February 1, 2023 • 48 mins
In episode two of the Founding Fathers' Legacy Series, Former Washington D.C Mayor Sharon Pratt examines the world of revolutionary America, learning more about the political, social, and economic environment the Founding Fathers operated in.
Sharon Pratt speaks with Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian and award-winning author of "The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution" about the early, unsettling period for our new nation, the competing ideas and symbolic importance of the new nation's capital. She also speaks with Dr. Woody Holton, the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, about the decision to break from Great Britain and the outsize role of Virginians in the Revolution and then the new republic.
Next episode, we will hear more about these contradictions as we explore life at Montpelier – the lifelong home of our fourth president, “the father of the Constitution," James Madison.
Sharon Pratt speaks with Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian and award-winning author of "The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution" about the early, unsettling period for our new nation, the competing ideas and symbolic importance of the new nation's capital. She also speaks with Dr. Woody Holton, the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, about the decision to break from Great Britain and the outsize role of Virginians in the Revolution and then the new republic.
Next episode, we will hear more about these contradictions as we explore life at Montpelier – the lifelong home of our fourth president, “the father of the Constitution," James Madison.
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Episode Transcript
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This is the Founding Fathers Legacy series. I'm Sharon Pratt, and in this
episode, we're examining the world ofrevolutionary America, learning more about the political,
social and economic environment the Founding Fathersoperated in. Most of us are
familiar with the key events and datesof the American Revolutionary period, but before
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we joined the experts in a discussion, a quick review. Starting back in
the seventeen sixties, with the SugarAct of seventeen sixty four, the Stamp
Act of seventeen sixty five, andthe Townsend Acts of seventeen sixty seven,
American colonies were being consistently taxed topay the French and Indian War debt.
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Many Americans believed that parliament could makelaws to govern the colonies, but only
elected representatives to have the authority totax them, and they had no elected
representatives. In fact, the slogantaxation without representation, which adorns Washington,
d c. License plates because westill have no voting elected representatives, originated
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in the years leading up to theAmerican Revolution. Years of unrest followed,
and in December seventeen seventy three,angered by the Tea Act, implemented earlier
in the year American patriots dumped EastIndian Company Tea into Boston Harbor. In
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April seventeen seventy five, we seethe first skirmishes violent entanglements between British troops
and minutemen in the Battles of Lexingtonand Concord. George Washington will soon be
appointed Commander in Chief of the ContinentalArmy. On July fourth, seventeen seventy
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six, the Continental Congress issued theDeclaration of Independence, and what follows is
six difficult years of violent conflicts,countless casualties, sometimes starving soldiers, culminating
finally in September seventeen eighty three withthe Treaty of Paris, which formerly ends
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the Revolutionary War. I spoke earlierwith doctor Lindsay Trevinsky and doctor Woody Holton.
I asked them to help us understandwhy these colonists, primarily descendants of
the British, decided to challenge andbreak from Great Britain, the most formidable
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military presence in the world. Whywere these risks taken, and then how
the founding fathers worked to define andstabilize a new nation after the war.
We will first hear from doctor LindsayChervinsky, a presidential historian and award winning
author of The Cabinet, George Washington, and the Creation of an American Institution.
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Doctor Chevinsky speaks of this early unsettlingperiod for our new nation. She
speaks of the competing ideas, thecompeting visions for our new nation, and
the extraordinary symbolic importance of the newnation's capital, soon to be known as
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Washington, d C. Let's hearwhat doctor Chevinsky has to say. I'd
like your thoughts around what you thinkinspired these men, the founding fathers,
the colonists, generally to want totake on something as audacious as breaking from
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Great Britain. Well, that isa big question, but I think it's
a good place to start, especiallywhen trying to understand the origins and the
purpose of Washington, DC, becausein so many ways, this city is
the physical embodiment of the goals,sometimes competing goals, and obstacles and challenges
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that they were grappling with at thismoment. So I think it's important to
begin with Washington and Jefferson, especiallybecause they were a bit older than Madison,
really initially saw themselves as the verymost loyal citizens to the British king
and had no intention in their earlylives of fomenting a revolution or fighting in
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one. Instead, they were verymuch apart and a participant in what we
would call a cult of monarchy.So in the seventeen sixties, especially after
the end of the Seven Years War, there was a boom of material culture
products, so things like teapots andlinens and towels and art and silver pieces
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that had some sort of image ofeither the royal family or the crest,
or some sort of representation of thatBritish Empire. And Americans were by far
the biggest consumers of these products,and Washington and Jefferson initially were really no
exception. That started to shift inthe late seventeen sixties and especially in the
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early seventeen seventies for a couple ofreasons. For let me take Washington first.
For Washington, he began to realizethrough his own early military experiences and
then through his economic experiences, thatthe system was set up to benefit those
that lived on the mainland in Englandin particular, and the colonists were set
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up to be subservient or to somehoweconomically benefit the quote unquote true English and
this was very frustrating to him becausethey understood that many of the white colonists
that were the landowners and those inpower came from what we would they would
have called said, you know,true English stock, and wanted to be
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equal representatives, wanted to be equalparticipants in this imperial project. And yet
they found themselves never getting ahead interms of promotion, whether it was in
the military, never being able toquite pay off all their debts through the
economic system, and that started tobe very, very frustrating. Now they
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were all and this does include Madisonhere, they were all very much participants
in the intellectual project of the empireas well. So even though Washington did
not have a formal education, hewas very attentive to his self education,
and jeff Prison and Madison of coursehad a higher study and so they were
reading all of the things that theloyal opposition in London was printing, what
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we'd think of as the Whig politicians. And the concept behind a loyal opposition
was that you were not trying tooverthrow the system, you were trying to
reform the system. And so initiallythat was how they thought of themselves,
as they were not trying to overthrowthe empire. They were trying to reform
the empire such that the colonists couldbe equal participants as those that lived in
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England or elsewhere. So it wasn'treally until these reform efforts failed, until
until it was clear that Parliament hadno interest in their participation and the King
had no interest in defending their rightsas equal participants, that they fully embraced
revolution. But it was a process. It did not happen overnight. Yes,
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that's what I was about to askyou, and you just spoke to
it that originally their notion was theywere more annoyed with the Parliament, and
you're saying they wanted reform, notso much having hostility towards the king.
Is that correctly? And in fact, the Residence of Boston in seventeen seventy
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five referred to the British Regulars asParliament's troops, and they referred to themselves
as the King's troops because they stillthought as late as seventeen seventy five that
the King might step in and representtheir interests and basically veto parliamentary action.
And it wasn't until the king reallyyou put a kebosh on that notion that
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they really fully turned against monarchy.So how much of it was wanting an
equal standing and how much of itwas economics? I mean, the you
know, the economic disadvantages they wereexperiencing, whether it was taxing or even
some what I gathered, even theirarrangement in trying to sell their crops abroad.
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How much of it was economics andhow much of it was a desire
to have equal standing. Well,I think they would have really thought of
the two as being interconnected because Parliamentwas the body that was passing the bills
that created this system was called amercantilist system where basically all of the profits
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were funneled back towards London, andParliament was the one that was creating the
legislation that enforced the system. Soif they didn't have representation in Parliament,
then they couldn't speak out against thiseconomic system that was really disadvantageous to those
that were living in the colonies.So they saw their economic prospects as just
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the other side of the coin,as their political representation. How were they
thinking about life, liberty and thepursuit of happiness. So if we think
of you know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The
goal of liberty and the pursuit ofhappy is to be able to take care
of yourself and to take care ofyour family in an independent manner, and
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to not be reliant on anyone,to not to have a roof over your
head, to have food to feedthose that you love, and so for
them, I think they saw independenceas very much representing the idea that you
want every single citizen to have theright to try and make something of themselves,
to have the right to provide forthemselves, to have an equal shot
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at economic prosperity, as well aspolitical rights in political liberty. And of
course at this point when they weretalking about citizens, they're really only talking
about propertied white men. But nonethelessthey felt that those things were so essential
to what life and liberty meant thatwe shouldn't I don't think we should view
that pecuniary interest as a negative somuch as their understanding that it was essential
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to what it meant to be freeand a free citizen America. When's the
war and then they meet in NewYork to the First Congress to begin to
also settle on the notion of wherethere would be this capital, Why did
they think they had to have thiscapital, and what were their impulses or
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motivations for going to great links toestablish a capital. Well after the war
was fought, the Confederation period,which started during the war but then went
basically up through the adoption of theFederal Constitution. It was written in seventeen
eighty seven and then ratified in seventeeneighty eight, was a very tumultuous period
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and there was a lot of unrest. There was a lot of economic,
huge economic problems in the way that'sreally hard for us to even fathom.
