Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the fourth and final event in this years leon panetta lecture series. Before we begin, i want to first ask that on this memorial day, we have a moment of silence in honor of all those men and women who have died while serving in the United States armed services. [ event concluded ] [gavel pounding] thank you. This season, we are discussing the health of american democracy. It is very fitting that we recognize the individuals who have even the greatest sacrifice four our freedoms and our way of life. We honor their commitment to country. Our guests and our discussion this evening are particularly fitting four this holiday, because, tonight, we will conclude the 2019 lecture series by looking back to the finding of our nation founding of our nation and the man who first took up arms to fight in the name of liberty and protect our republic. In the wake of victory, they understood they had to create a system of government that would preserve and protect the values from which they had fought. What were their motives . What were their intentions . In asking this question, it is important to recognize that the founders had a long list of conflicting objectives. Many were descendents of immigrants who had fled persecution and found allegiance to liberty. However, a large portion of them were also slave owners. The founders feared a strong executive branch, but at the same time, they acknowledged that the articles of confederation, which had deeply favored states rights were insufficient to protect the republic. They believed in free will. But they were also fearful of the democracy, if unchecked, would be to mob rule. It was with this combination of contradictions and compromises, that they drafted the constitution. The question we ask tonight, is, how successful were the founders . More importantly, how well are we doing in preserving and protecting the democracy they created . Has the system of checks and balances insured that no Single Branch grows too powerful . Or, has history seen an executive branch that grows more and more powerful and a legislative branch that is failing in its role of oversight . Has the balance between the house and the senate led to fair representation between small and ledger states . Or has it created an environment that creates gridlock and dysfunction . Between small and larger states . What was the hope of our forefathers . Has it worked . Tonight, leon panetta will pose these questions and anymore to two of the nations leading historians. It is a discussion that will get to the heart of the issues we have been discussing all season. And, as we look ahead to the 2020 residential election, the topics we cover tonight will help consider who we are as americans, and the values we have always thought four. 2020 president ial election our first guest is a renowned law professor and scholar of American History. Presently, she is the Charles Warren professor of american legal history at Harvard Law School and a professor of history in the faculty of arts and sciences at harvard university. She has also taught at the new york law school, and at Rice University in new jersey. She has published six books, amongst them the hemmingss of monticello, an american family. It won numerous awards , including the enterprise in history and the National Book award four nonfiction. She is also the author of Thomas Jefferson and sally hemmings, an american controversy. It was a nonfiction finalist in the First Annual Library of virginia literary awards. Among her many owners are the National Humanities medal alma and guggenheim fellowship in the amenities, the macarthur fellowship, and the National Organization for women in new york city, women of power and influence award. She was selected a fellow of the American Academy of arts and sciences in 2011 and is a member of the academys commission on the humanities and social sciences. Please welcome annette gordonreed. [ applause ] our secondguess is a celebrated author, teacher and scholar of American History. He is a professor at Rice University and cnns president ial historian. He has published best selling books on the presidencies of roosevelt, jimmy carter and Ronald Reagan and has covered subjects including American Foreign policy, the louisiana purchase, dday, the vietnam war, the civil rights movement, and hurricane katrina. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him americas new past master. The New York Historical society named him the official United States president ial historian. His recent books book, cronkite, won a prize while his book the great deluge, hurricane katrina, new orleans and the mississippi gulf coast, received the Robert F Kennedy book award. He has received a grammy award or president ial suite and 7 honorary doctorates in american studies. His 2 volume annotative works, the nixon tapes, recently won the Arthur S Link warren fq prize. He is a contributing editor four vanity fair , the Los Angeles Times review, and American Heritage. He is also a frequent contributor to the new york times, the new yorker, and the atlantic monthly. Please welcome douglas frankly. Please welcome douglas brinkley. [ applause ] and, of course, moderating our discussion is the man who created this lecture series. The former congressman four this district, director of the office of management and budget, white house chief of staff, they act director of the cia, and secretary of defense, please welcome leon panetta. [ applause ] good evening. Welcome to this, our fourth and final lecture further 2019 panetta lecture series. Today is memorial day. It is a moment, not only to remember, those who fought and died four this country, but it is also a