if you would like to join us on behalf of myself and, president of the white house historical association stewart mclaurin, we will be hosting a reception in decatur house on the second floor. please come and join us for additional conversation. doesn't all have to be about death and mourning. it can be about other things as as. and in addition, matt and lindsay will be signing copies of the book, which will be for sale. we really once again recommend what a terrific resource. in addition, this book is to scholarship. so we invite to come over and all of our virtual listeners and watchers. thank you for watching another episode of white house history live. we will be back next month with. another episode. thank you.

our topic today is not a small one. it's the founders and democracy.

and, you know, i was thinking about it for days, but then i was thinking about it even more closely as i was looking at listening to the previous conversation with brian lamb and the other historians. and i was taken back to my graduate student days, which now is almost 15 years ago. and i remember one of the things that we always did in grad school was something called define your terms. you'll probably remember that. and we have two very big terms. the founders and democracy and our first panel was talking a lot about democracy. and one of the themes that often came up is what does democracy mean? and i thought that might be a good way to actually start this conversation is with the idea of democracy and to ask what democracy actually means. what is it that we're talking about when we evoke it so frequently as we did in the last panel, as we do in our everyday lives, and worry about this idea of democracy. but what is it that we're actually worrying about in talking about? so. lindsay okay.

in the 18th century, what did the founders think democracy meant? that's a that's a great question. so in terms of defining our terms, democracy, broadly conceived as a form of government in which people will make choices. so you can have a representative democracy, which is what we have. we don't all get to vote on legislation and we don't all get to collectively make choices. instead, we select people who make those choices on our behalf. and that was a form of democracy that the founders were much more comfortable with. they tended to be a little bit wary of mob rule, of the passions of the people and so they wanted some a little bit of a check and a way to ensure that the people were still being able to voice their concerns, to voice their preferences and their wishes. but we're doing so through what

they hoped were the best people. and of course, at that time it meant the best men. today, when we think of democracy, we genuinely refer to our country as democracy because it is a representative form of that. but there are also things that are illiberal democracy use, which mean that you can vote, but it doesn't necessarily produce the form of representation that we would expect. so, for example, until recently, or i would say maybe until this election, hungary was considered in illiberal democracy because the people were allowed to vote. but the elections weren't necessary, airily free and fair. there was not a whole lot of choice. there was a whole lot of oppression. there was a whole lot of corruption in terms of the federal system or excuse me, the government system being shaped around one leader. so the founders really did think of two different things when they thought of democracy. there was the representative version and then there was the direct democracy, which was every person gets to decide.

and that was what they were much more uncomfy with their oh yeah, that was such a good answer that i'm going to just say yes, you're the person in my graduate seminar that i was like, oh. and, and maybe just tell a quick story to maybe illustrate a little bit about how the founders distinguish between democracy and as linsey was talking about, representative democracy or republicanism. george washington as i think most people in this room know, as it was against political parties and and suspicious of this direct type of democracy that lindsay was talking about. and after he completed his two terms as president, came back to mount vernon. he probably didn't expect this, but there was actually a draft washington campaign that took place in the later years of the adams presidency because of frustration with john adams, who is writing about so sorry and and washington had a great

exchange with one of the people that was was kind of connected with this, one of the many. jonathan trumbull is from connecticut and and washington said, you know, the other side, they can they can put up a broomstick and rouse the people to support that person. you know, basically as a candidate. and paraphrasing here. but but what she was very dismissive of that. and and kind of worried about that type of mob rule or anarchy that might take place, but but we evolve as a country time times change. and and today we call that democracy. and i think there's a lot of reasons why we celebrate that and embrace it. and so i think whenever we kind of use historical context, we have to be careful because of course our historical actors are fixed in time. george washington is fixed in 1799. we can't imagine or we can't imagine what he might think later. but just because he might have been suspicious of democracy, i don't think means that we we have to be, if that makes sense. i don't have that much more to add to it, except to say that jefferson, of all of these

people who all of the founders was more associated with, closer to direct democracy or having the greatest faith in people that capacity of the people to rule. so there would be suspicion about mob rule, but there was great, great degree of comfort in jefferson in the idea that people would come up with the right answer, that people should be able to vote and obviously wanted the expansion of the franchise and was opposed to ideas. of limiting it. yeah. and i'm thinking back on the and i remember the story of fdr. i think douglas brinkley shared it and he talked about democracy being the freedom from fear, the freedom from want. there was a lot of discussion about equality. so in this, your answers had a lot to do with the form of government. so where do these inspirational ideas about equality factor into how we talk about and think about democracy? and i do want to. well, certainly.

i mean, the declaration makes equality sort of a basic american value. people have taken it for that. i mean, we've talked a lot about. lives have been written about what the declaration actually meant. but like any piece of writing, it means it takes on a different meaning or the meanings that the readers who read it wanted to take and how meaningful it is to them. so i think we've been on a long journey of trying to realize the the principles, the basic principle of equality and for us to morrissey has to lead towards that and that if you don't have the part of the thing that you want the people to be able to do is to make choices that result in a society that is equal, that points towards equality and fairness to all people. so i think that's when people say a democracy very often or a democratic process, this notion of equality and fairness, i think is embedded in that. and that's what it means for us.

denver yes, i think this principle of equality is essential to really propelling american democracy in the 19th century into the 20th century and even the 21st. and, and like in that, i think largely because of the declaration of independence that it created an ideal that the people at the time didn't fulfill and that we still struggle to fulfill. but but is ongoing. and one thing i'd like to teach with our students and talk about is that the american revolution is a living revolution. we are still you know, in the society and living in the frame of government that was created by that event. and if you think about it and you put our current political battles to that contact, we're still hashing out a lot of the issues in many ways that that began in the 18th century. and so we're we're very directly connected to those those words and those people. yeah. if i could just add to that. i mean, it's every single group that has tried to make a place for itself in the united states

on a basis of equal citizenship. women, african-american people, the lgbt community, immigrants. you look to the declaration to do that because that's that's the american thing. and that is sort of a constant you and part of an understanding of what it means to be in a democracy so that it is a living. every group that comes along and they point to the declaration and point to those words as containing a promise that should be fulfilled, even if we debate endlessly whether the constitution is living or not, we can agree the declaration. but no. yeah, the declaration is a living document. and you know, i like to think of the declaration as a set of our principles, but of course it didn't really do anything right. it wasn't it wasn't a set of laws. it didn't have any legal statutory authority to create a world for the american people. and so i think of the constitution as almost kind of the bookend to that, that starting point of trying to interpret those ideals into

written text, into a creation and of course, this is one that is ongoing and is constantly improving. otherwise we wouldn't have amendments and the amendment process. but i think that the constitution starts to grapple with what is equality actually mean? is it equality under the law? is it equality of opportunity? which i think was one of the themes that was talked about. and edna was talking about that in the first session that lincoln was really about equality of opportunity. it doesn't necessarily mean equality in terms of lived existence. it means that everyone's legal protections, everyone's voting rights, everyone's opportunity is the same. and those ideals are, i think, the ones that the founders were and i'm sure we'll get to defining what that means next, that, you know, the founding generation, john, was one of the first groups to try and grapple with. how do we take that equality and put it into law in a way that is meaningful?

