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It used to be that Americans
jammed the streets to watch a parade.
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Today there are more performers than
spectators, especially on the calendar days
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sacred to an immigrant hero
like General Pulaski or Admiral Columbus.
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Once a year, however, on the 4th of July,
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they celebrate not the old country,
but the new nation,
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created not by hoarse crowds
in the hurly-burly of the streets,
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but by 55 chosen men
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exercising the idealism, practicality
and sense of order of the late 18th century.
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Washington has been called,
among other things,
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"a city of Greek wedding cakes".
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They celebrate the conviction of the Founding
Fathers, but what they were building
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was the first modern republic
worthy of Ancient Greece.
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What they could not anticipate
was the flood of democracy
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that would rough up
the symmetry of their new institutions.
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This is the kind of contrast
that constantly arises
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between what the 18th century hoped
to make out of American life
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and what life turned out to be.
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For example, nearly all the visual records
we have of the wars of the 18th century
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show men fighting and dying
in an almost dignified and stately way.
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Clearly, these scenes were not photographed
by network correspondents this morning
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to show to us tonight,
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yet the 18th-century wars and not least
the American War of Independence
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were bloodier than most,
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if only because they were man-to-man,
horse-to-horse, hand-to-hand affairs.
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But since this was
the century of reason and elegance,
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these wars were brought to an end in
reasonable treaties concluded in elegant rooms.
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But even with reasonable people,
it takes time for the bad blood to simmer
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and it took two years from the British surrender
at Yorktown to the peace of Paris
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which ended the War of Independence.
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The treaty was signed at this desk and
it was commemorated in that sketch painting
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by Benjamin West.
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There you see the American delegation,
led by Benjamin Franklin in black.
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You don't see the British delegation
because they were so used to winning
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that they didn't know how to look like losers
and refused to show up at the artist's studio.
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However, in those intervening two years, they
had won great naval victories in the West Indies
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and they still occupied New York, so they came
to this desk with some bargaining strength.
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Obviously, they had to grant
the total independence of the new nation
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called the United States of America
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and they had to give up these huge lands
from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico,
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won only 20 years before from the French.
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That's to say, all the way from the Mississippi
to the Allegheny Mountains.
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They did retain navigation rights
on the Mississippi
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and a share of the Newfoundland fisheries.
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Well, so much for the parties of the first part,
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but now came the nasty stage
in every peace treaty,
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where the allies of the winner
demand their pound of flesh.
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The French were quite content to see Britain
stripped of her American Empire
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and to leave a small nation on a huge continent
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which, no doubt, at some later date,
would require French protection.
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That left the Spanish, and they wanted rewards
far beyond their prowess.
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In fact, they wanted Gibraltar way back then
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and were persuaded by the French
to settle for Florida.
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But now there was great anxiety over a word
that haunts the defeated in every civil war,
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and the word is "reprisal".
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What was going to happen to the Loyalists,
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to the one third of the Colonists who had fought
on the British side or at least supported them?
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Well, the treaty put in some humane promises
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about compensation
for houses, lands, possessions,
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but the Congress was an infant
and it couldn't keep these promises.
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And I'm sorry to say that in the result,
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the Loyalists were treated
with alarming variations throughout the states.
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The Pennsylvania Quakers
were so compassionate
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that a disgusted New Yorker wished instead
they had followed the example of his state.
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"There was nothing," he said,
"like a vigorous, manly execution."
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But in most places,
the Loyalists had a brutal time.
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In many towns,
the favourite torture was tarring and feathering,
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and this cartoon suggests
that the fate of a woman collaborator
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is much the same in all wars.
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The Loyalists lost their houses and businesses.
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They had no legal redress
from assault and slander.
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They even had to pay for robberies
and the ruin caused by rioting mobs.
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And at last,
they were forced into exile in great numbers,
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to Canada, to the West Indies
or back to England.
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The day the British evacuated Charleston,
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one hundred ships sailed down the bay,
jammed with Loyalists.
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And in New York, the British commander
was so fearful of mass reprisals
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that he refused to give up the port
until the last refugee was aboard.
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And one of them made
the forlorn note in his diary,
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"There will scarcely be a village in England
without some American dust in it
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"by the time we are all at rest."
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The welcome home given to starving exiles
was seldom as elaborate
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as this symbolic reception by Britannia.
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But this forced exodus was,
I suppose, prudent, if not inevitable.
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The war had ended in a blaze of patriotism
and the people were so peacock-proud
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that, sooner or later, they might have menaced
the lives of a population of renegades.
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So for a time they revelled
in the popular fiction
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of a brave and indissoluble alliance
of new states
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and they celebrated it
in the naive symbols of the time -
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the eagle, the warhorse
and Columbia with her flag.
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Even so level-headed a man
as John Adams wrote,
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"This day of July 1776
will be the memorable epoch
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"in the history of America.
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"It ought to be solemnised with pomp
and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns,
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"bells, bonfires and illuminations
from one end of this continent to the other,
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"from this time forward for ever more."
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# God bless America
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# My home...
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# Sweet home #
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The conquering heroes had come home
all right, drunk on the pride of sovereignty,
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but not as Americans, rather as Virginians,
Marylanders, New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians,
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but on the morning after, this indissoluble
union soon dissolved into separate states,
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slapping tariffs on each other, coining
their own money, going their own ways,
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shucking off the huge national war debt
as somebody else's business.
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We are here in Philadelphia
because this is where 55 men came
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to try and repair the chaos of what had become
the "Disunited States of America",
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just about held together by some loose
agreements called the Articles of Confederation,
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a sort of League of Nations
which, like some others,
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kept boasting about an overriding authority
which, in fact, it never possessed.
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So, in time,
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influential men in the new states
came to recognise with much reluctance
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that they were not a nation
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and they came here in 1787 to Philadelphia
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frankly to see
if they could make the government work.
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It was natural for them to come here.
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Philadelphia was the great metropolis
of colonial America.
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It was the central city.