good time to remember the values and principles that they thought four. Many of those values and principles are contained in our constitution. The constitution provided for our system of checks and balances. That has been the theme of our lecture, checks and balances, will our democracy survive . We looked at the rule of law, we have looked at the congress, we have looked at the Robert Mueller investigation, we looked at the courts, the press, we have talked about the president s role as commander in chief, but tonight, in many ways, we go to the heart and sole of this issue, which is the constitution. And, what our framers had in mind, when they provided this system of checks and balances. Our framers, the founders of our country, where the children of the enlightenment. This was a period in time when there were philosophers around the world who were talking, for the first time, about democracy , and the rights of people, to be able to govern themselves. It was based on what these philosophers were saying, that our founders decided to really put together this experiment in democracy. But, they knew, that if this experiment was going to work, that they were going to have to limit power. And so, that is why they created this system of checks and balances. Has that system worked . What are the lessons to be learned from history . If jefferson and hamilton and madison were around today, what the temperatures with a say about what is going on . Those are the questions that i would to ask our two distinguished historians. Let me begin with the first question, which is, obviously, this whole system of checks and balances. It is not in the constitution. It does not have the words checks and balances. Obviously, in the first three articles, dealing with the congress, and the executive, and the courts, they tried to define and limit the powers of each of those branches. I guess the question i wanted to ask you is, why did the founders feel that it was necessary to limit power . What were they afraid of . And, are their worst fears being realized today, with regard to what is happening with our checks and balances . What they were trying to do, what they were afraid of, was, setting up a system that basically reconstituted what they had before with a monarch. It was a big thing to from a world in which kings and kings ruled, hereditary monarchs ruled through a system to where the people were supposed to rule. The idea was, you did not want to concentrate power in any single individual. It would replicate the thing you had with a king. They wanted the people to be sovereign. They were trying to set up a system. They had read philosophers before. They talked about mixed government, with the three stations in the states in society. These are the people who would check one another and make sure one entity did not become too powerful. They were concerned with having another king. They wanted to move away from that and do something different. If you read the federalist papers, James Madison talks about how to make sure we do not have tyrants. And that is the key concept, the word tyrants, dictator, monarch. We decided that this checks and balances check and balance in our Constitutional Convention is the smartest, the best come away based on the enlightenment ansibles that you talked about. One of the things we have to be careful on with checks and balances, we become critics of, it is the president is getting too strong and the founders below it the executive power judicial, legislative but, medicine talks about constitutional education, which is what the Panetta Institute is doing and what we are doing here tonight, meaning you have to have Civic Engagement. You have to have an educated public to understand the checks and balances. You have to have a Civic Education that a democracy is only going to work. You can write a constitution and do three branches. But if you do not have an informed and active a citizenry, it will be four not. It will be for naught. I am constantly amazed at the wisdom of our founders, and medicine in particular. We are at a crisis point. There are seeming to be the congress, as i speak to you today, there is a 15 Approval Rating. The executive power keeps getting stronger and stronger all the time. The courts are getting very polarized. And so, it is timely, as we had into 2020, to start thinking about did we meet with our constitution . Is it working for us now . Yes, we are here today. Our constitution is working in many ways. It is under intense strain. I think it is made difficult by President Trump. He doesnt seem to care about the constitution. He did not do constitutional education in his own life. He operates as a good player and an action player. That, at times, can be dangerous. That is a road to being a tyrant. John adams, famously noted, and i quote, there was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. You know, you have talked about kind of, the president s view of his powers, and how he is dealing with the congress, and rejecting their appeals four information. That is under checks and balances. The congress itself, republicans and democrats, are probably more partisan and divided than they have been in a long time. And, the result is that, the president and the congress are not governing. Major issues, whether it is immigration, infrastructure, budget, whether it is healthcare, are not being addressed. So, i guess, the question is, are we in danger of undermining our democracy . Well, certainly, the founder that i know the most about would be jefferson. His idea was, as doug said, a democracy required an educated populace. That is why he wanted a Public Education system in virginia. He thought you could not do it unless people could