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Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope

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Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?

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Speaker 2: What's that mango?

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Speaker 1: So? I was reading this book The Year of Living

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Speaker 1: Constitutionally by AJ Jacobs, and in it he talks about

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Speaker 1: how voting used to be this really festive thing, like

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Speaker 1: people celebrate democracy with election cakes and by guzzling Martha

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Speaker 1: Washington's rum punch. And in fact, according to AJ, when

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Speaker 1: George Washington ran for the Virginia Legislature in seventeen fifty eight,

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Speaker 1: he provided voters with twenty eight gallons of rum, fifty

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Speaker 1: gallons of rum punch, thirty four gallons of wine, forty

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Speaker 1: six gallons of ye, and two gallons of hard cider.

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Speaker 1: And also he won the election with more than three

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Speaker 1: hundred well lubricated votes.

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Speaker 2: God, that is a lot of liquor. But you know,

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Speaker 2: I feel like getting people that drunk doesn't seem like

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Speaker 2: that great of idea, especially if it's a contentious selection.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, apparently it's something they did a whole lot

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Speaker 1: in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, and I guess democracy

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Speaker 1: seems to have survived just fine. But those aren't the

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Speaker 1: only traditions AJ is trying to bring back. For the

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Speaker 1: last year, AJ has been studying the Constitution and hanging

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Speaker 1: out with scholars, but also writing his book By Quill

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Speaker 1: and Candlelight. He's been carrying a musket around everywhere he goes.

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Speaker 1: He's been asking soldiers to stay over at his place

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Speaker 1: because he sees it as a patriotic duty. And he's

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Speaker 1: been trying to get new amendments passed to the Constitution.

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Speaker 1: And of course he's been baking lots of election cakes too.

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Speaker 1: And I just thought it'd be super fun to have

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Speaker 1: him on the show to talk about what he's learned

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Speaker 1: over the last year.

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Speaker 2: I love any excuse to have Aj Jacobs on. He

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Speaker 2: is just the best, the smartest, the quirkiest. Everything about

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Speaker 2: him is so great. So I can't wait to hear

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Speaker 2: this interview. Let's dive in.

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Speaker 1: Aja. I'm so thrilled to have you back on the show.

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Speaker 1: It's been a very, very long time.

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Speaker 3: I am delighted to be here. Goodmorrow. Of course, I

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Speaker 3: am so thrilled to be talking about this with you.

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Speaker 1: So the new book is the Year of Living Constitutionally.

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Speaker 1: And I see you're wearing a tricorn hat. Here can

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Speaker 1: you tell me a little bit about that.

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Speaker 3: Well, sure, I should have brawled for you. I realized

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Speaker 3: that was rude, that was weird.

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Speaker 1: I feel underdressed for the occag.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and also it's a little bit interfering with my headphones.

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Speaker 3: They didn't have headphones back in the eighteenth century.

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Speaker 1: But yes, this is a.

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Speaker 3: Tricorn hat that I had handmade for this project, the

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Speaker 3: Year of Living Constitutionally, because the premise was I'm going

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Speaker 3: to try to understand the Constitution by getting into the

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Speaker 3: minds of the founding fathers and not just the mindset,

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Speaker 3: the clothes and the technology, and I just went all in,

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Speaker 3: as is my mo.

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Speaker 1: But it has even a little bit more of a

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Speaker 1: story than that, right, because the original hat you got

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Speaker 1: was less soft.

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Speaker 3: Than this one.

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Speaker 1: Is that correct?

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Speaker 3: Well, yes, actually this is a third hatanks third thank

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Speaker 3: you for being on top of my hat. Yes, this

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Speaker 3: is not just something you order off of Amazon dot

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Speaker 3: com for Halloween. This one was made by a hatter

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Speaker 3: and it took a long time. And that's one thing

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Speaker 3: I've learned. People who try to reenact the eighteenth century,

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Speaker 3: they are serious, they are not messing around. So they

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Speaker 3: do it by candlelight and they count the number of

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Speaker 3: stitches in each shirt to make sure that it's proper

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Speaker 3: and authentic. So this is a not from the eighteenth century.

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Speaker 3: It's not two hundred years old. But I think if

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Speaker 3: someone from the eighteenth century came back and put this on,

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Speaker 3: they would be like, Okay, I feel comfortable.

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Speaker 1: Well, I want to get into reenactments in just a bit,

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Speaker 1: but to begin with, let's just get to the premise

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Speaker 1: of the book. Tell me how you actually came up

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Speaker 1: with this idea for the project.

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Speaker 3: Sure, well, I actually knew very little about the Constitution.

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Speaker 3: I had seen a statistic that sixty percent of Americans

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Speaker 3: have never read the Constitution, and I was in that

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Speaker 3: sixty percent. And yet every day I would see in

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Speaker 3: the news some story about how influential the Constitution is

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Speaker 3: in our lives and how it affects everything, what we

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Speaker 3: can say, and where we go to school, women's health.

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Speaker 3: So it is just a massively influential document, and I

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Speaker 3: wanted to try to understand it. And the way I

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Speaker 3: like to understand things is to live them, to actually

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Speaker 3: get inside. And just to give you some quick background,

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Speaker 3: I several years ago, many years ago, wrote a book

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Speaker 3: called A Year of Living biblically, and this one the

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Speaker 3: premise I knew nothing about religion. I grew up in

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Speaker 3: a very secular home. Maybe I should try to understand

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Speaker 3: religion because I had a new born son. And one

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Speaker 3: way to learn about it would be to walk in

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Speaker 3: the sandal steps of our four bears. And so I did.

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Speaker 3: I tried to follow all the rules of Bible. And

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Speaker 3: we're talking of favous ones like the Ten Commandments, when

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Speaker 3: also the ones like you cannot shave the corners of

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Speaker 3: your beard. I didn't know where the corners were. Just

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Speaker 3: let the whole thing grow. And I looked like Gandalf.

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Speaker 3: I looked insane. I didn't wear clothes made of two

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Speaker 3: different kinds of fabrics, which is forbidden by Leviticus. And

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Speaker 3: it was a fascinating It was a bizarre year. It

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Speaker 3: was silly at times, but also profound because I really

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Speaker 3: did gain some insight into the Bible. And I always

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Speaker 3: thought I could do a sequel with the Constitution.

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Speaker 1: You've been thinking about that since that time?