because they were coming from the british system and the british constitution is unwritten. and so when you start to write things down, then you have to start thinking about what are you including, what are you excluding, what are the unintended, unintended consequences of how you are phrasing things? and so as as my wonderful panelists have said this is very much an ongoing process as we start to refine and think through what we want, the quality to mean and how we want to enshrine that in text. well, one thing i would add to that, though, is that we should should note that many people, many historians see the constitution as not if in opposition to the declaration, but as a check on the declaration that it was essentially a more conservative view of things and, you know, notions of equality and so forth, because it does define it in ways with some aspects. the structure of the constitution does sort of fix things and to limit what can be

considered essential to achieve equality. certainly the electoral college, all those kinds of things. so the documents work together, but there's a little bit of a of a of a switch there and in attitude. yeah, great. i love that you all interrupted each other and spoke and made my job easier. sorry, but no, no, it's great. and i want to encourage folks. we've been talking about democracy and what it means, and i'd love to hear from all you what you think democracy means. we might be able to pose that to the panelists as well. whether you're here or on online. but as lindsay mentioned, maybe we should move on to that next term and try and define the founders, which i think loom very large in our political fabric, in our psyche, as a as a society. so, denver, i know you teach this. you also teach here at mount vernon sometime. so who were the founders?

yeah. so more people that i think we often recognize. i think that a really significant turn in the historical literature in the last generation has been to recognize that it's not simply that, a, we're starting, you know, five or six founding fathers who are obviously incredibly important. and we'll talk lots about here, but that we want to think about a lot of different people in the society at the time, the people that, you know, fought for american independence, enslaved people, different people of color, native americans, women that haven't always been included under that title. i think, you know, there was an earlier term that did start to include founding mothers, which was very important. and i think when you look at that sort of broad group, you know, the getting back to the question about democracy, i think there were democratic currents within the fold society that then, you know, come to

fruition later and we can understand the, you know, the onset of democracy in the united states. if you're looking at just that, starting five or six, then it is kind of a shocker what happens, you know, by the 1820s, 1830s, the i like to draw distinction between the founding generation and the framers, because i think that allows us to be a little bit more specific. so when we talk about the founding generation, it's all the people that denver just mentioned. it's the soldiers that fought in the army. and they were of all colors and creeds. it was the women that did the laundry for the soldiers that followed along. it was the people who were in congress trying to figure out how to form this new government. it was the people who were financing and training and, you know, every single element of what it means to create a new nation. if we want to talk about sort of the political ideas that started to really shape the documents that we're talking about in the institutions, then it's often more useful to say framers, because those are the people

that were actually participating in the crafting of the constitution and the series of compromises that went into those documents. and so for me, when i'm talking, i really try to specify one of those two, recognizing that people sometimes are trying to talk about strictly political conversation ins. and other times we need to have a more inclusive, broad based brush, an understanding of what's society looked like at the time. one other piece, not to ramble, but when we think of the founding generation, it is also there for a very important think about society. as fractured as it was, john adams gave this famous quote that says something like one third of americans were ardent patriots during the revolution. one third were kind of ambivalent about the situation and one third were loyalist. but those numbers are probably not 100% accurate. but i think the concept is a very useful one and is important for us to remember that the

american people have never been completely unified behind an idea, including at our start. and so that also has to be included in any conversation about the beginning. i think what you said is just it sort of goes back to and dovetails with what i was talking before about the difference between the declaration and the constitution. certainly the fact that the framers were a specific group of people or perhaps accounts of what i was talking about as a sort of check in some ways on the spirit or whatever of the declaration. the declaration set in motion a lot of ideas and thoughts among wide numbers of people in slave people, women. they thought, well, what about us? the framers get to it and pull it back a bit. and so that it is useful to think of the difference between the two of those things. so a sort of boisterous, wide open understanding of a revolution of what was happening by getting rid of monarchy, which is a big deal. and now that the people were going to rule and people who

were people could sit back and think, you know, how am i going to participate in this? and once you get to the point of writing the rules of the framers who are of a particular class, of a particular group, have their ideas about how all of this should go and sometimes doesn't fit with what the people actually want to enact. how do you feel about the constitution and how do i think brian lamb question. i. i watched that last session pretty closely channeled so what do you think about the you know, i think the constitution and maybe something that we need to fix in modern times. i think it's an 18th century documentary served us well. it served well. until 1861. and then it fell apart that afterwards we had ways to fix it with the amendments. i, i you know, i asked my students this all the time and they all uniform and i almost

say no about a constitutional convention. is it time to have a document that suits our particular moment rather than trying using judges to interpret what people, you know, would have thought in 1787 to 1789. and of course, jefferson thought there should be a new constitution every 19 years. that's a bit too much. but the basic, basic point was that every generation of people should get together and decide how they want to be governed and keep the things that are good. and, you know, do away with the things that don't fit the circumstances. this a very, very, very different world. they could not have contemplated california and montana having the same amount of senators. and what that does to, you know, what that says about the the political power of people in

california and so forth. so, you know, i, i think it's a it's a great document, but i think we may need to think about what we need as a new and modern society, keep the things that fit, but there are other things, too, for us to deal with when you're answering our thinking has a very jeffersonian sounding. set now. now, lindsay, i wanted to ask you also about the constitution and if you could set it up in its context in this global moment, both the revolution, but we're talking, you know, with the framers, how does the constitution fit within the 18th century moment? yeah, the constitution, i think, really has to be understood, as you said, as a product of what is happening at that moment. and are there a couple of key factors? so one really important to remember that the constitution is a second chance. there have already been the articles of confederation a lot of americans, certainly the ones

in philadelphia, agreed that it had failed. pretty spectacular early and there was a keen awareness that most nations, especially most republics, don't get. second chances. so they really had to not screw it up because this was probably going to be the the final shot to have a governing document that would allow the nation to at least develop enough of a foothold to survive what might come down the road in the next couple of decades, because it was the second chance there were a series of failures that had taken place in the confederation period that they were directly responding to things like congress didn't have the power really to to tax to get any funds. and so because it didn't have any funds, it was really hard to repay debts. so it was really hard to get foreign nations to engage in diplomacy with you. if you haven't repaid the debts to them that you already. oh, why would they trust any future thing? it's also really hard if you don't have any money to protect your borders against any form of incursion or violence.

