity not only in those things but also in the people that are around you, in the beliefs that they have, I think is really important for us to continue that work. No, absolutely. And I think that work requires what we keep talking about right now, which is the idea of prudence. I think David and Chris had a conversation that they touched upon that. I think we should watch that a little bit and see how we can have some ideas that sort of wrap up the things we’re talking about. I think that’s right. Why don’t we take a look? Can you tell us the story of how Madison and Jefferson came to the belief that religious liberty, the concept of religious liberty, should be embedded into the Constitution? Yes. It’s a great story. It’s, I think, an example of that prudence and that courage that was so much a part of the founding of this country. So Madison saw grave injustice in the area around which he grew up and where he had returned to after college. He saw that Baptists were not being treated in a way that was worthy of human dignity. And they were they were sometimes fined, even imprisoned. Some of them were beaten up because they had the audacity to practice their religious beliefs as their conscience was telling them. And again, this was not contrary to the common good. It wasn’t running afoul of anything but the Anglican establishment. And so taxpayer dollars propped up the Anglican Church in the Commonwealth of Virginia. And Madison saw that as a real problem. And he said, “I want to do something about that.” And what he figured out is that he could, with the aid of Thomas Jefferson, who was eight years his senior, craft a piece of legislation. Jefferson drafted it, they introduced it, and the idea was that gradually they would lift the established religion from the backs of all taxpayers in the Commonwealth of Virginia. In other words, there wouldn’t be one official sect that would dominate and that would be able to receive taxpayer funding. And what happened is they faced some opposition because people like Patrick Henry said, “You know what? We really need this kind of taxpayer-supported religious establishment because kids were really not towing the moral line.” And Madison said, “Well, that may be true, but is it really going to be an effective thing for the state

to force people against their will to practice a particular faith, is that going to get to the place where we all want to be? Is that going to conduce, in other words, to the common good, to the unum? Because you can beat people out of being Baptist. You can beat people out of being a particular faith or beat them into having some sort of faith. But what have you done in the process? You’ve lost your liberty and you’ve imposed tyranny. So the question then is how do we have an accommodation of the multiplicity of interests, of professions of belief, or non-belief. How do we do that in a plural context? And Jefferson and Madison came together, hatched a plan, and it took a lot of courage to do that because the key political forces in the Commonwealth of Virginia were arrayed against them. You know, it got so bad at one point, Jefferson’s over in Paris, he had proposed the legislation, it had languished because Henry was very powerful and could keep the legislation from passing. And Jefferson writes his friend Madison and says, “What we need to do,” here I’m quoting Thomas Jefferson, is “devoutly pray for Patrick Henry to die.” Wow. Yes, so anytime you think that the founding fathers agreed on everything, it wasn’t the case. There were big disagreements. But what they did, Jefferson and Madison, was continue that fight, laying the groundwork, trying to persuade their fellow citizens, and issuing these really interesting, what we would see kind of now as blog postings, these circulars that were put all around the Commonwealth. that argued we need to have religious liberty. Not where a majority just merely puts up with the minority and when they get tired of putting up with them they kick them out or do whatever they want because they have the power. We need real religious liberty. And it took seven, eight years before that legislation finally was adopted. But when it did, what they set in motion was really the idea that you can’t use the state to exercise tyranny over the human mind and heart. And that was really an amazing accomplishment because not only did it take a lot of courage, but think of all of the different steps in that process. They could have given up, right? But what they did is they were prudent because they saw a just end and they figured out these are the means that it’s going to take. This is the coalition that we’re going to have to pull together because by the end of it, they had not only Baptists, but they had lots of other denominations. They had free thinkers. They had folks that were not part of any religious establishment at all. And they’d come together to say that this is something that’s so important because we value, we esteem our fellow citizens who are religious, we esteem those who are