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It was here in its state house,
now called Independence Hall,
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that the Declaration of Independence
had been passed in 1776
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and it was here that George Washington had
received the command of the Continental Army.
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This is the chamber in which they met,
and it looks very much as it did then.
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There was no argument
about who their presiding officer was to be.
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George Washington sat
and occasionally slept here.
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The other delegates sat around these tables,
one table to one state.
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I said just now
that they were reluctant to come together here.
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They were big men in their own country
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and I suppose they hated
to lose the sweet smell of success
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that they'd enjoyed in their own bailiwicks.
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Anyway, it took ten days to get a quorum
and Rhode Island never did show up.
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Rhode Island is in the Union, though.
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But when seven states were represented...
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...they closed the doors and they began.
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But who were THEY?
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The Declaration of Independence
had started its catalogue of royal crimes
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with the grand phrase, "We, the people".
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But by any definition of "the people"
that we'd accept, they were not here.
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You know, looking back on it now,
it's awfully hard for us to realise
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that the men who created the United States
were not creating OUR society.
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They would have shuddered at some
of our deepest beliefs. Democracy, for instance.
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For though the king had gone and the
governors were appointed by men of property
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and the legislatures were elected,
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I think that most of the men who came here
would have agreed with old John Winthrop
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that "democracy, amongst civil nations,
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"is accounted the meanest
and worst form of government".
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Also they had no intention
of sanctioning political parties.
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They agreed with their chairman,
George Washington,
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that political parties provoke the mischief
of associations and combinations.
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Now, it's natural to ask
how about the people's people,
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the demagogues,
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the bloodshot orators who had
rabble-roused the country into revolution?
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Patrick Henry, Tom Paine?
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They weren't here.
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For it often happens
that men who love the bonfire...
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...find the rebuilding something of a bore.
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Patrick Henry refused to come.
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He said, "I smell a rat in Philadelphia."
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Tom Paine was a man so exhilarated
by agitation that he adopted it as a profession.
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The very month the Founding Fathers
gathered in Philadelphia, he sailed away
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to pull England into revolutionary shape.
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He was arrested in London for treason,
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he escaped to France to play first trumpet
to the French Revolution,
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but they had their own trumpeters
and he missed the guillotine by a hair's breadth.
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It should be a lesson to all columnists
and writers of indignant books.
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So who, then, were the men
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who were to be known ever afterwards
as the Founding Fathers?
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Jefferson called them
"an assembly of demigods".
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Not quite, but they were a superior lot,
possibly the most enlightened,
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certainly the most civilised revolutionaries
the world has seen in the last 200 years.
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These 55 men were the elite of business, the
professions and government in their own states.
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The shippers and manufacturers of the north,
the planters and scholars of the south.
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More than half of them were lawyers.
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29 of them were graduates
of colleges of either Britain or America.
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Average age, 42, which in the 18th century
was just a little beyond the span of normal life.
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Well, they were here for just under 17 weeks
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and the first thing they did
was to flout their instructions.
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They decided the Articles of Confederation
were hopeless,
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they abolished them and started from scratch.
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And they sat down here to invent a nation.
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They spent the first two months looking through
all the ancient and modern forms of government
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and found, Franklin said,
"only the seeds of their dissolution".
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So they began by deciding
what they wouldn't have.
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A parliamentary system, for instance - out!
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They had 150 years' tradition
of separate governments for the states
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and they meant to keep them.
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And since they had overthrown what they had
come to look on as the tyranny of monarchy,
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they wouldn't have a king or a standing army.
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Kings could command standing armies
and manipulate parliaments.
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A professional army was anathema to them.
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Indeed, the Continental Army was disbanded
within six months of the end of the war
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and the navy and the marine corps
ceased to exist.
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When, by the way, the suggestion came
from an old army man who idolised his chief
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that George Washington should be made king,
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Washington himself
was the first to snuff it out.
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"As an idea, I must view with abhorrence
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"and reprehend with severity."
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Oh, at the start they took a decision
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that today would certainly produce the most
frightful hullabaloo among the newspapers
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and the networks, not to mention the people.
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Should they publish their debates
as they went along?
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It's a problem
that has pestered diplomats ever since,
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whether, as Woodrow Wilson believed,
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such conferences should seek
"open covenants, openly arrived at".
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Or, as Dag Hammarskjöld believed,
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they should seek open covenants
SECRETLY arrived at.
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Well, they agreed with Dag Hammarskjöld
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and Washington said
that even if they didn't publish their debates
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and their resolutions dribbled out,
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they would get into the newspapers
and, he said,
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"disturb the public repose
with premature speculations".
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Imagine.
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So what was recorded here
and what went on behind these closed doors
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was unknown to anybody
on the outside for 60 years.
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When the Convention was all over
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and Benjamin Franklin was going
through these doors for the last time,
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an old lady stopped him and said,
"Well, Doctor, what have we got?
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"A republic or a monarchy?"
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And he replied,
"A republic, madam, if you can keep it."
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Well, the republic has been kept for 200 years,
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but not without considerable disturbance
to the public repose.
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George Washington,
thou shouldst be living at this hour.
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# Sock it to me, sock it to me,
sock it to me... #
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This is not a rock rally,
but a 1970 political campaign,
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one man's way of trying
to get elected to the United States Senate.
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(ALL) Senator Sesler, Senator Sesler!
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Nice to see you. How are you?
Glad you could come out.
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How are you?
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How are you, sir? Very nice to meet you.
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Only one way to be lucky. I need your help, sir.
228
00:18:38,607 --> 00:18:43,078
This, too, is going on
in the Founders' town of Philadelphia.
229
00:18:43,327 --> 00:18:48,526
That is probably the 15th ice-cream cone
that he's had to take a lick at in one day.
230
00:18:51,567 --> 00:18:54,035
(INAUDIBLE CONVERSATION)
231
00:18:58,887 --> 00:19:04,644
We run for the Senate of the United States
with the conviction and the knowledge
232
00:19:04,727 --> 00:19:07,366
that we serve no one except the people.
