all right, everybody, welcome

back. and thank you for joining us for our second panel, which is on the democratic declaration. i'm adam white i'm a senior fellow here at aei and i want to echo my colleague. you've also thoughts at the outset of this. we're so grateful for everybody

who made of today's event and the series that will follow possible. thank you for all of us all of you for joining us. everybody joining us online and on tv. and thanks especially our authors in this volume of the series and especially the two authors joining me on this panel the least to offer some opening remarks, and i'll introduce them one at a time. in the order that they're speaking and we're beginning with danielle allen, danielle is harvard's james bryan conant, university professor, and she directs harvard's allen lab for democracy renovation. we might get back to that later, by the way. she previously was a professor at the institute for advanced study at princeton. in 2020, she was awarded the library of congress's john w kluge prize. and before that, in 2000, one, she was a macarthur foundation fellow. she's the author of a number of excellent books, most recently justice by means of democracy which i think came out this year and in 2015, she wrote our

declaration a reading of the declaration of independence in defense of equality. and i guess that brings us to your remarks. thank you so much for joining us. so much out of so stand up here for the sake of establishing a pairing with my co panelists. it's and i guess i don't need this actually do i or do i. this one. it's an honor to be here a privilege to. be a part of this conversation. and it was such a special opportunity. be able to listen to professor wood's. thank you, yuval, for giving us. the chance to hear that expansive conversation. and professor wood, thank you very much that. i am speaking about the declaration of independence this morning and sharing with you my plans for an essay for the volume. i have been working and writing about the declaration of independence for 20 years. at this point that was not anything i ever actually expected to occur in my life. it emerged actually because of

an accident. i taught the declaration of independence and a night course for low income adults as of course in the humanities that had the purpose of giving them chance to reconnect with the educational system based on an approach to education. that is about reflection, agency and empowerment really intense engagement with good texts, liberal arts style. the course was one where my students many had not completed high school. so there was a sort of conundrum how do you give a sort of university of chicago's style education to night students in this way and the solution was the end of the day, not to compromise on the quality of the texts that we teaching, but to go ahead and compromise on length. the declaration is a scarce 1337 words, and for that reason alone, i am embarrassed to admit we began teaching it in every unit, the history unit, the unit, the writing unit.

it was electrifying as a teaching document. it was electrifying because as you all know, the declaration tells the story of a group of people who survey their circumstances. they they analyze the course of events, the course of human events, and determine that an alternative course is necessary. and then they proceed to articulate a vision and some commitment to set their direction on that new course. all of my night students were in that class because they too had surveyed their circumstances found the course of events in their lives, wanting and set their faces in a new direction. so they understood immediately claims about human agency, the claims about human decision making and responsibility, shaping the direction of a community that. the declaration of independence lays out. so i have them to thank my students. and there's a very democratic beginning for an engagement with the declaration. i have them to thank for my own journey with the declaration over these last 20 years. that journey, though, has taught me some really important things about the declaration that are

not common knowledge. and so i intend to make it my purpose in the volume to share some of those important learnings that are not, but i hope will be common knowledge. the relevant learnings i'm going to share this morning, turn around the figure john adams in particular. so i have three particular lessons to communicate. the first is we have gotten into the habit of thinking of the declaration as thomas jefferson's text. he was, of course, the leader batsman. he was by no means solo intellectual architect of document. and if anything, i would make the case that john adams was the much more significant intellectual architect of the document. you trace adams writings throughout the course of the year. he is developing the case for the language of happiness as an orienting ideal to shape how a community can talk about a shared vision for south. populate premium access to the idea that the and well-being of the people should be the supreme law. he is drawing on that tradition, using the concept of happiness to articulate it. he makes an articulation of the

relevant principles that is quite like the declaration of independence in shape in january of 1776. in massachusetts and of course, during 1775 and 1776, he and richard henry lee are the prime motive force linking virginia and massachusetts, moving the politics of independence forward. so it's really adams and lee, who architect the politics of, the period from mid-april through july 4th in april. adams releases his essays and thoughts government. he makes the case that the the end or purpose of government is the same as the end or purpose man. and that's happiness. and the like. it's not just the word. it's a whole architecture, though. underneath it, the concept of constitutionalism that's attached to it, the structure of the grievances and the document also flows from adams is thought not jefferson's one can show that through comparisons of how their arguments about law unconstitutional wisdom were developing over the period the two years before 1776. so adams is, of course, on the

committee. he's number two on the committee after jefferson. jefferson was young, not very busy in philadelphia, you know, generally reclusive. adams was basically on every committee that mattered. so as a result, he was too busy to be a drafter. he did admire jefferson on a number of dimensions and again worked for the politics to have the result that jefferson get the most votes when it came time to select a committee to write a preamble for declaration of independence. so the declaration's, i believe, properly understood as adams's declaration. that's the first and most important point that then leads to a second important point, which is the one professor would made at the very end his remarks. and i was so glad that he did that. it is indeed the revolution brings us the beginning of the end of enslaved it. and it's adams who is a part of that as is ben franklin, also on the committee of five that drafted the declaration. and so immediately before the end of the revolution. so before we get to even eight states having a boston slave man before the end of the

revolution, both massachusetts and pennsylvania done so in different ways. pensilva anyhow, with graduated emancipation, but nonetheless, both have committed in that fashion the massachusetts story is particularly important. there drafted the state constitution. the language of the declaration flows straight into the massachusetts state constitution. the language of the declaration and constitution were immediately used in massachusetts by abolitionists, free african-americans, living in boston at the time. they put petitions to the assembly to end enslavement. they took the case to the court. the supreme judicial in massachusetts. and by virtue of a judicial decision in 1783 that ruled that enslavement was incompatible with the massachusetts constitution on the grounds of the language in. the constitution that came from the declaration of independence. enslavement was abolished in massachusetts. so that's the second important lesson of the story. the abolitionist movement had to grow greatly in force over time,