so those are some of the domestic concerns as well as the fractures between the states. there were a lot of economic and military conflicts between different states and different factions of states. and then there was the global context sort of european empires that were perched on the american borders just waiting for the nation to fail so that they could pick off states or bring them back into their umbrella as empire. and they were rooting for this experiment, not to succeed. and so all of those pressures combined when the delegates arrived in philadelphia in may of 1787, with this keen understanding that they had to get it right, compromise is were essential if they were going to have enough people sign on to it in order to get it passed and then hopefully ratified. compromises were essential for ratification, secrecy was essential at the constitutional convention, and so that those compromises and difficult conversations could happen.

no one likes seen how the sausage gets made. that was true in 1787 as well as today, and they had real fears that if they didn't compromise, then states would leave. and if states left, then that would be the end of this experiment. so those were just some of the concerns on their minds when they got there, i was all laid up to pass the baton, to take the retirement of, oh no, this is great because i you know, we we're the historians, we're providing historical context. but this is current events and this is what i tell my students that you're in this history class. but like i said before, this is a living revolution. so this is current events. i'll just give you one example. going back to what lindsey was talking about with the articles in order to amend the articles of confederation, it took all 13 states to agree, and so, you know, the biggest problem is they couldn't raise the revenue twice. they got to 12 states. you know, i can agree that the national government should be able to raise some form of

revenue through taxes. but it wasn't good enough because they would have had to amend the whole thing. they needed 13. so go to the philadelphia convention the summer of 1787 when they set up the amendment process, they decided, okay, well, it's gonna have to be strict, but it can't be that strict or this will never get done. so we're going to we're going to have two thirds of both houses of congress and three fourths of the states. and of course, there's the other path with the convention, which is not the popular one. so to i mean, just imagine this country right now agreeing on almost anything, you know, two thirds of the both houses of congress and three fourths of the states, it feels impossible. so in that sense, we really are living in the 18th century as as in that side. and that is a i think, a weakness of our current system that comes right out of that earlier historical context that, you know, they were making an improvement for their time. but now we live with those consequences. well, it should be said that, you know, that three quarters bar the two thirds and three

quarters bar was not too much back then. the bill of rights were passed and amended using this process. yeah. and then they passed several other amendments when there were loopholes in the constitution to rectify those problems. so it's only really in modern society that that level has become one we cannot pass. well, it sounds like i'm sitting on a panel of reformist here, so i want to ask you actually so this concept or this construct of of the founders, which again looms so large in our psyche, is that a good thing for a democracy or a bad thing? i talked to a historian from south america and he observed that people in the americas, north and south america fixate on founders because we're relative leading countries. we know who they are. i mean, who's the founder of england is king alfred or some other person? i mean, what do you what are you

going to say for that of france, for that matter? we're so close to all this. it's not that long ago, and we're a nation of different peoples, a diverse nation. we're not supposed to be, even though some people think we are a nation based upon blood. we're a nation that's supposed to be based upon ideals and so if to the extent that you have to have something, some glue to keep people together, it's a useful instrument, i think, perhaps to think about them so long as we do. as you said, expand the understanding of who the founders are. i can't just be, you know, washington and jefferson and you know, adams or whatever it has to be, because they didn't do it all by themselves. i mean, they did have some help and as long as it's a broader notion, more capacious understanding of what founders mean, i understand why we we look to that because we don't we don't have a national religion. we don't have those kinds of

things that other places have had as a as a group all together. so i think it's a useful construct so long as you don't get trapped by it, you know, and to say that you have to live in the 18th century because they lived in the 18th century, we're out of that now. we understand they're importance, but we have to and we we can keep adding people that maybe not founders, but other people who've whose lives are examples to us and that we admire and think are important to maintaining a civic culture. denver yeah, it's, it's answer your question is a good thing or a bad thing? i mean, i think the answer is yes. and, and for the same reasons that an outsider that the united states is unique and i guess maybe some of our other fellow countries in the western hemisphere in the fact that we can point to the exact start date of our country, that it's not based on a common ethnicity or religion, but it's on these set of ideas. and i think in our public discourse, when we focus on that fact of the founding and those

ideals and we can we can fight over what they mean. but, you know, we look at that, i think that's a healthy, healthy thing. i also get concerned sometimes that it can paralyze our politics because the founders are so and they should be important in the sense that, again, we still live in the society that they created but we're a long way past that. so i think we have to be really smart in the way that we we use our historical founding, that historical context to inform our our decisions, our actions, but not necessarily to determine them. i think it's very useful if we think about a founding legacy as opposed to necessarily one or two or a handful of people. and those legacies are are absolutely shaped by the great deeds of some of those people. but, you know, in the previous session, jan was talking about

how adams wrote this letter and he was, you know, constantly articulating the the areas where they had made mistakes. one of my favorite letters to point to washington wrote a letter to his friend benjamin harrison on september 24th, 1787, as he was leaving philadelphia. and he included a copy of the constitution, which had not yet been drafted. hyde and he said. it's not great, but it's the best that we could have at the moment and required a series of compromises to get there and is an amendment process for the future. madison wrote similar letters. a lot of the other people at the convention wrote letters that expressed that they didn't get everything they wanted, but they felt like it was the best that could happen at that time. and they hoped, fervently hoped that future generations would come up with creative solutions to problems they knew about, like slavery. they couldn't figure out how to solve the problem, but they

hoped future generations would. and they also knew that there would be future problems that they could not yet foresee because they did not have a crystal ball. and i think expectation that they had they have done the best that they could and they're hoping that future generations will do better is the legacy that is that i often think of when i think of the founding generation and that i think would be very useful for us as a nation to hold on to because that really actually puts the response ability on the present moment to up to that expectation in a way that does not constrain us to the 18th century but does encourage us to try and make a more perfect union. and so so i have a confession to make in the last discussion, people cited wikipedia and complained about how many students go off onto wikipedia to get the information. so as i was preparing for this, i said i should go to wikipedia and see what they say. and it was actually an entry on the founders of the united

states. and i have to say, when i went to it, i was pretty nervous, you know, because this could be a battleground. there's a lot that is contested here, as we know. and i walked away extremely encouraged. and as we know, wikipedia, some people claim, is a very democratic space. this is where collectives are deciding what's important, what's not, how do we describe things. and so if you go to this wikipedia entry, which i think you all now are going to do, i see all these phones coming up. it'd it begins with what we might you described as the framers or we think the founders themselves. and it cites a book by richard morris. richard morris. and there are seven founders. there's let's see if i remember now john adams, alexander hamilton. benjamin franklin, thomas jefferson george washington. james madison. and richard morris was also from new york city and taught at columbia. so john jay, one of these is not like the others. sorry, any new yorkers out there, but then it went on and it's very long.

