Revolution. Period. Im not going to read off all the long list of the books and publications hes written or the awards and medals and honors hes received. But all of you go home and google him for a mindblowing experience. I just want to mention a few things that he and i discussed. After receiving his suma cu suma cum laude degree from tufts, he joined the air force. During the training he found out that his eyes werent good enough so he was sent off to japan to be a photo intelligence officer. When he arrived, to his dismay, he found out he was made a Personnel Officer because his boss was lazy and didnt want to get up in the morning. When lieutenant wood arrived in the orderly room at 7 30, he had nothing to do. So he spent his time reading history books. Thankfully for all of us, for his students and for america, he completed his rotc requirement, didnt think the military had treated him well and went off to study history. He earned his m. A. And ph. D. At harvard studying under bernard bailin. He once wrote, and i quote, history may be kept alive, made vivid and constantly relevant and urgent by the living memory of it. Which is exactly what were trying to do here. Baylin was the great and rival of ed morgan who taught joe ellis. Teachers matter. In 1969 wood joined the faculty of Brown University where he is still professor emeritus. He told me nothing he had ever done achieved as much excitement on campus or the wide approval of his students as the few seconds of fame he had when matt damon and ben affleck mentioned his name in the 1997 movie good will hunting. The campus went nuts. And he said when Newt Gingrich praised woods 1992 prizewinning book the radicalism of the American Revolution, wood describes newts praise on cspan saying, that was the kiss of death for me among academics. None of them are republicans and none of them are conservative. George mason law School SponsoredAmerican History seminars for United States federal judges for about five years. The two history professors chosen to lead the discussions among these elite were gordon wood and joel ellis. I have talked with federal judges Doug Ginsberg and ricecamp who is here today, among many others, and they said how much they benefited from these incredible seminars which coincided with the annual conferences that our federal judges have by district around the country. Wouldnt you love to have been in those meetings . Dr. Wood was one of three historians chosen to write for the oxford history of the American People, by far the most respected, multivolume history of the United States. This is the equivalent of the American History of encyclopedia. His contribution, which is wonderful if you can read it, empire of liberty, history of the early republic 1789 to 1815. With all of the additional writing and teaching he was doing simultaneously, it must have been a huge burden. It took him 20 years to complete. But in the process of finishing this 700page book, joe ellis told me, gordon wood read everything. More important than the pro dijus productivity is the quality of his work, said David Hackett fisher. Dr. Wood is a trustee of the new museum of the American Revolution which will open in philadelphia next april. They are so lucky to have him and we should all go and visit. Ladies and gentlemen, it is such a privilege to introduce our second speaker for the founders and us, historian, professor, author, father of two daughters and a son, and 61yearlong husband of wife louise who is in palm beach and joining us for lunch, ladies and gentlemen, dr. Gordon wood. [ applause ] oh, my goodness. Isnt she something . [ applause ] im delighted to be here and to be part of this extraordinary series on the founders. Ive spent my whole career working on this period and its got to be the most fascinating period of American History. The questions that joe raised last time i think im going to touch on, too, although i have not heard what he had to say. But why do we americans honor these historic figures who lived two centuries ago in the fullsome way that we do . Our founders is the term that we use have a special significance i think for us. Celebrating in the way we do this generation that fought the revolution and created the constitution, i think is peculiar to us. No other major nation, as far as i know, honors its past historical characters in quite the same way we do. We want to know what Thomas Jefferson would think of affirmative action or what would George Washington think of our invasion of iraq . As far as i know the british dont get to check in periodically with, say, either of the two William Pitts in the way we check in with jefferson and washington. We americans seem to have a special need for these authentic historical figures. Theyre recent by comparison with ramos and remus for example. Why do we check in with them . Why should we behave the way we do . Scholars have a variety of answers. Some suggest that our continual concern for constitutional Juris Prudence and original intent accounts for the fascination with the founding and framing of the constitution. Still others think that we use these 18th century figures in order to recover what was wise and valuable in americas past. They believe that the founders of 200 years ago have the have become a kind of Gold Standard against which we measure our current political leaders. Why dont we have such leaders today seems to be the implicit question that we ask. I think the most important reason for our preoccupation with the revolutionary generation has to do with our sense of identity as americans, of the kind of people we are. The identities of other nations, say being french or being german are lost in the midst of time and are usually taken for granted, which is that is to say theres no american ethnicity. The french have an ethnicity. The germans