obviously, before it became what we know of it in the 19th century. but as they say, it quickened in that moment. that is when it came to life. it was born. there had been prior writers and thinkers going as far back as the early 18th century. james otis, who famously gave us the slogan no taxation without representation, also argued that the africans on the shores of the atlantic, there coast rather had the same rights as englishmen, and should be respected as having the same rights as englishmen. so the intellectual foundations had been growing, and then the politics quickened in the of the revolution. so our founding in other words, i've always called it a double voiced founding. yes, we entrenched enslavement various ways. and at the same time, we embraced abolition and we certainly put two positions on a collision course right from that early point. so then the third message or learning that i have about the democratic declaration and again that was really john adams this

declaration relates to the arguments that he had with key people about how to think about the idea that all human beings have natural rights yet. clearly the societies that structured did not operationalize that view in terms of how that power was allocated throughout society. and what i've come to from sort of studying various exchanges of letters is that there's a key in the declaration that really explains how it is. we could simultaneously, as a as a country, have endorsed concept of natural rights all men being created equal, all men meaning human beings in that formulation. how could we have endorsed that? and also up a system for operating governments that placed power in the hands only of some primarily man, primarily white men, primarily property holders, with some variation in that from state state. the answer i believe comes in the last clause or the second

sentence of the declaration. professor wood knows i'm a close reader of texts, so i'm just going to remind you of the whole second sentence, but ask to listen to the last clause. all right. we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. that to secure these rights are instituted among men driving their just powers from the consent of the governed. that whenever any form of government becomes offensive, becomes destructive of these ends. it is the right of the people to it or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying the foundation on such principle and organizing its in such form as to them shall seem most likely effect their safety and happiness. all right. so that last portion, what when government becomes destructive of the end of securing our

rights, we get to change. but the job is to lay the foundation on principle and to organize powers of government in a form necessary to deliver on those principles. it's that split the foundation on principle and the question of how to organize the powers of government that structures the thinking of people and the founders about the relationship between natural rights and the structure of government. so adams, in a letter to abigail adams and in a letter to somebody named james sullivan, who was advocating for full inclusion for people without property workers having the vote as well to both of them, he writes back and says the rights, the principles, the concept of the natural liberties do apply to everybody. but the question of how power is exercised to adam, to abigail. he says, we were going to preserve our masculine system. that's his phrase for how we organize the powers of government to. sullivan he writes back, and he says, power to be directed by people who own property.

and so that's the place. that's the place where, from my point of view, they made the mistake. they established a commitment to basic natural rights for all human beings, but believed was possible to secure those and deliver those in ways appropriate to different people in different circumstances, based on the reservation of power to a few, abigail's challenged. abigail rather challenged. adams said to him, you know men have not a good track record with regard to their exercise of power over or for women or husbands actually put it over wives habit of tyranny. so what she to paraphrase but she was ready to give him and his colleagues another chance but that you know if it did not deliver as promised she expected that women would to, in her words, foment a rebellion for a voice and representation. and that's exactly what happened and she was making a really important point in that letter that power is reserved only to some arbitrary power control

over others, power corrupts as we know. you cannot deliver on the promise of protecting natural rights for all by reserving power only to the few. you need voice and representation for all in order to make a good on the commitment of principle. that is basically the first official error and puzzle that i believe we've been wrestling through as a country for the sub6 250 years. so that's the shape of the essay i plan to offer you all and his colleagues, john adams declaration, that declaration and the politics of the moment did quicken abolition. they did bring us end of enslavement for the first time meaningfully in human history and some portions of our country put the country on a collision course we all know about. and finally, about the key philosophical error they made was in not recognizing that that commitment to natural rights requires also full inclusion of all in sharing of power.

thank you. thank you, danielle. and our next guest is gregory winter. he is president of assumption university, although today greg is speaking as an individual scholar. he was recently visiting scholar at aei as well. before all that, he worked the senate ultimately for senator robert kerrey. so you could say greg has worked he works both in and in practice. he's he also has written a number of wonderful books, including madison's metronome subtitle, the constitution majority rule and the tempo of american politics, and also old whigs, lincoln and the politics of prudence. and i suppose that brings us part the subject of your remarks today. so greg, thank you for joining us here. adam, thank you very much. the the listing of, excellent

books. i appreciate you omitting the mediocre ones. i too. am grateful for to air to evolve to adam for for bringing this group together. i feel quite honored to be in the company of these these scholars, a scholar of of professor allen's achievement on the on the declaration. i will say that he will listening to professor wood a dread began to dawn on me as i realized that some of the things i might about the declaration would constitute disagreeing with him in his physical presence. so i will invoke the the ancient wisdom to two speakers that don't worry when they walk out on you, it's when they start start walking toward you that you should be concern. we're going to go right to q&a, but right. so what i thought i would do is

try to address the issue of individual rights versus democracy in majority rule by looking before the declaration at john locke at the declaration itself, and then ultimately and in fact, by way of beginning through the eyes of lincoln, lincoln's fragment on the constitution famously compares the relation between the declaration, independence and the constitution to proverbs. proverbs 25 eleven's reference to an of gold in a frame of silver. his point is that the mechanisms, the constitution, the frame serve the ideals of the declaration, which is the apple. and it's often understood to indicate lincoln's emphasis on individual full liberty as the lens through which the constitution should be interpreted. yet the timing of the fragment, which is presumed to have been written between his election in