233
00:19:07,527 --> 00:19:09,995
I've made public my expenditure...
234
00:19:11,887 --> 00:19:15,562
But back in Independence Hall in 1787,
235
00:19:15,727 --> 00:19:18,605
the great debate turned on a crucial question -
236
00:19:18,607 --> 00:19:22,600
the balance of power
between the central government and the states.
237
00:19:23,007 --> 00:19:28,604
There was one brilliant advocate of a strong
central government - Alexander Hamilton.
238
00:19:29,247 --> 00:19:33,559
Like most fervent nationalists,
like Napoleon, like Hitler,
239
00:19:33,927 --> 00:19:36,316
Hamilton was born elsewhere.
240
00:19:36,327 --> 00:19:39,319
He was a British subject
born in the West Indies.
241
00:19:39,687 --> 00:19:43,475
At the age of 12, he was running
a mercantile business in St Croix
242
00:19:43,527 --> 00:19:46,439
and doing it expertly in two languages.
243
00:19:46,687 --> 00:19:50,362
At 16, he entered
what is now Columbia University
244
00:19:50,527 --> 00:19:55,157
and he wrote some of the most persuasive
of the revolutionary pamphlets.
245
00:19:56,527 --> 00:19:58,882
He fought bravely in the war
246
00:19:58,927 --> 00:20:02,920
and, at the end of it,
was a military aide to George Washington.
247
00:20:03,247 --> 00:20:07,240
He was the supreme spokesman
of the aristocratic principle.
248
00:20:07,087 --> 00:20:09,476
He wanted a lifetime president,
249
00:20:09,967 --> 00:20:13,642
a lifetime Senate recruited exclusively
from men of property,
250
00:20:13,807 --> 00:20:18,961
an all-powerful central government that could
absolutely veto the laws of the states.
251
00:20:19,007 --> 00:20:23,080
At the opposite pole was a Virginian,
George Mason,
252
00:20:23,327 --> 00:20:27,923
who argued to the end for strong
individual rights, a weak central government
253
00:20:28,127 --> 00:20:30,595
and equal powers for the states.
254
00:20:31,007 --> 00:20:33,362
In between Hamilton and Mason
255
00:20:33,807 --> 00:20:36,446
sat a most undramatic figure,
256
00:20:36,687 --> 00:20:40,077
32 years old, a theologian of great learning,
257
00:20:40,047 --> 00:20:43,483
more patience
and a sceptical view of human nature,
258
00:20:43,887 --> 00:20:45,878
James Madison.
259
00:20:45,807 --> 00:20:49,595
"If men were virtuous,"
he once reminded the Convention,
260
00:20:49,647 --> 00:20:52,161
"there would be no need of governments at all."
261
00:20:53,327 --> 00:20:56,717
This was our man in the middle,
James Madison.
262
00:20:57,647 --> 00:21:00,161
His great learning, these tomes,
263
00:21:00,047 --> 00:21:04,757
remind me of a story
about a very practical British prime minister
264
00:21:04,847 --> 00:21:09,875
who was asked how Harold Laski,
another great scholar of politics,
265
00:21:10,127 --> 00:21:14,245
how he'd made out
when he was given his first political job.
266
00:21:14,447 --> 00:21:20,363
And Mr Attlee said, "Rum thing about Harold -
never got the hang of it."
267
00:21:22,127 --> 00:21:26,917
Well, the truly marvellous thing about Madison
was the way he got the hang of it,
268
00:21:26,927 --> 00:21:30,715
was the way his learning and his experience
reinforced each other.
269
00:21:30,767 --> 00:21:34,237
He came to Philadelphia
with this vast pile of books
270
00:21:34,607 --> 00:21:39,840
and he lectured the delegates on the history
of confederacies, ancient and modern.
271
00:21:39,887 --> 00:21:42,401
And from it, he hammered home a warning
272
00:21:42,767 --> 00:21:47,158
that no confederacy had ever succeeded
which set up a conflict
273
00:21:47,087 --> 00:21:50,284
between the national
and the provincial government,
274
00:21:50,447 --> 00:21:54,963
so bluntly you could say he thought
both Hamilton and Mason were wrong.
275
00:21:55,247 --> 00:22:00,037
His idea, which really became
the central principle of the American system,
276
00:22:00,047 --> 00:22:05,883
was that the national government does not exist
to coerce the states or be their rival.
277
00:22:06,287 --> 00:22:10,917
They both exist for the protection
of the American citizen.
278
00:22:11,567 --> 00:22:15,321
And happily,
the men of Philadelphia hearkened to him.
279
00:22:15,407 --> 00:22:17,921
So they boosted the pride of the little states
280
00:22:18,287 --> 00:22:21,677
by giving them equal representation
in an upper house
281
00:22:21,647 --> 00:22:25,640
and giving every locality
the widest representation in a lower house.
282
00:22:25,967 --> 00:22:29,323
And - this was the vital compromise -
283
00:22:29,327 --> 00:22:36,756
they agreed to recognise and respect
the variety of life and tradition in the states.
284
00:22:37,487 --> 00:22:42,402
And to give them and leave them to this day
great independent powers.
285
00:23:01,807 --> 00:23:04,275
This is not any building in Washington.
286
00:23:04,207 --> 00:23:06,675
It is the entrance to a state capitol,
287
00:23:07,087 --> 00:23:11,080
the headquarters of government
by and for that state alone.
288
00:23:10,927 --> 00:23:14,715
And there's some such building
in each of the 50 states.
289
00:23:15,247 --> 00:23:17,715
Each has its governor, its executive branch
290
00:23:17,647 --> 00:23:21,117
and its own congress
with an upper house and a lower house.
291
00:23:21,487 --> 00:23:25,560
In 50 state capitols,
men are busy exercising all the powers
292
00:23:25,447 --> 00:23:29,201
which the Constitution did not give
to the federal government.