wikipedia entry that went on to talking about the other founders. it talked about women founders. it talked about founders from europe who contributed to the founding of the country during the revolution. and so i wanted to ask you all, in the spirit of denver's comment, and then that's who were some of the other founders? and what makes somebody a founder? i leave it open to whoever wants to take that one first and we're going to be professor in calling somebody. deborah, i see you first. yeah. so i'll just i'll just i'll share one person who we don't always include who who i really admire. and that's marcia otis warren, who's propaganda during the american revolution isn't writing in her own name is related to other important and very important revolutionaries. but then what i love about this then when we were talking to the constitution and disagreements about it, she becomes an anti-federalist. she was against the ratification of the constitution and

continues to write fervently, you know, under pseudonyms and passionately. and a lot of other folks from that fight that oppose constitution, they kind of drop off from the leading founders, like the starting seven or whatever it might be. george mason is probably the most famous example. you know, thomas jefferson gets his beautiful memorial in d.c. and george mason has a bench like in the shadow of. and you kind of feel like if george mason would have just been for i. i was there something you might not but then marcellus warren goes on and writes, you know, the greatest like early history of the american revolution, three volumes published in 1805. and and so some of that was so important to that generation then i i'm guessing that most american schoolchildren wouldn't be able to say who she is, except she is in the texas standards. so have both works of humanities. yeah, well, i would add in the

people know who he is. i would say this john marshall, as a father story. john, john marshall. i mean, you know, chief justice who basically transformed ed the supreme court, which was pretty much nothing before he was there in a little power. and they start out they don't even have an office and there you know nobody wants to be it there trying to get somebody to be chief justice and he doesn't want it. you know, jay does want to come back to do that. i think jay was a founder, too. but from marshall, i live in new york now. so that no john marshall, i mean, who, as i said, sort of is kind of held on to the was that held on to the federalist redoubt in the supreme court in the united states, who transformed the american economy set, a notion of judicial review, triumph who made nationalism an important thing through his construction up there. mcculloch v, maryland and so i would definitely say he's a person who's a founder. he wasn't in the revolutionary

war. he did fight and he was a politician and so forth. but he's not thought of. i don't think that most people think of him as a founder. it's it's a when he's on the court, he it's the later more some of the later opinions of his that that people fixate on. but i would put him in the founding generation because he lays the foundation for american law and a foundation of american constitutional ism. another historian right. as as a supreme court justice. oh, yeah. he writes a multi-volume biography of george washington was jefferson hates it. that's that's another that's not surprising. so i just have to i just want to add one quick thing to john marshall. he also, as a congressman prior to being the chief justice, as a congressman and then as secretary of state, takes really essential stands on behalf of democratic institutions and the right to vote and the sanctity of elections that are really underappreciated. so just had to just had to add that little bit.

i, i also think john jay totally belongs on that list. but so i will give it my, my other answer is, i would say abigail adams. so everyone knows her. remember the ladies line and rightfully so, because it's an excellent line and perhaps the line that's less well known is that all men would be tyrants if they could, which i think belongs in that sentence. but what i think people don't appreciate is she wasn't incredible political thinker. she was involved with and on the outskirts of and witnessed some of the greatest political conversations from the beginning of the revolution, all the way up through the revolution of 1800s. she was in all of the rooms when they were having these dinners and talking about things. and she was whip smart and people really respected her opinions and her views and her observe actions. everyone from george washington to thomas jefferson and her her letters and her observations are

incredibly incisive. and i think that at times she was criticized of being john adams cabinet of one, which is perhaps one of the more accurate criticisms of john adams, because she was by far and away his most important advisor when he was president and throughout his long political life. but she was also accused of being too political like the french ladies, and that was both a sort of a derogatory slur, because when we think of french ladies, we sometimes think of courtesans. and that was absolutely intended, but also the french women who were very involved in politics and had salons in paris. and it was both a criticism of at the time, but also a nod to her incredible intellect. so i think that she absolutely belongs on that list. gouverneur morris, governor morris, we at to have patrick henry. you both know pardon me, patrick. patrick patrick. well, yeah, he wasn't listed. patrick got sam adams.

patrick henry wasn't listed. no. well, it's interesting. so that's the second part of the question. i guess i was going to ask some questions from the audience, but so what makes a what you know, why is patrick henry to me, you would add, or abigail and why would you know somebody else? would you say not everybody who lived through that period and contributed to the country and therefore they are, you know, like you said, a founding generation or is something we're talking about with the founders that is distinguishing one person from from another, which might go against our idea of equality, but having books written about you so so others that the president, you know, the fact that the people that you're mentioning there i marshall didn't do this but you did become chief justice someone who is part of the revolution. but goes on to hold an important position in the government. and i that's because it creates it creates a it creates a story

that people can latch onto and not just fame during the revolution and then fading back, but being in the revolution and then going on to occupying an office and shape the world and shaping the world. yeah. when last, i would love to talk about the founders though, as we traditionally think of them and we have on stage experts on jefferson, on washington and on adams, lindsay, he's written about washington, but has a book coming out on adams soon. so i thought i would just kind of ask you about each one of these figures. i would like to hear what you think we should admire and learn from them. but also a lesson in where maybe they had a weakness or failure. that also is something we should learn from today. and denver, we're order of the presidency. so. washington yeah, absolutely. so obviously there's so much that we can say about george washington and and and some that's become all too relevant in the last several years. i mean, the the type of restraint that he showed, the

the republican values giving up power not once but twice are enormous. but also, we don't always think of him in terms of of civil. but his support for religious freedom, his message to the members of the the terrorists synagogue in newport, rhode island, the oldest synagogue in the united states, that the united states is going to be a country that's going to give to bigotry, no sanction to persecute and no assistance. that's a george washington that i think a lot of americans don't know. and we are rightly frustrated by his record on race and slavery. as with most of the founding generation. but there is another side to it. there's enlightenment side in terms of, you know, things that you know, he leaves wanting. you know, i think in terms of the slavery issue, i think what's hard for my students to

understand is that not just him, but this whole group of people really had more what we would call political capital than maybe anybody or whatever having the rest of american history they they created the thing and the fact that they didn't solve that problem and that comes back over and over again in american history. you know, first and most significantly, with the civil war, you know, i think that is part of the legacy of the american revolution and the united states history, because we're such a young country, we think about these subjects as being so far apart. things like the revolution and the civil war. we have whole members of faculty that teach. you know, one of those subjects. but in the long span of world history, of course, there they're incredibly close together. so i think we have to think about them that way. so so my first book was on washington and then i started thinking about, you know, what happens when he leaves washington and was so unparalleled in his stature. and so really, i would say in american history, like, no one