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Speaker 3: Since that time, Wow, since that time, because many of

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Speaker 3: the same issues apply now literally, should we take this text?

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Speaker 3: How much should it evolve over time? And I decided

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Speaker 3: a couple of years ago. Now is the time because

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Speaker 3: the Constitution has always been influential, But about two years ago,

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Speaker 3: the majority of the Supreme Court at that time became

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Speaker 3: what they called originalist, meaning that the most important way

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Speaker 3: to interpret the Constitution is what did the words mean

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Speaker 3: in seventeen eighty nine when it was ratified? And that

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Speaker 3: has affected how we live in so many ways. And

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Speaker 3: I thought, okay, well, let me try to be the

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Speaker 3: ultimate originalist and actually try to get into the mindset

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Speaker 3: of those who wrote the Constitution and see what did

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Speaker 3: it really mean?

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Speaker 1: Then?

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Speaker 3: What should it mean now? How much should it evolve?

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Speaker 1: I love the Year of Living Biblically so much because

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Speaker 1: you deal with the topic in such a sweet and

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Speaker 1: approachable way. But it gets these really difficult issues. But

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Speaker 1: one of the other difficulties I think is just how

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Speaker 1: your family adjusts to you living biblically. And in this

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Speaker 1: book you're bringing your family into so much of it.

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Speaker 1: I see your wife participating in your field trips and

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Speaker 1: giving you an advice on playing a fife to wake

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Speaker 1: up someone in your apartment. But how did this book

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Speaker 1: affect your family?

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Speaker 3: Yes, as you say, my family has mixed reactions to

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Speaker 3: these experiments that I go on. So I lived biblically,

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Speaker 3: but my wife did not kiss me for seven months

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Speaker 3: because I had this huge beard. And in this one,

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Speaker 3: again it was a mix. I was trying to not

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Speaker 3: use electric lights, so I burned candles, but they were

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Speaker 3: these old style beef fat candles, so they smelled like meatloaf.

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Speaker 3: She didn't love that. She didn't love that I was

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Speaker 3: writing in ink with a quill, which meant it was

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Speaker 3: splattering everywhere. And she didn't love that I was walking

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Speaker 3: around with a must get on the upper west side,

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Speaker 3: as is my second Amendment.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: She's like, you are You're going to get beat up,

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Speaker 3: which I didn't. I got very lucky, and I will say,

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Speaker 3: we're not lucky.

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Speaker 1: You have a musket with you.

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Speaker 3: Well that's true, but if I actually had to defend

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Speaker 3: myself with a musket, I'd be screwed. Because it takes

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Speaker 3: five minutes to load. I'd be like, hold that thought,

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Speaker 3: don't beat me up yet. I have to take out

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Speaker 3: the ramrod and pour in the gunpowder. So it is

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Speaker 3: not a particularly practical weapon, which is fine. I didn't

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Speaker 3: want to hurt anyone. I just wanted to explore what

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Speaker 3: did the Second Amendment.

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Speaker 1: Mean, and how about your kids, how'd they get involved

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Speaker 1: or not involved?

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Speaker 3: I mean, I wore my tricorn hat and I would

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Speaker 3: when I did go to restaurants, I would try to

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Speaker 3: sign the check with my goosequill pen, and they were

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Speaker 3: two of them were extremely embarrassed. They wouldn't walk within

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Speaker 3: fifty yards of me. One of them, my oldest jasper,

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Speaker 3: kind of got into it. His favorite comedian is Eric Andre.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, whose sort of a performance are this and

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Speaker 3: does these ridiculous things. So he thought of me as

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Speaker 3: sort of a tamer and not as good version of

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Speaker 3: Uric Dry. So he came along with me on some

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Speaker 3: of my adventures when we went to Times Square trying

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Speaker 3: to find soldiers to quarter in the house, things like that.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things I loved so much was

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Speaker 1: the scene where you and your family were watching reenactment

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Speaker 1: battle and just how slow the processes. There's like a

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Speaker 1: group that seems to be shooting from one side and

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Speaker 1: then there's a pause as they're loading their muskets and

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Speaker 1: shooting from the other side. Tell me about your first

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Speaker 1: impressions being at this reenactment, and then how is it

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Speaker 1: that you start participating in this experience.

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Speaker 3: Right, Well, there are no constitutional convention reenactors. I think

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Speaker 3: there should be, But people seem to like guns and

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Speaker 3: smoke better than pens and compromises. So I joined the

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Speaker 3: New Jersey third Regimen of reenactors, and I went and

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Speaker 3: fought in the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey. Of course,

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Speaker 3: it was nothing like being an actual soldier in the

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Speaker 3: Revolutionary War. However, even reenacting it is difficult. It was

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Speaker 3: super hot. I was wearing my wool regimental coat, and

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Speaker 3: as you say, it takes a while to load the musket,

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Speaker 3: even just getting dressed. There are so many layers, so

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Speaker 3: many buttons. This project may be grateful for many modern conveniences,

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Speaker 3: including elastic socks. I'll never take democracy for granted again,

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Speaker 3: and I'll never take elastic socks because I will never

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Speaker 3: get back the hours I spend putting sockfelts on every morning.

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Speaker 3: But it was not an easy life. It was a

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Speaker 3: hard life. It was racist, it was sexist. But I

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Speaker 3: think it's emblematic of how difficult life was, and that

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Speaker 3: we don't want to go back to living like that,

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Speaker 3: and that evolution of morals and evolution of technology can

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Speaker 3: be a good thing.

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Speaker 1: Well, talk about the musket a little bit, because you

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Speaker 1: take it to a shooting range and there's a difference

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Speaker 1: between the muskets that people are using in the reenactments

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Speaker 1: than the original ones, and so can you talk me

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Speaker 1: through that a little bit?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely. Since I was trying to follow the Constitution as

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Speaker 3: it was written, using the technology of the time to

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Speaker 3: try to understand it, I was like, for the second Amendment,

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Speaker 3: I am going to bare the arms from that time,

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Speaker 3: which were mostly not all, but mostly muskets. So I

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Speaker 3: went on the old Internet and I got an actual

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Speaker 3: musket from the eighteenth century which is super heavy, ten

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Speaker 3: pounds and it's a work of craftsmanship. It's really remarkable.