1860 and his inauguration. in 61, suggests otherwise. at the same time, he was drafting his first inaugural, a full throated defense of democracy understood as majority rule. in fact, i add that this this is true of. madison and in the vice memo as well as douglass even excuse me lincoln even when arguing was with douglass about popular sovereignty that the question was often the ability of national majorities to decide national issues rather than local majorities to decide national issues. so here's what lincoln says about rule in the first inaugural. he says a majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations and always changing easily early. and this is key with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments is only true sovereign of a free people. lincoln continues to say that on

any question over which the national government has jurisdiction majorities of minorities. naturally. then he says this if the majority will not me, that may have been for it. it is the minority will not acquiesce. the majority must or the government must cease. there is no other alternative for continuing the government is acquiescence on one side or the other. the declaration says, i think something remarkably similar or if it is read in full to. see why i want to return briefly to the theorists widely presumed and not without good reason to be the most significant influence on the declaration. and that is john locke. the vast bulk of locke's treatise pertains to the purposes for in methods by which governments are formed. now a reader who stops that

explanation, much like a reader who the poetry at the beginning of the of independence, but skips the grievances. i think substantially misses the point. individualist readers of locke ignore as you individualist readers of the declaration the difference between natural and civil rights. and that would, i would say include civil rights derived from natural rights. that is the independent rights of state of nature do not and in fact cannot transfer fully to a civil state that would defeat the entire purpose of a society banding together in the first place. in paragraph, in paragraphs 1995 of the second treatise, locke explains that human beings are natural, free and independent language that appears in the first draft of the declaration. crucially, though, locke says this freedom and that freedom

and independence exercised in not after the act forming society. he writes. when any number of men have so committed to one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporate and make one body politic where in the major majority have a right to act and conclude the rest. now that's paragraph 95 of the second treatise, and i often ask students is professor allan might ask in the spirit of of, of assigning shorter texts why they need to read the previous 94 paragraphs if in fact locke is going to give up the game in paragraph f 95 and beyond. in other words, if that's where we were, if majority was where we were headed all along, they might have had a much shorter reading assignment. but one explanation option in one, i would argue, is both the declaration's explanation.

and lincoln is that locke's account of the purposes of society serves as a common reference for persuading the apparently all powerful majority to behave reasonably. in fact, in briefer form, the declaration follows precisely this structure. rhetorical followed by the majoritarian mechanisms by which a justice ayade makes decisions. i won't repeat this as professor allan just did, which i cannot do from memory. i might add. the self-evident truths, but we tend to focus only on the first of them, which is the that people are equally entitled life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. so far, so good for. the individualist account. but we know that the next is that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men and that they derive their their just powers from the consent of the governed, and

that is the moment of exercise seizing freedom and independence, the transition from a state of nature into civil society. and indeed, that last self-evident truth, which is the right of of revolution, refers to return to a state nature, an exit from from society. what locke famously calls the appeal to heaven the actual that follow can be counted in categorized differently. but the least that can be said is that the single largest category pertained to king george inhibiting republicans self-government. the king has dissolved dissolved legislatures convene them at distant places and adams addition. if i if i'm not wrong to the to the first draft. he's refused to approve laws and so forth and even many of the references to what we might call rights or liberties are based on

the regulation or assume the regulation of liberty by republican processes such as imposing taxes, quote, without our consent in maintaining standing armies, quote, without the consent of our legislatures, ultimately the declaration itself a persuasive, brief, which suggests that that its drafters, the revolutionary generation did not actually is thomas paine did that a change of government? no justification. thus, lincoln's later insistence that the rebellious states not in point of laws, in other words, had not exited civil society. the principle of equality animates the declaration for him. in fact, the theoretical basis of democracy we are not all precisely equal in all respects, but we are equal our capacity to govern ourselves.

now lincoln was accused of being too much of a gradualist by contemporaries to moderate on the question of enslavement, precisely because his intention was to change public. as he later said in the first inaugural and we may reasonably ask, should any individual or group have to convince majority of its of its basic rights, even convinced them, as in the case of enslavement, of their humanity, and the reason which lincoln gives us in the declaration as well, is that there simply is no other way. as much as we might like it to be otherwise that rights can be meaningfully secured. the first inaugural, therefore, is, i emphasize before, refers to deliberate changes of public opinion. we offer this by way of

conclusion is that in this sense, the debate over lincoln or the declaration over or locke miscast is purely one between majority rule and individual rights. it is choice which we should focus on is rather between a radical and a genuinely common good. the race public because as professor wood said, lincoln's genius like the declaration's was reconciliation of and not a choice between in the two. at the end of the fragment with which i opened the proverbs description of an apple of gold in a frame of silver lincoln, exhorts us to act that neither picture or apple shall ever be blurred or bruised or broken. the neither indicates that he

saw no contradiction in preserving both. nor need. we thank you. thanks, greg. and thanks again, danielle. you both quoted the declaration. second sentence, but maybe let's start with the first and i will quote it to just the first half of the first sentence when in the course of events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with one another, and to assume the powers of the earth. and i want to stop there and, go back to the very beginning. one people how should we understand the declaration as the founders identification of themselves as one people? maybe later we'll talk about what that means today. let's start with with how they saw this. why did they describe themselves? one people. daniel well, that's a it's a really important question because at point in time, it's not obvious that. they were one people. they were.

