Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,
Speaker 1: the show where America is the star and the American people.
Speaker 1: Up next, the story of the creation of our nation's
Speaker 1: governing document and what inspired the men who created it.
Speaker 1: Here to tell the story of the Constitution is the
Speaker 1: late great historian David McCullough at a Constitution Day event
Speaker 1: at the National Archives in two thy eleven. Let's get
Speaker 1: into the story.
Speaker 2: Now. We're talking today about a document that's old by
Speaker 2: our standards, but not old as history goes. Our country
Speaker 2: is not old as history goes. There are cathedrals in
Speaker 2: France and elsewhere in Europe that were built and still
Speaker 2: stand and still evoke responses from everyone who comes there,
Speaker 2: that were built before Columbus ever set sail. We are
Speaker 2: a new society, a new event in history, as old
Speaker 2: as some of it may seem from our point of view. Now,
Speaker 2: another lesson of history is that some people have the
Speaker 2: capacity to see adversity as opportunity. Adversity is often extremely difficult,
Speaker 2: and sometimes tragic and sometimes heartbreaking, but adversity can also
Speaker 2: be an opportunity to change things, to improve, to pioneer,
Speaker 2: to build. And then there's the very real and very
Speaker 2: pertinent lesson of history concerning this subject of this morning,
Speaker 2: and that is that America is a combined effort. Very
Speaker 2: little of consequence is ever accomplished alone. Very little of
Speaker 2: consequences ever accomplished alone. One person may get a lot
Speaker 2: of credit or all the credit, but never is it
Speaker 2: just one person. And this combined effort, many heads in
Speaker 2: many hands, as James Madison said, is the reason why
Speaker 2: the Constitution happened. Now, in the summer of seventeen eighty seven,
Speaker 2: our country was in very bad shape. It was a
Speaker 2: time of turbulence, time of uncertainty, time of worry suffering.
Speaker 2: People were in debt, seriously in debt. Crops had failed
Speaker 2: in many parts of the country. There was deep fear
Speaker 2: and deep unrest. One of the most notable examples of
Speaker 2: that was western Massachusetts, which gave rise to what was
Speaker 2: known as the Chase Rebellion, which was a serious event.
Speaker 2: Thousands of farmers descending on a city of Springfield, the
Speaker 2: armory there to try and get the weapons, being stopped
Speaker 2: by a military force Americans against Americans. Now, it didn't
Speaker 2: come to an awful lot, but it set a tremor
Speaker 2: of fear through the whole country. The problem was the
Speaker 2: federal government wasn't very strong. There really wasn't a federal government.
Speaker 2: We had the Articles of Confederation, We had no chief executive.
Speaker 2: The Revolutionary War was fought without a president. The president
Speaker 2: was the commander in chief, if you will, George Washington,
Speaker 2: So you could see George Washington as not just having
Speaker 2: been president of the United States for eight years, but
Speaker 2: having served more than eight years as commander in chief.
Speaker 2: So in all, he was really the figurehead, the leader
Speaker 2: of our country for sixteen years. And if he had
Speaker 2: not attended the Constitutional Convention, the Constitutional Convention might not
Speaker 2: have succeeded. His presence, His gravitas, his importance, his integrity
Speaker 2: were essential. Now is a great cast of characters who
Speaker 2: met there in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven. Five of
Speaker 2: them are worth noting. All of them are worth noting.
Speaker 2: But James Madison, who probably worked harder, very quiet, small man,
Speaker 2: poor health, very intelligent and very dedicated. Alexander Hamilton from
Speaker 2: New York, who was a spectacular talker, a stimulating prodigy
Speaker 2: of a mind, charming charismatic. Ben Franklin, the wise old
Speaker 2: man of the scene of the play. If you will,
Speaker 2: who doesn't say an awful lot during this session, but
Speaker 2: whose p like Washington's, is immensely important. Gouvernor Morris, who
Speaker 2: was tall, handsome, talked more than anybody from Pennsylvania, another
Speaker 2: very important figure. Their meeting in Philadelphia in secret, in
Speaker 2: the same room where the Declaration of Independence was worked
Speaker 2: out and soigned. Many of you, I hope have been there.