293
00:23:31,807 --> 00:23:34,241
The states control their own highways,
294
00:23:34,327 --> 00:23:36,966
education, banking, divorce,
295
00:23:37,127 --> 00:23:39,595
taxation,
296
00:23:39,767 --> 00:23:42,964
even their own civil and criminal codes.
297
00:23:43,127 --> 00:23:46,915
It was a daring thing
to give these powers to the states,
298
00:23:46,967 --> 00:23:50,562
but it greatly diffused
the opportunity for self-government
299
00:23:51,007 --> 00:23:53,885
and, we ought to say, for corruption.
300
00:23:57,087 --> 00:24:02,002
It sounds like a shattering defeat
for Alexander Hamilton, and so it was.
301
00:24:03,327 --> 00:24:07,240
When the Constitutional Convention was over,
he said...
302
00:24:07,167 --> 00:24:13,037
"No man's ideas are more remote from the plan
than my own are known to be."
303
00:24:13,887 --> 00:24:16,276
Now, I said that he was a Roman
304
00:24:16,287 --> 00:24:19,802
and he had some of the Roman vices -
arrogance, centralism,
305
00:24:20,127 --> 00:24:23,517
but he had a great Roman virtue - magnanimity.
306
00:24:23,487 --> 00:24:27,321
He never complained or recriminated
because he'd lost.
307
00:24:27,807 --> 00:24:32,039
And to me, Alexander Hamilton,
not a very fashionable figure now,
308
00:24:32,127 --> 00:24:35,199
represents the politician at his very best,
309
00:24:35,487 --> 00:24:38,445
showing an absence of malice,
310
00:24:38,367 --> 00:24:43,919
a steady willingness to believe that your
opponent is as honourable a man as you are
311
00:24:44,127 --> 00:24:46,118
and may be right.
312
00:24:46,527 --> 00:24:51,726
He swallowed his most passionate convictions
and wrote more than 40 brilliant essays,
313
00:24:51,807 --> 00:24:54,640
urging the states to ratify the Constitution,
314
00:24:54,687 --> 00:24:57,326
which was a very close thing in some places.
315
00:24:57,567 --> 00:25:02,595
In Virginia, for instance,
they voted 89 for, 79 against.
316
00:25:02,847 --> 00:25:05,680
George Mason and Patrick Henry voted against.
317
00:25:06,207 --> 00:25:08,596
But in the end, it was done
318
00:25:08,607 --> 00:25:13,237
and I think thanks mainly to these three men,
to Hamilton, Mason and Madison.
319
00:25:13,407 --> 00:25:16,046
They together achieved the triumph
320
00:25:16,287 --> 00:25:21,645
of three principles which, I believe,
have sustained this federal republic
321
00:25:22,047 --> 00:25:24,402
on a continent for so long.
322
00:25:24,447 --> 00:25:27,962
They're undramatic principles,
but they're very precious.
323
00:25:27,807 --> 00:25:32,642
They are compromise,
compromise, compromise.
324
00:25:35,487 --> 00:25:38,797
(CROWD SHOUTING, GUNFIRE)
325
00:25:41,287 --> 00:25:45,565
But an awful lot of things in life
cannot or will not be compromised,
326
00:25:45,567 --> 00:25:50,561
the most familiar case being the perennial
conflict between workers and employers.
327
00:25:50,607 --> 00:25:55,283
In the mid-1930s when American labour
was asserting its right to organise,
328
00:25:55,727 --> 00:25:59,276
there were literal battles
in which over 20 people were killed
329
00:25:59,287 --> 00:26:01,278
and 600 wounded.
330
00:26:01,207 --> 00:26:05,564
In one crucial strike, 25,000 steel workers quit
331
00:26:06,127 --> 00:26:11,155
because the company ignored a new law that
allowed them to join the union of their choice.
332
00:26:11,167 --> 00:26:14,876
Who, in such an issue, is to have the final say?
333
00:26:15,327 --> 00:26:21,721
It was settled in the end not by the company
or the union or the president or the Congress,
334
00:26:22,087 --> 00:26:25,841
but by a body of men
created in 1787 in Philadelphia,
335
00:26:26,047 --> 00:26:29,005
the one absolutely new thing in government,
336
00:26:29,167 --> 00:26:31,681
invented by the Founding Fathers.
337
00:26:32,647 --> 00:26:36,640
The Constitution set up the president
to keep an eye on the Congress
338
00:26:36,487 --> 00:26:39,718
and the Congress
to keep an eye on the president,
339
00:26:40,327 --> 00:26:43,717
and to keep an eye on both of them
was something else -
340
00:26:43,687 --> 00:26:48,158
a Supreme Court of judges
appointed for life above the political battle.
341
00:26:48,487 --> 00:26:54,244
And yet, and this is vital, they are able
to decide the outcome of all the battles,
342
00:26:54,247 --> 00:26:56,715
political and social, of American life
343
00:26:56,647 --> 00:27:00,117
that engage the best and the worst passions
of the people.
344
00:27:00,487 --> 00:27:04,480
And this is the place where,
over the longest stretch of time,
345
00:27:04,807 --> 00:27:07,037
the United States Supreme Court has sat.
346
00:27:07,127 --> 00:27:11,917
It is the watchdog of the ordinary
American citizen and there is nothing like it.
347
00:27:12,887 --> 00:27:17,165
Now, you'll suspect, rightly,
that the Court is a hobbyhorse of mine.
348
00:27:17,687 --> 00:27:19,757
Let me tell you why.
349
00:27:20,087 --> 00:27:24,080
I've been a working correspondent
in this country for over 35 years
350
00:27:24,407 --> 00:27:29,640
and I only now realise how often I've looked
at some dangerous crisis that was happening
351
00:27:29,687 --> 00:27:33,600
and said, "Thank God for the Supreme Court!"
352
00:27:33,527 --> 00:27:37,645
For these nine men
who guard the rights of the ordinary citizen.