And because of that unrest, thereended up being a lot of riots,
armed riots. There were times whenformer soldiers took up arms to shut down
courts and and this caused people tobe very, very concerned, and that
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built on fears that had started duringthe Revolution when troops hadn't been paid sometimes
for many, many years, andthey marched on Congress to demand that back
pay. And those who were servingin this first Congress recognize that they really
couldn't rely on states to provide thatsort of defense because states had their own
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interests and maybe were sympathetic sometimes towhoever happened to be petitioning Congress. They
also recognized that states would have theirown financial or cultural interests, and so
if states controlled the land and thebuilding where Congress was meeting, then they
could maybe exert undue influence over whateverCongress happened to be deciding at that moment.
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So it was really important for thefederal government to have its own space
that it could control, that itcould defend, so that it could try
and govern in the most independent mannerof whatever state happened to be hosting at
that given time. We have talkedabout the uncertainty of this period, with
political ruptures at every turn. Oneof these fierce debates was over the location
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of the nation's capital. James Madisonwas determined that the capital would be in
the South, whereas others wanted itto remain in Pennsylvania. What does this
tell us? This is a goodexample to demonstrate how we have always had
differences among the states, both culturally, politically, economically, factionally, and
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that's okay. And this is anexample where those differences came to the four
because there were divides between the westernand eastern regions. So people in the
West felt like people are on theeast, had too much power and they
were perhaps too engaged in trade andcommerce, and so they were corrupt,
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and so they wanted a capital thatwas farther west. People in the north,
of course, wanted to be inthe north. People in the South
wanted to be in the South.And that was partly because they felt like
it would give their region a boost, but it was also because at this
point, traveling to the seat ofgovernment took a really long time and was
really uncomfortable and very not enjoyable,and so they didn't want to have to
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travel very far. So they wereall kind of thinking about, you know,
wow, if the let's say thecapital was in Georgia and you live
in New York, how long isit going to take you to get there.
So all these various interests were comingto the fore, and Virginia was
a particularly notable spot because it wasthe biggest state in the nation at the
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time. It didn't have the biggestport that was, of course still Philadelphia,
but it was the biggest state.And there was an understanding that Washington
of course was going to be thefirst president, and so there was I
think competing concerns about if the capitalwas there, would it be too powerful,
would it have too much presentation?Well, you know Fergus Borderwick and
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many have launted him on this observationthat a good part of this dynamic as
well were the economic interests of theSouth in particular, and that those economic
interests very much tied to slaver ratewas more than the land in many instances,
and that there was a concern abouthaving it in an abolitionist state like
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Pennsylvania. Is that simplifying it toomuch? No, I think that that's
a fair assessment. And it wasn'tjust a concern that if they had the
capital in an abolitionist state what thatwould mean for the people there. And
this was something that they had experiencedfirsthand. So when the seat of government
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moved to Philadelphia temporarily when Washington waspresident, he devised a plan to cycle
out the enslaved individuals that worked atthe President's house so that they wouldn't become
automatically manumitted under Philadelphia law. Sothere was that concern, But then there
was also the broader concern of ifthe seat of government was in New York,
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or in Massachusetts or someplace in thenorth, would that exert too much
pressure on Congress as a federal bodyto take federal action against slavery. So
it was both the personal interest andalso the broader national interest. So I
mean, and you know, it'sreally quite also another extraordinary move by this
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young country that's already in debt fromthe Revolutionary War. Part of the argument
of the tensions around the issue ofpaying that revolutionary war debt, and they're
going to go to a place thathas nothing. I mean, this is
my home. I was born here. I think very highly of it.
But there was basically muddy nothingness herethat was pretty extraordinary. It was.
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It was maybe not the easiest choice, to be sure, which several contemporaries
did point out at the time.Now in terms of where on the Potomac
it was, there were two benefitsto washington selection. The first was that
the port of Georgetown and the Portof Alexandria were technically included in this city
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square, and so there was atleast a way to start to have commerce
and to ship things there and forpeople to arrive. And then, of
course the second benefit for Washington asit was close to his home, Mount
Vernon. But you're right, mostof the land was farmland, it was
privately held, it was not particularlywell developed. There were not well traveled
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roads, and it was a realinvestment in trying to create a national identity
as a way to demonstrate that thisnation belonged on the world stage. They
were really competing over what sort ofvalues and virtue and images they wanted to
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present to the world so as wellas to American citizens. So there were
really, I think two goals.One, they wanted to craft a space
that would be impressive enough for foreigndignitaries that came to serve in the United
States. And these were people whohad been to places like Versailles and the
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Court of Saint James in London,and they were used to a pretty high
level of finery. And so theywanted the government buildings and the public spaces
and the green space and the thingsthat these visitors would see. They wanted
them to be impressive enough that theywouldn't think that the United States this this
little poe Dunk country. The secondgoal, and this is where I think
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Jefferson's vision took I think a littlebit of an upper hand. Was they
really wanted He really, in particularwanted to use a building structure or an
architectural design that brought to mind theGreek and Roman past, that would remind
American citizens of the higher calling ofthis nation, of those virtues and those
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goals that he had penned in theDeclaration of Independence and had sort of served
as the calling card for this newniche. And so if he had buildings
that were beautiful and brought to mindthe Greek and Roman past, then it
would remind citizens to try and aspireto those higher ideals. How about Madison
and all of this, His roleobviously was to engineer the votes to get
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it to the banks of the Potomac. He obviously played a major role there.
Did he have any opinion, youthink, around the vision of the
you know, the architectural vision forthe city. I don't know exactly what
his architectural vision was. I doknow that initially his view of what the
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president should be was more aligned withWashington, and he thought that some Jefferson's
ideals were occasionally a little bit outlandishand worked pretty hard sometimes to reign Jefferson
in. However, over time,as he saw as the as the government
developed, and he realized that thepresident really did have a lot of power
in a way that Congress did notbecause it was one person versus you know,
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all of these different individuals competing fortheir various goals and aims. He
realized that Congress really need to beboosted and that any threat to a relatively
democratic system was perhaps going to comefrom the president. And so I think
over time he moved towards Jefferson's visionof the presidency, even if that wasn't
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necessarily where he started. And anythoughts about how we could have created this
brand new nation where we're expressing,you know, a real representative form of
government and we ended up with acapital where there is none any thoughts on
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how they could have done that.It's a great question and one of the
ongoing confounding elements of our imperfect union. I think the idea was that initially
the capital was never going to havetoo many residents. Now there were people
who lived in DC, and theyplayed a role, and it was hoped
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that they would be represented because theydid usually have close relationships. They socialized,
they engaged in activities with they married, they traded, they ate with
members of Congress and the executive branch, and so it was it was hoped
that their interests would be represented andcared for by the federal government. And
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I think that expectation was based onthe fact that most Congress people did not
actually live in the city. Itwas a very tansitory space. And yet,
of course that's not exactly how itturned out, and as the city
developed and expanded, there is aresident population that does not have the same
representation. And I do understand thein theory the challenges that Congress does need
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to, I believe, maintain responsibilityand power over its own space and its
own defense and its own independence.But DC is now so much more than
Congress and so much more than thepresidency. There are all of these spaces
that I think have the right,have the right under the Constitution, or
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should have the right under the Constitutionand under the principles of what it means
to be a republic, should havea voice in that project. Well,
it's the only place saying, I'mnot proselytizing here, but the only place
where I think there is a democracywith the capital is denied participation in real,
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you know, authentic participation in thatdemocracy. So obviously that I forget
what they called it a siege inPhiladelphia with those you know, former Revolutionary
War soldiers really must have had animpact on their collective thinking to intentionally establish
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a venue like this, denying peoplerepresentative government. But as you say,
there weren't many people here at thetime they established it. That's true,
and they could have never done thatif they were creating a space out of
let's say Philadelphia or Boston or NewYork, where there was already an established
population and an established power center.I mean, it's you know, impossible
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to think today that in England theresidence of London or the residence of Paris
and France would somehow be denied suffragebecause that's where they choose to live.
It's an anathema to even think it. Well, I'll make this truly the
one last question. We've referenced thenotion towards a more perfect Union, which
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is a part of our constitution,and James Madison is considered the chief architect
of the Constitution. My question toyou is what do you think they had
in mind when they said that.Did they mean a more perfect union this
should operate a little better than thosearticles of Confederation or do you think they
had something more aspirational in mind.I think it was both. They were
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fully aware that the constitution they werecrafting was a second chance, and most
nations, most republics, do notget second chances. So they were aware
that they were trying to create somethingthat was better than had come before it.