have an acute sense of their own ethnicity. We americans dont and never have, even at the outset, which i think makes us much more acceptable, more willing to accept immigrants than the european nations. I know we have problems with immigration but they pale with the problems the europeans are facing and will continue to face. Those french have arabs living with them, algerians, have been living in france for three or four generations and yet the french dont really think of them as french. You anybody whos been in america for three or four generations is utterly american. We do not have an ethnicity. We became a nation in 1776 and thus in order to know who we are, we need to know who these founders are. The United States was founded on a set of beliefs and not on as other nations were on a common language or common religion. To be american is to is to believe in something, not to be someone. You have to that set of beliefs is what came out of the revolution. Not only did the revolution i think its by far the most important event in our history bar none. Not only did it legally create the United States and make us a nation, but infused into our culture, our highest aspirations, our noblest ideals, the wellbeing of ordinary people. Its these aspirations, these ideals that hold us together and make us a single people. Since were not a nation in any traditional sense of the term, in order to establish our nationhood we have to reinforce and refresh periodically the values of the men who declared independence from Great Britain and framed the constitution. And as long as the republican doers in other words, we americans are destined, i think, to go back and continually look at our founding. Abraham lincoln knew this. He identified completely with the founders and thought all americans should do so as well. Present day academics sometimes mocked the close feelings that ordinary americans have for these as they said dead white men of 200 years ago, but its not so easy to mock lincoln. Half the American People had no direct blood connections to the founders of the nation. German, french, american and scandinavian citizens, and he was aware of these in 1858, they had either come from europe themselves, he said, or their ancestors had. They had settled in america finding themselves our equals in all things. Although these immigrants may have had no actual connection in blood with the revolutionary generation, that would make them feel part of the rest of the nation, they had said lincoln that old declaration of independence with this expression of the moral principal of equality to draw upon. This moral principle which he said was applicable to all men in all times made all these different peoples one with the founders. And this is the most extraordinary statement i think lincoln ever made and its still, i think, makes us feel something kinship with these founders. He said they are made us feel one with the founders as though they were blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that declaration. This emphasis on liberty and equality lincoln said was the electric cord he changes the metaphor that links the hearts of patriotics and liberty loving men together and will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. That was lincolns assessment of the founders and i think lincoln rescued the founders from obscurity and after the civil wars the founders achieved that reputation that they now still have. Despite what tom brokaw said, the revolutionary leaders in my mind were the greatest generation. They were larger than life, giants in the earth, a forest of giant oaks lincoln called them. They seemed to peace intellectual and political capacities well beyond the generations that followed them. We americans have been unable to look back at them without being overawed by the brilliance of their thought, the creativity of their politics and the sheer magnitude of their achievement. What were they like . What made them different . Different from all succeed ing generations and certainly different from us . Great as they were, these revolutionary leaders were certainly not demi gods or super human. They were very much the product of peculiar circumstances in a peculiar moment in time. They were nor were they immune to the allures of interest that attracted most ordinary human beings. They wanted wealth and position and often speculated heavily to realize their aims. They are not demi gods, but they were not democrats, either. Certainly not democrats in any modern sense of the term. They never embarrassed to talk of a leaderism of being superior and they need their sense of superiority to ordinary human beings. In fact, they always believed that the people in general were the source of their authority. We had a moment, i think, where we had a nice balance between what we might call aristocratic and democratic values. Even in their own undemocratic times and circumstances they were unusual if not unique. As political leaders they comprised a peculiar sort of elite, a selfcreated aristocracy that ruled english society. 