13 colonies, each of which thought itself as its own country. they would use the language of my home country to describe where they were from. when you read the sort of speeches and letters of british politicians, they're very clear about the times when they're talking about the people in the port of boston or the people in philadel phia and the like. there's a sort of sense of separation. and yet over the course of that period of time, call it from 1766, just after sort of stamp act issues up through 1776, you can see a real change in self-conception and also change on the british side. you can see the british start to refer to the americans, right? so of that becomes a concept, a source of great irritation and frustration to them and of course, on among the colonies, they do now have committees of correspondence set up. i think that's really the most important thing that they have networks of communication that are directed towards developing a shared story, in effect, a

shared understanding of their circumstances that share a diagnosis of a course of human events. and i think it's that process that creates a political people that means a people who are going to decide together on the shape of their governing institutions. and, of course, they then make the people a truth with that declaration of their existence in that first sentence. gregg before you jump in, i'll just add, you know, a decade so later, john jay and the federalist goes on at length about how the americans have such great fortune to be one people. and he goes to such detail, almost all of which seems a great overstatement. maybe aspira national fake until you make it. but you look right there on the declaration of the first sentence. it's one people act take away from. that for me is that the liberty being claimed is for one people, not individuals but one people to dissolve the bands which, connect them with another.

and in fact, well before john jay edmund burke in his speeches, his parliamentary speeches on america, it noted this, he said the americans are develop their own manners and sentiments and and opinions had had in fact, become a people. and i think if looks at what follows immediately in the preamble of the constitution, the bit underscored the grievances, the right being claimed in the manner they are described makes sense. the rights of a people much more than they make sense as the rights of isolated individuals. and i just point out that the latter part of the declaration and it is echoed so clearly years later, just a few years later, in the vices of of the current system, the professor would pointed use the term a political people just a moment ago. i guess that you to my second question following first sentence we get to the second where you say the founders recognize that all of us are created equal. we tend to think about that in

terms of our our individual liberties. the words immediately follow, but it also says something the nature of our political communities. doesn't it for sure? no, absolutely. and i mean, just to link your two questions together in this question of, you know, where they one, people are, peoples will bedevil them all the way through the drafting of the constitution. james wilson was another person who brought incredible erudition to the constitutional convention and contributed to it shaping. and he really emphasized that they needed to see themselves as one people as a whole nation. of course, others were really arguing at that point that the states were separate peoples. and therefore we get, again, the compromises that are baked into our institution around that concept. so it's important that when and wilson, i should say, uses the declaration to make that argument that the constitution is being drafted for one people, all of the sort of popular representation features of the

constitution come from that argument on his part. again, drawing on the declaration. so the concept really important because it is being used to negotiate the question of where authority will lie. will it lie with a national government or will it lie with state governments? there are, of course, also cultural questions that go along with that notion of peoplehood. but the reason the concept matters in the politics in the moment is because there is an actual debate going on about where authority will lie a i think it's particularly important to draw on that, to note that what we see in the transition, the articles period to the to the constitutional it, i would argue what we see later in lincoln's reaction to the to the kansas-nebraska act is the question is where will authority lie? will you know what lie with the people or with attire and morals. but also where what at what

level society will the authority reside? in other words, the question is the vast bulk of the madison's vices, whether he certainly does speak to subset of injustice, of which paper money is the the clearest example. but the vast majority of his complaints are that the the articles of have incapacity ated national majorities with to national issues. this is also what lincoln says in peoria and and in the lincoln-douglas debates. he is is certainly prefer only morally opposed to enslavement. but he is his response to to douglas's invocation of popular sovereignty is also that this is in fact a national issue that should be decided by by the people by by by one nation. not not by local majorities. you referred now and in your remarks before the national

majorities. and i wanted to delve into that a bit, because it's true that madison and lincoln were both focused on the the importance and the sovereignty of national majorities under our constitution. but it wasn't national majorities for their own sake so much in either case. right. madison, when he's urging the creation. of a new constitution that empowers national majorities, so much of it is for the of protecting individual liberty in the states to make sure that the states are the factions aren't oppressing individuals in the states. and the same with lincoln of choruses for his first inaugural he's calling for national democracy. one of the key examples he uses is national democracy for the sake of overcoming the dred scott. so is it just how should we understand that balance of national majorities? but national majorities for the sake of individual liberty or my overstating it a i think you're overstating your respect. i think that there is a

significant sense in which majority rule for fort madison and to a similar extent for lincoln, is in fact a right. it's a liberty of a of a people. it the way i might phrase it differently is that they believe a national majority properly seasoned, as lincoln says, frequently changing, which is something madison spoke about as well. with popular sentiment changing with with appropriate checks and balances under those circumstances is a natural a national majority is likelier to protect individual rights. but madison's certainly also says, as is lincoln in the first inaugural, that majority rule is a is madison says the end of the very definition of government and you always are just slightly wrong or even longer than that. no, no.