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Speaker 3: And this one was used not in the Revolutionary Ward

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Speaker 3: but the War of eighteen twelve. Oh wow, Now it

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Speaker 3: turns out you cannot fire this because it would blow

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Speaker 3: up in your face. But I got another musket, which

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Speaker 3: my wife was doubly unhappy about, and this one was

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Speaker 3: a replica that was made recently, and you can fire it.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 3: I don't spend a lot of time at the shooting range,

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Speaker 3: but I've shot guns and it's not that hard you

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Speaker 3: pull the trigger. This one It is literally fifteen steps

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Speaker 3: to shoot a musket. You have to take out a

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Speaker 3: little cartridge of gunpowder. You got to pour the gunpowder

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Speaker 3: down the barrel, pour it in the pan, take out

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Speaker 3: the ram rod, shove down the lead ball in the paper,

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Speaker 3: put the ramrod back. It's like building a desk from Ikea.

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Speaker 3: Just fire one shot. So it is a vastly different machine.

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Speaker 3: And that was part of the point. At what point

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Speaker 3: does something like a gun become so different than what

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Speaker 3: it was in seventeen eighty nine, Then we have to

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Speaker 3: evolve the laws. So I talked to gun rights activists

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Speaker 3: who said, it says gun and that's what it means.

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Speaker 3: The First Amendment doesn't just apply to Ben Franklin's printing press.

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Speaker 3: It also applies to the internet. On the other side,

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Speaker 3: our gun control advocates who say, now this is such

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Speaker 3: a different tool, you can apply the same laws to it.

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Speaker 3: It's almost a coincidence that they're both called guns. So

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Speaker 3: we have to be able to evolve, and that is

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Speaker 3: the crux of many of these debates that are going

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Speaker 3: on today that affect every part of our life.

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Speaker 1: I think it's a fascinating way into looking at the

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Speaker 1: second Amendment, and you see this with various points that

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Speaker 1: you tackle in the book.

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Speaker 3: One thing I also enjoyed was I changed my news

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Speaker 3: consumption because in the seventeen hundreds, Ben Franklin's newspaper came

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Speaker 3: out twice a week and it was like sixteen pages,

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Speaker 3: so that was your news. And I tried to replicate

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Speaker 3: that I would read newspapers from the seventeen hundreds, and

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Speaker 3: that was wonderful because I realized this twenty four hour

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Speaker 3: news cycle is terrible for my mental health. It gives

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Speaker 3: you no time to digest and give context and gus,

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Speaker 3: it is just a fire hose.

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Speaker 1: Tell me about actually reading these gazettes. We've always heard

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Speaker 1: that Ben Franklin's papers were much livelier than the competitors

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Speaker 1: and much more exciting, but there are also revelations that

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Speaker 1: you can see in the various advertising and things like that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, it was a very mixed experience because I

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Speaker 3: think you saw the best of the times and then

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Speaker 3: you saw the worst of the times. I loved reading

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Speaker 3: about these marvelous new inventions that I totally took for granted.

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Speaker 3: There was an article in Ben Franklin's newspaper about they

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Speaker 3: had decided to put numbers on the houses, so when

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Speaker 3: you were going to z Owne's house, so you could

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Speaker 3: say go to eighty nine Elm Street instead of go

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Speaker 3: to that yellow house by the minor pile. So it

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Speaker 3: made you realize these things. It just happened. People came

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Speaker 3: up with these ideas. On the other hand, there were

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Speaker 3: parts that were so disturbing and nauseating, including almost every

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Speaker 3: issue had advertisements for runaway slaves. And it is really

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Speaker 3: disturbing to see someone who I think is as thoughtful

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Speaker 3: as Ben Franklin would allow this to happen. At the

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Speaker 3: end of his life he did become quite a strident abolitionist,

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Speaker 3: thankfully and formed one of the first abolitionist societies. But

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Speaker 3: still the fact that during his life he did have

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Speaker 3: at least one enslaved person is just super disturbing.

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Speaker 1: It really pulls apart that idea of these demigods, or

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Speaker 1: this idea that the Constitution was dictated by some deity

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Speaker 1: to human hands. It makes you rethink who the founding

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Speaker 1: fathers were.

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Speaker 3: These men, in some ways were incredible and the document

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Speaker 3: thing produced really is remarkable, and in some ways it's

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Speaker 3: a huge step for the big bang of democracy as

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Speaker 3: akil Amar says he's a Yale's college, exactly a Yale school.

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Speaker 3: But in other ways they were incredibly flawed, and they

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Speaker 3: knew that this document they made was flawed. George Washington

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Speaker 3: said to his nephew and a few weeks after the convention,

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Speaker 3: he said, this is a flawed document. It's up to

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Speaker 3: you to try to make it better. And it's so

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Speaker 3: flawed even in the smallest of ways. There are typos,

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Speaker 3: they're not I don't know what you would call them quillows.

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Speaker 3: There are mistakes. The word Pennsylvania is spelled two different

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Speaker 3: ways in the Constitution in four pages pe n Sylvania

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Speaker 3: and pe n Sylvania. So this was not a perfect document.

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Speaker 3: It's an outline, a road map, and we have to

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Speaker 3: try to make it more perfect.

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Speaker 1: I know there's that one scene that you talk about

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Speaker 1: where Ben Franklin looks at the chair that Washington is

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Speaker 1: in and it has a half a sun on it.

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Speaker 1: Could you talk about that story?

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Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, I love this story. Ben Franklin at the

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Speaker 3: Constitutional Convention spent a lot of time staring at George

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Speaker 3: Washington's chair. George Washington was sitting in the front this

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Speaker 3: big wooden chair and on the back of the chair

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Speaker 3: was a carving of the sun, but it wasn't the

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Speaker 3: whole sun. It was half the sun, so you could

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Speaker 3: only see the top half and the other was cut

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Speaker 3: off by the horizon, so you don't know is it

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Speaker 3: rising is it setting? And at the end of the convention,

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Speaker 3: when against all odds, they had come to this agreement

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Speaker 3: on this document, Ben Franklin said, at that point I

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Speaker 3: knew it was a rising sun. The sun is rising

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Speaker 3: on America. And a lot of the motivation for me

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Speaker 3: writing this book was is the sun still rising on America?

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Speaker 3: Because you read the news or you talk to people,

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Speaker 3: and there's so much pessimism and nihilism and despair, and

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Speaker 3: I wanted to try to see can I still find optimism?