But they also were aware and theirletters during the Constitutional Convention are so
interesting because they talk about all ofthe compromises they had to make, and
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it truly was a series. It'sa bundle of compromise. Now it turned
out to be a pretty smart bundleof compromises, but nonetheless that's what it
was. And as many of thedelegates were leaving, including Washington, he
wrote this incredible letter to Benjamin Harrison, saying it was basically the best that
they could have at the moment.It was the best that they could come
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up with. And they knew therewere problems that they hadn't addressed, like
slavery, and they were hoping thatfuture generations could come up with more brilliant
solutions than they had been able toenvision. They also knew, because they
were very smart men, that despitetheir brilliance, they could not possibly think
of all of the things that mightcome down the road. They just didn't
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have any way of predicting the future, and so they desperately hoped that future
generations would come up with creative solutionsto those problems and would continue to try
and make it a more perfect union. So I believe that it is both
an accurate reflection of where they wereand a call to act to continue to
try and make it a more perfectunion, recognizing that it will never be
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perfect because it is a creation ofman, but it can always be getting
better. Thank you, doctor Chevinskyfor your reflections and insights. I also
had the pleasure of speaking with doctorWhitty Holton, the mccausla and Professor of
History at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches Early American history.
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He is the author of several awardwinning books, including Unruly Americans and the
Origins of the Constitution and Liberty isSuite, The Hidden History of the American
Revolution, among many things. Hehelped me understand the complexities around the decision
to bring from Great Britain and theoutsized role of Virginians in both the Revolution
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and then the New Republican Doctor Holton, we would like to take these founding
fathers sort of off the monuments,make them real, to figure out who
they were, Why did they dothis? What do you think was the
real impetus for making such a dramaticdecision. Well, I'll tell you.
I spent the first thirty years ofmy career asking the question, why did
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the white colonists in those thirteen Britishcolonies, why did they decide to declare
independence for Britain? And I've spentthe last ten years or so realizing that
I was asking the wrong question allthat time, because in a real sense,
the colonists did not rebel against Britain. It was Parliament, in the
leadership of Great Britain that rebelled againstthe status quo of say, the year
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seventeen sixty three. You know,that's twelve years before Lexington and conquered the
end of the previous war against Franceand its Native American allies. And in
seventeen sixty three, most white colonists, like Washington, they had nothing to
complain about. Washington loved his king. Even Jefferson, who would end up
being very anti monarchicle, he wasn'tsaying anything anti monarchy at that point.
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Benjamin Franklin was struggling and struggling toget Pennsylvania to become a royal colony.
It was owned by the Penn family. He wanted the king to take it
over. So as late as seventeensixty three, three colonists were totally satisfied
with their relationship with the British Empire. Who was not satisfied with that were
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a the one in five Americans whowere enslaved by the rest and also at
the opposite extreme of power the BritishParliament, because the British Parliament saw the
colonists as violating a lot of importantlaws. For instance, they were supposed
to do all of their trading eitherwith Britain or with the British colonies down
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in the Caribbean, where sugar wasgrown by enslaved people turned into molasses,
and then molasses was shipped off toNorth America to be turned into rum.
And without getting into all of thedetails of all that, the reality is
the Countists violated all of those traderestrictions and smuggled molasses in to make rum.
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And the Countists also traded with otherenemies of the British. They traded
with the French and the Spanish,and they provoked wars against Native Americans by
taking their land. And so mypoint is the countists were happy because although
there were these restrictions on them,they weren't enforced. And what changed in
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seventeen sixty three was at the BritishParliament decided to enforce all of these things.
So what did Parliament do to enforcethese things? So they cracked down
on westward expansion, which involved bothdrawing a line along the crest of the
Appalachian Mountains saying no more west expansion. And that really hit George Washington where
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he lived, because he once said, to quote him, the greatest estates
we have in this colony were madeby taking up the rich backland that was
thought nothing of in those days,but now the most valuable we possess.
So I think maybe Donald Trump hastried to compare himself to George Washington.
I'll say he's right in one respect. They are both real estate speculators.
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But in Washington's case, his accessto that western land was cut off by
the British government because they were tryingto avoid another war against the Indians.
Wars tend to double government's debt,and that was the case. Then and
so I would say in tenteen sixtythree that it was Parliament that rebelled against
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the status quote to stop westward expansion. Oh, to make sure the colonists
are paying for their own upkeep,specifically, to have a bunch of soldiers
to keep the colonists and the Indiansapart. That's where we got the Stamp
Act, the first of the bigtaxes. And everybody knows that expression no
taxation without representation and so and tocrack down on the colonists smuggling. Can
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we take a moment to discuss exactlywhat the Stamp Act did. One thing
I learned. I recently published abook on the Revolution called Liberty Suite,
The Hidden History of the American Revolution, And while researching that book, i'll
it's the thing. I'm a littlebit embarrassed to admit that I didn't do
it until then, but I wantedto talk about the Stamp Act, the
first big British tax in seventeen sixtyfive. And so what I had never
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done before was reading the actual wording. I relied on other historians and what
they'd said, and most of thehistorians say that the purpose of the Stamp
Act was to help pay down thatbig British government death that you mentioned.
But if you read the Act asI finally did, it's totally clear that's
not what it does at all.What the Stamp Act does is pay for
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the British government to leave ten thousandtroops in America along the crest of the
Appalachian Mountains to protect the colonists fromthe Indians. But also this is the
kind of the surprising part, toprotect the Indians from the colonists. They
were there basically, those ten thousandsoldiers as peace keeping troops to keep the
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colonists and Indians apart. So,yes, you're right. The debt that
the British government had run up fightingthe revolutionary of the Seven Years War and
winning that French and Indian wars theyalso called it, that was significant.
But where it's significant is not thatthe colonists got tax to pay for that
war, but the colonists got paidfor the troops that were there as a
buff ferk between the colonists and theIndians to prevent the next war or at
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least push off that next war asmany decades as they could. What do
we need to know about the tensionsat that time. I like to push
it to my students as three ts, taxas, territory, in trade,
and in all three of those areasthe white colonists, the free colonists,
were satisfied. In seventeen three Britainwas not. Britain wanted change, and
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so all the conists were doing waswere responding to the British and resisting the
changes that the British wanted. Buteven in resisting, they weren't demanding independence.
The colonists really didn't start to demandindependence a few of them in seventeen
seventy four, a lot more inseventy five, and then finally all of
them in seventy six, just aboutall. And what the contists did,
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what provoked the conist to go allthe way to independence was not Parliament's initial
initiatives in taxation, territory, intrade, but those British reforms, as
the British soldom caused the colonists toresist, for instance the Boston Tea Party,
and then that colonial resistance caused theBritish to inflict punishments on the free
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colonists. And it was those punishmentsthat's what pushed the colonists over the edge
into declaring independence. And I'll giveyou an example in Virginia. In November
of seventeen seventy five, the lastroyal governor of Virginia issued an emancipation proclamation
very similar to the emancipation proclamation thatAbraham Lincoln would issue four scored seven years
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player in eighteen sixty two. Butthis one in seventeen seventy five was by
a British governor who he was notanti slavery. He had slaves and he
kept them, but he needed fightersagainst the colonists who were in open revolt
that at that point, although theyhadn't declared independence, and in order to
recruit fighters, he couldn't get whites. And so he said to the forty
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percent of Virginians who were enslaved,if you're owned by a rebel like Jefferson
and Washington, Washington or Patrick Henry, and the biggest if is if you
can get to me, and ifyou're able and willing to bear arms,
then I will put a musket inyour hand, you'll fight for your king,
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and you'll get your freedom as aresult. And that really angered the
whites in Virginia. I think that'sthe single biggest thing in all the Southern
states that pushed these white colonists overthe edge into declaring independence. I did
not think of Virginia as one ofthe more aggressive radical members of that thirteen
(35:27):
colonies. There were times when Bostonwas way out front. There were times
when Virginia was way out front.But I will tell you that one point
when the Virginians and southern white Southernersin general were really the radical ones.
And that is well, here's howone white guy put it when he heard
the Governor Dunmore issued this emancipation proclamationaimed at slaves, getting them to come
(35:52):
onto the British, into the Britisharmy, because white saw that not as
recruiting soldiers, but as their owngovernment supposed to be protecting them from slaves,
stirring up their slaves against them,and getting the slaves to rebel.