Speaker 2: You've seen it. It's not a very large room. It's
Speaker 2: not a vast impressive gathering place, and its importance to
Speaker 2: our story as a country, to who we are and
Speaker 2: what we stand for, could not be greater. One of
Speaker 2: the historians has said that the Constitution is our crowning work,
Speaker 2: was the crowning work of the American Revolution. It was, indeed,
Speaker 2: But keep in mind it is not a crown of
Speaker 2: gold and jewels. It's a crown of words on paper.
Speaker 2: Words matter. What we say, what we profess to believe
Speaker 2: as expressed in words matter not just at the moment,
Speaker 2: but possibly for a very long time to come. The
Speaker 2: pen is a sword. The pen can be a weapon,
Speaker 2: but the pen can also be a magic wand. And
Speaker 2: when you think of what these relatively few people did
Speaker 2: in very little time three months meeting in that room
Speaker 2: with the windows closed because they don't want word to
Speaker 2: get out. Sentries at the windows to keep people from
Speaker 2: coming up and listening in that heat of Philadelphia and
Speaker 2: humidity of the center. This is punishment. But they're working
Speaker 2: in secret, not to keep anybody from knowing, but keep
Speaker 2: the politicians in them, ambitious statesman, if you will, who
Speaker 2: are in that room, from grandstanding, from saying things for effect.
Speaker 2: They're saying things for popularity or to make an impression
Speaker 2: back home. Not their business. Their business is to hammer
Speaker 2: out a document that will stay on the test of.
Speaker 1: Time and when we come back, more of the story
Speaker 1: of the Constitution and the men who wrote it, the
Speaker 1: men who created it. Here on Our American Stories, leeh
Speaker 1: abb Here, host of Our American Stories. Every day on
Speaker 1: this show, we bring you stories of America, stories of us.
Speaker 1: And it's because of listeners like you that were able
Speaker 1: to tell the story of this great and beautiful country
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Speaker 1: American Stories. Is it our American Stories dot Com to
Speaker 1: give give a little, give a lot, any amount helps,
Speaker 1: but to our American Stories dot com. And we returned
Speaker 1: to our American stories and the story of the Constitution.
Speaker 1: Telling the story at a National Constitution Day event at
Speaker 1: the National Archives back in twenty eleven is the late
Speaker 1: Great David McCullough. When we last left off, we learned
Speaker 1: that the drafters of the Constitution had to spend many
Speaker 1: months away from home in secret to create the document
Speaker 1: that we now all live by in a little stuffy
Speaker 1: room in Philadelphia. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 2: That was asking a great deal of those people three
Speaker 2: months away from home, three months away from their work,
Speaker 2: three months a very hard, concentrated effort under difficult circumstances,
Speaker 2: calling upon their patriotism, not the flag waving patriotism, chest
Speaker 2: beating kind, but the kind of getting down to do serious,
Speaker 2: difficult work in a very serious, worrisome time. But those
Speaker 2: people saw this as our chance to do it right.
Speaker 2: We're going to do it. Let's do it right. What
Speaker 2: they worked out, as I hope all of you know,
Speaker 2: is the basic structure of our government. And that's easy
Speaker 2: to say, and it's easy to say, oh, yes, I
Speaker 2: know that the bicameral legislature, the chief executive and the judiciary.
Speaker 2: What they were really working out is a national government,
Speaker 2: a national government with power, which is the very issue
Speaker 2: that troubles so many people today. So is all of
Speaker 2: this relevant to the world we live in. It certainly
Speaker 2: is every day. Should you understand it, should you think
Speaker 2: about it? Absolutely all the time. We can never know
Speaker 2: enough about the founding fathers as they've come to be known,
Speaker 2: never know enough, and we're learning more all the time.
Speaker 2: It isn't an old story that's been just talked to death,
Speaker 2: and it is again infinitely compelling because of its human
Speaker 2: frailties and human soaring. One of the mistakes people make
Speaker 2: very often is that they read about a success, an
Speaker 2: accomplishment that improves an old problem, that dispenses with what
Speaker 2: was inadequate before, and they think it was a perfect
Speaker 2: job therefore, and that what was there before was inadequate
Speaker 2: and a failure. Now. There is a great deal to
Speaker 2: be said for that point of view, but it's almost
Speaker 2: always not quite complete. The articles of Confederation were weak.
