Captioning performed by vitac captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 each one is different. Each one has its own sets of governments and own sets of law, and ill use pennsylvania. This room was pennsylvanias legislature. Pennsylvania decides to write a constitution that is so radical for its day that they basically get rid of the position of governor. They are not going to have really a chief executive for pennsylvania anymore. They are going to have a fairly democratically run onehouse legislature as opposed to the standard two houses that most of the states are going to use, that the United States has known throughout its history so pennsylvania has a very different setup. It proves a little too radical to work and our 177 of pennsylvania constitution will last only 14 years. They will have to redo it, go to the traditional two houses of government and legislature setup. This is 1776 that each of these states is going to start itself over. Now, the problem is being all a little bit different, and one of my colleagues loves to talk about that today. We still have differences from state to state as far as speed limits and, you know, some of the little rules for driving are going to be different, and so we do still have some of those vettages there, but the problem was that in those early days they kind of manifested themselves in ways that threatened what someone like George Washington who is very much a nationalist, believing in this idea of the United States, would sit and go, hmm, that could really be bad for us because you have states that literally start fighting with each over who owns what land. They dont particularly want to cooperate with each other. Now, what do we have in the way of government . State governments very much hold the cards. There is our Continental Congress. Now the articles of confederation sort of sets the rules for the Continental Congress. Thats the idea that comes into this room with Benjamin Franklin at the very beginning of the war. Its the idea that he kind of dusted off from the 1750s during the french and indian war. He puts aside the idea of confederation between the colonies so that they can Work Together to defend themselves between enemies such as france. They dusts off the old ideas, rewrites this first versions of the articles of confederation. The day after they those the committee to write the declaration of independence, they also chose a committee with a member from each of the states to write the articles of confederation. The main writer would be another pennsylvania, John Dickinson. Again, dickinson would be famous for kind of trying to slow us down for independence, but at the same time hes making those arguments, hes actually working on writing the articles of confederation, this formal agreement between the states of how the United States is going to operate, where essentially the congress would run the war, run foreign policy. The states would kind of run their internal, but they a cooperate with each other. You wouldnt have to pay taxes and tariffs as you went from state to state. Well, the first problem with the articles of confederation i think and ultimately what dooms it, you can see from how it is signed. The signing is going to take place right when the Continental Congress comes back to philadelphia after the british army has left in 1778. The british leave philadelphia in june. Congress is back meeting here in july, and on july the 9th they are ready to sign articles of confederation. Now, the way the signing of that one works is a little bit different. The declaration of independence is signed by the delegates and most of them sign it on the same day. The articles of confederation is signed as each state approves it. Their delegates will sign it. So they are waiting for the states to make their decisions, so its about half or so of them are going to sign it that first day, and then over the next weeks most of the rest will sign. Now, ultimately one state, maryland, will hold out for close to two years, so the signing will begin july the 9th, 1778 and wont finish until march the 1st of 1781 so youre talking about two and a half years of time and for most of that time its maryland by itself saying no so technically this cannot go into effect until all 13 states have agreed and signed. Maryland is feuding with mainly virginia, their neighbors over land to the west because, remember, when the revolutionary war comes to an end, we go from our old colonial boundaries which theoretically would be about the appalachian mountains, although the colonies each sort of figured they kept going. Now all of a sudden we end at the mississippi river. Thats a lot of new land. You think of all the states between the east coast and the mississippi river, well, all the old states, the old colonies, are looking at all that land going, boy, that would be great as part of my state so maryland and virginia are arguing. They are arguing over who gets to use the Potomac River and things like that, so maryland is kind of going, well, i dont want to sign this thing until everything is settled so theres kind of your issue that arises, and there will be others. Theres a bill one point trying to pass through this room to raise money on essentially imports. Take money from imports is like a tax tariff, and you put that to paying the soldiers, which, again, seems pretty logical. Why would you not want to raise money to pay the Army Fighting for independence . Well, 12 of the states agreed. That seems like a good idea. One, which happened to be rhode island, the smallest of the states, said no, and it failed. The vote failed, so the states individually have a lot more power, and sometimes one can defeat 12, and so a lot of people start thinking this isnt working so well, including members of the congress. So by the end of the war, you have