So this guy, Archibald Cary fromNaria, Richmond, described it as aiming
a dagger at our throats through thehands of our slaves. They were furious,
(36:17):
and so I would say, inthe wake of Dunmore's emancipatient proclamation,
yes, Southerners were the most gungho for independence, and you get lots
of guys who had been opposed toindependence, and they turned on a dime
after the governor did the unthinkable ofas they saw it, starring their slaves
(36:39):
up against them. Thomas Jefferson,I think, was one of the ones
who became exercised about this. Hewas, he was. And if I
could get and I do a signto my students, but if I could
get every student, even at thehigh school level, to read one thing,
it would be Jefferson's rough draft ofthe dex Roy Independence, which is
(37:00):
really different from the final draft thatwe all know today in a lot of
interesting ways. For one thing,it was a lot less religious than the
final draft. They put in alot of religious language that I don't think
he liked because he was a prettysecular guy himself. But the most outstanding
obvious difference between Jefferson's draft and thefinal draft is that what I've been talking
(37:22):
about with this basically alliance between theBritish and the African Americans, Congress boiled
that down to seven words, noneof which was slave. You know,
like the Constitution Declation of Independence neveruses the word slave, even though both
documents are all about slavery. They'reabout other things too, but slavery is
(37:45):
fundamental to both of those documents,and nia one uses the work. My
point about Jefferson's draft, though,is that his original statement about slaves was
I think I want to say onehundred and sixty nine words. It was
huge. It was the biggest ofall of his complaint, and he had
a weird complaint to start off with, which was the British forced us to
(38:06):
have slaves. I don't know ifyou remember Flip Wilson's line, the devil
made me do it. The Britishmade us do it. So he starts
off with that, which just seemspat Lane started, although there's actually kind
of a grain of truth to that. Of course, the British didn't force
white Americans to have slaves, butthere were some white Americans like Jefferson,
(38:27):
who you know, would own sixhundred human beings over the course of his
lifetime. By seventeen seventy six,when he wrote the decoration, he had
so many slaves that it was inhis interest to stop bringing more slaves in
from Africa because that shores up thevalue of his human property. I don't
think that was his motive, buthe did oppose. He wanted to stop
the African slave trade, the internationalslave trade, but to continue the domestic
(38:52):
slave trade, where enslave people weresent south from Maryland, Virginia, in
the area that's now the District ofColumba, a sold south. You know,
we've talked about sold down the riverto New Orleans and from there to
Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Louisianaand so forth. So I'm getting off
track. But but Jefferson's Jefferson's paragraph, long paragraph about slavery and the Declarations
(39:17):
from Independence said first that the Britishhad imposed slavery on North America, not
true, and then something that istrue, which was that the British had
made this alliance with the slaves.And for Jefferson, that was the last
straw. It's not only is thathis longest complaint in the declaration, it's
(39:40):
the only one where he accuses theking of being a bad Christian. And
as I said, he's not areligious guy, but he uses what he
can. It's the only one wherehe uses all caps to criticize the British.
And it's interesting what he put inall caps, the word men tucked
enslaved people. He said these aremen. How can you do that to
(40:00):
men? How can you force peopleto be slaves in and send them over
here? And it's interesting because he'sthe same guy who'd written a couple of
paragraphs up all men are created equal, and he's using that same word.
He's acknowledging. You know, you'dget some of these safeholders later who wouldn't
even acknowledge the humanity of black people. But Jefferson did right there in the
declaration, but only in the contextof blaming the British for slavery. So
(40:27):
we think of the American Revolution,we think of, you know, how
courageous these all these individuals were.But we believe that they were inspired by
lofty principles, And if one looksat it more closely, it would appear,
as is the case for most people, they were driven by economic survival
(40:49):
interest. Is that a fair characterizationor is that two crass? Well,
if you say it can be statedtoo crassly, I don't think you stated
too crassly though. That is,they weren't worse than us in being motivated
by economic motivations, but I'm notsure they were a lot better than us.
They they people wanted to make aliving. One guy interviewed in the
(41:13):
nineteenth century was talking about his grandfatheras a land speculator, and he was
searching for the comparison to make thepoint. He said, well, my
great great grandfather was as great alandmonger as George Washington, that is Washington
with the gold standard by which theother one were judged. And so,
yes, they had economic motives.They were not gods, they were they
(41:36):
were imperfect humans like us. Yeah, what I will would definitely say is
what they wrote in that Declaration ofIndependence, like all men are create equal
inevitable rights to life, delivative seriesof happiness. What they said rose way
above their deeds, and so peoplehave talked about the whole history of American
(41:57):
history is the struggle between the idealof the Declaration of Independence and the circumstances
under which it was written. Madison, what do you think of him?
Well, I think with respect toslavery, that he was very similar to
Jefferson and did not free slaves asas as Washington did. I would say
(42:20):
both of them had gotten themselves intofinancial straits by the time they died,
that they couldn't free their slaves intheir will. But it didn't have to
be in those financial straits. Theydidn't have to keep fixing up Montpelier in
Madison's case, or Manicello and Jefferson'scase. But but one thing I like
about Madison is that he was aguy who could change his mind. In
(42:42):
the seventeen sixties, he joined withother In early seventeen seventies, he joined
with other American patriots in opposing Parliament. So that's the legislature of Britain.
And then once the states declared independence, they each wrote their own individual state
constitutions, and some of those werevery democratic, especially Pennsylvania is not surprising
(43:07):
the state that's also going to beone of the first to abolish slavery.
They wrote a very democratic state constitution, and so did the other states,
just not as extreme and not asradical as Pennsylvania. And then Madison.
We've dealt with the British, andMadison is furious at the state constitutions for
(43:27):
being too democratic. The number onereason that Madison, along with Hamilton and
the rest, wrote the constitution wasthat they thought those state governments were too
democratic. That is, the legislatorswere too beholden to their constituents, who
were mostly farmers who asked for taxcuts and got tax cuts, asked for
(43:49):
debt relief, got debt relief,and so forth. That the modern conflict
over whether to forgive a student loandebt really would resonate with Madison because he
was worried that the state governments wereletting people out of having to pay their
private debts to the merchants that theybought stuff from. But here's my point
about Madison. In when Parliament isthe operative legislature, he fights parliament.
(44:15):
In the seventeen eighties, when thestate legislatures have all this power, he
fights the state state governments. Thenhe writes the Constitution, which shifts a
lot of their power to the newfederal government. And then what does Madison
do at that point? He opposesthe federal government. And it looks like
a flip flop, and it isa flip flop. You know. He
(44:36):
went from being we need a strongerfederal government to WHOA, the federal government's
too strong. Now it looks inconsistent, but here's the consistency in it.
Whoever has power he fears, AndI'm not sure that's a bad policy.
It has been a great pleasure,Thank you. Doctor Holton, the new
(44:59):
nature of colonies now states was enormous. It spanned twelve hundred miles and from
the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi Riversix hundred miles. All of England could
have fit just within New York State. It was primarily a nation of farmers.
Agriculture was the economic engine central tothe American economy, and most Americans
(45:25):
lived closely to the agricultural economy cyclesof plantings and harvests. A brand new
nation, having won a war forindependence, but remains ensnarled and what will
be later known as the ongoing AmericanDilemma. Between seventeen eighty and seventeen ninety,
(45:46):
the enslaved population continued to grow,from approximately five hundred and sixty thousand
enslaved men, women, and childrento over seven hundred thousand. Emblematic of
America's contradictions is her new capital andinspired wonderful gesture to a government of we
(46:09):
the people. It is also hometo a growing slave population, with slave
auctions operating along the mall. Nextweek, we'll hear more about these contradictions
as we explore the life at Montpelier, the lifelong home of our fourth President,
(46:30):
the father of the Constitution, JamesMadison. This episode was edited by
(47:07):
Baywulf Rockland, Roosevelt Heine, andLisa Hudy of Two Squared Media Productions.
Special thanks to Isabel Dorville for herresearch and production support, Folk Diversity for
ensuring purposeful conversations when reflecting on ourcomplex history, and basking strategies for engaging
(47:31):
our stakeholder community. Thanks as wellto Joy Ford Austin, Jody Simuda,
and Amy Anthony at the Institute ofPolitics, Policy and History. We are
grateful to the Kellogg Foundation for theirgenerous support of this founding Father's Legacy series.
(47:54):
Be sure to subscribe wherever you listento podcasts at the back of the Door.