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Speaker 3: And I do think I did. I found some optimism.

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Speaker 3: We've got a lot of work to do, but I

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Speaker 3: don't think we should throw up our hands quite yet.

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Speaker 3: I think we can save democracy.

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Speaker 1: I like hearing that, so we'll hear more about how

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Speaker 1: to save democracy right after the break on.

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Speaker 3: It's a cliffhanger.

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Speaker 1: Sure, So welcome back to Part Time Genius. I'm here

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Speaker 1: with my good friend, the author AJ Jacobs. So Aj

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Speaker 1: we were just talking about the Constitution and democracy and

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Speaker 1: whether it can be saved. One of the things I

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Speaker 1: found really fascinating was in the book there's this phrase

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Speaker 1: about how to read the Constitution, and someone said, you

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Speaker 1: can read the black parts of it writing, or you

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Speaker 1: can read the white parts of it. And this idea

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Speaker 1: that the Constitution is this unfinished work. Can you talk

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Speaker 1: about the various viewpoints on the Constitution and how you

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Speaker 1: came to understand them.

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Speaker 3: It is a really hard issue because on the one hand,

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Speaker 3: you can view the Constitution, as Akuila Reedam r Does,

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Speaker 3: as the big bang of democracy. Amazing, for the first

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Speaker 3: time in thousands of years, you have this document where

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Speaker 3: people can choose who represents them instead of having a

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Speaker 3: king or a queen thrust upon them. On the other hand,

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Speaker 3: this was written by fifty five white men, some of

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Speaker 3: them owned human beings, So how do you reconcile that?

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Speaker 3: And you have people on both sides. You'll have people

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Speaker 3: who say this is a sacred document that nothing should

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Speaker 3: be changed, and then you have people who say it's

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Speaker 3: an elitist document, a perpetuation of slave oocracy. One person

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Speaker 3: I find super inspiring in this debate is Frederick Douglas

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Speaker 3: a great orator and thinker and writer from the Civil

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Speaker 3: War era. Now just quickly before the Civil War, there

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Speaker 3: is the same debate. And one of the other great abolitionists,

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Speaker 3: William Lloyd Garrison. He was a white man. He took

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Speaker 3: the position that the Constitution was a packed with the devil.

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Speaker 3: That's what he called it, a contract with the devil.

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Speaker 3: It deserved to be burned, and he'd burned it. He

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Speaker 3: was a showman. He would go on stage and burn

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Speaker 3: the copy of the Constitution. Originally, Frederick Douglas agreed with him,

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Speaker 3: but sometime in the eighteen fifties, Frederick Douglas decided to

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Speaker 3: change his mind and reframe the way he saw the Constitution,

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Speaker 3: and he started to say, the Constitution not a pact

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Speaker 3: with the devil. It's a promisory note because it promises

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Speaker 3: these ideals like liberty and equality and these wonderful notions.

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Speaker 3: But look at America. America is so far from living

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Speaker 3: up to these ideals, and we have to fight to

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Speaker 3: make it live up to the ideals that it says.

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Speaker 3: And this framing has been super influential. It's the same

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Speaker 3: words that Martin Luther King Junior use. So I love

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Speaker 3: that framing.

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Speaker 1: Well, you also talk about how maybe the way to

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Speaker 1: look at the founding Fathers isn't so narrow as just

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Speaker 1: this group of men in a Philadelphia courthouse, but rather

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Speaker 1: to expand the view of what founding fathers or founding

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Speaker 1: people of America can be right, And you.

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Speaker 3: Can expand it two ways. You can expand it in

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Speaker 3: time and say that the founding continues, it didn't end

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Speaker 3: with the signing of the constitutions, and people like Frederick

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Speaker 3: Douglas you could consider founders. And you can also expand

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Speaker 3: it to have a more broad cultural view and include

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Speaker 3: people at the time of the Constitution, like women who

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Speaker 3: raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to help the troops.

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Speaker 1: Or Yeah, there's a woman I'd never heard of who

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Speaker 1: went door to door and collected something like three hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars to get to the troops.

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Speaker 3: It's stunning, stunning, And there were people who were black

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Speaker 3: who were patriots. So yeah, expanding it both in time

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Speaker 3: and in who we see as a founder.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's really important and really fascinating. Also,

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Speaker 1: there are bits from the reenactment that I didn't realize

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Speaker 1: as well, that there were wives who followed the soldiers

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Speaker 1: onto the battlefield and would set up camp a few

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Speaker 1: miles behind or a few paces behind. I didn't realize

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Speaker 1: exactly what the contributions of women were at this point

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Speaker 1: and how strong they were.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, the women would be with George Washington's army.

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Speaker 3: They were kept behind the lines. And actually my wife

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Speaker 3: Julie did join the third Regiment and had to stay

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Speaker 3: behind the lines, so she didn't love some of the

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Speaker 3: more progressive regiments. You can, even if you're a woman

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Speaker 3: or another gender, you can put on the regimental coat

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Speaker 3: and musket. But the fact is, yeah, we could not

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Speaker 3: have won the war without these women who were repairing clothes,

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Speaker 3: They were doing the laundry, making the food, They were

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Speaker 3: quite possibly repairing some of the equipment. I think it's

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Speaker 3: a problem in all of history. We forget nothing thing

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Speaker 3: in the history happens without thousands of people helping.

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Speaker 1: So tell me about election cakes. Because we're friends on Facebook.

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Speaker 1: I saw a bunch of posts about election cakes. But

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Speaker 1: I wasn't fully bought in at the time, and now

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Speaker 1: I feel like I missed out.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I love this because at the time of our founding,

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Speaker 3: elections were very different in a bad way. Women were

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Speaker 3: not allowed to vote, and black and Indigenous people were

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Speaker 3: not allowed to vote. For those who were privileged enough

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Speaker 3: to vote, there was one good part, which was it

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Speaker 3: was not a chore. It was a celebration. It was

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Speaker 3: this new right that they couldn't believe they had, so

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Speaker 3: it was something regarded with joy. There was election parades,

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Speaker 3: there were election music, election rum punch, a lot of

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Speaker 3: rum punch, and election cakes. People would bake these cakes,

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Speaker 3: sometimes huge cakes. One recipe calls for fourteen pounds of

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Speaker 3: sugar and they would bring them to the polls to celebrate.

