Montgomery but they have to leave montgomery in 1957 and she will spend the second half of her life as an activist in detroit fighting the racism of the jim crow no. She will continue to do that, rosa parks will call malcolm x her personal hero, she will be active against the war in vietnam, she will be active against South African apartheid, showing a picture with my favorites in the book about an older rosa parks protesting outside the South African embassy, she will continue until the end of her by saying the struggle is not over, there is much injustice in this country and she will be resolved to keep fighting but yet the way rosa parks is taught is a problem we salt in the past but the actual rosa parks says theres much more work to be done. Susan siegel host how did you do the research on this book . Guest i had to do a lot of digging. I did all sorts of oral history interviews, in part because part of rosa parkss favors were caught up in a dispute over her stage, got the papers themselves, they languished in new york for a decade until this summer Howard Buffett made an incredible donation and gave them to the library of congress and in february they opened. They are remarkable. The library of congress is open to anyone who wants to visit, you could actually read letters between rosa parks and her husband and her mother and you can see her political writing, you can hear her voice talking about why she did what she did. I very much recommend that. Host spending more time at the library of congress. Jeanne theoharis, the rebellious life of mrs. Rosa parks is the name of the book. Next joseph ellis provides a new look at the American Revolution on booktv. [applause] we are very honored and privileged to have one of the leading authors and scholars of the revolutionary war period in our country, joseph ellis. Joseph ellis is a person who grew up in washington, went to william and mary, then got his ph. D. At yale and spent most of his academic career teaching at college where he was dean of the faculty at one point and dow prof. And taught at williams at west point and university of massachusetts at amherst and on the side when he hasnt been teaching was writing best selling books, among them biographies of john adams, george washington, thomas jefferson, a book on thomas jefferson, american sphinx, won the National Book award and his book on the revolutionary brothers, founding brothers, revolutionary generation won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001. He has written a book i have here, the quartet orchestrating the second American Revolution, 17831789, for ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, about what he would call the second American Revolution, the revolution that began in 1787, not 1776 so lets get into that but before we do that, thank you for coming. Why did you decide to focus your academic career and the revolutionary war period . You could have picked so many areas. I do seem obsessed, dont i . They asked Willie Sutton back in the 50s why do you rob banks . Will be said because that is where they keep the money. The late eighteenth century is where they keep the ideas. The wellspring, the big bang, place where the values and institutions under which we continue to live as americans were created and in some sense they are like classics, what plutarch was to the founders the founders are to us. Host when did you come to this realization . College or graduate school . When did you say to your family i will spend my entire career focusing on these revolutionary war Founding Fathers . Guest i never said that. My wife says why i you doing this . When i was writing about jefferson she said you dont really like jefferson, you are not like him. I said i have red hair, i went to william and mary. I dont host you are not a descendant of him. Guest i am not claiming to be one of jeffersons descendants, but the way historians work is you dont know what you are going to do when you start out. I started out thinking i was going to be a southern historian. Things just involved and the guy that converted me to the founders was adams. Once i got into the adams papers especially the family correspondence between john and abigail there was a universe there, a world i found so fascinating that i wanted to keep living in. Host what is so relevant about the Founding Fathers in 2015 . Guest what is relevant . Some things are irrelevant that i wish were not relevant, like there are members of the Supreme Court led by justice dalian and justice thomas, the interpretation of the constitution, what they define to be the original intent of the framers. I think that is a crazy idea that none of love framers would actually agree with. It is ironic that one of the only intentions the framers shared was the notion that their intentions should not be used in that way. They are the fixed object against which we do exercises. Host we have deified our founders did it, washington, jefferson , adams, hamilton, hamilton is really big. [applause] host in most areas of human conduct we have advanced, smarter in technology, why is it in statecraft or government we dont have any more washington, averages jefferson, are these people so unique that it is a onceinalifetime thing . Guest when i am on book tour i ask the question of the audience called the wilkes bar question. The population of wolves bar is quite the size of the population of the white population of virginia in 1776. If we go down to the streets we walk the streets and look carefully, will we discovered george washington, thomas jefferson, James Madison, george mason, Patrick Henry and John Marshall . The answer is no. The one answer is they are there in late form, but you wont find them. There is a kind of crisis theory of leadership, leadership only comes into existence in times of great crisis. Problem with that is we can think of a lot of great crises that dont