Speaker 2: They didn't have an executive to run the country, taxing power,
Speaker 2: wasn't there power to control diplomatic negotiations for the whole
Speaker 2: country wasn't there on and on, But the Articles of Confederation,
Speaker 2: as weak as it was, got us through eight and
Speaker 2: a half years of the Revolutionary War, the most bloody
Speaker 2: war in our history on a per capita basis except
Speaker 2: for the Civil War. People forget that. And just because
Speaker 2: they wore funny clothes and walked around with wigs on
Speaker 2: and so forth, doesn't mean that they weren't human beings
Speaker 2: suffering all the horrors of war. Isn't just a number
Speaker 2: of people who are killed. It's all the people who
Speaker 2: have been wounded and stricken with disease, and taken away
Speaker 2: from their families for years at a time on terrible
Speaker 2: food and no pay all. Somehow or other, the Articles
Speaker 2: of Confederation in that government that was in Philadelphia managed
Speaker 2: to do it. Also, ironically, the same summer, this tumultuous,
Speaker 2: troubled summer venteen eighty seven, under the Articles of Confederation
Speaker 2: was past. The Northwest Ordinance. Think about this. Think The
Speaker 2: Northwest Ordinance created a new part of the country for
Speaker 2: the future's development. Five states would result from it, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
Speaker 2: and Wisconsin, a territory bigger than the entire nation of France,
Speaker 2: center of the Great Lakes, one of the most valuable,
Speaker 2: most American places on the map. And they specified there
Speaker 2: would be no slavery before we even had a constitution,
Speaker 2: no slavery in those states, and that there would be
Speaker 2: public education, neither of which would wind up in the Constitution.
Speaker 2: So they were ahead of the Constitution in that respect.
Speaker 2: So to just dismiss the Articles of Confederation as having
Speaker 2: been largely a failure is to not understand what really happened.
Speaker 2: The fact that there was no slavery in those states
Speaker 2: would change our whole history, And of course it was
Speaker 2: admirable in the extreme, the fact that they saw that
Speaker 2: education was essential to our whole system, to its success
Speaker 2: and did something about it, didn't just talk about it.
Speaker 2: Jefferson said, any nation expects to be ignorant and free,
Speaker 2: expects what never was and never will be. But there's
Speaker 2: nothing in the Constitution about that. The other point I
Speaker 2: want to make is that the Constitution isn't a success entirely.
Speaker 2: Martin Luther King put it very well that it was
Speaker 2: a promissory note because it ducked it avoided the issue
Speaker 2: of slavery. The issue with the ultimate lead into the
Speaker 2: worst calamity in the history of our country, the Civil War.
Speaker 2: Six hundred thousand people died because of slavery in that war,
Speaker 2: six hundred thousand people, and that's not counting all the
Speaker 2: people that went home with one arm or no legs.
Speaker 2: We are accountable for what we do. History shows that,
Speaker 2: and we are capable of rising up out of terrible
Speaker 2: troubled times and doing something something thrilling. That is a
Speaker 2: symbol of affirmation. And the Constitution is that even before
Speaker 2: the amendments were added the Bill of Rights, even before
Speaker 2: the fourteenth Amendment was finally added, ending slavery, we keep
Speaker 2: fixing it now. Whether the Constitution should be taken literally
Speaker 2: or should be judged by the temper in the moment
Speaker 2: and the problems of the moment by the jurists is
Speaker 2: continuing issue. The great effort was to find a middle way.
Speaker 2: That's what they were struggling for in that hot broom
Speaker 2: with the windows closed, to find the middle way together.
Speaker 2: And they succeeded in doing it, and it might not
Speaker 2: have gone that way. That's the other thing it didn't have.
Speaker 2: History is never on a track. We're often taught this followed,
Speaker 2: this follow that followed that got to memorize it'll be
Speaker 2: on the test on Wednesday, and therefore it had to
Speaker 2: come out that way. It never had to come out
Speaker 2: any one way or another. And what they achieved at
Speaker 2: Philadelphia was like nothing else that had ever been achieved.
