My name is tonio burgos. Im the chair of the harvard conservatory conservancy of the national parks. It oversees a lot of federal monuments with the exception of the statue of liberty and ellis island. They have their own conservancys. But within our region we have amazing monuments, including this crown jewel, federal hall. This evening, i am joined by Board Members of our board of directors former congressman steve israel. [applause] come on, steve. And my dear friend and one of the great former republican state chairs of the state of new york, ben cox. [applause] you see, like the former members of congress, our board is a bipartisan board made up of people from both Political Parties and from all walks of life, because that is what new york represented when we formed this great nation. You are in the building that is not the original federal hall. The original federal hall was a wooden building that basically lasted to 1812, and then was demolished. It was serving as the city hall of what was then new york. Ironically, in 2024, new york as a unified city will be 400 years old as a founded city. And in 2026, we will be celebrating our nations 250th birthday. Coinciding with that, im sure all of your kids and grandchildren will want to know come to new york and new jersey because we are going to be hosting the world cup of soccer. So we hope. America 250 congress sanctioned in 2017 a commission that is in charge of celebrating that 250th celebration of our nations great history, and it is ignited four host cities. Obviously, a commission with five members from massachusetts, five members from pennsylvania you have boston, philadelphia. There were suburban cities of the city of new york. But then they added charlston and new york. It was supposed to be and it is representative of the 13 original colonies that founded the 13 original states. We hope that federal hall, which will soon be named a National Signature site, will be one of those places in which we celebrate this incredible moment in history. In 2026, that signing of the declaration of independence was the document that united us as a nation. A lot of people dont know this. The Largest Naval armada ever assembled was the year that the british marines got here in 1776. No bigger armada was formed until we went to normandy and the great war of world war ii. George washington had just delivered the document known as the declaration of independence, and we had our troops lined up in Bowling Green, and he read the declaration to them as this fierce armada was coming toward us. Im not going to rewrite history here. We got our butts kicked in brooklyn. Like the brooklyn dodgers, we always lost in brooklyn. But washington recovered and the rest of that history is well familiar to you. This part of town, peg leg stuyvesant was our first governor when the dutch got here. They built a wall. They called it the stockade. Now, it is called wall street. Later on, a guy by the name of Alexander Hamilton figured it out. He would give up this city being the National Capital city so we could be the city of capital. Thats pretty good, right, steve . Especially for your members from out of state and all around the country, we end up being the city of capital all the time. But in 1765, a full decade before the first shots were fired at lexington and concorde, this was the site where the colonies convened. 10 years before axing and concorde. Lexington and concord. And so much more throughout that period. I will say this building represents so much of that history. George washington actually lived down the block, right by where the museum of the American Indian sets. And Thomas Jefferson lived on main lane, with these atoms a dams guys. They lived altogether on maiden lane. The mayor of the need city of new york is eric adams and the City Council President of new york is adrian adams, so deja vu for those of us who remember the other atoms. Adams. George washington, when he gave his amazing first inaugural address, before he gave it, he went to his friend, James Madison. He said, i want you to take a look at what i am writing here. He did and he said you cannot deliver this address. Why . Because you cannot stand there and hold the 13 states together by saying slavery must come to an end, or by talking about antisemitism and talking about a strong executive government. We just defeated the king, for gods sake. Why would you say that . He rewrote the speech down to some 30 odd pages, and then madison and monroe together wrote the response to the speech. That is the way it should work, right, guys . You should write the response to the state of the union. But what happened that very moment we then had this Congress Meet here in 1789. It was the most prolific congress of the time. The past the bill of rights and other landmark pieces of legislation. I am a lobbyist. The first lobbyist was ben franklin. He was retained by the quakers to lobby against slavery in this very same building. He did not do very well. But the thought of our flawed country we have a great country. We are going to celebrate in a 250 year celebration. We are honored to have you where is pete . Hes working. Thanks for the leadership youve shown in bringing this is the second time. The last time we were together before pandemic, we had a debate here, ed will remember it, it was a debate on impeachment matters, and it was quite a spirited debate, right, ed . And we had some former members involved as well as the organization supporting it, and i thank you and all of you for supporting what we do here at federal hall by being here. Now, i have a great honor of introducing a great author were energious, he has a great author, fergus. Hes written more than i ever know because i fly