This is the Founding Fathers Legacy series. I'm Sharon Pratt, and in this
episode, we're examining the world ofrevolutionary America, learning more about the political,
social and economic environment the Founding Fathersoperated in. Most of us are
familiar with the key events and datesof the American Revolutionary period, but before
(00:25):
we joined the experts in a discussion, a quick review. Starting back in
the seventeen sixties, with the SugarAct of seventeen sixty four, the Stamp
Act of seventeen sixty five, andthe Townsend Acts of seventeen sixty seven,
American colonies were being consistently taxed topay the French and Indian War debt.
(00:52):
Many Americans believed that parliament could makelaws to govern the colonies, but only
elected representatives to have the authority totax them, and they had no elected
representatives. In fact, the slogantaxation without representation, which adorns Washington,
d c. License plates because westill have no voting elected representatives, originated
(01:18):
in the years leading up to theAmerican Revolution. Years of unrest followed,
and in December seventeen seventy three,angered by the Tea Act, implemented earlier
in the year American patriots dumped EastIndian Company Tea into Boston Harbor. In
(01:38):
April seventeen seventy five, we seethe first skirmishes violent entanglements between British troops
and minutemen in the Battles of Lexingtonand Concord. George Washington will soon be
appointed Commander in Chief of the ContinentalArmy. On July fourth, seventeen seventy
(02:00):
six, the Continental Congress issued theDeclaration of Independence, and what follows is
six difficult years of violent conflicts,countless casualties, sometimes starving soldiers, culminating
finally in September seventeen eighty three withthe Treaty of Paris, which formerly ends
(02:28):
the Revolutionary War. I spoke earlierwith doctor Lindsay Trevinsky and doctor Woody Holton.
I asked them to help us understandwhy these colonists, primarily descendants of
the British, decided to challenge andbreak from Great Britain, the most formidable
(02:51):
military presence in the world. Whywere these risks taken, and then how
the founding fathers worked to define andstabilize a new nation after the war.
We will first hear from doctor LindsayChervinsky, a presidential historian and award winning
author of The Cabinet, George Washington, and the Creation of an American Institution.
(03:16):
Doctor Chevinsky speaks of this early unsettlingperiod for our new nation. She
speaks of the competing ideas, thecompeting visions for our new nation, and
the extraordinary symbolic importance of the newnation's capital, soon to be known as
(03:38):
Washington, d C. Let's hearwhat doctor Chevinsky has to say. I'd
like your thoughts around what you thinkinspired these men, the founding fathers,
the colonists, generally to want totake on something as audacious as breaking from
(04:00):
Great Britain. Well, that isa big question, but I think it's
a good place to start, especiallywhen trying to understand the origins and the
purpose of Washington, DC, becausein so many ways, this city is
the physical embodiment of the goals,sometimes competing goals, and obstacles and challenges
(04:21):
that they were grappling with at thismoment. So I think it's important to
begin with Washington and Jefferson, especiallybecause they were a bit older than Madison,
really initially saw themselves as the verymost loyal citizens to the British king
and had no intention in their earlylives of fomenting a revolution or fighting in
(04:46):
one. Instead, they were verymuch apart and a participant in what we
would call a cult of monarchy.So in the seventeen sixties, especially after
the end of the Seven Years War, there was a boom of material culture
products, so things like teapots andlinens and towels and art and silver pieces
(05:09):
that had some sort of image ofeither the royal family or the crest,
or some sort of representation of thatBritish Empire. And Americans were by far
the biggest consumers of these products,and Washington and Jefferson initially were really no
exception. That started to shift inthe late seventeen sixties and especially in the
(05:32):
early seventeen seventies for a couple ofreasons. For let me take Washington first.
For Washington, he began to realizethrough his own early military experiences and
then through his economic experiences, thatthe system was set up to benefit those
that lived on the mainland in Englandin particular, and the colonists were set
(05:57):
up to be subservient or to somehoweconomically benefit the quote unquote true English and
this was very frustrating to him becausethey understood that many of the white colonists
that were the landowners and those inpower came from what we would they would
have called said, you know,true English stock, and wanted to be
(06:20):
equal representatives, wanted to be equalparticipants in this imperial project. And yet
they found themselves never getting ahead interms of promotion, whether it was in
the military, never being able toquite pay off all their debts through the
economic system, and that started tobe very, very frustrating. Now they
(06:42):
were all and this does include Madisonhere, they were all very much participants
in the intellectual project of the empireas well. So even though Washington did
not have a formal education, hewas very attentive to his self education,
and jeff Prison and Madison of coursehad a higher study and so they were
reading all of the things that theloyal opposition in London was printing, what
(07:09):
we'd think of as the Whig politicians. And the concept behind a loyal opposition
was that you were not trying tooverthrow the system, you were trying to
reform the system. And so initiallythat was how they thought of themselves,
as they were not trying to overthrowthe empire. They were trying to reform
the empire such that the colonists couldbe equal participants as those that lived in
(07:33):
England or elsewhere. So it wasn'treally until these reform efforts failed, until
until it was clear that Parliament hadno interest in their participation and the King
had no interest in defending their rightsas equal participants, that they fully embraced
revolution. But it was a process. It did not happen overnight. Yes,
(07:57):
that's what I was about to askyou, and you just spoke to
it that originally their notion was theywere more annoyed with the Parliament, and
you're saying they wanted reform, notso much having hostility towards the king.
Is that correctly? And in fact, the Residence of Boston in seventeen seventy
(08:18):
five referred to the British Regulars asParliament's troops, and they referred to themselves
as the King's troops because they stillthought as late as seventeen seventy five that
the King might step in and representtheir interests and basically veto parliamentary action.
And it wasn't until the king reallyyou put a kebosh on that notion that
(08:41):
they really fully turned against monarchy.So how much of it was wanting an
equal standing and how much of itwas economics? I mean, the you
know, the economic disadvantages they wereexperiencing, whether it was taxing or even
some what I gathered, even theirarrangement in trying to sell their crops abroad.
(09:03):
How much of it was economics andhow much of it was a desire
to have equal standing. Well,I think they would have really thought of
the two as being interconnected because Parliamentwas the body that was passing the bills
that created this system was called amercantilist system where basically all of the profits
(09:24):
were funneled back towards London, andParliament was the one that was creating the
legislation that enforced the system. Soif they didn't have representation in Parliament,
then they couldn't speak out against thiseconomic system that was really disadvantageous to those
that were living in the colonies.So they saw their economic prospects as just
(09:45):
the other side of the coin,as their political representation. How were they
thinking about life, liberty and thepursuit of happiness. So if we think
of you know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The
goal of liberty and the pursuit ofhappy is to be able to take care
of yourself and to take care ofyour family in an independent manner, and
(10:05):
to not be reliant on anyone,to not to have a roof over your
head, to have food to feedthose that you love, and so for
them, I think they saw independenceas very much representing the idea that you
want every single citizen to have theright to try and make something of themselves,
to have the right to provide forthemselves, to have an equal shot
(10:28):
at economic prosperity, as well aspolitical rights in political liberty. And of
course at this point when they weretalking about citizens, they're really only talking
about propertied white men. But nonethelessthey felt that those things were so essential
to what life and liberty meant thatwe shouldn't I don't think we should view
that pecuniary interest as a negative somuch as their understanding that it was essential
(10:54):
to what it meant to be freeand a free citizen America. When's the
war and then they meet in NewYork to the First Congress to begin to
also settle on the notion of wherethere would be this capital, Why did
they think they had to have thiscapital, and what were their impulses or
(11:18):
motivations for going to great links toestablish a capital. Well after the war
was fought, the Confederation period,which started during the war but then went
basically up through the adoption of theFederal Constitution. It was written in seventeen
eighty seven and then ratified in seventeeneighty eight, was a very tumultuous period
(11:39):
and there was a lot of unrest. There was a lot of economic,
huge economic problems in the way that'sreally hard for us to even fathom.
And because of that unrest, thereended up being a lot of riots,
armed riots. There were times whenformer soldiers took up arms to shut down
courts and and this caused people tobe very, very concerned, and that
(12:03):
built on fears that had started duringthe Revolution when troops hadn't been paid sometimes
for many, many years, andthey marched on Congress to demand that back
pay. And those who were servingin this first Congress recognize that they really
couldn't rely on states to provide thatsort of defense because states had their own
(12:26):
interests and maybe were sympathetic sometimes towhoever happened to be petitioning Congress. They
also recognized that states would have theirown financial or cultural interests, and so
if states controlled the land and thebuilding where Congress was meeting, then they
could maybe exert undue influence over whateverCongress happened to be deciding at that moment.