353
00:27:37,847 --> 00:27:43,763
And the ordinary citizen can be
the president or a pimp, a banker or a bum,
354
00:27:44,087 --> 00:27:49,002
and the judges' brief and their bible
is the Constitution of the United States.
355
00:27:49,367 --> 00:27:51,801
They... Not presidents, the Constitution.
356
00:27:51,767 --> 00:27:56,158
They sit most days of the year
and they look into the Constitution
357
00:27:56,087 --> 00:28:01,559
and they decide if something
that somebody had done, anybody, is legal.
358
00:28:01,847 --> 00:28:04,919
Whether you can, for instance,
run an undertaker's
359
00:28:05,207 --> 00:28:07,721
and also own stock in an insurance company.
360
00:28:08,087 --> 00:28:10,078
You cannot.
361
00:28:10,007 --> 00:28:12,999
Or whether a stage play
of naked men and women,
362
00:28:13,087 --> 00:28:16,477
running around shouting four-letter words,
is constitutional.
363
00:28:16,767 --> 00:28:19,645
I'm not sure, but at the moment, I think it is.
364
00:28:19,647 --> 00:28:23,356
The nine judges are never bound by precedents,
not even their own.
365
00:28:24,207 --> 00:28:26,675
They have defended the right - some right! -
366
00:28:26,607 --> 00:28:29,804
of children to work in factories
throughout the night
367
00:28:29,967 --> 00:28:33,164
and then absolutely forbidden them
to do just that.
368
00:28:33,327 --> 00:28:37,445
They have proclaimed the right
to keep blacks and whites apart on trains,
369
00:28:38,007 --> 00:28:42,478
then 60, 70 years later, proclaimed
the right to put whites and blacks together
370
00:28:42,367 --> 00:28:45,165
on trains, in schoolrooms, theatres, everywhere.
371
00:28:45,487 --> 00:28:49,765
So you see, the Constitution,
like the Old Testament,
372
00:28:49,807 --> 00:28:54,722
can be cited to forgive one's enemies
or gouge an eye for an eye.
373
00:28:55,967 --> 00:29:01,644
But make no mistake, this chamber is haunted
by memorable faces and single sentences
374
00:29:01,727 --> 00:29:05,481
that have transformed
the life of the American people.
375
00:29:07,487 --> 00:29:09,637
Chief Justice Marshall.
376
00:29:09,887 --> 00:29:14,677
"It is emphatically the province and duty
of the judicial department and nobody else
377
00:29:14,687 --> 00:29:16,917
"to say what the law is."
378
00:29:18,527 --> 00:29:20,916
Mr Justice Sutherland.
379
00:29:20,927 --> 00:29:25,443
"The liberty of the individual
to do as he pleases, even in innocent matters,
380
00:29:25,727 --> 00:29:27,718
"is not absolute."
381
00:29:29,087 --> 00:29:33,717
Mr Justice Harlan said 80 years ago
against all eight of his colleagues...
382
00:29:34,367 --> 00:29:37,165
"The Constitution is colour-blind."
383
00:29:39,167 --> 00:29:41,761
Mr Justice Holmes.
384
00:29:42,047 --> 00:29:47,167
"A constitution is made for people
of fundamentally differing views."
385
00:29:48,287 --> 00:29:50,676
Chief Justice Hughes.
386
00:29:51,167 --> 00:29:54,398
"The Constitution is what the judges say it is."
387
00:29:55,967 --> 00:29:57,958
So it is.
388
00:29:58,367 --> 00:30:01,598
And since a majority of the nine
decides everything,
389
00:30:01,727 --> 00:30:04,241
the Constitution is what five judges say it is.
390
00:30:04,127 --> 00:30:09,121
Now, this sounds very alarming, but these
nine men are human and of various character
391
00:30:09,407 --> 00:30:13,286
and there's nothing rigid
about the authority of the Constitution.
392
00:30:13,727 --> 00:30:16,525
It bends to the moral winds of the time.
393
00:30:17,087 --> 00:30:19,920
But if the judges are behind the times
394
00:30:19,967 --> 00:30:24,040
and if ever their integrity as honourable men
is seriously questioned,
395
00:30:24,287 --> 00:30:27,438
then the Court and the country are in trouble.
396
00:30:28,607 --> 00:30:32,759
But I've noticed that an odd
and impressive thing happens, can happen,
397
00:30:32,887 --> 00:30:35,355
when a man is appointed to the Court.
398
00:30:35,287 --> 00:30:39,565
The president may think
he has installed a ventriloquist's doll,
399
00:30:40,087 --> 00:30:45,559
but suddenly the man is paid for life
and can become himself,
400
00:30:45,567 --> 00:30:49,924
a quite different character
from the one the president ordered up.
401
00:30:49,887 --> 00:30:54,403
And so remarkably often the Court
has kept the country on an even keel
402
00:30:54,687 --> 00:30:56,837
in the stormiest times.
403
00:30:57,087 --> 00:31:00,477
Believe me, it will be a bad day for Americans
404
00:31:00,447 --> 00:31:08,639
if ever the mass of them come to lose faith
in this Court as their fair and final protector.
405
00:31:42,087 --> 00:31:46,524
There might have been no all-powerful court
and no workable constitution
406
00:31:46,887 --> 00:31:51,517
if the Founding Fathers had not listened to an
American who was not present in Philadelphia.
407
00:31:51,767 --> 00:31:55,965
He is the missing giant of the Convention,
Thomas Jefferson.
408
00:31:56,087 --> 00:31:58,555
He was in Paris as Minister to France
409
00:31:58,487 --> 00:32:03,003
and he heard with alarm that George Mason
had failed to impress on the Convention
410
00:32:03,287 --> 00:32:06,006
the vital need for a written Bill of Rights.
411
00:32:06,287 --> 00:32:08,926
In France, Jefferson looked around him
412
00:32:09,167 --> 00:32:13,763
and he saw most of the old indignities
the Constitution had failed to prohibit.