by the wheel. But he wrote congress at war. Think about this, how the republicans fought the war and ended slavery and for a dime we built the Continental Railroad and thats a hell of a infrastructure project. Americas great debate, henry clay, Steven Douglas and the compromise that preserved the union, washington, the making of american capital. Does everybody know George Washington distilled whiskey in mount vernon, its 127 dollars a bottle if youre interested. Tonight well hear about those books and the First Congress and how James Madison and George Washington and all those extraordinary men, no women, no people of color, no native americans, but men that founded a document, created a nation that is ever growing. He will share the unheralded place of firsts. So i give you a great honor and respect, fergus bordenwich. Fergus good evening, everyone. James baldwin once wrote, history is not the past, sorry, history is not the past, it is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. First i want to thank pete and the former members of inviting me to say a few words about the First Congress and say it here in a wonderful space which as a new yorker im familiar with and always admired but this is called federal hall euphemistically because it wasnt federal hall but its the site of federal hall and is an immensely rich site of ritalin of importance in american history. So i rarely use this kind of term but as close to a sacred site, a political sacred site at any rate that this country has. Were starting on the site where the First Congress met, James Madison and countless other founders participated in debates here, fought each other here. George washington, of course, not a member of congress, but obviously was here many times, usually rather grumpily. And inarguably, i think, its one of the most significant historical sites in the United States. The house of representatives met approximate where we are tonight in this part of the building which then stood here which is not nearly as magnificent if made of brick but the grandest public building in new york at the time. And the u. S. Senate met on the second floor, hence the upper house because it was upstairs. It had no other implications, it was just up there. We think of philadelphia as the birthplace of american liberty until philadelphia obviously has a pretty good claim until the congress met there and the declaration of independence was signed there and the declaration of independence took place there but this site were sitting, federal hall, is the birthplace of american government, the government that we have today. It began here. Its where the government that was created on the basis of the sketch that was the u. S. Constitution. The constitution didnt create governments it was the idea for government, it laid out a plan for government. The government was created by the First Congress. Who did all the political work necessary for those ideas to reside in the actual constitution. And the machinery of government was invented here in the First Congress. Its only outlined in the constitution. And when i speak about the First Congress, bear in mind, it was plan b the constitution was plan b. Plan a was the articles of confederation. It had failed. There was no plan c. There was no plan c. If this didnt work, nobody knew what was going to happen. The degree of anxiety that infused the members of the First Congress was intense from washington on down to the least consequential and least sober of the house. These institutions that became our government didnt springlike a zenna from zeus forehead wholly formed it took two years of highly creative and contentious politicks to accomplish the job and is creative and politics dont often come together in american speech but it required and always required, including in every congress that each one of you was a member of, it requires immense creativity that is versely unappreciated by a lot of the American Public who dont see the machinery at work very often. When the First Congress met here, this was in march and april of 1789, the challenges facing the country were immense. Bear in mind the country was barely a country at all and was a shaky collection of 11 sovereign states because North Carolina and rhode island hadnt yet even decided to join, which was especially with respect to tiny rhode island, posed a real bone of contention in congress and it was actually debated whether or not to send troops to the border to bring about regime change in providence. Fortunately that didnt occur. At any rate. Opponents of the constitution were demanding wrath of the amendments, 200, even a new Constitutional Convention to reinvent the system and basically destroy what had been done by the Constitutional Convention we always refer to. The government had no reliable source of revenue and more than 50 different currencies in circulation. There was no permanent seat of government, sectional suspicions were intense. There were fears, well founded fears of the west and when we speak of the west in 1789, its west of the appalachians, were not talking about wyoming and montana here, that the west would break off into another country or maybe even several, quakers and some others were demanding an end to slavery, southerners meanwhile threatened succession if the government tamper with the peculiar institution and threatened procession in precisely the kind of language used in 1960 and 1961 even many members of congress doubted the government would even survive its birth. James madison and this is the one of the most telling remarks madison perhaps ever made, and he wrote this in a letter memorably. Were in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us. James madison who was in a sense