has ever had that kind of cred. he did. and so for whoever came next, whoever was second in line, that was going to be a terrible job. it was going to be awful because everyone was going to fall short in comparison. everyone is going to fail to live up to his example and people's expectations. there were a ton of questions about does the office of the presidency work when anyone else is in it, will people respect executive authority? will people defer to that opinion? how do transition ends? both the first one from washington to adams and then adams to jefferson actually work that practice those norms those precedents. didn't really exist. washington started to lay the groundwork. but until you repeat them and teach the american people to cherish them and to cultivate respect for them, these institutions depend on civilian participation and goodwill. and so adams knowing all of that, he was a student of

constitu tions, went into the office anyway. and and made choices that were going to fracture his party for the good of the nation. he put peace with france, which was absolutely essential, above his own reelection campaign. in doing so, he totally broke the federalist party. he was in instrumental in defending executive power against both internal and external intrigues. and most importantly, he understood that those norms and precedents that i that i was talking about do require careful attention. they require intention, ability by the people in office and by the americans citizens. and i think most americans, because they were repeated so much, with almost no exception, until 2021, we took that for granted. and john adams did not. and so i think for that, he deserves an enormous amount of respect and gratitude. on the flip side, one of my favorite john adams quotes is by

benjamin franklin and he said, john adams is often a wise man. he is always an honest man, but sometimes he's absolutely of his senses and adams and franklin were oil and water. but where i think that comes into play is that john adams was always honest, sometimes to a fault. he would he had a temper. he was not a great salesman. and so the importance of the bully pulpit to articulating principles for the american people, whether it's the peaceful transfer of power, whether it's things like peace or executive power that requires the president to tell americans why democracy matters to them, why it's important that these things exist. and adams often failed to do that because he either didn't think it was part of his job or he didn't think it was essential and allowed non-democratic

forces to often take over in the federalist party, like with the alien and sedition acts, jefferson well. curiosity, jefferson's curiosity and optimism, i think, are things that were positive about him and he defined his political career. he really was obsessed with the idea of the creation of the united states that loomed large in his life. everything was that's what it was all about for him and his role in that and that the country was something new and important and be like a beacon to the world world. obviously, his the sort of varied nature of his interests in music, science that was the head of the american philosophical society until they finally, you know, wouldn't let him retire. you know, he's president and

they still doing this into retirement. in retirement, founding a university. his understanding about the things that are needed in order for a republican to go public, to go forward, political freedom, religious freedom and education. and those are the things that he wants on his tombstone and wants to be remembered for and all of those things are good. they're things that are important for us to keep in mind, he was a talented politician, even though didn't like to portray himself as a politician. but how did he last? you know, through all those years and then have all these acolytes there's a jeffersonian age from 1800 through madison and monroe. a brief pause with john quincy, jq, and then jackson, who himself as a jeffersonian, even though jefferson didn't think very much of him, didn't think he was fit to be president, but still liked the general idea.

there's just a lot there to, i think, admire and even you're not interested in politics if you're not interested in history, american history during this time period, there's a lot to look to jefferson for the downsides are pretty obvious. the slavery question i don't fault him for not solving that problem because even though i'm a historian on my supposed to believe an inevitable reality, i think that was solved the only way it could have been solved. and that was not something that he would have contemplated back. this notion of being so obsessed with having created a country or helped to create a country to contemplate losing it, to contemplate a war would not have been something that he he would have, you know, been able to to to imagine. i mean, we could imagine it. he imagines it with the missouri crisis and it's it's it's a nightmare scenario to him. so it's difficult for me to

fault one person for not solving a problem that should have been a society wide problem and a problem no argument about property that ended in a particular kind of way with the deaths of many, many people. that's not the main thing. if i think of a weakness would be a tendency to demonize opposition, to think, you know, he says at one point the republicans are the nation. you know, that that we are the americans and the kind of will that it would take to do all of the things that he did, you had to have a pretty strong ego and to think very highly of yourself. and he did it in ways that were productive at the same time destructive. so that's really the personality there that took to do all of the things that we admire about him. also have the flip side of being weaknesses. that's great. so i want to switch to some of the questions and then turn to our poll and share some of the

results of our poll and how americans feel about the founders and i have to tell you that i was surprised by these results, and i think it'll be really interesting conversation. but first up to the audience, a question. all the documents leading up to the founding of our nation were fiercely debated today. we seem to have lost the ability to compromise. how did that happen? not so. we're not talking about today, but what was the process, the historic process that got us to where we are today? well, you know, i would say just quickly, if you look about look at who is debating at the time and who's debating now, it's a much more diverse group of people. there are more voices involved in this. and the more voices you get involved in any kind of debate, it's going to be harder to come to closure. that's the that's the difficulty that america has. i mean, there were there are there are people debating, but it's largely white men who were the framers, the people who are debating these kinds of things. i'm sure there was there was debate among the public, but the

decision makers were very, very small number decision makers. now we've got women, we have black people, we have jewish people, we have catholic people. we have all kinds of people who have differing perspective, see the world in a different way. so it's on one hand, it's, you know, you don't want to, you know, it would be nice if we could all get together. but i understand why it's harder now to do things than it was when you had a homogeneous, small group of people making decisions. yeah, i think of all the sad things with our current political situation and polarized fashion, one of the saddest is how compromise has become punished on both sides. and and i think back we talked about the philadelphia convention. washington goes into that convention very much with james madison and people that wanted a much stronger national government and and to do that, they wanted population to determine representation in both in what we now call the house of representatives and the senate. well, they lose that.

right? there's the famous connecticut compromise, the great compromise george washington was incredibly dismayed when that compromise came together. and in july of 1787, and he writes a letter that basically said, i should never come here. i should have never done this. and it took a lot to get him there. you see how nice mount vernon is? he didn't want to leave and. and i think the important thing is, is that he kept that in the draft box. right. he didn't send any stayed and he saw it through and, you know, in recent in recent years, when we have politicians that do the same thing, that that shows some kind of courage and forge forging compromise, there. they're punished by the strongest elements on an ideological spectrum, which is which is frustrating. so that's not really a solution. but just more what i think is, is one of the biggest problems. so historians like to say that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. and i think that the what we're

seeing now terms of a lack of compromise has actually happened couple of times before. so and there are two two reasons, i think, to explain that. first, julian talked about in the first session, when there are there are advent of new technology and information is spread faster, then it makes it harder to compromise because people know more about what's happening this is true with telegraph, of course. this is true with social media. television changed the way congress worked because c-span was filming a lot of the conversations and people like newt, newt gingrich learned how to play to the television. he would give these fiery speeches and the house would be completely empty and didn't matter because he was speaking to an audience at home. so i think that's the first piece and we're still grappling with what social media means in our political world. and it takes time to figure out how to adjust to those things. the second piece is when we have strong parties, we tend to have low partizanship.