413
00:32:13,887 --> 00:32:16,401
And he wrote continuously back to Philadelphia,
414
00:32:16,287 --> 00:32:20,644
"You must specify your liberties
and put them down on paper."
415
00:32:21,087 --> 00:32:25,717
Within four years, ten amendments
came into force as the Bill of Rights.
416
00:32:30,487 --> 00:32:34,958
"One - Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion
417
00:32:35,127 --> 00:32:38,119
"or abridging the freedom of speech
or of the press
418
00:32:38,687 --> 00:32:41,884
"or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble.
419
00:32:42,927 --> 00:32:48,604
"Two - a well-regulated militia
being necessary to the security of a free state,
420
00:32:48,687 --> 00:32:53,317
"the right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed.
421
00:32:53,647 --> 00:32:57,640
"Three - no soldier shall in time of peace
be quartered in any house
422
00:32:57,847 --> 00:33:00,122
"without the consent of the owner.
423
00:33:00,727 --> 00:33:03,446
"Four - the right of the people to be secure
424
00:33:03,607 --> 00:33:08,158
"against unreasonable search and seizures
shall not be violated.
425
00:33:08,927 --> 00:33:12,442
"Five - no person shall be tried twice
for the same crime,
426
00:33:12,767 --> 00:33:15,759
"nor compelled to be a witness against himself,
427
00:33:16,127 --> 00:33:21,201
"nor be deprived of life, liberty or property
without due process of law.
428
00:33:21,087 --> 00:33:24,602
"Eight - excessive bail shall not be required,
429
00:33:24,967 --> 00:33:27,606
"nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
430
00:33:27,847 --> 00:33:29,838
And so on, through ten amendments.
431
00:33:30,047 --> 00:33:34,484
All were adopted within four years
as the original Bill of Rights.
432
00:33:34,367 --> 00:33:37,165
Since then, there have been some 15 others,
433
00:33:37,407 --> 00:33:40,126
all incorporated in the body of the Constitution
434
00:33:40,287 --> 00:33:44,997
and serving as the only brief and bible
of the Supreme Court.
435
00:33:47,407 --> 00:33:51,878
As Hamilton had guaranteed
the central structure of the United States
436
00:33:52,207 --> 00:33:55,802
and Madison the large powers
of the individual states,
437
00:33:55,967 --> 00:34:01,758
so it was Jefferson who thought most steadily
of the chief beneficiary of these labours -
438
00:34:01,647 --> 00:34:04,036
the people.
439
00:34:04,847 --> 00:34:09,079
You might think of such a man
who disliked cities, idolised farmers,
440
00:34:09,247 --> 00:34:11,477
as a simple rural crank.
441
00:34:11,647 --> 00:34:15,720
He was not. He was a very remarkable
American 18th-century type,
442
00:34:15,967 --> 00:34:18,322
upper class, classless,
443
00:34:18,367 --> 00:34:21,325
inventive, ingenious, scholarly,
444
00:34:21,727 --> 00:34:24,241
eccentric country squire.
445
00:34:24,127 --> 00:34:27,119
This is his house
and he was the architect of it.
446
00:34:52,767 --> 00:34:57,477
He got up always with the sun,
but like a lot of us who travel between hotels,
447
00:34:57,567 --> 00:35:00,035
he didn't like to look at his bed all day.
448
00:34:59,967 --> 00:35:02,640
So he devised a series of pulleys
449
00:35:02,847 --> 00:35:07,841
and an enclosure in the ceiling into which
he could pull the bed soon after he got up.
450
00:35:08,127 --> 00:35:13,121
In this way, he created a walk-through that
connected that sitting room with this study.
451
00:35:13,407 --> 00:35:17,639
This house is full of novelties of his invention
which today we take for granted.
452
00:35:18,247 --> 00:35:23,196
A revolving chair
in which he could follow the light as he read.
453
00:35:23,407 --> 00:35:26,683
He designed his own spectacles
454
00:35:26,767 --> 00:35:28,758
and medicine chest.
455
00:35:29,007 --> 00:35:32,556
And a four-sided lectern
which allowed a chamber music quartet
456
00:35:32,847 --> 00:35:34,838
to play from the same stand.
457
00:35:34,887 --> 00:35:37,879
He was an enthusiastic amateur musician.
458
00:35:38,247 --> 00:35:40,841
In fact, he was an amateur everything.
459
00:35:41,607 --> 00:35:47,682
An amateur of astronomy, of interior decoration.
He designed the curtains here.
460
00:35:47,847 --> 00:35:52,637
Of architecture, of gardening.
He laid out all the gardens in Monticello.
461
00:35:52,647 --> 00:35:59,166
And here in Albemarle County,
he cultivated the famous Albemarle pippin.
462
00:36:02,727 --> 00:36:06,686
The Albemarle pippin,
by the way, if anybody cares,
463
00:36:07,047 --> 00:36:09,561
was Queen Victoria's favourite apple.
464
00:36:12,887 --> 00:36:15,276
He was a lifelong note-taker.
465
00:36:15,287 --> 00:36:17,755
He wrote reams of notes about everything,
466
00:36:18,167 --> 00:36:21,955
the Greek and Roman authors,
contemporary French philosophers,
467
00:36:22,007 --> 00:36:24,396
geology, Hebrew manuscripts.
468
00:36:24,407 --> 00:36:28,639
Here are his notes
on his native state of Virginia.
469
00:36:31,327 --> 00:36:37,277
Here he compiled a list of all the trees,
plants and flowers in the state of Virginia.
470
00:36:38,047 --> 00:36:43,326
And an account, with all their locations,
of all the known Indian tribes of North America.
471
00:36:44,767 --> 00:36:49,283
He also had a theory of currency
which he carried against the bankers.
472
00:36:49,087 --> 00:36:54,957
He carried it with the Congress and anticipated
the British government by nearly 200 years
473
00:36:55,327 --> 00:36:59,684
in pointing out the laboriousness
of pounds, shillings and pence.