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Speaker 3: And I thought, what a lovely idea. Let's try to

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Speaker 3: bring that back. So I got people in all fifty states.

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Speaker 3: I used Facebook for this, which is not age century item,

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Speaker 3: but it is one of the older, one of the

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Speaker 3: older platforms, and I got people in all saifty states

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Speaker 3: to bake. This was a year ago, in the November

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Speaker 3: twenty three elections, and they would bring him to the

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Speaker 3: polls or to their family. And some would use the

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Speaker 3: original recipe, which is sort of like shags and cloves

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Speaker 3: spice cake, not everyone's taste. Some would just use modern recipes,

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Speaker 3: but they all decorated them with these wonderful, creative ideas

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Speaker 3: of either red, white, and blue, or it says vote

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Speaker 3: or something for their state. Mark Georgia Baker had the

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Speaker 3: peach cake. So it was just this little ray of

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Speaker 3: positivity in what is otherwise a very stressful political time.

437
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 3: And I don't think election cake is going to solve democracy.

438
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 3: It's not going to save it. But it's a good

439
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:04,920
Speaker 3: little first step. I call it a gateway car. It's

440
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 3: a gateway car. Let's get people back interested in civics

441
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 3: and participating, and then we can address some of the

442
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:14,919
Speaker 3: real issues like gerrymandering, like voter suppression.

443
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,439
Speaker 1: One of the things that seems to come up a

444
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:21,919
Speaker 1: lot in your book is the joy of congregating, Like

445
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:25,400
Speaker 1: you talk about these pipes that are communal at pubs,

446
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: the election cakes. When people go to hotels, all these

447
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 1: people crammed in and men sleeping in the same bed

448
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 1: without any question or worry about this, and there was

449
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: a sense of community that was constantly driving people's thought

450
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 1: that maybe we're distanced from now.

451
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:43,360
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't particularly like the idea of sharing

452
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 3: a bed at a hotel with a stranger. On the

453
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 3: other hand, there are elements of this that I find

454
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 3: very appealing. In the First Amendment, one of the rights

455
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 3: is the right to assemble peaceably, and it was very important.

456
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 3: That's how people They went to taverns, they went to

457
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,680
Speaker 3: coffee hops, they talked about these issues. And we've lost that.

458
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:05,639
Speaker 3: You know, there's the whole famous book Bowling Alone. Communities

459
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:10,679
Speaker 3: as institutions are really crumbling, and I think that that

460
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 3: is very important. We need to balance these two important

461
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 3: parts of society, the individual and the individual rights and

462
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 3: the community and your responsibility to the greater good. Back then,

463
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 3: that balance was very explicit. You really thought about your

464
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:31,159
Speaker 3: responsibility to society. You were on the bucket brigade, so

465
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 3: you would take buckets to put out fires. You'd have

466
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 3: a line on marked houses. Now which houses it pick

467
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 3: on fire? Where one number? No, we don't have numbers. Yeah,

468
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,400
Speaker 3: but now I do think we have gone too far

469
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 3: in the direction of individual rights. I am a huge

470
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 3: fan of individual rights, but I think they need to

471
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 3: be balanced by responsibilities and the sense of duty because

472
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 3: otherwise there's no glue that will hold community together. And

473
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:04,120
Speaker 3: so rituals like the election cake is just one small

474
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 3: way to build up the sense of community.

475
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: So when you actually start reading or going through the

476
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: Constitution for the reader. In this wonderful book, you talk

477
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 1: about the First Amendment and what a mish mash of

478
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 1: ideas it is. They're like six or seven ideas just

479
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 1: thrown into this thing and stitch together and call the

480
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 1: First Amendment. But particularly what was interesting to me the

481
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 1: idea of the freedom of the press and what that

482
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:29,400
Speaker 1: meant at the time versus what it means now. Can

483
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:30,439
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about that.

484
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:34,360
Speaker 3: Well, that was one of the most surprising parts of this.

485
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:37,640
Speaker 3: It was just how different the past was. I mean,

486
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 3: it is genuinely a different country. And yes, I love

487
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 3: the First Amendment as a journalist, but I love I

488
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:50,360
Speaker 3: realized modern First Amendment free speech, not seventeen eighty nine

489
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 3: free speech, because they had a very different conception when

490
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 3: they talk about freedom of the press. What they were

491
00:27:56,040 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 3: talking about was you don't need to get permission before

492
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 3: printing a book or pamphlet like you used to in England.

493
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 3: You had to check with the king is it okay

494
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 3: if I print this? Now you could just print it,

495
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 3: but once it was out there, you could be punished

496
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,159
Speaker 3: if it was going to threaten this infant republic. You

497
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 3: could get in a lot of trouble. So there were

498
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 3: laws on the books that were much more restrictive than

499
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:25,199
Speaker 3: we can even imagine today. It wasn't quite Stalinist Russia,

500
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:29,360
Speaker 3: but it was very restrictive. So you had state laws,

501
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 3: especially that said blasphemy was forbidden in a crime. There

502
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 3: were sedition laws. John Adams he believed that it was

503
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 3: perfectly constitutional to have these laws where you couldn't criticize

504
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 3: the president. And only in the twentieth century, in like

505
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 3: the nineteen forties and fifties, did this idea of being

506
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 3: able to express freely your ideas without consequence. Only then

507
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,680
Speaker 3: did that come to me what the First Amendment means. Now.

508
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: It's also interesting to me that at the time there

509
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: were different camps of how many amendments should be enumerated

510
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: for people. Right, there were people who were saying, we

511
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 1: don't need to list everything out, and then people who

512
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 1: are saying, no, no, we need to list all the ideas out.

513
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 1: There really was a lot of friction in that room.

514
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Well, the anti federalists, who were the people

515
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 3: who were against the Constitution were very powerful and it

516
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 3: could have gone either way, and one of their complaints

517
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 3: was that the federal government was too powerful and was

518
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 3: infringing on the states, and that's why they said we

519
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 3: need this Bill of Rights. It was partly about individual rights,

520
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 3: but mostly about state rights. So they were insistent that

521
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 3: we have this list that the federal government cannot restrict

522
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 3: free speech or gun ownership. And initially James Madison, the

523
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 3: Father of the Constitution as they call him, was opposed.