(12:48):
So it was really important for thefederal government to have its own space
that it could control, that itcould defend, so that it could try
and govern in the most independent mannerof whatever state happened to be hosting at
that given time. We have talkedabout the uncertainty of this period, with
political ruptures at every turn. Oneof these fierce debates was over the location
(13:11):
of the nation's capital. James Madisonwas determined that the capital would be in
the South, whereas others wanted itto remain in Pennsylvania. What does this
tell us? This is a goodexample to demonstrate how we have always had
differences among the states, both culturally, politically, economically, factionally, and
(13:35):
that's okay. And this is anexample where those differences came to the four
because there were divides between the westernand eastern regions. So people in the
West felt like people are on theeast, had too much power and they
were perhaps too engaged in trade andcommerce, and so they were corrupt,
(13:56):
and so they wanted a capital thatwas farther west. People in the north,
of course, wanted to be inthe north. People in the South
wanted to be in the South.And that was partly because they felt like
it would give their region a boost, but it was also because at this
point, traveling to the seat ofgovernment took a really long time and was
really uncomfortable and very not enjoyable,and so they didn't want to have to
(14:18):
travel very far. So they wereall kind of thinking about, you know,
wow, if the let's say thecapital was in Georgia and you live
in New York, how long isit going to take you to get there.
So all these various interests were comingto the fore, and Virginia was
a particularly notable spot because it wasthe biggest state in the nation at the
(14:39):
time. It didn't have the biggestport that was, of course still Philadelphia,
but it was the biggest state.And there was an understanding that Washington
of course was going to be thefirst president, and so there was I
think competing concerns about if the capitalwas there, would it be too powerful,
would it have too much presentation?Well, you know Fergus Borderwick and
(15:03):
many have launted him on this observationthat a good part of this dynamic as
well were the economic interests of theSouth in particular, and that those economic
interests very much tied to slaver ratewas more than the land in many instances,
and that there was a concern abouthaving it in an abolitionist state like
(15:26):
Pennsylvania. Is that simplifying it toomuch? No, I think that that's
a fair assessment. And it wasn'tjust a concern that if they had the
capital in an abolitionist state what thatwould mean for the people there. And
this was something that they had experiencedfirsthand. So when the seat of government
(15:46):
moved to Philadelphia temporarily when Washington waspresident, he devised a plan to cycle
out the enslaved individuals that worked atthe President's house so that they wouldn't become
automatically manumitted under Philadelphia law. Sothere was that concern, But then there
was also the broader concern of ifthe seat of government was in New York,
(16:11):
or in Massachusetts or someplace in thenorth, would that exert too much
pressure on Congress as a federal bodyto take federal action against slavery. So
it was both the personal interest andalso the broader national interest. So I
mean, and you know, it'sreally quite also another extraordinary move by this
(16:32):
young country that's already in debt fromthe Revolutionary War. Part of the argument
of the tensions around the issue ofpaying that revolutionary war debt, and they're
going to go to a place thathas nothing. I mean, this is
my home. I was born here. I think very highly of it.
But there was basically muddy nothingness herethat was pretty extraordinary. It was.
(16:57):
It was maybe not the easiest choice, to be sure, which several contemporaries
did point out at the time.Now in terms of where on the Potomac
it was, there were two benefitsto washington selection. The first was that
the port of Georgetown and the Portof Alexandria were technically included in this city
(17:18):
square, and so there was atleast a way to start to have commerce
and to ship things there and forpeople to arrive. And then, of
course the second benefit for Washington asit was close to his home, Mount
Vernon. But you're right, mostof the land was farmland, it was
privately held, it was not particularlywell developed. There were not well traveled
(17:41):
roads, and it was a realinvestment in trying to create a national identity
as a way to demonstrate that thisnation belonged on the world stage. They
were really competing over what sort ofvalues and virtue and images they wanted to
(18:02):
present to the world so as wellas to American citizens. So there were
really, I think two goals.One, they wanted to craft a space
that would be impressive enough for foreigndignitaries that came to serve in the United
States. And these were people whohad been to places like Versailles and the
(18:22):
Court of Saint James in London,and they were used to a pretty high
level of finery. And so theywanted the government buildings and the public spaces
and the green space and the thingsthat these visitors would see. They wanted
them to be impressive enough that theywouldn't think that the United States this this
little poe Dunk country. The secondgoal, and this is where I think
(18:47):
Jefferson's vision took I think a littlebit of an upper hand. Was they
really wanted He really, in particularwanted to use a building structure or an
architectural design that brought to mind theGreek and Roman past, that would remind
American citizens of the higher calling ofthis nation, of those virtues and those
(19:11):
goals that he had penned in theDeclaration of Independence and had sort of served
as the calling card for this newniche. And so if he had buildings
that were beautiful and brought to mindthe Greek and Roman past, then it
would remind citizens to try and aspireto those higher ideals. How about Madison
and all of this, His roleobviously was to engineer the votes to get
(19:34):
it to the banks of the Potomac. He obviously played a major role there.
Did he have any opinion, youthink, around the vision of the
you know, the architectural vision forthe city. I don't know exactly what
his architectural vision was. I doknow that initially his view of what the
(19:55):
president should be was more aligned withWashington, and he thought that some Jefferson's
ideals were occasionally a little bit outlandishand worked pretty hard sometimes to reign Jefferson
in. However, over time,as he saw as the as the government
developed, and he realized that thepresident really did have a lot of power
in a way that Congress did notbecause it was one person versus you know,
(20:19):
all of these different individuals competing fortheir various goals and aims. He
realized that Congress really need to beboosted and that any threat to a relatively
democratic system was perhaps going to comefrom the president. And so I think
over time he moved towards Jefferson's visionof the presidency, even if that wasn't
(20:42):
necessarily where he started. And anythoughts about how we could have created this
brand new nation where we're expressing,you know, a real representative form of
government and we ended up with acapital where there is none any thoughts on
(21:03):
how they could have done that.It's a great question and one of the
ongoing confounding elements of our imperfect union. I think the idea was that initially
the capital was never going to havetoo many residents. Now there were people
who lived in DC, and theyplayed a role, and it was hoped
(21:27):
that they would be represented because theydid usually have close relationships. They socialized,
they engaged in activities with they married, they traded, they ate with
members of Congress and the executive branch, and so it was it was hoped
that their interests would be represented andcared for by the federal government. And
(21:52):
I think that expectation was based onthe fact that most Congress people did not
actually live in the city. Itwas a very tansitory space. And yet,
of course that's not exactly how itturned out, and as the city
developed and expanded, there is aresident population that does not have the same
representation. And I do understand thein theory the challenges that Congress does need
(22:15):
to, I believe, maintain responsibilityand power over its own space and its
own defense and its own independence.But DC is now so much more than
Congress and so much more than thepresidency. There are all of these spaces
that I think have the right,have the right under the Constitution, or
(22:37):
should have the right under the Constitutionand under the principles of what it means
to be a republic, should havea voice in that project. Well,
it's the only place saying, I'mnot proselytizing here, but the only place
where I think there is a democracywith the capital is denied participation in real,
(23:00):
you know, authentic participation in thatdemocracy. So obviously that I forget
what they called it a siege inPhiladelphia with those you know, former Revolutionary
War soldiers really must have had animpact on their collective thinking to intentionally establish
(23:22):
a venue like this, denying peoplerepresentative government. But as you say,
there weren't many people here at thetime they established it. That's true,
and they could have never done thatif they were creating a space out of
let's say Philadelphia or Boston or NewYork, where there was already an established
population and an established power center.I mean, it's you know, impossible
(23:45):
to think today that in England theresidence of London or the residence of Paris
and France would somehow be denied suffragebecause that's where they choose to live.
It's an anathema to even think it. Well, I'll make this truly the
one last question. We've referenced thenotion towards a more perfect Union, which
(24:06):
is a part of our constitution,and James Madison is considered the chief architect
of the Constitution. My question toyou is what do you think they had
in mind when they said that.Did they mean a more perfect union this
should operate a little better than thosearticles of Confederation or do you think they
had something more aspirational in mind.I think it was both. They were
(24:32):
fully aware that the constitution they werecrafting was a second chance, and most
nations, most republics, do notget second chances. So they were aware
that they were trying to create somethingthat was better than had come before it.