members of the congress writing letters to officers in the army as the war is winding down saying, you know, maybe the army should try to throw their weight behind putting something a little bit more strong together here in philadelphia because this isnt really working between the states. Maybe we need the strength of that army. Now, George Washington, of course, is very much a believer in this idea of civilian control. Thats one of the great principles that weve embraced in American History from our beginning points, and i think George Washington is really a big part of that, so one of what a lot of people would look at as one of his greatest moments is at the end of the war, up in newburg, new york, hes going to call a meeting together of all his officers as this word of, you know, maybe the army trying to change government a little bit, and hes against it so he calls a meeting. He puts some of the guys that he feels are behind a lot of this talk in charge of the meeting, and he says hes not going to be there. He wants them all to talk amongst themselves but then he shows up, and he shows up and now washington is not a public speaker. This is not a man who wants to stand up and make speeches. If he can avoid it, hes going to do it, but he comes and starts making a speech and he wants to read this letter so he pulls out a pair of glasses and puts them on and says to the men in the room ive not only grown gray in the service of my country and half blind as well. Of course, hes talking about this idea of what they fought for together for eight years and that, you know, that it not be ruined by rash actions at the end, and hes got guys in tears, and the whole thing sort of what we call the newburgh conspiracy kind of goes away, and own though the problems hadnt been solved, this idea of, you know, military intervention in our civilian government fortunately fades out of view, but, still, washington does believe that something stronger is needed, but he is one of those guys who is going to go through the proper channels, so George Washington is a virginian. His state is fighting with their neighbors in maryland. Well, what can George Washington do about that . Well, he can have a meeting at his house. He can invite virginians and marylanders to sit together. So he will do that after the war ends, about a year or so after. He has this what we call the mt. Vernon conference, and they will sign an agreement together solving essentially years of problems between maryland and virginia which then leads to a meeting in maryland the next year where they will invite more states. They will get five states to sit in annapolis. We call this the annapolis conference, the Annapolis Convention and, again, the big result is its going to lead to a bigger meeting. They are going to go and now our friend John Dickinson again is going to go to the Continental Congress with a letter hes written saying, look, we want a big meeting in philadelphia back in the same room and we really want to talk about the future and we want everybody to come so they are going to sit down starting in may of 1787, what we today call the constitutional convention. They are going to sit in this same room and address these issues plaguing the young United States. Its going to start with about 11 states. New hampshire will show up late. Unfortunately, rhode island will never attend these meetings. Now, this time they are not about to let one state keep them from getting something done, so the way they are going to end up setting it up is they are going to kind of pretend theres only 12 of them, and not only that, but when they vote they are going to go to the people in each state, let the people vote on a special convention and then the special conventions will approve or not approve the constitution for each state and then you need nine states. Threequarters of them to put this new constitution into effect, so these are guys who are definitely trying to engineer something because they know something needs to be done to hold these states together. They know as separate entities, you know, you go back to Benjamin Franklins design. The snake cut in pieces, that Benjamin Franklin put together during the fresh and indian calling for this union, join or die. A snake cut into pieces is going to die and a snake together is dangerous and thats a lot of the idea that these men are embracing in the summer of 1887 but the question that they will face in this room is what exactly is it that we want . So the first days of meetings are these very esoteric debates about the nature of federal government, national government, whats the difference . What do we want . They are getting deep in these things and then they start saying, well, we want this national government, and then they start saying, well, then what . What is it going to be . Well, virginia had come very organized. James madison is going to get credit for putting together a lot of the virginia plan that is submitted by Edmund Randolph, eventually our first attorney general. Another virginian is chosen by nomination from pennsylvania to sit in the back of the room and lead the constitutional convention, and that will be George Washington. The big hero of the day, of course, you know, equal now to franklin as far as american fame goes, and so washington will take the lead in the constitutional convention, and in fact the very chair in the back of the room behind me is the chair in which washington sat which interestingly is the only item in this room that we today have in this room that we know for certain was here as a part of those events. That chair was made in 1779 after the british had left philadelphia. A lot of things were gone, you know, between the americans coming and going, the british coming and going. We just dont have all the contents of the building anymore, so pennsylvanias