not, and we want to write into the law of the Commonwealth of Virginia this idea that all human beings are created equal. I think David Point is really interesting and it shows, I think, a couple things. One, I think it shows James Madison pointing out a problem in his community that he wanted to work on and solve, which I think is a lesson for all of us. But it also reminds me of an essay that Madison wrote in 1792 called On Property, in which he talks about that man has property in himself and his possessions, but also in his ideas, which is a topic that we’ve been touching on quite a lot today. That is a great quote that I think pops up a lot. That’s one for the wall. That’s right. That’s pretty good. You know, speaking of things with the… bringing together in unity, this is a great time to remind people of today starting our contest that leads to Bill of Rights Day. For those just tuning in, and again welcome to those just tuning in, we do have a contest launching today and it’ll be going through a little while. All we’re asking for is this: Less than three minute video Tagging us. It’s a public video tag us and use the hashtag Hashtag what unites us contest we’re gonna look for a first place prize and nine runner-ups because of the That’s right ten minutes of course all leading up to that will be announced on or before bill Bill of Rights Day, so December 15th. That’s right. But start on that now because we’d love to hear from you. We wanted today to be a live experience, an experience where we not only field questions and ideas, but also to keep a conversation going. That’s right. And for more information, check out our website and you can find all the contest information there. And speaking of people coming back together. I was going to say coming together, but also speaking of live, Earlier today, again if you’re just tuning in recently, about four hours ago, three and a half hours ago, we sent our colleague Chris and our other colleague Sarah out into the DC metro area to find the Unum. And I believe he has returned safely and soundly. And Chris, we’d love to invite you back here. If you’ve been following Chris online, he’s been live tweeting today. and so you may have seen him out and about that was all happening in real time uh let’s find out chris if you don’t mind terribly how was your experience did you find the unum so uh it was great and uh yes wow in short i think i think we found bits and pieces of the unum everywhere we went you know i’ve lived in this area for over 30 years and and i’m still when i visit the national mall and some of the sites i’m still it’s still very moving to me. And I think at each place, so we visited the three, the physical representations of the three branches of government that are outlined in the Constitution. We went to the Supreme Court, the US Capitol, we finished

off our day at the White House. You know, each one of those institutions, ways in which, you know, we strive to be a more perfect union, we strive to to live out the unum, sort of the inheritance that our founders gave us. But really what I was thinking about in the end was the preamble of the Constitution says, we the people, in order to form a more perfect union. What I was thinking about was, and again, this may sound a little bit cheesy, but… No, not at all. This is exciting. No, what I was thinking about was that it’s not something that we ever finish, right? It’s not something that we… We found it, there it is, our work is done. I feel like the founders kind of laid down a challenge for each successive generation to work on forming that more perfect union. And sometimes, you know, we mess it up. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we, you know, we get into conflicts, great and small. But I think the minute we think, oh, we found it, you know, we found the Unum, we’re in trouble. Because I think that it’s work that’s never finished. Yeah, I think that’s right. That’s my take on it. Yeah, you know, Gary and I, while you were away, we’re talking about fallibility too, right? And that it is that process. It’s that working through of thinking about, debating, discussing all of these great ideas amongst those three branches that you went and visited and amongst ourselves that hopefully, ultimately come towards an Unum. And I was really struck when you were on the Mall, sort of your observations from there. Yeah. Yeah, there were so many people milling about and as I said, from there I couldn’t help but think of the many gatherings over the decades that have taken place on that very spot. It’s sort of our national town square. I like that. And, you know, obviously the one that’s most prominent in my mind is Dr. King’s speech. And again, at a time when there was a great feeling of disunity, you know, civil rights, you know, were in the forefront of everyone’s mind and once again threatening to tear the nation apart. And he was calling us together, literally calling us together as a people to move beyond our differences, our racial differences, and unite. And again, you know, This is kind of obvious, might sound kind of cheesy, but it always gets me. It really does. Yeah. No, I love, we did not coordinate, you know, our conversation. And yet, had you been seeing today, it’s interesting that we came to discuss a similar thing in terms of the UNAM as being sort of the great national conversation, right? And I think your

view of that really just is amazing how we both sort of came upon not again an answer but more questions and more of a pathway that I think is continuing the conversation is really interesting. Absolutely. I think that’s it. I think it’s more questions. I think the question for us is what is the challenge today for us, for this generation? You know, I reflected on the 60s, the Civil Rights era, the Civil War. At the White House, we were thinking about the War of 1812, you know, all these great national crises that were faced at different points of history and how people of that generation kind of stepped up to the plate. So I think the question for us to ask on a day like today is, what is our challenge? Yeah, that’s good. That’s a great question for Professor. That’s where I found the UNAM. I think that’s great. Thank you, Chris, for going out there. I appreciate that. Thank you, Chris. That was a lot of fun. Yes. Happy Constitution Day, everyone. Yes, and to you. Thanks so much for doing this. And I love Chris’s question at the end there. It’s almost like what is the purpose of all this and what’s the purpose of celebrating Constitution Day? Yeah, and you know, I think that Julie Silverbrook touched on that as well. What an amazing segue. And so how about we take a look at Julie’s clip and see what she had to say. So one last question, which is what is the importance of Constitution Day now? Yeah, this is a, I love Constitution Day. Everyone knows this. I had handed out pocket constitutions at my wedding, hand them out for Halloween. My wedding theme was a more perfect union. Why is Constitution Day really important? It is one day during the year where you can just think about how extraordinary it is that we have been living under the same written Constitution since it was ratified in 1789 and how amazing that is. And that this has allowed for more freedom, more equality, and to reflect on that more perfect union language. I think it’s an opportunity to think about the things we’ve done wrong in the past and how we can improve them in the future, the things we’ve done right in the past and how we can call upon those things to become better versions of ourselves, to become better stewards of this great legacy that we’ve been gifted. And so I personally love Constitution Day. I hope everybody will celebrate it. Yeah, I would say over the last couple of years there’s been a lot of renewed interest in the Constitution. So like you have Hamilton on Broadway, you have a Broadway show that’s coming down to the Kennedy Center in DC called What the Constitution Means to Me. I’m actually having people ask me for pocket constitutions, which was really rare, people who you might not expect to ask for pocket constitutions. I took my mom to back surgery and her orthopedic surgeon asked, “Oh, your mom tells me you do stuff related to the constitution. Do you have a pocket constitution?” And I said, “I always carry a spare.” So I share it with him. Keep it on you at all times. You never