Speaker 2: Words on paper, a constitution on paper, a written constitution,
Speaker 2: still still the law of the land, still part of
Speaker 2: who we are and what we believe. There are only five,
Speaker 2: I believe, colleges or universities or institutions of higher learning
Speaker 2: in our country that require their students to take at
Speaker 2: least one term on the Constitution. Three of them are
Speaker 2: military academies. Now, if you say to someone, do you
Speaker 2: think it's a good idea that officers in the military
Speaker 2: should know the Constitution? Oh, yes, they certainly should. What
Speaker 2: about all the rest of us? What about all of us,
Speaker 2: not just incoming people from elsewhere in the world applying
Speaker 2: to become citizens, to have to take a very good,
Speaker 2: serious test in American history. We all should. It's part
Speaker 2: of our job, part of being a citizen. And it's
Speaker 2: infinitely interesting. I think that everybody should go to Philadelphia
Speaker 2: at some point and go into that room and think
Speaker 2: about what was done. There. Think about those human beings
Speaker 2: and they're frailies. Some of them got in a lot
Speaker 2: of trouble later on, personally or professionally. Some of them peaked,
Speaker 2: as we would say then, but while they were there,
Speaker 2: they were using the best ability they had. They were thinking,
Speaker 2: this wasn't a sound bite opportunity to be practiced by
Speaker 2: sound bite rains. These are serious.
Speaker 1: People, and indeed serious people they were, and they were
Speaker 1: certainly not sound bite people or sound bite minds. It's
Speaker 1: why we have not the oldest nation, but we certainly
Speaker 1: have the oldest constitution. Is what those guys did on
Speaker 1: those days in Philadelphia, those sweltering days, was truly a miracle.
Speaker 1: When we come back more of how the Constitution came
Speaker 1: to be here on our American stories, and we returned
Speaker 1: to our American stories and the final portion of our
Speaker 1: story on the Constitution and its drafters and signers with
Speaker 1: the late great David McCullough, let's pick up where we
Speaker 1: last left off.
Speaker 2: Some of them got in a lot of trouble later on,
Speaker 2: personally but professionally. Some of them peaked, as we would
Speaker 2: say then, but while they were there, they were using
Speaker 2: the best ability they had. They were thinking. This wasn't
Speaker 2: a sound bite opportunity to be practiced by sound bite brains.
Speaker 2: These were serious people. Now. Most of them, over half
Speaker 2: of them, were under forty years old. Don't think of
Speaker 2: them as wise old founding fathers. Some of them were
Speaker 2: like Franklin. Most of them were quite young, but they'd
Speaker 2: had the experience of the war, which did not make
Speaker 2: them anything but versed, steeped in the realities of tragedy
Speaker 2: and accomplishment and courage and faith. Look at the First
Speaker 2: Amendment alone, for example, what would we be without that?
Speaker 2: Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press.
Speaker 2: What does that mean? It means freedom of expression, freedom
Speaker 2: to use your mind, freedom to have ideas. One historian
Speaker 2: is called history the inexhaustible storehouse of ideas. Think of
Speaker 2: it as that. Don't think of history as memorizing dates
Speaker 2: or quotations from great pronouncements. You can look those things
Speaker 2: up in a book. Think of it as an adventure.
Speaker 2: Think of it as a human, unfolding, human story of
Speaker 2: infinite interest, in which more happens that is unbelievable than
Speaker 2: happens in most works of fiction. The truth is often
Speaker 2: much stranger than fiction, and more illuminating, and fortunately a
Speaker 2: great deal of it has been superbly written down the ages.
Speaker 2: Those people are all teaching us something, and they're asking
Speaker 2: us to get to know them better and to get
Speaker 2: to know what they went through to achieve what they
Speaker 2: did in difficult times. We just celebrated the tenth anniversary
Speaker 2: of the attack on the World Trade Center and on
Speaker 2: the Pentagon here, and I remember vividly I was here
Speaker 2: when it happened. People on television elsewhere in the press
Speaker 2: saying this the darkest, most difficult time we've ever been through. Well,
Speaker 2: it is indeed a very dark and very difficult time,
Speaker 2: but we have been through worse. And one of the
Speaker 2: values of history is that it keeps it makes impossible,
Speaker 2: helps you to keep the dark times in proportion. Other
Speaker 2: people have faced as difficult or worse, and look what
Speaker 2: they did. That should be an inspiration. The story of
Speaker 2: the writing of the Constitution of our country should be
Speaker 2: an inspiration to us. Now. It's very important that we
Speaker 2: know what they wrote. But I want to stress one
Speaker 2: more thing. It's very important that we know also what
Speaker 2: they read, because we are what we read. What were Washington, Jefferson, Franklin,
Speaker 2: John Adams Jefferson. What were they reading when they were students?