18th century britain remained under authority of four noble families whose political influence were unmatched by anyone in north america. Take, for example, the duke of rockinghams Country House, he was the patron of edmund burke, his Country House was 650 feet long. Thats longer than two football fields. Compare that to william birds estate which still exists on the james river westover 90 feet. 90 feet long. While Charles Carroll of maryland, one of the wealthiest families, one of the wealthiest planters in the American South was earning what americans were earning, a huge sum of 1,800 pounds a year. The earl of vast estates in england were bringing in an annual of over 40,000 pounds. By english standards americans aristocrats Like Washington and jefferson even with their hundreds of slaves remained mine minor gentry at best. And by the english measure of status, lawyers like john adams and Alexander Hamilton were even less distinguished. Gentlemen no doubt, but nothing like the english no billbility vast scale of wealth was beyond anything that existed in north america. They were different from the english aristocracy. Now the 18th century angloamerican enlightenment was preoccupied with what they called politeness which had a much broader meaning than it has for us today, much more than manners and decorum. It implied affability, socialability, cultivation. Indeed politeness was considered to be the source of civility which was soon replaced by a much more expansive term civilization. So what they meant by politeness was civilized, to be civilized and this american gentry, was caught up with these ideals of politeness. Civilization implied a social process, societies it was assumed moved through successive stages of Historical Development and you get this development at the end of the 18th century of what was called the fourstage theory beginning with hunters, gatherers, shepherding, the third stage farming, agriculture, and the final stage of commerce. Beginning in rude simplicity and progressing to fine complexity of civilization, all nations could be located along the spectrum of four stages of social development. Since civilization was something that could be achieved, everything was enlisted in order to push back bash barbarism, refinement and knowledge. Also its in the 18th century English Speaking world, also its a new organizations and instruments grew up, sprang up to spread light and knowledge among people. This is the period and this is why we call it the age of enlightenment. Learned societies, debating clubs, assembly clubs, reading groups, gentleman magazines, concerts, galleries, museums all were created in this period of the 18th century. 18th century English Speakers saw the beginning of culture, culture as a public commodity, as something that was valuable and that gave status and that could be acquired. The cultural world that we are familiar with today as the four Arts Organization exemplify, that cultural world was born in the age of enlightenment. Now, at the center of this new civilized world was the idea of a gentleman. Defining a proper gentleman educated the public of the 18th century englishspeaking world and writers from richard steel, addison steel, to jane austin spent their lives struggling with what constituted the proper character of a gentleman. Indeed, john adams and Thomas Jefferson were still going at it in their correspondence at the end of their lives. For many in the 18th century, including the American Revolutionaries, being a gentleman assumed a moral meaning that was much more important than its social significance. Pure monarchists might still define aristocracies exclusively by the pride of their families or the size of their estates or the lavishness of their display and the arrogance of their bearing, but others increasingly down played or ridiculed these characteristics and emphasized others. Think of jane austins novel, particularly pride and prejudice. Elizabeth bennett is looking for a proper gentleman and mr. Darcy has other characteristics. Hes got wealth, 10,000 pounds a year, hes got blood, purple blood but thats not what jane austin or Elizabeth Bennett wants. She wants a man whos a proper 18th century enlightened gentleman. To sum up in the idea of a liberal Arts Education. Indeed, the 18th century created the modern idea of a liberal Arts Education in the English Speaking world. The age old distinction between gentleman and commoners had a vital meaning for this generation that we today have totally lost. We put gentlemen on our restroom doors. It has no more significance than that. But this distinction marked a horizontalal cleavage, in some respects even more imposing than the horizontal cleavage that appalls us between free and enslaved, but it also divided the social hierarchy into two unequal parts almost as sharply as the distinction between officers and soldiers. The two are linked. We hear officer and gentlemen. Officers are supposed to be gentlemen and gentlemen were eligible to be officers. Gentlemen who constituted about 2 of the Southern Society and about 8 of northern new england, north new york society were all those at the top of the social hierarchy who were wealthy enough to not have to work, at least not have to work with their hands. They were those who were able to act in what was called a disinterested manner in promoting a public good. The gentleman the character designation of gentleman actually had a legal meaning as well, and often, as john adams pointed out, somebody in a trial had to be designated, is he a gentleman or not . And he would be treated differently in the law in accordance with whether his status was that of a gentleman or not. Now disinterestedness, fascinating word, was the most common term that the founders used as a synonym for the classical conception of virtue or selfsacrifice. It was washingtons favorite word. He used that more often than he used the term virtue. It meant being impartial. Now we today have lost most of this earlier meaning. Educated people use disinterested to mean uninterested. If you look it up in the dictionary, both meanings are there. Uninterested but also the older meaning of impartial, standing above interest. Its almost and the modern meaning of uninterested is almost as if we cant imagine anyone being truly disinterested, standing above an interest. Even if they have one, theyre supposed to act impartially and rise above any pecuniary concern in becoming unselfish and partial where an interest might be present. Washington was very much caught up in this, and he refused to take a salary for t