But they also were aware and theirletters during the Constitutional Convention are so
interesting because they talk about all ofthe compromises they had to make, and
(24:56):
it truly was a series. It'sa bundle of compromise. Now it turned
out to be a pretty smart bundleof compromises, but nonetheless that's what it
was. And as many of thedelegates were leaving, including Washington, he
wrote this incredible letter to Benjamin Harrison, saying it was basically the best that
they could have at the moment.It was the best that they could come
(25:18):
up with. And they knew therewere problems that they hadn't addressed, like
slavery, and they were hoping thatfuture generations could come up with more brilliant
solutions than they had been able toenvision. They also knew, because they
were very smart men, that despitetheir brilliance, they could not possibly think
of all of the things that mightcome down the road. They just didn't
(25:41):
have any way of predicting the future, and so they desperately hoped that future
generations would come up with creative solutionsto those problems and would continue to try
and make it a more perfect union. So I believe that it is both
an accurate reflection of where they wereand a call to act to continue to
try and make it a more perfectunion, recognizing that it will never be
(26:06):
perfect because it is a creation ofman, but it can always be getting
better. Thank you, doctor Chevinskyfor your reflections and insights. I also
had the pleasure of speaking with doctorWhitty Holton, the mccausla and Professor of
History at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches Early American history.
(26:27):
He is the author of several awardwinning books, including Unruly Americans and the
Origins of the Constitution and Liberty isSuite, The Hidden History of the American
Revolution, among many things. Hehelped me understand the complexities around the decision
to bring from Great Britain and theoutsized role of Virginians in both the Revolution
(26:52):
and then the New Republican Doctor Holton, we would like to take these founding
fathers sort of off the monuments,make them real, to figure out who
they were, Why did they dothis? What do you think was the
real impetus for making such a dramaticdecision. Well, I'll tell you.
I spent the first thirty years ofmy career asking the question, why did
(27:17):
the white colonists in those thirteen Britishcolonies, why did they decide to declare
independence for Britain? And I've spentthe last ten years or so realizing that
I was asking the wrong question allthat time, because in a real sense,
the colonists did not rebel against Britain. It was Parliament, in the
leadership of Great Britain that rebelled againstthe status quo of say, the year
(27:44):
seventeen sixty three. You know,that's twelve years before Lexington and conquered the
end of the previous war against Franceand its Native American allies. And in
seventeen sixty three, most white colonists, like Washington, they had nothing to
complain about. Washington loved his king. Even Jefferson, who would end up
being very anti monarchicle, he wasn'tsaying anything anti monarchy at that point.
(28:11):
Benjamin Franklin was struggling and struggling toget Pennsylvania to become a royal colony.
It was owned by the Penn family. He wanted the king to take it
over. So as late as seventeensixty three, three colonists were totally satisfied
with their relationship with the British Empire. Who was not satisfied with that were
(28:32):
a the one in five Americans whowere enslaved by the rest and also at
the opposite extreme of power the BritishParliament, because the British Parliament saw the
colonists as violating a lot of importantlaws. For instance, they were supposed
to do all of their trading eitherwith Britain or with the British colonies down
(28:56):
in the Caribbean, where sugar wasgrown by enslaved people turned into molasses,
and then molasses was shipped off toNorth America to be turned into rum.
And without getting into all of thedetails of all that, the reality is
the Countists violated all of those traderestrictions and smuggled molasses in to make rum.
(29:19):
And the Countists also traded with otherenemies of the British. They traded
with the French and the Spanish,and they provoked wars against Native Americans by
taking their land. And so mypoint is the countists were happy because although
there were these restrictions on them,they weren't enforced. And what changed in
(29:40):
seventeen sixty three was at the BritishParliament decided to enforce all of these things.
So what did Parliament do to enforcethese things? So they cracked down
on westward expansion, which involved bothdrawing a line along the crest of the
Appalachian Mountains saying no more west expansion. And that really hit George Washington where
(30:03):
he lived, because he once said, to quote him, the greatest estates
we have in this colony were madeby taking up the rich backland that was
thought nothing of in those days,but now the most valuable we possess.
So I think maybe Donald Trump hastried to compare himself to George Washington.
I'll say he's right in one respect. They are both real estate speculators.
(30:26):
But in Washington's case, his accessto that western land was cut off by
the British government because they were tryingto avoid another war against the Indians.
Wars tend to double government's debt,and that was the case. Then and
so I would say in tenteen sixtythree that it was Parliament that rebelled against
(30:49):
the status quote to stop westward expansion. Oh, to make sure the colonists
are paying for their own upkeep,specifically, to have a bunch of soldiers
to keep the colonists and the Indiansapart. That's where we got the Stamp
Act, the first of the bigtaxes. And everybody knows that expression no
taxation without representation and so and tocrack down on the colonists smuggling. Can
(31:14):
we take a moment to discuss exactlywhat the Stamp Act did. One thing
I learned. I recently published abook on the Revolution called Liberty Suite,
The Hidden History of the American Revolution, And while researching that book, i'll
it's the thing. I'm a littlebit embarrassed to admit that I didn't do
it until then, but I wantedto talk about the Stamp Act, the
first big British tax in seventeen sixtyfive. And so what I had never
(31:38):
done before was reading the actual wording. I relied on other historians and what
they'd said, and most of thehistorians say that the purpose of the Stamp
Act was to help pay down thatbig British government death that you mentioned.
But if you read the Act asI finally did, it's totally clear that's
not what it does at all.What the Stamp Act does is pay for
(32:00):
the British government to leave ten thousandtroops in America along the crest of the
Appalachian Mountains to protect the colonists fromthe Indians. But also this is the
kind of the surprising part, toprotect the Indians from the colonists. They
were there basically, those ten thousandsoldiers as peace keeping troops to keep the
(32:22):
colonists and Indians apart. So,yes, you're right. The debt that
the British government had run up fightingthe revolutionary of the Seven Years War and
winning that French and Indian wars theyalso called it, that was significant.
But where it's significant is not thatthe colonists got tax to pay for that
war, but the colonists got paidfor the troops that were there as a
buff ferk between the colonists and theIndians to prevent the next war or at
(32:46):
least push off that next war asmany decades as they could. What do
we need to know about the tensionsat that time. I like to push
it to my students as three ts, taxas, territory, in trade,
and in all three of those areasthe white colonists, the free colonists,
were satisfied. In seventeen three Britainwas not. Britain wanted change, and
(33:12):
so all the conists were doing waswere responding to the British and resisting the
changes that the British wanted. Buteven in resisting, they weren't demanding independence.
The colonists really didn't start to demandindependence a few of them in seventeen
seventy four, a lot more inseventy five, and then finally all of
them in seventy six, just aboutall. And what the contists did,
(33:35):
what provoked the conist to go allthe way to independence was not Parliament's initial
initiatives in taxation, territory, intrade, but those British reforms, as
the British soldom caused the colonists toresist, for instance the Boston Tea Party,
and then that colonial resistance caused theBritish to inflict punishments on the free
(33:59):
colonists. And it was those punishmentsthat's what pushed the colonists over the edge
into declaring independence. And I'll giveyou an example in Virginia. In November
of seventeen seventy five, the lastroyal governor of Virginia issued an emancipation proclamation
very similar to the emancipation proclamation thatAbraham Lincoln would issue four scored seven years
(34:22):
player in eighteen sixty two. Butthis one in seventeen seventy five was by
a British governor who he was notanti slavery. He had slaves and he
kept them, but he needed fightersagainst the colonists who were in open revolt
that at that point, although theyhadn't declared independence, and in order to
recruit fighters, he couldn't get whites. And so he said to the forty
(34:45):
percent of Virginians who were enslaved,if you're owned by a rebel like Jefferson
and Washington, Washington or Patrick Henry, and the biggest if is if you
can get to me, and ifyou're able and willing to bear arms,
then I will put a musket inyour hand, you'll fight for your king,
(35:06):
and you'll get your freedom as aresult. And that really angered the
whites in Virginia. I think that'sthe single biggest thing in all the Southern
states that pushed these white colonists overthe edge into declaring independence. I did
not think of Virginia as one ofthe more aggressive radical members of that thirteen
(35:27):
colonies. There were times when Bostonwas way out front. There were times
when Virginia was way out front.But I will tell you that one point
when the Virginians and southern white Southernersin general were really the radical ones.
And that is well, here's howone white guy put it when he heard
the Governor Dunmore issued this emancipation proclamationaimed at slaves, getting them to come
(35:52):
onto the British, into the Britisharmy, because white saw that not as
recruiting soldiers, but as their owngovernment supposed to be protecting them from slaves,
stirring up their slaves against them,and getting the slaves to rebel.