i think you're asking an important question. and i think you're really asking. no, that's currying favor with the model. i didn't mean it the way it sounded. that's like. i think there's a really, really important question here. i think it's a question, what are the the purposes or the ends and what are the. and i think in that regard the purpose certainly was individual liberty and individual liberty for a community a free and equal self-governing that were at equal in that phrase, free and equal self-governing citizens is really important is not liberty for one person to subject everybody else. so freedom and equality have to be seen as hand-in-glove in relationship to each other. that's the purpose. then how do you deliver it? and so may. that's where i do think the sort of genius of the institutional design of the time comes out. they were trying to answer that question. of course, montesquieu is hugely

important in that regard. the recognition that the british system did have some original kind of, you know, accidentally they happened upon a kind of interesting checks and balancing dynamic that seemed to have some potential, but it could be improved. and so then they went about trying to improve it. and so then in that project of trying to improve it, they have to answer these questions about the levels at which authority resides. now, so which are the things that it's reasonable for the states to do, which are the things that need to be pulled to the national level, but the fact that some things do need to be done nationally is what then sort of makes it imperative there be a single national people and that they undertake the project of achieving that is not a thing that sort of falls from heaven or of that kind of they have to do work to become one people. but the purpose of becoming one people as really in order to build a structure of a sturdiness and with regard to securing achieving security that you can protect freedom, right? so freedom is the goal, i would

say that. i, i'm not sure we disagree on this, but that freedom includes the freedom of the community to act on the common good. so lincoln was a whig for most of his career, supported internal improvements, public works as president established the land grant colleges and so forth. so i there's always a negative protection of individual liberty, but also in power of the community to achieve the common. absolutely no, no, for sure i should have i should have qualified. but i forgot i was speaking at a so when i say it's all over the place, it's hard to. but when i say freedom, i definitely mean positive liberties as well as negative liberties. and so in that regard, absolutely. so when the purpose is freedom it is about empowerment for people to steer their own lives. yes. individually in their private lives, but also. yes. together by participating others as citizens in shaping collective life, maybe another

question, maybe another question then about thinking about these rights that being secured by government. and greg, this actually brings me back to your most recent book, which was not at all mediocre it's my favorite actually. your last book was about democracy. the supreme court and rights. and so the declaration speaks of securing these shall we understand the founders as saying that we know these rights are and the government should secure them? or was it that the act of government itself would help us to better understand what those rights are, either in theory or practice that that's a good question. i think i would tend tend, as a political is a burkean. i don't normally like it when when people say what am i to? which is that it's both when there's really a an underlying choice. there are i don't think there's really in declaration in locke in it madison and lincoln or anywhere else because i'm not

sure there can be a pristine notion of rights that don't bump into other. so i think in a we see this in the grievances in the declaration, it's not the king george did this and such and that that is inherently unjust is he did so without our consent and our consent means the consent of the of the people. so i, i think it's very much a framework that in which the declaration and the constitution in which liberty individual and and i would agree to within constitution safeguards positive liberty is is safeguarded but but it does require some definition and regulation. i just i want to say that it's important that the period we're talking about really predates the division of the concept of freedom into negative liberties and positive liberties. i mean, benjamin doesn't write

his on the liberties of the ancients in the modern for another what roughly speaking years i think not can remember exact date that's the point right where he makes the case that commercial society is developing in a way that one in fact achieves the best picture freedom mainly by being left alone to pursue your commercial and sort of the positive liberties of the ancients, the responsibility participate in government is really an anchor is not something that that's needed. and then of course that division changes the trajectory of liberal political thought over the ensuing 200 years. but that hasn't occurred at this point in time. i mean, we are in a context where what people would call republican concept of freedom is the one that that is the paradigm. and that is as much about those responsibilities of participation, because those actually give you free time. as a coauthor of the norms and constraints of the society that as important as the protections

from inappropriate interference by government. daniel, you're a wonderful line in your remarks when you refer the double voiced founding. you know years ago colleague harvey mansfield joked about he quipped that the declaration is self-evident half truth. i think i like double voiced founding better than that but double voice founding was a risk you could say. what you're saying is the founders were talking out of both sides of their mouths. what did you mean by double voice founding? i really like this, you know, a double voiced founding is one where there were people who disagreed with each other in the room together and they had to come to an accommodation. and they did. they came to an accommodation they compromised. and there are very specific compromises in the declaration. i can those if that's of interest but so as a result the documents communicate the voices of both sides it's sort of just very straightforward in that regard as any democratic decision any democratic decision

must ultimately be an accommodation amongst people with different interests. that is the only sort of basis for stable decision making over time. so our founding was double voiced and politics is inevitably a double voiced. i'd love to hear a couple of examples actually. sure. well, so from my point of view the two biggest compromises captured in the declaration one are a compromise about religion and the compromise about enslavement. so the compromise around religion. and so the draft that the that jefferson shared with his colleagues adams, franklin sherman, livingston, not livingston. so what i'm saying new yorker friend doris. now, i can't believe it's okay. sorry, livingston. it was livingston. okay. i was the first time. yes, chairman from connecticut, robert livingston from new york. thank gordon. the draft that jefferson shared with them did not have any of the vocabulary that is connected to the figure of a creator in it

and then we got the language of that created equal endowed by the creator thanks to adams and franklin and we got the later language in the declaration about divine and the supreme judge from congress when congress changed about 25% of the texts that the committee submitted. so that was a compromise process. there were a variety of religious points of view, including deism, active in the colonies at the time. and so what you get is a document that lets every sort of position then active with a kind of view about religion and politics, have a space in the document. in addition to the language i just mentioned, you get the opening phrase where moral foundations are grounded on the laws of nature and nature's god. all right, so you can subscribe to either of that sentence and have a moral foundation for the principles in the declaration.