474
00:36:59,647 --> 00:37:04,926
He wrote simply, "The ordinary man
has to divide by 12 and carry,
475
00:37:05,407 --> 00:37:07,875
"and then divide by 20 and carry,
476
00:37:07,807 --> 00:37:11,959
"whereas in a decimal system,
everything is divided by ten
477
00:37:12,127 --> 00:37:15,005
"to the great ease of the community."
478
00:37:17,407 --> 00:37:22,003
I must say that if there's one notebook
I'd give a great deal for,
479
00:37:22,207 --> 00:37:24,801
it's the one he carried around Europe.
480
00:37:24,567 --> 00:37:26,637
He padded around Paris,
481
00:37:26,967 --> 00:37:31,324
jotting down all the detestable things
which a republic would not have.
482
00:37:32,047 --> 00:37:34,038
"No public statues,"
483
00:37:34,447 --> 00:37:38,963
a prejudice which the American people
have successfully overcome.
484
00:37:39,127 --> 00:37:41,118
"Titles of nobility.
485
00:37:41,047 --> 00:37:43,515
"A very great vanity," he wrote,
486
00:37:43,927 --> 00:37:49,479
"which tends to prolong
the artificial aristocracy of birth and wealth,
487
00:37:49,687 --> 00:37:54,442
"as against the natural aristocracy
of talent and virtue."
488
00:37:55,167 --> 00:37:59,604
He went to London and visited the courts
and he made a note.
489
00:37:59,487 --> 00:38:01,478
"No wigs on judges.
490
00:38:01,887 --> 00:38:07,564
"We must not have men sitting in judgment
who look like mice peeping out of oakum."
491
00:38:09,127 --> 00:38:15,043
There's something almost comical about
Jefferson's earnestness, and maybe a little prim,
492
00:38:15,367 --> 00:38:18,518
but to me,
something very pure and innocent too.
493
00:38:19,207 --> 00:38:21,675
He believed that nothing but good
494
00:38:21,607 --> 00:38:25,441
could come from the total, open,
public discussion of every issue,
495
00:38:25,927 --> 00:38:30,717
and when he heard that the Constitutional
Convention had adopted its rule of secrecy,
496
00:38:30,727 --> 00:38:33,241
he said, "This is an abominable precedent."
497
00:38:33,607 --> 00:38:37,361
Because he really did believe,
and he said it over and over again,
498
00:38:37,447 --> 00:38:41,406
in the essential goodness
and wisdom of the common people.
499
00:38:41,287 --> 00:38:44,677
Alexander Hamilton
would have groaned to hear him.
500
00:38:45,607 --> 00:38:48,121
A few days before Hamilton died, he wrote,
501
00:38:48,487 --> 00:38:51,285
"Every day proves to me more and more
502
00:38:51,367 --> 00:38:54,803
"that this American world is not for me."
503
00:38:55,687 --> 00:38:59,566
Well, so far as Jefferson could see,
it was for him.
504
00:38:59,527 --> 00:39:03,725
Maybe Hamilton could see
a little farther into the future than Jefferson,
505
00:39:03,847 --> 00:39:09,717
who foresaw a continuing utopia
of chivalrous and learned rulers,
506
00:39:10,087 --> 00:39:13,284
walking hand in hand with good, honest farmers
507
00:39:13,447 --> 00:39:16,200
in, a favourite phrase, perfect harmony.
508
00:39:17,287 --> 00:39:21,678
I don't know. But he used to retreat here
as often as he possibly could.
509
00:39:21,607 --> 00:39:23,962
Even when he was president,
510
00:39:24,007 --> 00:39:27,795
he called Washington
"that Indian swamp in the wilderness".
511
00:39:28,327 --> 00:39:33,401
And when you think of him sitting here
amid his dreams and his books and his gadgets,
512
00:39:33,607 --> 00:39:40,365
it's no wonder that cities and slums
and frontier violence never crossed his mind.
513
00:40:27,687 --> 00:40:32,283
But over the mountains in the interior
there was another people,
514
00:40:32,487 --> 00:40:36,878
and if it was the ideas of such as Jefferson
that invented the new nation,
515
00:40:37,287 --> 00:40:41,075
it was the rude men
of what Americans call "the back country"
516
00:40:41,087 --> 00:40:43,806
who changed and secured it.
517
00:40:55,967 --> 00:40:58,401
This was the country of Daniel Boone,
518
00:40:58,367 --> 00:41:02,883
an undefeatable wagoner,
blacksmith, hunter, explorer, surveyor,
519
00:41:03,167 --> 00:41:07,240
who tried time and again
to beat a trail into a new colony.
520
00:41:10,847 --> 00:41:16,444
Before he made it, he was wounded,
he had a brother killed, a son killed.
521
00:41:16,607 --> 00:41:20,122
He himself was nearly drowned,
he was drenched by blizzards
522
00:41:20,447 --> 00:41:24,326
and beaten by Indians
and he saw families massacred.
523
00:41:33,647 --> 00:41:39,358
At the end he was swindled out of the tracts
of land that he'd cleared and laid title to.
524
00:41:43,727 --> 00:41:49,040
But the brutal experience of this hero
did not deter over 100,000 people
525
00:41:49,487 --> 00:41:54,959
pouring into the new territories of Kentucky
and Tennessee within 15 years.
526
00:41:55,247 --> 00:41:59,240
And within 30 years
the population of the United States doubled.
527
00:41:59,087 --> 00:42:03,080
And the overflow, both of young Americans
and European arrivals,
528
00:42:03,407 --> 00:42:08,845
went inland through the mountains
into the valleys of the Mississippi and the Ohio.
529
00:42:09,167 --> 00:42:13,240
# Rise you up, my dearest dear
and present to me your hand
530
00:42:13,007 --> 00:42:17,000
# And we'll all run away
to some far and distant land
531
00:42:17,327 --> 00:42:21,320
# Where the ladies knit and sew
And the gents, they plough and pull
532
00:42:21,647 --> 00:42:26,437
# And we'll ramble in the canebrake
and shoot the buffalo...