when we have weak parties, we have much more intense partizan ship, which sounds sort of counterintuitive, but let me explain how that works. if you have a strong party, that party structure can protect and give space to people who have different opinions, can protect moderates, can protect people who take unpopular votes, who do the brave thing, who take the moral stand when you have a weak parties, you tend to have a lot of infighting. you have the more radical voices going after, the more moderate voices who do want to compromise. people who are attacked for being squishy or rino's or whatever want to call it. in the 1790s, this exact same thing happened in the late 1790s. the federalists, what i call the arch federalist or the high federalists, which were the more extreme wing of the party, turned on the radical federalists and saved their most vitriolic language for their own party members. that they felt were not severe enough against the republicans.

and i think we're seeing that in this moment. party structure is very weak. and so therefore there is a collapse of the opinions that are permitted in a party and there is a and erasure of the possibility of compromise between people who might be more moderate. so i'm going to take a little risk here and ask a question in the spirit of democracy, open debate, maybe even compromise, a question. the question is the founders studied, failed democracies, which is why they created a democratic republic, how do we educate voters about this need to preserve the electoral college? and the reason i hesitate to that is we had a brief conversation before this and i don't know that those on this panel list, except for perhaps me agree with the sentiments expressed in this question. so could you. oh, there's also a related question about the difference between a republic and a democracy. so could you address your thinking about the structure of

government and how elections happen, why they happened one way in the 18th century, how they happened today, challenges we may face. and i do want to go first. no. yeah, an answer. so. so every four years it's the historian moment to talk about the electoral college. and so this is the first one i've gotten for the cycle that's coming up. so i'm a little bit rusty. but, you know, i talked about us being companions. so that founding moment and what a great example and you know, the electoral comes about for a lot of reasons, but i like to boil it down to just two, and that is the fear of direct democracy, which we talked about before and also the ongoing allegiance people had to their states and their state identities. and so the long term acknowledgment is just to kind of combine both of those things and and for the reasons that were mentioned in the previous

panel, think it's going to be incredibly difficult, not impossible to change. so i think the trick is to to work with it and make it work as well as possible. the one one redeeming thing about the electoral college is it has given us a winner in most elections where in other countries. that wouldn't have been the case. and and where a candidate doesn't get a majority of the popular vote, you know, some some folks like abraham lincoln, you know, managed to win through the electoral college. so, you know, it's a tie. my students, i think there's a lot of problems with that. but i like to say it's not all bad that we have to think fully about it. i think there's also a lot of space between abolishing it and and leaving it exactly as it is. i think it's probably not great that we've had so many elections in recent years that the person who has won more votes has not won the election. i think that's that's problematic. there are ways that we could reform the electoral college to make it a little bit closer of an approximate option. so right now, the electoral

college, i believe, is 538. there's nothing in the constitution that says it has to be 538. there's nothing in the constitution that says the house of representative has to be the number that it is. and in fact, over history that has changed fairly regularly until recently to acknowledge the shift in flux and population in new states and trying to make the house of representatives a more responsive body to the american people so one good step that would actually not require a constitutional amendment, so therefore is at least sort of feasible right now, is to increase the size of the house. i don't think it's great that we have the discrepancies that we do in in california and wyoming. there are, of course, more in the senate, but they do exist the house. so that might be one way to do it. another way might be to have statehood for places like washington, d.c. how is it possible that we have all of these citizens and they are not actually part of a state? it seems a little while to me so

those are a couple of things that we could do that would make the electoral college think a little bit more responsive and therefore, would i think, actually increase trust by the american people if they felt like this institution was matching what they see in terms of election results? well, i would agree with both of them. i mean, i don't think i'm not overly fond of it, but i don't think could see the prospects of changing it, getting rid of it as viable at the moment. so reforming things, doing things around the edges to make things more democratic. because i do think that you know, it's that there is a problem with the idea of not just losing by a small amount of votes, but i mean losing by a lot. the person doesn't become the president. that doesn't look that doesn't look good. it's frustrating to people. and this is kind of the american way, right? that we kind of put band-aids on the constitution. yeah. or in video games, you know, the young people say patches, you know, that it's different fixes like we did in the senate and other things. and so why can't we come up with

something like that for the electoral? well, it's interesting because i mean, we started off talking mentioned that we that the colonies were under an unwritten constitution. and there's a debate all the time about what is better to have unwritten constitution. i mean, it's written the britain british constitution is written, but it's written in a lot of different places. and the advantage might be of changing things, of of evolving over time, as opposed to a written document that people come to fetishize almost as a sacred text. so basically, reform, not abolition, because that's not likely to happen. you know, one thing that annette mentioned that i think is really important and we've kind of like danced around the edges of it, but and i know that there's a question on this in the polls, but a lot of these reforms are not because, like, we don't like the institution. we have spent collectively a lot of decades studying these institutions. if we hated them, we probably wouldn't do that. but a lot of the reforms would increase public trust in those

institutions and in a democracy or republic or a representative democracy, you have to have public trust institutions because the minute that you lose the public, the minute the public is no longer willing to participate, it kind of falls apart because you don't have a big top down power, a monarchy. and so trying to cultivate citizenship, participation and citizen trust in these institutions and a feeling that they actually work for people is, i think, one of our biggest challenges. and absolutely essential. i think washington and washington's only statements during the constitutional convention was on the debate over how much representation there should be and he cited for greater representation, democracy and government closer to the people. and that's something to think about now. so i'm going to try to go to all my question. it was in response to denver's comment about religious liberty, and the question is how can you what is the unifying factor if we have tolerate tolerance,

civility, respect for one another, how do we create where why can't we create e pluribus unum anymore? annette said, there's more diversity than ever before. what can unify us? that's what this questions about what can be our unifying force. well, we used to have that, but we used to have segregation. we used to have people who were couldn't vote. large citizens. i mean, do you i think if you look at the past and with a bit of nostalgia, if you look to close that unanimity, that is it was bought with by keeping lots of people out is just it's just a more difficult conversation more difficult, you know, attempt to difficult of coming together. it means there has to be compromise. it means that people do have to have tolerance or respect. but again, it's that's easy to to manage. jon meacham has always said, we really haven't always said. but george says a of stuff that

we really can't think of america as a openly and free society until 1965. do we have? the voting rights act where all african-american people who lived in the south who before could not vote and participated in the government. we're not part of it. so, you know, the past was good in lots of ways, but there were a lot of problems. and we a new set of problems now. but the question the question, you know, suggests we have to try to think of ways to to form that unity. but with the different voices that are now participating in the conversation and the way. well, i think, as annette said in an earlier answer, a lot of other nations, a shared ethnic background or a shared religion in the course of human history, a lot times people have organized states or what we think of as states along those lines. it's a lot.