know. And sometimes you just want to share it with people. So I think right now, to go back to the theme of what you’re going toward for this Constitution Day of e pluribus unum, we’re looking for those connective strands. We’re looking for the ties that bind us. And the Constitution and our history, that’s what we share in common. And again, to go back to, you know, not to gloss over and say that there aren’t really negative parts of our history, but that’s still a part of who we are. That’s still what connects us to each other and having an appreciation for that, having appreciation for where we might go next. That’s exciting. It’s empowering and it’s uniting and I think Constitution Day is a perfect time. It’s right at the beginning of the school year. It’s right after the summer. People should be relatively well rested, right? It’s just such such a good time to grapple with these issues and to study and to get excited. And I also would just say Constitution Day can be a full 365 days of the year. Every day is Constitution Day at Consource. I know it’s the same at the Bill of Rights Institute. And so I hope if it’s just one day that we can capture some young people to get them excited excited about this and turn that into a lifelong passion. Or it’s one day where we get someone to say, “You know what, now that I know a little bit about the Constitution, I have some questions for my elected officials or I have some questions for people in my local community.” That’s amazing. If we can empower just one person through Constitution Day, that’s amazing. If we could empower millions, all the better. I think it’s a lot of fun that Julie carries a pocket constitution. I think it really shows sort of the place– – Do you not carry a pocket constitution? – I tell ya, I keep at least one. – We have some around. – Along with a pocket Northwest Ordinance. – Right. – Yeah. – No, but in all seriousness. – Yeah, it shows the power that this document has and has sort of captured within our culture, which I think is really interesting. – It is, and again, such an exciting day to celebrate this document. Even if you are an expert, and we’ve met a number today of experts, it’s something to always go back to. There’s something about the primary sources that are just there’s a power to going back to it, to be able to cite it, to say, you know, you don’t have to memorize everything. There’s not a person who has mastered this and you have to listen to it. But it is available for everybody to participate. Right, that you’re invited into that conversation. That it’s up to us to interpret. It’s up to us to wrestle with this, to think about it as we’re going through school, but even after school for all of us who are in the United States to think about and grapple with, and even those around the world, as we’ve seen with Nicholas Cole at Pembroke College in Oxford, England. Yes, absolutely. The fact that they’ve been working on the Quill project for a while really is for users. students, history enthusiasts, to take a look at the conversations that happen. And it’s a really user-friendly platform. That’s right. If you haven’t seen the Quill Project platform, it’s a really good one. But it also reminds

me of the conversation earlier with the people from the Becket Fund, Monsey and Mark. That’s right. And how it is that they go about their work litigating on behalf of religious freedom. How it is that they take on these cases and argue them in front of the Supreme Court and the role that plays within our constitutional system. Yeah, questions that we have about calls to action, about what’s next, about what to do tomorrow. I think one of the best ones was from the interview with the Bill of Rights Institute’s own president, Dr. David Bob, and he talks about his call to action. That’s right. David really gives us a charge to think about not only today on September 17th, but also on September 18th. And beyond. That’s right. So why don’t we take a look? So Constitution Day is September 17th. and we celebrate it, observe it every year. What happens on September 18th? What do we do? What do we as citizens, as members of a community, a school, how do we carry forth these values from Constitution Day into our daily lives and into our civil discourse? Well, just as with the original Constitution Day, September 17, it marked not an end but a beginning, because it was at that point that the Constitution was sent forth to the states for ratification. And what ensued was a big old brouhaha, a big battle, and it was a very hard-fought effort. I think the call to action for us today in the classrooms across America is to take seriously the plural existence of our students. In the early part of a school year, it’s a great time to learn that. What makes each one of these individuals unique? What do they bring to the table? How can we understand who they are? And that’s such a challenge. I know so many of the teachers with whom we work have every year a great number of students that they’re coming to know but each of them has a story. What are those stories? And then the challenge is how in a classroom setting, just like we do in civil society and as we seek to do over the course of a year and over the course of years in our country, how do we forge an unum? It’s done through the hard work of dialogue. of Socratic engagement, of drawing out from students what makes, what animates them, what are their passions, how to channel those passions, how to see those ambitions made real. Pick some problems. What are some problems in your local community that seem intractable? channel the prodigious energy of those students, of each of those unique individuals, into an idea that we can come together and solve those problems if we keep our eyes on the North Star. The North Star is promised in the Declaration of Independence is that all human beings are created equal and that we all enjoy the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It sounds