government has to make new furniture, including that chair for the speaker of pennsylvania so that was in the room on that spot when washington took that position in 1787. So, the virginia plan, three branches of government, somewhat familiar to us today. Heres some of the issues that are going to face that plan as far as when you start debating, because other plans are going to get thrown out by other men. Virginias plan, to me one of the biggest things is this notion of voting based on american people, sort of seeing the states as artificial. Everybody in all the states is american so whenever we do things, we should just be americans. Why be virginians or somebody from massachusetts or delaware or anywhere else . Lets be americans. Well, naturally the other side of that coin as some of the states would look is that virginia happens to have more people than any other state, so voting by people is definitely good for virginia, so a small state like delaware pretty much embraces one idea, and thats the idea that every state be equal. The way its always been, every state get an equal vote so delaware is digging their heels in and they will refuse to anything that doesnt involve equality amongst the states. You get the small states naturally liking delawares ideas and the big states virginias idea, and thats an issue that will pretty much go on for the better part of a month off and on. Now, virginias idea of congress is that we have these two houses, upper house, lower house, what becomes our senate and house of representatives, and, again, its based on population, but as you start debating it, you have others saying, no, its based on states, so eventually when it seems like theres no answer to be found it would be connecticut that would make the compromise, what we call the connecticut compromise or the great compromise, would give us this question of how about a senate where every state is equal and a house of representatives where we base things on people. Both sides getting some of what they want, and eventually, of course, thats exactly how it will go, but not Everybody Loves that, so youre not sure if everybody is going to go for that, but thats pretty much how they slot in for congress. Now, the president , theres another one. Theres multiple ideas of president , of executive. The virginia plan as they start working through it is ultimately a sevenyear executive elected by congress, so a little bit different system obviously than were used to today. Another plan, Edmund Randolph of virginia says how about having three president s at once. Hes talking about three regional president s, and then you have Alexander Hamilton of new york who wants a very strong executive, so he says how about president for lifetime which needless to say having gotten rid of king a few years ago was not overly popular to these men so eventually they settle on the president for four years at a time, but then they have that level of Electoral College, and we get a lot of questions about that here. Why, why would they do that Electoral College . Theres probably several reasons. One of them is simple distance, the idea of having states that are days and days and weeks apart of each other from georgia to New Hampshire with not a lot of great roads and travels can be difficult, so so having this notion of sending people together to vote makes a lot of sense mechanically and then also you have this idea that with the Electoral College youre making sure the smaller states have a certain amount of say, so youre trying to balance a lot of different things, and talking about that, you know, again, one of the things that will plague the young United States is something that does come up in this room that summer of 1777. This is the idea of slavery. Is this the time to make that big step and do away with slavery . Unfortunately, is it wasnt. The Southern States are attached to it. They dont want to talk about it. Slavery doesnt make it into the constitution. You have one little notion of the slave trade which they talk about in to years. Maybe they can discuss doing away with the slave trade, with importing slaves from africa. Thats all the mention you can get. Anyone who is antislavery, which there are guys in this room decidedly so is not very happy that we put this off for 20 years, put off the entire discussion let alone any action and, of course, Southern States would look at in 20 years this is going to come up again. Were not happy about that. Well put it away forever. Again, theres a lot of people looking at sections of the constitution that arent very happy. Who writes the constitution. Declaration of independence. Thats easy. Thomas jefferson was in a committee. He basically wrote t. Constitution, theres really not going to be that one obvious writer. Youll have a fiveman committee called the committee of detail which name is exactly what it sounds like, the guys putting in the details of what this government is going to be. Three of the five will be on the United StatesSupreme Court. One will be our first attorney general, so thats the kind of men that youre going to have on there, the very much legalminded men. Probably the main guy who puts together most of their report is a man named james wilson from pennsylvania. He is one of the signers of the declaration of independence as well, and hell end up on the United StatesSupreme Court and more than likely he came up with the three words we the people at the very beginning of the constitution because thats the beginning of that committee of detail report is we the people. Nothing else that would be recognizable to us today, but he does start out with we, the people. Now, as they go through this committee of detail report, eventually they get to a point where they pretty much worked out how they kind of want it to be, so they form yet another fiveman committee