if you have homogeneity across society, if you only have one accepted religion, if you only have one accepted race, if you only have one accepted type of people. and so what we're trying to do is really hard. it's really, really hard. and there's the quote that churchill made famous, which is that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others. and so the thing that i think that we could try and have as our north star is this idea that we are always trying to create a more perfect union and the life, liberty and of happiness is sort of those principles around which we're trying to do. so and that might look different for different, but if we are all entitled to free the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, then we have to tolerate that. that will look different for different people and. that's a really hard task. i like to think that we're up to it, but it's really hard task and we should embrace the challenge. i don't think we should try pretend that it will be easy

embracing the challenge because we can actually do things. yeah, and let's be real, real quick because i agree with both answers and i'll just say that throughout american history, through most of american, all sides can agree that the american revolution was a good thing and. well, and i think so there are valid our founding values are things i think that all sides actually can agree on. and that that requires education. that requires programs like this. this requires mount vernon and and other forms of, you know, education and and and it's a big task. but i think, as you know, we're all educators. we're not we don't want to give up on that idea. and so, you know, i again, going back to kind of the. one one thing i would add to that, as you were talking, it occurred to me that, you know, people the world look to america, even in the time period that i was talking about that where there was this, you know, disjuncture between sort of ideals and reality in terms of segregation and all those kinds of things. other countries look to the united states as a place that

was trying to do all those things because they knew they weren't, you know, and there was an image of america and there was some dispute moment when they were confronted with idea that there was a sort of second class citizens ship. so the fact, the ideal is have always been appealing to lots of people around the world. that's why people want to come here. so it was it was saying this is a is both of you were saying that this is a task that we should take on remain that example to the world because the world is becoming america you know locke said in the beginning all america well, now it really is that way. and europeans are dealing with the fact that they're different people with different religions, different races and so forth coming in and they have no what to do with that. and we've been grappling this for a long time and we have a long way to go. but we're i think we're ahead of them on this question. and so we just have to continue with this process now, that's a great way to say we. we have two more last questions from the audience. and one of the questions was

about the united states responsible or not, to be an advocate for, democracy around the world and what the founders about their place was in this age of enlightenment, age of revolutions. yeah, i guess i guess just briefly the founders were, you know, they were proud of the country after it was created. as i said, thomas jefferson was fixated on this thing. the states. and i think what other revolution took hold around the world, especially the early days of the french revolution, there was a lot of excitement, but then a few years later there was a lot concern that, you know, once the guillotine came out in the french revolution radicalized. and so i think there's always been that kind of flip side of in terms of america's engagement with the world, that, of course, we want to do that. and we want different to be democratic and and the devil's in the details. and the question is, is how? you know, i would i would agree with that. you know, i think there was always this recognition that democratic ideals flourish when

they flourished internationally and the health of one democracy affected the health of others. i think they understood that to be true in the 1790s, and i would hope that we understand that to be true today, that when we succeed other democracies and when they succeed, we succeed. which is why to annette's point right now, other democracies in the world are looking at us and wanting us to succeed because they know that it will both make their lives easier, but will make the world a safer for them social studies, a lot of and a lot of history tells us that democracies are less likely to fight wars, other democracies. so if we are and if we are interested in world peace, then the rise of democratic ideals is only a good thing. and we have a letter at the library which washington expresses peace with all the world is my sincere wish. and i think he's talking about the idea of democracies and what that could for for the globe. we should not be confused with isolationism, but rather a

higher and it should be confused with imposing these things. it it it's being an example and and nurturing places who want to follow that example know because you know countries have to come to these things on their own culturally. so the last question inspired by denver, referencing george mason and the questioner notes george mason was a dissenter that dissent is has been a key part of the american story. but those that dissent may often be, as you mentioned, to a bench. so what is the role of dissent? and, you know, in this period of time, is there any reason to study the loyalist or even going for an. oh, absolutely. that's that's the rage now well, as you said that there are some people who don't they know everybody thinks american revolution was a good idea. i have i know people who do not think it was a good idea at all. so yeah, definitely. because studying the loyalists,

it tells you something about the country that it tells us something about ourselves. because the question becomes what if someone came to you and said, you know, we're going to be in a new country, we're going to leave? what what would you do? i we all like to think people say we would have been patriots, whatever. but if posed question like that now, that would be really tough. it's tough decision. so we should definitely discover i mean, discover what people who were on the dissenting side of things felt because it gives you the sense of range of what was possible in society. absolutely. and in terms of my man on the bench, george mason, and the other anti-federalist, i always teach about them in the importance of principled dissent. you know, their main cause at the time was actually to defeat constitution, which is pretty bold in hindsight, and they didn't succeed. but what did they get? they got the bill of rights right. without that dissent, you know, we wouldn't have the first ten amendments, at least the way

that they came about. so what what a way to illustrate to young people the importance of principled dissent. yeah. yeah. i think building off of denver's point, dissent is often a great way for us to see either what problems might lie ahead or how society might evolve its thinking. so that's certainly true with the bill of if we want to. i think the more interesting elements in history is if you look supreme court dissents, they often foreshadow shift in supreme court thinking maybe a decade later, maybe five decades later, but they are often a principled voice and even if it's just starting to shift what we call the overton window start to shift the ideas that we thinking about, maybe it's not going to change people's mind today, but it might at least include idea in the realm of possibility is such that down the road that might be an option that is more appealing. so if i could ask for the polls to be brought up on the on the screens i want to talk about the

poll results as they pull those up. i might want to frame it with the question, which is we're coming on the 250th anniversary on the fathers, the pause on the founding fathers. and we can't pull them up. i can can summarize them. we're coming up on the 250th anniversary of, 2026, and they're going to be on a commemoration, a lot of celebration, a lot of discussion. and at the same time, there's been a increased political you know, the founders become increasingly politicized. what's their place in the public square? what's the place of monuments? but the founders themselves. and so as our poll results show that across party, across parties, almost 80% of republicans, 80% of democrats believe that the founding fathers deserved respect for establishing the country. where should the founding fathers be in our public square? where should they be in 2026.