so atheists, deists people of faith of any potential theology or, doctrine are all included in that language? none those terms creator, divine providence supreme judge speak to any particular tradition that's, an extraordinary compromise a way of making the document capacious for an awful lot. i would say, of the relevant points of religious point view in the colonies. that's the religious in the document, the enslavement compromise shows up in two places. there is excised passage that had been drafted by the committee condemning king george for the continuation of the slave trade and the condemnation used the same vocabulary of rights. they condemned him for violating sacred rights of life and liberty of decent people in africa. so they use exactly the same vocabulary for africans. sacred rights of life and liberty as they use for themselves. that's what that was the work of the committee, was it jefferson or was it? adams a little hard to in that

particular mix. and again, it wasn't proposing abolition or anything like that. it was only condemning the continuation of the slave trade, sort of a limited thing. nonetheless, there is that important statement of principle. congress cut that out. congress cut that out. the yeah, i was a pro enslaved moment in its edits. on the other hand, the phrase life and the pursuit of happiness was an anti enslavement. edit in fall of 1775, the royal governor, lord dunmore, had decreed that any enslaved person in virginia escaped would fight for the british would be free and from point on that sort of really radicalized the virginians and really brought them to the side of wanting independence but from that point on but also happened was that they began to to king george on the grounds of his their rights of property and meaning very specifically that he had violated their rights of property to hold people. so for the next nine months,

there was a lot of discussion, the rights of property, but it was tightly entangled with a defense of enslavement. so by the time we come to the declaration and the writing of the articles of confederation, they are so entangled that franklin says out loud in the discussion about the articles of confederation that we can't really use this property concept right now because of its entanglement with slavery. so pursuit of happiness is a substitute in a phrase that would more conventionally have read life, liberty and, property, and by pushing property out and putting pursuit of happiness in there, get a compromise capacious for those who are still defending enslavement to think. sure. yeah. okay. my pursuit of happiness that's in there too. but it's not. it's not a clear commitment to enslavement by any stretch of the imagination because of having displaced the property concept. so that's the second major compromise i say in the declaration. that's fascinating. really, really makes us think of the declaration as the nation's first largest slate of act in the sense of of a legislative

process. well, as professor wood said, i mean, it was a legal act is not a rhetorical statement. i mean, it was a vote of congress to establish as a new institution in the same way, you know, sort of set up a new governing board in the first document is that chartering, although there really really clear and careful about what they were doing that same clause laying the foundation on principle and organizing the powers of government that that was basically the to do statement. all right so they were going to declare independence and at the end of it, of course, they said, we've set up treaties and let the other nations know that we are another nation on this earth. so that's sort of step one. you have to to declare that to other nations, do that work of making treaties, but then, you know, they wanted to explain their it wasn't an unexplained, as you said. so they have to have explained the foundational principle. so they set up a committee to write the preamble for the actual declaration is just a bit

at the end about being free and independent states. then that's declaration of independence and then set up the committee for the articles of confederation, which is how you organize the powers of government. so the declaration is the setting document for all of the legislative acts that they need, the of principle the treaties with foreign and the articles of confederation. gregg we often think about lincoln hearkening back the principles of the founding but in some ways he hearkens back to the the process of the founding, the republican politics of the founding. he wasn't emulating and echoing their ideas. he was emulating and echoing the way they actually went about the work of of founding and governing. i think that's and in fact, when he criticized the kansas-nebraska act, it was for repealing the the missouri compromise. was it his foremost case again, without detracting at all his

moral opposition to enslavement? was that it was a compromise and you've all asked professor wood would be a good outcome of celebrating the 250th in. yes, that spirit i would say if it it is difficult to look at the fund of mental compromises on issues like enslavement because of their their moral polarization and clarity. but i wish could also talk two things that with with this 250th anniversary, the i can't do the anymore yeah i've already lost it yeah semicolons and the exact exact is could work over is i think i think lincoln did that there is a moral dimension to

compromise into moderation to gradualism which again is is is somewhat obscured by the the the the moral and the of the issues at stake at the at the founding. but the moral basis of compromise for lincoln is that we might be wrong. we need to have the humility to acknowledge that other people might have a point and and so forth. the other point i would make just just backing up a bit is not only i don't know if this would make it a triple voiced declaration, but not only did the founders disagree with each other in importance sense as they disagreed with themselves, so it's studying. the founders is a cottage industry attempts to get them off the hook for issues like enslave and perhaps one thing we can embrace is part of this too.

i'm going to hit 250th anniversary is that people are complicated and they are they people can be hypocrites and can achieve great things and do very bad things and that we can view all that without without shrinking from it. i reminded in that regard of a paper once heard, i don't think written by in the room, but i can't quite see the federalist paper in which madison defends the the 3/5 compromise in in justifies enslavement. the argument of this paper had been that the logic was so obviously bad and that madison was so obviously smart that he must have meant the opposite of what he actually said when in fact a much you know, the

outcomes your explanation is contradicted himself that he. that those those actions and parts of them which which both personally and a statesman that upheld enslaved it were hypocritical. maybe just one last question for me before we we we open the floor. danielle, when i introduced you, i pointed out you direct harvard's alan for democracy renovation. i love the name of that center and it calls to mind another great massachusetts educational this old house this and as a watcher of this old house i know that renovation i know the renovation requires in sometimes building a new and improving and also in some ways getting back to what was originally good about this how should we think about renovation now with respect to the founding how much of this building and improving upon the founders got wrong and

how of it is bringing it back to its foundations, bringing us back to its foundations? and i appreciate that question. you've you've brought to the surface that my all time proudest publication, which is not on my cv, is a letter that got published in this old house. so i'm a subscriber. is this reason i have to go back and find the last analysis back in the early 2000s? yes, i had a very quirky home project and wrote in a letter for advice and they it to me it was amazing. so anyway so yes this old house has been on my mind for a while. and you're right about the metaphor. i mean, that's exactly what it is. you know, for starters, you in that last clause of the second sentence, the you know, what has to be called i don't mean that in our current political sense, but sort of progressive view of the founders, that there would be causes for change there would be times where you had to and reconsider the principles and look at how to organize the powers of government so they