produce great leaders but while is impossible to argue that the late 18thcentury was a time when there was Something Special in the water back then, it was a crisis that managed to generate the most Impressive Group of political leaders the United States has ever had. They are all flawed, lets get this on the record, they are all flawed founders and if you look back there for perfection or for them to meet all our standards of Racial Justice and sexual equality were going to be disappointed. But this is the greatest call apologies to the guy that wrote the greatest generation, tom brokaw, this is the greatest political generation in American History. I can hide behind the observation of henry adams in the grant administration, said if you look at but list of american president s from the beginning until now, you got to believe darwin got it exactly backwards. [applause] host who was but one indispensable founding father . Washington, adams, jefferson . Guest if one person had existed . Guest they functioned so well because they are a collective and there is a kind of build in checks and balances in the personalities, idiosyncrasies and ideologies of the respective founders. If you just had hamilton we go towards dictatorship. If you just had washington or just have jefferson we are moving towards anarchy. But there was one who is the founding guest father of all, they would have all agreed about it. If you ask franklin, hamilton, madison, adams they would all agree, washington was the greatest. Because of his judgment. He wasnt as smart as some of them, hamilton was the smartest, he got the highest grades on the ls 80s, jefferson the best red, madison the most politically agile, adams was the most thoughtful about government. Please. So each of them had particular. Strengths but they all said washington was indispensable. And he was. The most indispensable thing he ever did, which is what marks him as so different from all those revolutionary leaders is you walked away from power twice. He was indispensable because he made himself disposable. Think about revolutionary leaders in history. Julius caesar doesnt do it, Albert Cromwell doesnt do it, napoleon doesnt do it, stalin doesnt do it, mallory doesnt do it, castro doesnt still hasnt done it. The only one who has done it was the South African leader, he walked away. Washington walked away. Most important act of power he ever committed was to surrender power. He did it after the revolutionary war, surprised everybody by turning in his sport in mount vernon and after he was present after two terms he could have served a third term or life, just to terms to go back. Host the premise of your book. We have a revolutionary war, 1776, finally win the war 1783, treaty of paris, everyone goes back to their respective states. Did the people who were then operating under the articles of confederation expects to be one country or 13 separate countries . Explain the articles of confederation. When did that come about . Guest the 1780s is a kind of dead sound, somehow we declare independence in 76 and win this war which is a big deal against the greatest army navy in the world and then after awhile there is this interregnum and we come together again to declare nationhood in 1787 and ratification the following year. Abraham lincoln gives credence to us at of assumptions which are historically on inaccurate. The first clause, the first sentence of the most famous speech in American History says four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation. No they didnt. They brought forth a confederation of sovereign states provision of the united to win the war and then go their separate ways which is precisely what they did. The resolution for independence july 2nd which is always the date adam fought should be the national anniversary, july 2nd, 1776, the american colonies are and have every right to be independent states. Think about the arguments we have been hurling against parliament for ten years. Sovereignty rests with the respective colonial legislatures. The last thing the americans want to do is create a federal government separate from the states because that looks like a domestic version of parliament. They dont want to do that. The assumption most people have that there is this seamless Natural Evolution from 1776 to 1787 doesnt work. It is not true. You got to figure out a way to explain how you get from independence to nationhood, if in fact most people dont want it to happen. And they dont. If you took a poll, most people are born, live out their lives and die within a 28 mile radius. There is no, i know this is a surprise to some young people, there is no internet. They cant communicate. I am saying American History is headed in a particular direction after the war. It is headed for the european north american continent, headed towards a e. U. Rather than a United States, is headed towards a confederation model. Somebody changes the direction in which American History is headed. There is a reason lincoln has to falsify history in order to win the civil war for to justify because he claims the war that the union precedes the states, and the confederacy has a pretty good argument, mainly the confederacy chlamys the civil war is the second American Revolution to win back their own sovereignty. It is in the end war about slavery. I am on that side with the Confederate Flag so dont get me wrong. We are not a nation in 76. Patrick henry at the virginia ratifying conventions as opposing, he opposes the constitution. Suppose we do this and virginia delegates in the senate and house all vote against a tax bill and it passes. Then we have been taxed without our consent because he doesnt think that he is an american. He thinks he is the average union. Jefferson fought that way too will he said i want to get out of philadelphia, dont want to write this document, i want to go back to my