524
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 3: He's like, this is bad because if we list some

525
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 3: then people are going to say, well, they didn't list this,

526
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 3: so this this is not an actual right. But he

527
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 3: came around and he ended up writing the Bill of Rights.

528
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 3: But the meaning of the Bill of Rights, as we

529
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 3: just discussed, has changed so significantly, and that, to me

530
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 3: is one of the big takeaways of this book is

531
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 3: how different our interpretation of the Constitution now is from

532
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 3: that original vision. Sometimes for better. Sometimes it's great because

533
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 3: now the Fourteenth Amendment applies to women in gay marriage,

534
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 3: which I'm in favor of both of them, but sometimes

535
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,960
Speaker 3: for the worse. For instance, the Supreme Court in the

536
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 3: vision of the founders was so much less powerful, so constrained,

537
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 3: it was almost the runt of the litter Congress was

538
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 3: most powerful than the than the Supreme Court, and now

539
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 3: we have this Imperial Presidency and Imperial Supreme Court, and

540
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 3: I think it's a huge problem.

541
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: You document the court continues to grab power along the way,

542
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: and how it evolves, it's really fascinating.

543
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 3: That was one of the big surprises of the book

544
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 3: to me was just how not powerful the Supreme Court

545
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 3: was at the beginning, and not even prestigious. We were like,

546
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 3: I don't know, so I should go on to the

547
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 3: Supreme Court. One guy left to go onto the South

548
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 3: Carolina Supreme Court, which is considered more prestigious by some.

549
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 3: But yeah, it has over the years become more and

550
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 3: more powerful, and.

551
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 1: The architecture has been applied to make sure that people

552
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: see it as powerful, which I thought was fascinating.

553
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 3: Right, It didn't start out that way. The Supreme courts.

554
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 3: The very first one was like on the second floor

555
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 3: of a building near a market, so you could hear

556
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 3: the squeals of the pigs from the butcher. And then

557
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 3: it was in the Capitol along with Congress, and then

558
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 3: William Howard Taft, who became Chief Justice after he was president.

559
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 3: He said, I want this to be as magnificent as

560
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 3: the White House. I wanted the Supreme Court's rival, the presidency,

561
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 3: and he built this marvel palace in the nineteen thirties,

562
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 3: which many people are this is ridiculous and pompous, but

563
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 3: there remains and the power has come along with it.

564
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:16,760
Speaker 3: And again I think that is a huge problem because

565
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 3: at the founding, most of the founders would not have thought,

566
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 3: and this is all from a great scholar named Jonathan

567
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 3: Gannappitt Stanford, most of the founders did not think that

568
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court was the final and ultimate say on

569
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 3: what is and what is not constitutional. They thought instead

570
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 3: it should be all three branches way in and it

571
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 3: was a little messy, which is possibly why the Supreme

572
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 3: Court was able to say, no, it's us, We're the

573
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 3: ones who decide. But that has made them more and

574
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 3: more powerful. To now, these nine unelected people have such

575
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 3: vast influence on our everyday lives.

576
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: So talk to me a little bit about the originalist

577
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 1: interpretation and what living constitutionally means to you right now.

578
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 3: I think to oversimplify. There are two ways to interpret

579
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 3: the Constitution. One is called originalism, which is this idea

580
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 3: you have to focus on what those words meant back

581
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 3: when they were ratified in the seventeen eighties or whenever

582
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 3: the amendment was passed. The other side is sometimes called

583
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 3: living constitutionalism, sometimes called pluralism or pragmatism, and that says, yes,

584
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 3: consider what the words meant at the time, but also

585
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 3: consider what are the effects now, how has the world changed?

586
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 3: And these yield very different interpretations of the Constitution. So,

587
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 3: for instance, if you are a hardcore originalist, you will

588
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 3: look at the fourteenth Amendment, which promises equal protection under

589
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 3: the law for everyone. You will say, well, what did

590
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 3: it mean back then? Back then it was right after

591
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 3: the Civil War. It meant trying to protect black people

592
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 3: from white supremacy. They were not thinking about women, they

593
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 3: were not thinking so only about gay people or trans people.

594
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 3: So if you are like Clarence Thomas, you think that's

595
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 3: what the fourteenth Amendment should focus on. It should not

596
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 3: have anything to say about gender or sexuality. That should

597
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 3: be left to the state. On the other hand, a

598
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,399
Speaker 3: living constitutionalist might say, no, we live in a different time,

599
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 3: our morals have changed. We've got to take those words

600
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 3: about equality and apply them in a much larger way.

601
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 3: And so I try to present both sides. It's a

602
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 3: complicated issue. But I tend to think that pragmatism is

603
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:39,760
Speaker 3: a better way to go because it is so hard

604
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:43,879
Speaker 3: to get new amendments through the Constitution. The founders would

605
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 3: have been shocked by how hard it is. So we

606
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:48,759
Speaker 3: can't change it that way. We have to change it

607
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 3: some other way. And the way to change it is

608
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,320
Speaker 3: by changing the interpretation to make it a little wider

609
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 3: and more applicable to our modern more race.

610
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: You found someone who did actually get a new amendment, right, Yeah.

611
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 3: There hasn't been a new one since nineteen ninety two,

612
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 3: and that one only came about because of this character

613
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 3: I interviewed for the book named Gregory Watson, and what

614
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 3: happened was in nineteen eighty two. He was a student

615
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 3: of the University of Texas, Austin, and he wrote a

616
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 3: paper on this little known failed amendment. James Madison said,

617
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 3: we should have a cap on the salary of congressman.

618
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 3: You can't give yourself an immediate race. If you vote

619
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 3: for a raise, then only takes effect the next Congress.

620
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:38,359
Speaker 3: Seems reasonable. It never passed enough states. You need three

621
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 3: quarters of the states to sign off for a constitutional

622
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 3: amendment to take place. This student said, well, it's not dead.

623
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 3: We didn't get enough states, but it's still kind of

624
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 3: a zombie amendment. If we get three quarters of the

625
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 3: states now, then it will become part of the constitution.