expected that they were empowering a people. they had the capacity to govern themselves, make adjustment to their institutions over time. so i see that as our job. i mean, i think that there are parts of our system where do need to recover older principles. for instance, i'm an advocate increasing the size of the house of representatives. i think the house. that's right. like all i think the house should be growing with the of the population and that's what they thought in the beginning and we gave up on 100 years ago so that would be an example of a kind of recovery job. on the other hand, also think that there are features of our system, for example, the rise of political parties that they couldn't even conceive of or understand. and so i think that we are due a reflection for ourselves on, you know, do we have the institutional mechanisms right to support having parties function in a healthy way in our democracy and you know they didn't even answer that like that's a piece of renovation we just got do for ourselves really

and there are a variety of things. and of course there the really, you know, the big and hardest fact of all, we're constantly wrestling with that at some level. the house wasn't ever built for everybody. as abigail adams said, as james sullivan said, as hall, who is one of those free african-americans who submitted the petitions in massachusetts, said. so we're still trying to figure out how do we actually build a house excuse me, how do we build a house by which i mean our political institutions. and that really is a house for all. excuse me. i'm sorry. it was really up on that. that's. so at any rate, just conclude the project is one of all the dimensions you mentioned some aspects of recovery, some aspects of new work and some of recognizing that who we are as people, as one people is is simply different now than it was. and requires its own due consideration. if we have time, we'll get back

to one people at the end. but i do see some hands up and i think so they're both over here. so we'll start with you, ma'am, and then use her. my my name is joe freeman. i write books on, women in politics. professor allen, as you know, property owning blacks and women could vote in new jersey until 1804. yep. now, if the revolution and the constitution was a quickening of rights, why and how was this right? taken away from those very few non white male property owners who could vote no? it's a terrific and important question thank you for. and yes, i it's one of the really striking dynamics of the time period between 1776 and 1826 is that you do get this democratization, this real expansion of the conception rights, a clear understanding of slavery as a moral contradiction. and then you begin to get reversals in various ways. so you do get a sort of turn in

the direction as professor webb said, of more aristocratic elements for the structure of government i'm constraining the franchise right, just as you've indicated. then separately got the arrival of the cotton gin, which changes the economics of slavery and really also dramatically changes the politics of enslavement. so again, this is a story of no society ever proceeds in terms single linear direction. there are always competing interests, coalitions and so forth. competing views about how society should shaped. and so i think what we do see in that early period of the country is progress. and a democratizing direction, and then retrench meant and then conflict and then further progress with regard democratizing elements. and the next question is right here, sir. okay. you made me need to do an intro because late eighties, nineties

i was jp hogan, carpentry and remodeling services in a yale, now helping build exhibits at the eli whitney museum. but on your separation of the idea on slavery and natural law the 3/5 clause to be in the constitution to these men who weren't in blast me be has to have a moral meaning. so it's like a 60% pass fail grade on if you have a so the people could be a people of the bible. it's a promised land and then they you a grading system where someone has to be first have english read the english bible. so it's not necessarily a race barrier in the cut tution, it's more you have to be able to read and understand the bible and be to 60%. but you take me back to this old house early episodes. i was doing it few people knew. that's the best used around here right. you know, i think this first, i have no skills with power tools, renovation or anything like, but i made the one point on which i might push back a is that the

antebellum were a positive good argument for enslavement. it was deeply grounded in in scripture in the old testament and in particular, if i lacking with power tools. i would just make. one remark that i think speaks very much to danielle's point about the fits and starts and do we think about what we want to retain and what we want to improve? one of edmund burke's most powerful, consistently used metaphors is architecture. and when he says when he provides standards for constitutional reform, one of the things he says is, i would make the reparation as much as possible in style of the building. so in other words, the question is, what are the principle goals that we're trying to be achieved and how do we return to to those which like that? so i agree with that. and then for me, i think what

matters just that we be able to see with clear eyes the real challenges that face making real and current conditions, the core principles of self-government and the structures that support that. let me just give you one really concrete example. of course, we struggle with problems of factionalism and, tribalism. we are not the first, as they also did in the 1780s. and of course, coming after the constitutional convention, they had the problems of, not being able to pass budgets in congress, not having quorums in congress and the like and the constitution of its purposes was to solve that problem, to solve the problem of faction, the language of madison we often teach federalist ten too to explain the solution there actually to dimensions of the solution in federalist. but we tend to teach only one of them. so the one we teach is the notion that representation is

going to be a part of the solution to the problem of faction right that you have esteem to people who will filter the opinion, help us achieve a sort of synthesized and kind of moderated course. but the second half of the solution madison, is that this is instead of being put aside direct democracy will use representation in a broad republic and that's what will make it work. it's the breadth of the republic that is to say literally as geographic dispersal will be a part of the solution. if you make the case that the reason for this is because people with more extreme views will have trouble finding each other. they will have go through representatives to get their views of the public sphere. geographic dispersal was actually one of the premises for how our system of representation was supposed to its work to mitigate the potential danger of faction doesn't hold any longer. so from my point of view, we have the job of fundamental redesign of structures of representation to precisely that

principle, putting the brakes on faction, dealing with the issue of, extreme opinion, and how do we make sure that we a kind of moderating set of structures in our decision making process? so that's recovering those core principles for sure. but recognizing that conditions have changed so profoundly as to put responsibility for design on our shoulders. you mentioned a federalist ten. reminds me we have glossed past federalism in this conversation in all our on our discussion of of one people and national. we should keep in mind that the declaration ends with the declaration that the colonies are free and independent states. so how do you think about states at the founding in this national majority and this one people. well, that is one of those you know, there are a couple of really critical edits that got made in the drafting process. and there was one point where they started out with colonies and then they changed it to states. i mean, that self-conception changed in the drafting of the declaration did so jefferson,