So this guy, Archibald Cary fromNaria, Richmond, described it as aiming
a dagger at our throats through thehands of our slaves. They were furious,
(36:17):
and so I would say, inthe wake of Dunmore's emancipatient proclamation,
yes, Southerners were the most gungho for independence, and you get lots
of guys who had been opposed toindependence, and they turned on a dime
after the governor did the unthinkable ofas they saw it, starring their slaves
(36:39):
up against them. Thomas Jefferson,I think, was one of the ones
who became exercised about this. Hewas, he was. And if I
could get and I do a signto my students, but if I could
get every student, even at thehigh school level, to read one thing,
it would be Jefferson's rough draft ofthe dex Roy Independence, which is
(37:00):
really different from the final draft thatwe all know today in a lot of
interesting ways. For one thing,it was a lot less religious than the
final draft. They put in alot of religious language that I don't think
he liked because he was a prettysecular guy himself. But the most outstanding
obvious difference between Jefferson's draft and thefinal draft is that what I've been talking
(37:22):
about with this basically alliance between theBritish and the African Americans, Congress boiled
that down to seven words, noneof which was slave. You know,
like the Constitution Declation of Independence neveruses the word slave, even though both
documents are all about slavery. They'reabout other things too, but slavery is
(37:45):
fundamental to both of those documents,and nia one uses the work. My
point about Jefferson's draft, though,is that his original statement about slaves was
I think I want to say onehundred and sixty nine words. It was
huge. It was the biggest ofall of his complaint, and he had
a weird complaint to start off with, which was the British forced us to
(38:06):
have slaves. I don't know ifyou remember Flip Wilson's line, the devil
made me do it. The Britishmade us do it. So he starts
off with that, which just seemspat Lane started, although there's actually kind
of a grain of truth to that. Of course, the British didn't force
white Americans to have slaves, butthere were some white Americans like Jefferson,
(38:27):
who you know, would own sixhundred human beings over the course of his
lifetime. By seventeen seventy six,when he wrote the decoration, he had
so many slaves that it was inhis interest to stop bringing more slaves in
from Africa because that shores up thevalue of his human property. I don't
think that was his motive, buthe did oppose. He wanted to stop
the African slave trade, the internationalslave trade, but to continue the domestic
(38:52):
slave trade, where enslave people weresent south from Maryland, Virginia, in
the area that's now the District ofColumba, a sold south. You know,
we've talked about sold down the riverto New Orleans and from there to
Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Louisianaand so forth. So I'm getting off
track. But but Jefferson's Jefferson's paragraph, long paragraph about slavery and the Declarations
(39:17):
from Independence said first that the Britishhad imposed slavery on North America, not
true, and then something that istrue, which was that the British had
made this alliance with the slaves.And for Jefferson, that was the last
straw. It's not only is thathis longest complaint in the declaration, it's
(39:40):
the only one where he accuses theking of being a bad Christian. And
as I said, he's not areligious guy, but he uses what he
can. It's the only one wherehe uses all caps to criticize the British.
And it's interesting what he put inall caps, the word men tucked
enslaved people. He said these aremen. How can you do that to
(40:00):
men? How can you force peopleto be slaves in and send them over
here? And it's interesting because he'sthe same guy who'd written a couple of
paragraphs up all men are created equal, and he's using that same word.
He's acknowledging. You know, you'dget some of these safeholders later who wouldn't
even acknowledge the humanity of black people. But Jefferson did right there in the
declaration, but only in the contextof blaming the British for slavery. So
(40:27):
we think of the American Revolution,we think of, you know, how
courageous these all these individuals were.But we believe that they were inspired by
lofty principles, And if one looksat it more closely, it would appear,
as is the case for most people, they were driven by economic survival
(40:49):
interest. Is that a fair characterizationor is that two crass? Well,
if you say it can be statedtoo crassly, I don't think you stated
too crassly though. That is,they weren't worse than us in being motivated
by economic motivations, but I'm notsure they were a lot better than us.
They they people wanted to make aliving. One guy interviewed in the
(41:13):
nineteenth century was talking about his grandfatheras a land speculator, and he was
searching for the comparison to make thepoint. He said, well, my
great great grandfather was as great alandmonger as George Washington, that is Washington
with the gold standard by which theother one were judged. And so,
yes, they had economic motives.They were not gods, they were they
(41:36):
were imperfect humans like us. Yeah, what I will would definitely say is
what they wrote in that Declaration ofIndependence, like all men are create equal
inevitable rights to life, delivative seriesof happiness. What they said rose way
above their deeds, and so peoplehave talked about the whole history of American
(41:57):
history is the struggle between the idealof the Declaration of Independence and the circumstances
under which it was written. Madison, what do you think of him?
Well, I think with respect toslavery, that he was very similar to
Jefferson and did not free slaves asas as Washington did. I would say
(42:20):
both of them had gotten themselves intofinancial straits by the time they died,
that they couldn't free their slaves intheir will. But it didn't have to
be in those financial straits. Theydidn't have to keep fixing up Montpelier in
Madison's case, or Manicello and Jefferson'scase. But but one thing I like
about Madison is that he was aguy who could change his mind. In
(42:42):
the seventeen sixties, he joined withother In early seventeen seventies, he joined
with other American patriots in opposing Parliament. So that's the legislature of Britain.
And then once the states declared independence, they each wrote their own individual state
constitutions, and some of those werevery democratic, especially Pennsylvania is not surprising
(43:07):
the state that's also going to beone of the first to abolish slavery.
They wrote a very democratic state constitution, and so did the other states,
just not as extreme and not asradical as Pennsylvania. And then Madison.
We've dealt with the British, andMadison is furious at the state constitutions for
(43:27):
being too democratic. The number onereason that Madison, along with Hamilton and
the rest, wrote the constitution wasthat they thought those state governments were too
democratic. That is, the legislatorswere too beholden to their constituents, who
were mostly farmers who asked for taxcuts and got tax cuts, asked for
(43:49):
debt relief, got debt relief,and so forth. That the modern conflict
over whether to forgive a student loandebt really would resonate with Madison because he
was worried that the state governments wereletting people out of having to pay their
private debts to the merchants that theybought stuff from. But here's my point
about Madison. In when Parliament isthe operative legislature, he fights parliament.
(44:15):
In the seventeen eighties, when thestate legislatures have all this power, he
fights the state state governments. Thenhe writes the Constitution, which shifts a
lot of their power to the newfederal government. And then what does Madison
do at that point? He opposesthe federal government. And it looks like
a flip flop, and it isa flip flop. You know. He
(44:36):
went from being we need a strongerfederal government to WHOA, the federal government's
too strong. Now it looks inconsistent, but here's the consistency in it.
Whoever has power he fears, AndI'm not sure that's a bad policy.
It has been a great pleasure,Thank you. Doctor Holton, the new
(44:59):
nature of colonies now states was enormous. It spanned twelve hundred miles and from
the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi Riversix hundred miles. All of England could
have fit just within New York State. It was primarily a nation of farmers.
Agriculture was the economic engine central tothe American economy, and most Americans
(45:25):
lived closely to the agricultural economy cyclesof plantings and harvests. A brand new
nation, having won a war forindependence, but remains ensnarled and what will
be later known as the ongoing AmericanDilemma. Between seventeen eighty and seventeen ninety,
(45:46):
the enslaved population continued to grow,from approximately five hundred and sixty thousand
enslaved men, women, and childrento over seven hundred thousand. Emblematic of
America's contradictions is her new capital andinspired wonderful gesture to a government of we
(46:09):
the people. It is also hometo a growing slave population, with slave
auctions operating along the mall. Nextweek, we'll hear more about these contradictions
as we explore the life at Montpelier, the lifelong home of our fourth President,
(46:30):
the father of the Constitution, JamesMadison. This episode was edited by
(47:07):
Baywulf Rockland, Roosevelt Heine, andLisa Hudy of Two Squared Media Productions.
Special thanks to Isabel Dorville for herresearch and production support, Folk Diversity for
ensuring purposeful conversations when reflecting on ourcomplex history, and basking strategies for engaging
(47:31):
our stakeholder community. Thanks as wellto Joy Ford Austin, Jody Simuda,
and Amy Anthony at the Institute ofPolitics, Policy and History. We are
grateful to the Kellogg Foundation for theirgenerous support of this founding Father's Legacy series.
(47:54):
Be sure to subscribe wherever you listento podcasts at the back of the Door.
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