626
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 3: His teacher said, that's wrong, you're an idiot. She gave

627
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 3: him a seat he was, So he decided then and

628
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 3: there he said, I'm going to get this passed. And

629
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 3: he spent ten years writing hundreds of letters to state

630
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:13,240
Speaker 3: congress people to get them to vote for this twenty

631
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,919
Speaker 3: seventh Amendment, and finally, ten years later, he got three

632
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 3: quarters of the states. And that is the last amendment

633
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 3: that has been added to the Constitution. And it's all

634
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 3: because of this one guy, Gregory Watson. But when I

635
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 3: interviewed him, I said, well, what's the next one? And

636
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 3: he said, oh, it's such a divided country, so polarized.

637
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 3: We can't get two thirds or three quarters of the

638
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 3: states to agree on the color of green peppers. It

639
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,839
Speaker 3: is going to be very hard to get another amendment through.

640
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:46,959
Speaker 3: And that's a problem, and I think the founders made

641
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:49,839
Speaker 3: it too hard. They didn't realize we would be so polarized,

642
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 3: so they made it harder than they meant to. So

643
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 3: talk about the Third Amendment do love the Third Amendment

644
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,840
Speaker 3: because it says that you, as a citizen, do not

645
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 3: have to quarter a soldier against your will, and not

646
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:07,800
Speaker 3: quarter as in chopping force. Just to clarify for it,

647
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:12,239
Speaker 3: it meant you don't have to put a soldier up

648
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 3: in your apartment and feed them. Because this was a

649
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:18,840
Speaker 3: huge problem that the colonists have. The British would turn

650
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:23,760
Speaker 3: their houses into sort of forced airbnbs for the soldiers

651
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 3: who were rude and ate them out of house and home.

652
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:29,879
Speaker 3: And so they said never again, and they put this in.

653
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 3: And what's fascinating is some scholars says the most successful amendment.

654
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:38,359
Speaker 3: No one ever talks about it or questions it. It's like, sure, yeah,

655
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 3: don't don't have these people coming. I thought, since I'm

656
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 3: doing this originalist experiment, I got to at least address it.

657
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 3: So I thought, well, it says you don't have to,

658
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 3: but also that implies you can if you want to.

659
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,879
Speaker 3: So I decided to find a soldier and ask him

660
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,439
Speaker 3: or her to quarter in our apartment. I went out

661
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:01,239
Speaker 3: to Times Square during fleet with the Navy with my

662
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:05,359
Speaker 3: son to ask a bunch of sailors to come stay

663
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 3: at our apartment. They were reluctant, got some looks. But

664
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 3: I found a friend of a friend who stayed over

665
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 3: for about three days. And I could have kicked him

666
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 3: out because that is my third amendment, right, But I

667
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 3: didn't because he was just so polite and such a

668
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:23,399
Speaker 3: lovely man, and I learned so much from him. So

669
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 3: I do recommend quartering soldiers if people are interested.

670
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 1: So it's a little used, right, So tell me about

671
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:35,799
Speaker 1: the amendment that you're trying to make happen, or that

672
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:36,840
Speaker 1: you've tried to make happen.

673
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 3: Yes. Well, one of the most fascinating parts of reading

674
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:44,479
Speaker 3: the history of the Constitution is how fluid the ideas were.

675
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 3: They are all these ideas being thrown around, and if

676
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 3: a few people had voted differently, our country would look unrecognizable.

677
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 3: And one of those was the president, the idea of

678
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 3: the president. When one of the delegates said, well, I

679
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,440
Speaker 3: guess we should have a single person as president, a

680
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 3: lot of the other delegates said, are you jesting? What

681
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 3: a terrible idea. We just bought a war to get

682
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 3: rid of a monarch, and now you want to elect

683
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,879
Speaker 3: a monarch. That's the fetus of monarchies, one of them

684
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 3: called it. But the debate lasted weeks, and in the

685
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 3: end they decided, yeah, all right, we'll do one president.

686
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:21,920
Speaker 3: But many of the others said, no, we should have

687
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 3: had a council of presidents, three presidents. Ben Franklin at

688
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:30,399
Speaker 3: one point talked about twelve presidents. Yeah, twelve. I mean

689
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:34,760
Speaker 3: that's a lot of Air Force one through twelve. Yeah.

690
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 3: So I was like, this is interesting because that fear

691
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 3: that the president would become a monarch seems to be

692
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,359
Speaker 3: on its way to be coming true. The president has

693
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 3: so much more power than he used to. And just

694
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 3: to give you one quick statistic, George Washington issued eight

695
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 3: executive orders in his eight years. Obama and Trump both

696
00:39:56,800 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 3: issued over two hundred, so it is a vast different office.

697
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:04,680
Speaker 3: So I was like, maybe we should revisit this three

698
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 3: president's idea. So my first Amendment, right to petition government,

699
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,799
Speaker 3: I said, well, just think about it, just bring it

700
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 3: up in Congress, and I got hundreds of people to

701
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 3: sign it. Now, I will say, in all seriousness, I'm

702
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 3: not sure that's the solution because I don't think, you know,

703
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 3: having Kamala and Trump and Title Star like sitting side

704
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 3: by side in the Oval office not a great idea.

705
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,839
Speaker 3: But I do think we have to figure out some

706
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,319
Speaker 3: way to restrain the presidency, and there are ways to

707
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:38,439
Speaker 3: do it, like empowering Congress. More so, that was sort

708
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 3: of the idea of my amendment.

709
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: So tell me about the letters of mark and how

710
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 1: you went about trying to get one.

711
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 3: Well, this was fascinating to me because there's there is

712
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 3: stuff in the Constitution that just seems eternal, like you know,

713
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:56,240
Speaker 3: the idea of the blessings of liberty and equal protection.

714
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,919
Speaker 3: But then there are parts that you're like, what this

715
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,960
Speaker 3: is from another century, because it is. And one of

716
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:05,439
Speaker 3: those is Article one, Section eight. Congress has the right

717
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 3: to grant letters of market reprisal, which basically means that you,

718
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 3: as a citizen, have a constitutional right to try to

719
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 3: become a pirate, a government sanctioned pirate. Meaning you can say,

720
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,279
Speaker 3: I want to take my boat, my fishing boat, and

721
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 3: put some cannons on it and go out and try

722
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 3: to capture enemy ships, and I get to keep the booty.

723
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,319
Speaker 3: I got to keep the food and the gold and

724
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 3: the sherry whatever it is in there, and it's still

725
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 3: in the Constitution.

726
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:36,279
Speaker 1: But it was also very useful, right, like actually helped

727
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: those win a War.