wrote subjects and changed citizens. all right. it happened in the work of continental congress, the conversations they were having, the drafting of this document, which was the moment in which ideas inchoate and not fully realized had to be clarified and committed to. and when people do that, they change themselves. they change their commitments they change the actions that are possible flowing from those commitments. so the declaration is truly where the concept of states the concepts of citizens of states came fully into being. anything more on that? i would say that this is what has get worked out fully in in the constitution. so in that eruption of enthusiasm as and that follows independence with constitution writing and in so forth. what madison says is laws state it matters very a supporter of of federalism is that if an

issue the whole nation it should be or you know some significant part of the nation it should be decided by national institutions and. if it is a purely local issue, then it should be decided by local by local majorities. one federal. ten with respect to national majorities. there are two other latent assumptions. one is not just that people can't fight each other. they fight each other quickly. yeah, i mean, they can. they can, right? but it takes and the assumption is that that passions dissipate. but other one that i think speaks to very much our present moment is the assumption that of minorities are not fixed. now, madison later recognizes that they are geographically with with respect to the issue of enslavement but but i think one of the things he he doesn't anticipate that goes to the question of modern factionalism is a vertical of if i agree with

you on a i agree with you on everything from a disease. so that shifting of coalitions is not is not happening. you know, i think we have time for one more question. i think i see a hand here. those two ends up. we'll get to both. hi, my name is andrew zach. thank you all so much. my question is for professor allen. i was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more about adam's role, the declaration. i've heard other scholars, including akhil amar, kind of make this point, but i was curious, you know, a what other kind of contributions he making? and then also maybe this is an act of historical imagining, but how how might we understand how adams was getting his ideas, the document when jefferson was the, i think, first draft or before the committee took it over. so so this is i mean, you know, adams was a very busy man in the fall of 1775. and that spring.

1776. and he was a busy man in. all the ways of somebody who's trying to get something done. so arm twisting and after hours conversations with people and clarifying his own thoughts for himself and setting himself. goals and tasks so in november of 1775, he and richard lee meet in his rooms one night, which are across from the tavern in philadelphia, where everybody gathered after meeting hours and they sketch a plan for how you would draft. it's three branches. it's i mean, it's got the kind of basic checks and balances principles. it's adams's idea. he it out to the following day. you know, lee's asked him for for a draft and that that sort of instrument for organizing the powers of government. they draft some kind of concept there have some principles attached to it. and he's starting to articulate principles about how do you protect the safety and happiness of the people.

he's a practical man. he's answering these questions, you know, trying to solve problems. new hampshire has no functioning government by this point. and they have asked congress to help them know what to do. and so the conversation between adams and lee is a response to their problem. all right. so he keeps doing this. and so they in new hampshire draft the constitution in january. adams draft something for massachusetts which is kind of a statement of principle about the direction things are heading in january. so he's all of his work like in the stuff of politics. then the april essay some thoughts concerning government is a formal account of that same constitutional sketch combined with the principles and. then, you know, as i said like you know he and richard henry lee, they're the ones who get jefferson the chairmanship of the drafting committee but they consult each other. i mean, you know, lee and adams are actually people driving the process and they have actually sculpture sculpted the architecture of the argument that goes into the declaration before the committee even sits down before jefferson sits down. and of course, he sends his first drafts to adams and franklin. they're the first people who contribute in a meaningful way

to it. and then the whole committee reviews. i mean, it goes to congress. right. and the last question over here. i thank you so much. so if you're there i'm here at aei. so the question i had was about the extent to which the declaration is meant for an versus internal audience and the role of relatively high levels of american literacy at the time. the role that would have played in the internal reception of the declaration. the question i take out or would you like to your expertise exceed exceeds mine. very much so. i would just i do think it i mean let's what facts be submitted a candid world to me the most the most salient point about the declaration as a whole in that regard is at least the incongruence, perhaps the rejection of paine's principle

that one need not justify a change of government that was so important had that belief that they had to justify themselves to the whole world. but one can just also track what happened to the text. so it was immediately printed and sent to the army and read to the army. remember 1337 words you don't have to read. all you have to do is here it was read everywhere in massachusetts town government read it out. it is in to this day the minute books of town councils all over massachusetts because it was just written into the minutes because it was read out loud. so that's what happened over the colonies. it took longest to get to george. they didn't get to hear it for a spell, you know. i can't remember. maybe four weeks or something like that before they actually got to here in georgia. but everybody heard it for sure. it was as as it was external. both audience. it's the whole world, the candid world at home and abroad. we only have a moment left, but i do want to end where we started with the declaration's

reference to one people of course that raises a lot of questions about politics and government today and we're not going to be able to exhaust the subject in 2 minutes. but just in a in a word or two, where should we start to bring us back to one people? greg. i don't know how to do it practically, but i do think some restoring the sense of shifting coalitions in breaking what i would call the vertical of, again, a. alignment on all issues, i think would be a start to i will agree at a very practical level. i would say abolish party primaries, but you are asking on a philosophical level think as well and to that i would say, you know, i would encourage the declaration of independence as a useful starting point to folks to consider their own relationship to that text. i think we have so many different kinds of relationship

to that text, but for each of us to have and come up with our own understanding of the text. i mean, that would be a thing. i think that would help have a sense of a common purpose, so to speak, for what it means to be a citizen of a self-governing society, of a free and equal citizens. well, honestly, that's the goal of this project. and we're so grateful to both of you for being of it. so please join