533
00:42:29,327 --> 00:42:33,400
# Come, all ye fine young women
who have got a mind to go
534
00:42:33,647 --> 00:42:37,526
# You can make us clothing,
you can knit and you can sew
535
00:42:37,807 --> 00:42:42,437
# We'll build you fine log cabins
by the blessed 0hio
536
00:42:42,607 --> 00:42:47,044
# Through the wild woods we'll wander
and we'll chase the buffalo #
537
00:42:48,927 --> 00:42:51,316
They were unlettered mostly,
538
00:42:51,807 --> 00:42:56,278
hunters, trappers, pinching farmers
living a tough, classless life,
539
00:42:56,407 --> 00:43:00,400
making with their own hands
all the necessities of life.
540
00:43:00,487 --> 00:43:06,244
Like the Puritans 180 years before,
their single obsession was survival,
541
00:43:06,447 --> 00:43:11,043
and to survive,
they had to bargain with or slaughter the Indians
542
00:43:11,247 --> 00:43:16,037
whose lands they'd encroached on,
and then they had to tame the landscape.
543
00:43:26,127 --> 00:43:32,999
# The first white man in Cumberland Gap
Was Dr Walker, an English chap
544
00:43:32,847 --> 00:43:34,838
# Cumberland Gap
545
00:43:35,247 --> 00:43:38,922
# Cumberland Gap
546
00:43:39,087 --> 00:43:43,319
# Way down yonder in Cumberland Gap
547
00:43:43,407 --> 00:43:50,040
# Cumberland Gap with its cliffs and rocks
Home of the panther, the bear and fox
548
00:43:50,127 --> 00:43:52,118
# Cumberland Gap
549
00:43:52,527 --> 00:43:55,883
# Cumberland Gap
550
00:43:55,887 --> 00:44:00,005
# Way down yonder in Cumberland Gap
551
00:44:00,327 --> 00:44:04,366
# Me and my wife and my wife's pap
552
00:44:04,367 --> 00:44:06,642
# Made our way through Cumberland Gap
553
00:44:06,807 --> 00:44:12,325
# Cumberland Gap, Cumberland Gap
554
00:44:12,487 --> 00:44:16,799
# Way down yonder in Cumberland Gap #
555
00:44:48,647 --> 00:44:53,767
We are here in a high mountain valley
in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.
556
00:44:53,927 --> 00:45:00,082
The first white man to make a clearing
and settle here was a man named John Oliver.
557
00:45:00,247 --> 00:45:02,886
And in 1818, he built this cabin.
558
00:45:07,527 --> 00:45:12,396
It's only 400 miles as the crow flies
from here to the Atlantic Ocean,
559
00:45:12,327 --> 00:45:15,205
but in those days, the crow had it much easier.
560
00:45:15,687 --> 00:45:19,157
Remember that I said,
at the Philadelphia Convention,
561
00:45:19,047 --> 00:45:22,562
nobody made a favourable mention
of the word "democracy".
562
00:45:22,887 --> 00:45:27,039
Well, these back country people,
they would mention it
563
00:45:27,207 --> 00:45:29,926
because they were the people we can now see
564
00:45:30,087 --> 00:45:34,319
who initiated
a very familiar conflict in American life
565
00:45:34,407 --> 00:45:38,525
between the metropolitan man
and the outlander,
566
00:45:38,727 --> 00:45:43,403
between the Midwest farmer and Wall Street,
between upstate and downstate.
567
00:45:44,007 --> 00:45:49,798
And this conflict still dictates the balance
of power and prejudice in the state legislatures.
568
00:45:50,247 --> 00:45:54,525
Now, the people who came through here
and literally had to shovel
569
00:45:54,767 --> 00:45:57,235
and fight their way through the mountains,
570
00:45:57,167 --> 00:46:01,319
they were the first Anglo-Saxons
who had, as we say, gone west.
571
00:46:01,487 --> 00:46:05,526
And pretty soon, they would be heard from,
and when they were,
572
00:46:05,807 --> 00:46:10,835
a new stage direction would be required
for the next act of the American drama.
573
00:46:11,087 --> 00:46:14,841
It would say, "Loud noises heard offstage.
574
00:46:15,407 --> 00:46:17,682
"Enter demos."
575
00:46:21,367 --> 00:46:23,756
Democracy would plant a ruder strain
576
00:46:23,767 --> 00:46:26,759
in the character of the Americans
and their government.
577
00:46:27,007 --> 00:46:32,127
For the people who lived here had few links,
if any, with the writers of the Constitution.
578
00:46:33,247 --> 00:46:35,715
They would transform the republic
579
00:46:35,847 --> 00:46:40,967
beyond the imagining of the learned
and graceful men of the 18th century.
580
00:46:44,487 --> 00:46:46,876
(UP-TEMPO COUNTRY MUSIC)
581
00:46:46,887 --> 00:46:48,923
Drop back and swing!
582
00:46:58,327 --> 00:47:00,318
Promenade!
583
00:47:03,567 --> 00:47:08,960
Now, the ladies stand still, the gents move
back up to your partner. Move forward.
584
00:47:18,487 --> 00:47:20,478
Swing her high, swing her low.
585
00:47:39,247 --> 00:47:44,640
# 0h, there never could be such a longing
586
00:47:45,967 --> 00:47:51,405
# In the heart of a pure maiden's breast
587
00:47:52,687 --> 00:47:58,683
# That dwells in the heart you are breaking
588
00:48:00,367 --> 00:48:08,047
# As you take the long trail to the west
589
00:48:09,487 --> 00:48:15,164
# Come and sit by my side if you love me
590
00:48:16,687 --> 00:48:24,002
# Do not hasten to bid me adieu
591
00:48:25,327 --> 00:48:32,438
# But remember the Bright Mohawk Valley
592
00:48:33,487 --> 00:48:42,998
# And the girl that has loved you so true... #