easy. It’s really hard. But over the course of a school year, a lot can be accomplished, I think, when you keep going back to that touchstone. Keep going back to that idea of the unum and figure out at the end of the year, how’d you do? What are those things that are still unresolved? Because there’s going to be a lot of them. You know, the interesting thing about our constitutional position today as a country of 325 million people is that none of these issues is ever going to be tied up in a neat bow and said, boy, good, we’re done with that one, right? We solved that one. It’s off our plates now. But what we can continue to strive for is more conversation that is meaningful. Not just trying to get to a kumbaya where we say, “Boy, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree,” but really digging in and saying, “No, let’s go to the places where we disagree. Let’s talk about the issue of immigration today. Let’s put aside the rancorous rhetoric because that has no place in the classroom.” those weaponization of words really bad. We work really assiduously at the Bill of Rights Institute support teachers in that all-important task of engaging students in these very real critical conversations. But I would just encourage everyone to go there, to go to those difficult conversations on a daily basis. And I think some really remarkable things can happen in this country. Happy birthday, Constitution! 232 years, not a day over 215. That’s right. That joke never gets old. But seriously, welcome back. I can’t believe to the end. Thank you for those of us who either just tuned in or have joined us for the full four hours. Thanks for spending that time with us. That’s right. And thank you for celebrating and thinking about the Constitution today and hopefully as you move forward in your lives because it’s an important thing and it’s central to everything that happens in our country. It’s central to our country’s history. And it’s a way in which it outlines a process, as David just mentioned, to forge the UNAM. And I think that that brings us back to that big question we’ve been contemplating Yeah, no, really, that call to action is obviously not going to be accomplished in a day, but is an ongoing thing. But I feel like you’re right. I feel like we started off, and I wasn’t sure, I’m not going to lie, Kirk, I wasn’t sure that we’re going to have an answer to the UNAM, but I think we got closer with our idea of this ongoing conversation. And I would love to celebrate Constitution Day by saying it doesn’t end on September 17th, but rather starts a new conversation that will keep going. I think that’s right. You know, I think, you know, we spoke with Julie Silverbrook at the Constitutional Sources Project. Right. And she talked about sort of the historical foundations and how it is that we’ve gotten to where we are today. And that’s certainly a part of the UNAM. It’s It’s how it is that we all have our collective identity. And it’s a good thing to remind us of to think through what that process was, how we came to be the country that we are, and how it is that

we created this document that we did. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, speaking of, we also saw that great conversation with Nicholas Cole from the Quill Project and Pembroke in Oxford. where they quite literally trace the conversation. What were there, 2,000 data points that he mentioned that they tracked throughout the entire thing? But that conversation is important enough that we are aware of it. But again, continues today. That’s right. And Nicholas talked a lot about that process and the way that the Constitution sets up the ability for us to continue to process to work through that process of working through compromise, working towards that common good. And I think that that’s something really important to keep in mind and is something that the Beckett Fund talked about too, that litigating in front of the Supreme Court, adjudicating a lot of these cases and trying to protect the rights of individuals so that minority rights, minority views, minority opinions are not trammeled by a legislative majority or by a majority ideas in any way. Right, absolutely. And like you said, David, you wrapped it up nicely in a way. And I really like over the course of the day how the Constitution, we really did take a look at those areas. You mentioned the court. We took a look at the executive branch. We took a look at the legislative branch. We took a look at the Bill of Rights itself. But we’re not done talking about In fact, we would love to hear from you teachers and students out there as part of our contest, part of our Bill of Rights Day contest slash Constitution Day contest. If you missed the rules earlier, to celebrate it, we’re hoping you would create a video, less than three minutes, about what unites students, what unites us in your classroom, in your community. Tag us, make it a public video, tag us at the Bill of Rights Institute and use the hashtag #WhatUnitesUsContest. You can find us all over the place online, right? Obviously here on YouTube, which you’re on now. Twitter, where you’re following Chris all day. That’s right. And our Twitter handle, of course, is… BR Institute. BR Institute. Bill of Rights Institute, all one thing. That’s right. And also on Facebook. On Facebook as well. Facebook.com/BillOfRightsInstitute. Yeah. So we really do hope to hear from you. I want to thank Kirk for spending the afternoon, or morning, for most of us. with me. And I want to thank you too, Gary, for leading us through this conversation, sending Chris out into D.C. and thank all of you for joining us in this conversation as we’ve sought to find the Unum in E Poribus Unum and we hope to see you again soon. Yeah, stay in touch and happy Constitution Day, everybody. Happy Constitution Day.