Speaker 2: What were they reading through life? From which writers? Which
Speaker 2: words were they taking inspiration? One of them we know
Speaker 2: was Alexander Pope, the great English poet, and his eg
Speaker 2: is LG. A Man. Act well, you're part there, all
Speaker 2: the honor lies. They all knew it, they all quoted it.
Speaker 2: What's that mean? Act well, you're a part history, Luck, fate,
Speaker 2: God choose about how you wish to say. It has
Speaker 2: cast you in a role. Play it the best you can.
Speaker 2: Why for money, No for power, no celebrity, no honor.
Speaker 2: We don't hear much about honor these days. Act well,
Speaker 2: you're part. They're all the honor lies. Now that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean they always were able to do that, but they
Speaker 2: were striving for that objective. And if you understand that,
Speaker 2: you can understand who they were and why they were
Speaker 2: the way they were a great deal more Scincly, in
Speaker 2: seventeen seventy nine, a full eight years before the Constitutional Convention,
Speaker 2: Massachusetts passed its constitution. And the Constitution of Massachusetts was
Speaker 2: not just a harbinger or a preview of what was
Speaker 2: to come in the national Constitution. It was a model.
Speaker 2: Everything has its antecedents. Everything has some hint, some forecasts
Speaker 2: in previous times, and in this Massachusetts Constitution is a
Speaker 2: clause a paragraph written by John Adams. John Adams was
Speaker 2: not in Philadelphia, nor was Jefferson, as I'm sure you know,
Speaker 2: because they were serving as diplomats in Europe, but they
Speaker 2: were reacting to it. They were keenly interested in all
Speaker 2: the latest news. When the word came through that had
Speaker 2: finally been passed, Adams wrote immediately to say, it's marvelous.
Speaker 2: It's a tremendous accomplishment, but it needs a bill of rights.
Speaker 2: Jefferson did not say much about needing a bill of
Speaker 2: rights for quite some time, but eventually came around seeing
Speaker 2: it that way. But the paragraph that Adams wrote for
Speaker 2: the Massachusetts Constitution is the note I would like to
Speaker 2: conclude my remarks to you this morning on When he
Speaker 2: wrote it, he was sure that it would be rejected,
Speaker 2: but he just had to do it ease his own mind.
Speaker 2: It was passed unanimously and is still part of the
Speaker 2: Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Wisdom and knowledge, as
Speaker 2: well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people,
Speaker 2: is necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties,
Speaker 2: and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages
Speaker 2: of education in various parts of the country and among
Speaker 2: the different orders of people, in other words, everybody. It
Speaker 2: shall be the duty, the duty of legislators and magistrates,
Speaker 2: in all future periods of this Commonwealth to cherish the
Speaker 2: interests of literature and the sciences in all the public
Speaker 2: schools and grammar schools for the promotion of agriculture. Now
Speaker 2: listen to this list. It includes everything virtually for the
Speaker 2: promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a
Speaker 2: natural history of the country. To countenance and inculcate the
Speaker 2: principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity,
Speaker 2: industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity,
Speaker 2: good humor. There shall be good humor, all all social affections,
Speaker 2: and generous sentiments among the people. Who could write anything
Speaker 2: like that today and get it passed. His faith and
Speaker 2: education was that as the bulwark of society. When he
Speaker 2: was a young man, he wrote the following. John Adams
Speaker 2: was a farmer's son. John Adams was the only founding
Speaker 2: father who never owned a slave as a matter of principle.
Speaker 2: He was twenty five years old when he wrote in
Speaker 2: his little diary, I must judge for myself, But how
Speaker 2: can I judge? How can anyone judge unless his mind
Speaker 2: has been opened and enlarged by reading. And on that
Speaker 2: I closed my remarks, and thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And you've been listening to the late great David McCullough
Speaker 1: telling the story of the Constitution back in twenty eleven
Speaker 1: at the National Archives, and he said something so interesting.
Speaker 1: To talk about what they wrote, We had to talk
Speaker 1: about and have to talk about what they were reading,
Speaker 1: the story of the Constitution, and in the end, the
Speaker 1: story of us here on our American stories.