we're all looking at you and see. well, so i think we make a mistake if we think of commemoration in history, a pie with, limited slices history and and the study of what has happened and how we choose to commemorate is not a zero sum game. so just because we studied the founders or we celebrate the founders doesn't mean we can't also acknowledge the contributions of many of those who were forgotten and many of those who didn't leave the same sort of written record that thankfully the presidential papers projects have preserved for us and people washington and jefferson and franklin and adams. so of course, the founders must have a role in commemoration. the date itself would not exist without participation, but it shouldn't exclude the celebration and the study and the understanding of of other

people. and i think, you know, we were just having a conversation about dissent. it should be perfectly fine for people to want to celebrate that in a different way. it doesn't mean that your celebration is any less valuable or any less worthy or any less significant. i really do think it has to be a personal choice about what that date means to you and thankfully, i think there will be a lot different options. so however people want engage in those celebrations, something will be available for them, i think, the founding generation of the founding generation belong in the public square, particularly now that there's been such a more open and transparent discussion of them. they've been contextualized in a way. so there's there there and celebrated but not celebrated as flawless, you know hero worship. it's are people who did important things for the country and here the good things they did. and here are the things that are not so good. and i think it might lead to a more mature understanding of of

what we do with figures in the past and how we view them, that it's not just, as i said, hero worship and thinking they are gods or whatever that these were. and so i don't understand the problems that some people have with that, but i don't have a difficulty with members of the founding generation being in public square because now i think that there is a more realistic assessment of them. they are contextualized and people can see things more to see things clearly about them. transparency is important and so, you know, you can't pretend that they weren't there. i mean, that they didn't do this that they didn't start this. but let's talk about all aspects of their. yeah like here i was i was encouraged by a lot of the poll results. actually, we' tra, i think, to be dismayed by any poll we see going back, but it has to be bad news. but i think on this question of the founders, an appreciation for the founders, there was bipartisan support that was that

was roughly equal. and, you know, and so i think that's that's encouraging. and and the previous panel joanne freeman spoke about hamilton and and i kind of think of the hamilton effect that the effect that that musical had on this current generation of young people and even older people, that i think there are ways it shows that there are ways to open people's eyes to the founding generation, to their genius, to their flaws. and we can we can do it all. lindsey mentioned abigail adams when george washington died. i mean, one of the smartest things she said and she said a lot of smart things is that simple. should be his his eulogy. and part of that simple truth that he had flaws. he made mistakes. but he also left this incredible legacy and so so, you know, a note of optimism. i'm encouraged by what we saw in the poll. i think just i want to add one amendment or additions not amendment additions, which right

which that actually celebrating flawed people is so much more useful and and allows us to actually appreciate their contributions more because if their heroic person than doing heroic things is to be expected if they are flawed humans and they do extraordinary things, then that is much more impressive to me and is a much more useful thing. understand about how that was possible than some sort of worship you. yeah. and the other interesting poll result had to do with whether the founding fathers should inform our decisions today. and once again, there was unanimity by republican and democrat. about 80% believe that the founding fathers should provide a model or a framework for us to think about decisions we make today. and we didn't ask them tougher questions, but about what exactly and how. that's what you all here so in that you volunteered 90 on

religion i think jefferson is the moment right now about the importance of separation of church and state and how and he would be what would people always ask me what would he have thought? i think he would have not been. he not have been surprised that that notion of separated separation of church and state has made the united states one of the more religiously open and, you know, societies, because people been free to, you know, you know, worship in their own way and so i think in the area of religion in public education was very very important to him and citizen participation in the democracy. i think that those things should be thinking about jefferson that those ideas of the things that we should we should use as a framework for thinking about how we should go forward. yeah, i agree. in terms of education, i think, you know, like i said, we should it all, we should the buffet, we should take everything. you know, we have to learn about

everything. but when we're thinking about how we actually go forward in our decisions, we have to be a little bit more a cafeteria style, a little pick your ideas and we pick out the things that we really want to emulate. and and for washington to back to him, i think appreciation of country overall else the public good over private you know interests or self-interest these things you know are the things that we need more of i think so more education about washington. and in that respect i think is a good thing. in 1798, john adams said that the constitution requires a moral, religious people. and when he said religious, he didn't mean the type of organized religion we have today. he meant he meant really meant sort of a standard code of ethics that people could agree upon in religion was one way to have that standard, a code of ethics. but i think the moral people is a really useful element that we should hold on to. and what he meant was that the constitution doesn't work unless

people uphold it. and uphold the values embodied in it, and participate in the process. and that requires education. it requires civics. it requires all of these things. but i think the need for civic understanding and civilian, an understanding of what we are and what we're supposed to be and the need to continue to uphold it is is much a prescient and timeless concept. so i'm ask you another question related. these poll results, which is how should public officials think about them? how should public officials we were dealing with questions about monuments, buildings in the public square, the names of buildings if 80% of republicans and 80% of democrats think that the founding fathers deserve respect and that they should inform decisions today, how should public officials think about statues and other things that are in our public square currently? well, they should take those things to heart. i mean. we were talking before about the fact that we're sort of in a situation now where there's many cities is a disconnect between

what politicians want and what the masses of american people want, which is, it seems sort of topsy turvy there. they should take them into account. obviously, the manner of individual conscience comes into play in all of this. it's a representative democracy, but doesn't mean that politicians always sort of follow what 80% of the people want. now because they have stewardship, responsibility to think beyond just this moment. but they should certainly it to account. they shouldn't assume, because i think a lot of people would assume that. i wouldn't think that the numbers would be that high and that the concordance between the two groups would be that much, but they should definitely take it into account, but use it and at the same time use their judgment about particular issues. all right. so last question i know we've got lunch at 1230, so 2026, the 250th. what is one thing you would like to see americans away from this moment of coming together,

thinking about the founding of this country? lindsay, you want to go first? sure. i think what i would like americans to understand from the founding and then the i often think of the founding as everything from like the start of the war to, i don't know, 1801 when we really sort of had a solidified process and system. it was really messy. it was incredibly complicated. there was a lot of disagreement. there was a lot of fragmentation and factions and conflict and the nation came out of that through demonstrations and and choices of civic virtue where they put the constitution above themselves and above their parties. and so my hope is that people will take comfort in the fact that there have been really times before and, most of the time when have a crisis, whether it's a constitutional crisis or some sort of, other cultural

crisis, it doesn't require heroic acts of military valor. it doesn't require an einstein like genius. it requires people to take a basic commitment to civic virtue. and that's often enough. i'd like for people to think about how far we've come to remember that we're a journey and that there wasn't a you know, that's a it was the beginning of something that was the beginning of something. and we are to those people and we carry it forward. that's what i would think. and not to, to, to get to think that we don't have to do ourselves that. we don't have the responsibility to carry this experiment on. i would like for people to think we're on a journey to be reminded of that. this is where they started. here's where we are now and here's where we want to go. you want the american people that have contact.

yes, that would be great. yeah. and you know, i talked before about washington and committed to the common good. and this was one of the principles of the revolution at the time that, you know, it was for the republic raised the public the thing. and so we can use more of that spirit a that washington love to use that's kind of changed in meaning since the 18th century is disinterested disinterested ness this is in his writings all the and today when we use that word it kind of sounds like someone who's not interested but for him it was the opposite of self-interest and it was the most important principle and the new republic, the people would be dissenters. and his problem with political parties was that they were self-interested. they are self-interested. and of course, we need political parties today. but i think just a little bit of that spirit, you know, whatever washington or a lot of washington in this respect and of that of founding spirit of the country. i think i think can help us today and it's a great way to end thank you.

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