country, his country is virginia. So that somehow we got to explain how history is headed in one direction and changes and heads in a national direction. What happens is during the revolutionary war the colonies are governed by the articles of confederation which are put together to govern them through the war. The war ends, everyone goes back to their respective states, wash their hands of unity can the articles of confederation do not allow congress to tax. Guest states dont have to pay. Voluntary thing. Would you like to pay 1,000 . I am sorry about that, that is the way it is. We are running a 40 million debt, someone said there are two modern miracles, one is einsteins theory of relativity, one is compound interest, and it is going to be 77 million by the time you get to 1787. We are a banana republic. We cannot pay our debts. There is no way we can do it and that is host congress is not able to tax, there is no Standing Army and then recognizing this, a few people say this isnt working, two of those people with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton and how did they come together to create something that would be different. What did they do in annapolis . In 1786, there is a recognition, needs to be coordinated among the states. New york is charging tariffs to new jersey and rhode island. Wants to pay of money to expand the potomac, wants to get maryland and pennsylvania to contribute so they have this convention in annapolis with the limited purpose of trying to get some kind of agreement for interstate commerce among the states. It fails. Five states show up. Everybody has gone away by the time they get there. Hamilton and madison have met each other before. They worked in the Confederation Congress together, hamilton from new york, madison from virginia and they are part of this. This, hamiltonian version of leadership is really great, dangerous as the dickens that really great. They have just failed even to get a quorum. Hamilton writes a draft to be sent back to the confederation. All of us agree that we need to call a convention this second tuesday in may to address the larger question of rights and responsibilities within this Large Production of states that provides energy for a federal government. It would be as if a journeymen boxer had just been knocked out and had declared he was going to challenge the heavyweight champion of the world. That audacious form of leadership won hamiltons part. What happens, the triggers, makes more plausible such a convention two things. One, in my section of massachusetts, western massachusetts there is this uprising of farmers, really only 1800 guys who dont when to pay their mortgage and they want to vent that against boston. Boston has always treated western massachusetts as a colony, they the whole water supply is like that. This is not manipulated, the serious crisis, madison thinks it is a conspiracy by the british coming down from canada to take over new england and blown out of proportion. And the need for reform becomes plausible again. The other thing, to join the team. They send this to congress under the articles of confederation. Maybe they agreed for the convention. They replaced the articles the convention is charged with reforming the articles. They need to do something, coordinated foreign policy, massachusetts has its own policy. Adams is over there as ambassador to the court of st. James, no one believes i can represent anybody because you dont have Central Government for me to represent. So yes, we clearly need to do something to reform the articles. There wont be a consensus about how much reform there should be but yes, reform we want to do. This is where what happens becomes close, the people who want to have the Convention Get together in the spring, washington, hamilton, madison and j. They say we will only be settle for not a revision of the articles but a total replacement of the articles which was a violation of their instructions. Washington said i will not come out of retirement unless you promise me the we go for broke. If we dont go for broke is not worth it. Risking my reputation and legacy and dont want to risk it for small potatoes and they promise and madison is the one who organizes the plans, the va plan which sets the agenda for the philadelphia convention. Washington agrees by madison and hamilton to lend his prestige, they get to philadelphia, people show up, they have various times 55 or so delegates, they decide to have secrecy, no one knows what is going on. This is the rule, total secrecy, no press coverage allowed whatsoever, nobody can communicate with anybody outside the convention about what has occurred, cant write letters or anything like that much less twitter and one of the reasons a Second Convention can never work, do what this one did. 55 white males get together and decide the future of the country. You cant talk to them while this is occurring. They are in philadelphia, didnt know how long it would take but it started in may and went to september roughly. They are there for 90 days, madison and the virginia delegation have a plan to change the government. What is the essence of that plan . Madisons plan, the va plan calls for a free prongs government, the article isnt really it is that league of nations with congress that represents each state, every state has one vote. He says we take the model that each state has independently adopted of an executive branch, bicameral legislature, some states have single house legislatures and independent judiciary. That is the model for a national government. Madison wants for there to be an article that allows the executive branch to veto all state legislation, and he also wants both houses of the congress to be based on representation, political, population rather than be state based. He loses both arguments. His notion of executive veto is dead on our arrival. The great compromise of