the closest to a embodiment of a guiding spirit that the First Congress had. Ill speak of him again in a minute. Madison feared that no one would show up. If you read his letters, and i want to mention parenthetically because some of you may already be aware of this, there was a marvelous project, the First Federal congress project, which was founded as long as 50 years ago and just recently completed the 23rd volume of the collected papers of the First Congress, not online, unfortunately, but makes fabulous reading for anybody who really wants to know what the founders were talking about when they were trying to do the work. Anyway, madison feared that nobody would show up, there wouldnt even be a quorum, and his letters from that period arh to begin with and you read his letters, hes on the brink of collapse, that it was all going to be a fizzle at the start. And one by one they kind of trickle in from here and there and madison is firing after these letters begging his friends in virginia or new hampshire, please come, please come. If you dont come, theres no government. And it wasnt the same in 1789 as getting on a flight and being here in a couple hours or getting in your car in connecticut or new jersey and just driving over here. One poor member from virginia, i think, didnt show up and didnt show up and didnt show up and it turned out, as one learned in the letters, he had been both shipwrecked and land wrecked his boat sank off sandy hook, you know, but he got here and then he died. But anyway anyway, the First Congress achieved perhaps the most prodigious output of any congress in american history. And just to summarize it in the briefest way, it established the executive departments, the federal court system, the first Revenue Streams of the national government, it approved the first amendments to the constitution, boiling those 200 plus down to 12. 200 didnt make it which is another story im not going into, which became the bill of rights, the first 10. It adopted a program for paying the countrys debts and braced the capitals braced capitalism and established the First National bank and established the capital on the potomac and a great deal more. I should say the debate over where the capital was going to be was intense. There were 32 gift sites proposed all with their own advocates. As i said earlier, as a new yorker, my favorite was the south bronx, spectacular setting but didnt make the cut. Anyway, none of this was for ordained. None of these achievements you can imagine, well, this is what they had to do. It isnt, actually, its what they struggled to do. Members of the First Congress werent demi gods and didnt regard themselves as that and didnt expect anyone else to either. The great majority were, surprise, professional politicians and most were lawyers. They were overwhelmingly pragmatists. None of them were ideological zealots. One or two of them were, frankly, a bit crazy, james jackson, a georgian, was reported to have i couldnt prove he actually did this but inclined to think he did. He would pull out his gun and shot it out the back window here to make a point. And the senate upstairs would close its windows, uhho, jackson again down there. And there were members who were better known for frequenting local taverns than they were for showing up for business. I dont think this is unique. I mention this simply to make the point these were human beings. They were not democrat gods demi gods, they were the kind of men and had women one could have said women but there werent any but you know, today, who become members of congress and commit themselves to Public Service and these were the same kinds of people and thats Crystal Clear in the letters that theyre writing to each other. James madison, as i said a few minutes ago, stood out as the leading figure especially during the first session and was in effect the floor leader in the house in the absence of majority and minority leaders, whips and any structured seniority, none of that existed at the time. He was recognized by almost everyone as the foremost interpreter of the constitution because he wrote quite a bit of it, and he was a brilliant parliamentarian. Extraordinary to kind of watch him at work through the records of that First Congress and he had the complete confidence of the most charismatic man in the United States, George Washington. And washington, i think its important to point out, had no program for his first hundred days. That term is a coinage of the 1930s, its a 20th century concept. He had no agenda of his own to advance. In fact, he was figuring out the presidency as he went along. And when his hands trembled on the second story balcony, people could see his hands trembling, it was not a myth but for good reason because he didnt know what was going to happen. He didnt know if he could handle it. Fortunately he proved to have exactly the right stuff for the moment. Anyone who really studies that congress or the period will always come out with an even higher estimation of washington than they went in with. The real engine of governments therefore, was not in washingtons office at his home, mostly on Cherry Street a little further up under whats today one of the pilings of the brooklyn bridge. Yes, he also lived down here at Bowling Green but namely up there on Cherry Street. Wasnt in the president s mansion. The real decisions were made here by congress. Congress was the driving engine of government, as it was through most of american history, incidentally, not to get off topic. This is where the real decisions were made, plans for the country proposed, and where all the fundamental conflicts were hashed out. And i would hope that it really doesnt need underscoring for you, congress didnt