728
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 3: At the time it made sense. It was just like

729
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 3: the housing British soldiers in the Revolutionary War. We had

730
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:47,439
Speaker 3: just a tiny navy, so we outsourced it. We said

731
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 3: to these fishermen and whalers, you go out and do it.

732
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:54,359
Speaker 3: And they were immensely successful. These privateers is the official word,

733
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 3: not pirates. These privateers captured about two thousand British ships

734
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 3: and we probably would not have a country without them.

735
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 3: So it is fascinating and incredibly important historically, but it

736
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 3: hasn't been used since eighteen fifteen. But I thought, well

737
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 3: it's still in there. I'm trying to do this project.

738
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:17,280
Speaker 3: So I actually got a meeting with a congressman wrote

739
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 3: Conna from California, and he's like, what can I do

740
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,399
Speaker 3: for you? And I said I would like a letter

741
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,240
Speaker 3: of mark and reprisal. And at first he was like, great,

742
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:27,719
Speaker 3: that sounds good, and then he's like, wait, what is

743
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:30,239
Speaker 3: this And then I told him it was about being

744
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 3: a pirate and he was like, well, that does sound

745
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 3: a little more complicated than you know. He said he

746
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 3: would bring it up with his colleagues, which was very nice,

747
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:42,879
Speaker 3: and his age still emails me as Captain Jacobs, which

748
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 3: I love. So that's the closest I've come so far.

749
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 1: So what surprised you most during this year of living

750
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:54,400
Speaker 1: constitutionally and do you feel like it did inspire you

751
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:55,840
Speaker 1: to get more involved in government?

752
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,800
Speaker 3: Well? The second part absolutely that story we talked about

753
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 3: with Ben Franklin saying is the sun still rising on America?

754
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 3: And my conclusion is, I don't think it's like the

755
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 3: actual sun. Where's it's gravity that makes it. It's us.

756
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 3: We are the gravity. We have to be the ones

757
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:18,879
Speaker 3: who roll off our sleeves and become civically engaged. It's

758
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:21,760
Speaker 3: about society, It's about people. How do people live together?

759
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 3: How can we make it so people live together in

760
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 3: the flourishing way possible? So yes, and I guess one

761
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 3: of the big surprises was just how different life was then.

762
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 3: It was racist and sexist and smelly, and you had

763
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 3: the tobacco enima. But there were parts as well that

764
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:46,920
Speaker 3: are I think worth re evaluating and bringing back. Like

765
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:50,719
Speaker 3: we talk about the sense of community, this sense of

766
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 3: responsibility and getting together in person. We would not have

767
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 3: a country if people had not had the right to

768
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:01,879
Speaker 3: assemble and meet and talk in coffee shops and work

769
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 3: out these hard issues, and that was one of my

770
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 3: favorite parts. I had an eighteenth century style dinner where

771
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 3: I had people from all over the political spectrum over

772
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 3: and my son cooked some beef stew. We talked about

773
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 3: all sorts of issues. We sang Yankee Doodle, which has

774
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,320
Speaker 3: a very disturbing verse that they leave out for the kids.

775
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 3: We talked about what do we like about America and

776
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,839
Speaker 3: what would we change. Not everyone agreed, but the one

777
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 3: thing we agreed on was that we need more of this.

778
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:36,320
Speaker 3: We need more face to face discussions in good faith,

779
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 3: assuming the other person is a good person and that

780
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 3: they want the best for our country, because if not,

781
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:48,120
Speaker 3: we're just going to continue to polarize and divide and

782
00:44:48,719 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 3: we are not going to have a single country. We're

783
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 3: going to have two countries.

784
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:54,399
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like over the last few years, I've

785
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: just fallen more in love with the idea of community

786
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: and seeing the types of people that are drawn to

787
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 1: like a community garden to make a space beautiful, or

788
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: the ways people form around interests which allow them to

789
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,320
Speaker 1: talk about politics in ways that aren't disputatious, I guess,

790
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 1: and so like, I think there's something really wonderful about

791
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: this idea of more people assembling and less people being siloed.

792
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and even something like being part of the reenactors.

793
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 3: There were people who were liberals and conservatives, and one

794
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:29,280
Speaker 3: of the reenactors said to me he loved it because

795
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:32,240
Speaker 3: you go to an office party and you talk about

796
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 3: the weather or sports. Here you talk about philosophy and

797
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:38,919
Speaker 3: history and how can we move forward? And so I'm

798
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 3: with you. I think community really is the answer.

799
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,319
Speaker 1: So one of the things I love most about your

800
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: writing is that it forces me, or encourages me, rather

801
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: to take a look at things I'm sort of naturally

802
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: afraid to. Like I don't want to delve too deep

803
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 1: in religion because I'm worried about the effects or what

804
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 1: I'll think of others. And same with the Constitution. It's

805
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 1: this real divide, And in a moment of sincere political anxiety,

806
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 1: I feel like somehow this book was comforting and so

807
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 1: lovely and just a wonderful way to tackle issues of

808
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:19,480
Speaker 1: government and constitution and the Supreme Court. And I just

809
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:20,439
Speaker 1: want to thank you for it.

810
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, what a wonderful compliment.

811
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:23,719
Speaker 1: Thank you.

812
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,279
Speaker 3: I mean, our country has been through a lot, these

813
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 3: are very tough times, but first of all that we

814
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 3: have a country is quite astonishing. I mean, we were

815
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 3: underdogs against the greatest military might in the world of

816
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:40,400
Speaker 3: British and then we had half the country wanted to secede,

817
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 3: and so we have been through tough times. So I

818
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 3: am cautiously optimistic that we can improve our country. And

819
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:50,479
Speaker 3: I love that that was your experience too well.

820
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: Aja, thank you so much for being here. I can't

821
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:55,360
Speaker 1: wait to try some election cake and check out this

822
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: musket of yours.

823
00:46:56,719 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 3: Oh live too, So come on over and we'll go

824
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 3: marching around.

825
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,440
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is the production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.

826
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:21,320
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongais

827
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:25,280
Speaker 1: Chatikler and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy.

828
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:29,240
Speaker 1: Today's episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan

829
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:33,000
Speaker 1: Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive

830
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with

831
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 1: social media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and

832
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: Vine Shoory. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit

833
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

834
00:47:49,200 --> 00:48:09,439
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.

835
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:03,120
Speaker 3: U