read and understand their rights, understand history, and see how it applied to themselves. Things may seem that today, with politicians. A lot of it has to do with the electorate. If people are involved, if people are involved in these situations, it is difficult to do it we have issues of voter suppression, the issue of money in politics they would not have anticipated that at all. They wouldve thought, this is bribery. That kind of anticipation. This is what this is. So, there are lots of modern innovations, things that might be necessary. Money could be political speech. I understand the court has ruled that. There are a lot of things going on today that i do not think they could have anticipated and it would have affected the way they saw how the democracy plans itself out. A lot of this is a problem with politicians, congress, the president. A lot of it is with people as well. If we were more vigilant, active, involved in these kind of things, he might not have a sense that we were in crisis. When we look at our constitution, and we look at our three branches, the constitution was written. It is not say anything about two Political Parties going through warfare in a way that we do. If you cut to the election of 1800, with Thomas Jefferson and john adams, it is just brutal. There is a fair by some people at a democracy cannot absorb this kind of namecalling, mudslinging, you know, tearing down of candidates. Once you elect a president , do we have an ability, after that kind of heated warfare, like we have with Henry Clinton and donald trump, can the new president be accepted as a real president . With close elections, it becomes problematic. When George W Bush be al gore, a lot of democrats said al gore shouldve been president. Like we have with Hillary Clinton and donald trump. They said bush was not a real president. I see this in the early founders with the mounting trust thompson, who was the secretary of the Continental Congress, meaning in philadelphia, he called everybody together. He was the one who chose the eagle four Hour National seal and this sort of thing. With George Washington at his inauguration in new york city, or washington, the first president inaugurated. Thompson, in 1800, gets really worried we not building the president s up enough. It becomes a cult of George Washington. We name our Nations Capital after him. He is on our dollar, our quarter. The counties are named after him. You go to d. C. And you study the monument. It was a kind of conscious way to build president s up. We now save homes, birthplaces. They become like a super citizen. Not that long ago, i was in place, georgia, and i was at a house that says, this is where jimmy carter was conceived. [ laughter ] you know. Now, where in a society of celebrity due to television and the internet. We are in a celebrity culture matched with the thing up of president s as super celebrities. Now we are in the age of about super president , almost. The system almost gravitates toward that. You can know a president. You cannot know all the people in congress. You cannot have a cult or personality about congress as a mess. You can do it with a president. So, jefferson, as you mentioned, and washington, adams, not so much, but jefferson, people can dictate on those individuals, dictate on them as a figure of hatred. They can fixate on them. Even with love. They set up the system of checks and balances. One person can come to embody the nation in a way that congress cannot. The president s authority four foreignpolicy. The face to the world encourages that. That was the seed of a potential problem by having this exotic native. They did not know the presidency has been talked about by a stanford scholar, that people did not understand what it could do. How do you have an executive without this person turning into a king . That was always a fear that it might be a possibility. You mentioned this kind of cult of personality. John adams who was short and squat he, he was short and squatty. He said George Washington was tall, handsome, looks good in a uniform. He had good breeding. He had a large estate at mount vernon. He basically said it was not his intelligence, but his image that got him elected, to become the first president. We have had, talked about this, the kind of cult of personality. The fact is, throughout our history, we have had president s who have been elected from that cult of personality. Could you talk a little bit about that . And a lot of our president s, there have been great generals. We have general George Washington, and beyond, his looks and stature, they all used to mock washington, many of the political leading lights, and to washington walked into the room. Then they sat like this. He was an imposing figure. Whether it is in drue jackson, or William Henry harrison, ulysses s grant, dwight eisenhower, so many generals have become president s. We would build up the military service on memorial day was a big calling card four being president. Theodore roosevelt becomes the rough rider. He wants to called the colonel. John f. Kennedy built a campaign on the pt 109 experience in world war ii. You constantly would use war heroes, they were the big coin of the realm and much of American History. Not all. Not lincoln. Not firing the weapon in the black hawk war. It was a big deal. Who are our celebrities today . Who are the larger than life figures . Somebody like President Trump has been in the public consciousness since the 1980s. He was a celebrity. He was a celebritys celebrity. In the apprentice, coming into your home. The thing we have to watch, that we are not turning, looking for president s, like i hear people say, the only person who could beat trump is oprah winfr