■h that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these markers appear on the right side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. it is easy to quickly get an idea of whand spend a few minutes on c-span's points of interest. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including charter communications. >> charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers, we are just getting started,infrastructure e who need it most. annor:e, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> next, the national

constitution center's jeffrey rosen talking about the founding fathers and tfollow to influencr political philosophy. and the formation -- how the formation of american democracy was rooted in the pursuit of happiness. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> thank you, everybody, for joining us this afternoon for conversation about a wonderful new book entitledw classical writers on virtue inspired the

lives of the founders and defined america." before we begin, i just wanto say today'is the latest in the series here at aei. this event and others provide a platform to host pmi to discussr forthcoming or recently released books on issues of international significance. we are very proud andr their trd their deep commitment to our mission. our guest■ today is my friend jeffrey rosen. jeff is one of the nations leading writers on the supreme court and constitution and the author of several books on the juic work, and for the last several years he's been the ceo of the national constitution center. >> the only institution in america chartered by congress to increase awareness and understanding of the constitution among the american people on a nonpartisan basis. >> in addition to being the ceo

of the constitution center, he coue be the author of some of the most constitutional books today including the book we are discussing today. jeffca title of the book? the pursuit of happiness, of course we know where that phrase comes from, the declaration of do you mean guide here in this book? what is the pursuit of happiness? >> from reading the philosophies that inspired jefferson, is it happiness for the founders meant virtue -- orood, but being rather not the pursuit of pleasure, but the pursuit of virtue. they had something very particular in mind, was self-government, self-mastery, character improvement, fulfilling your potentialld achd

of tranquility that allows you to serve others. classical definition of happiness. it comes from aristotle who famously defined happiness as an activity of the soul in conformity■2 virtue. but those terms are not self defining so you have to dig into the moral philosophy to realize that for the fouerf the soul is temperance, or balance, or tranquility of mind. and the ancients draw a distinction between reason and passion that is very important. it comes from pythagoras, who talks about the three parts of the soul, reason in the head, passion in the heart, desire in the stomach. it talks about using a reason to temper or moderate our passions or desire so we can achieve that temperance and harmony which is virtue, which is reason,■1 happiness. the fact that it is completely

unfamiliar to us today is remarkable, because this is the unprevails in most of history. it was taught to the founders and a central part of their universe and has just been lost today. >> we will return later to the question how and when it was lost. and of course we will talk it. just remind everybody at the outset, there will be a chance for everybody to those who are g the livestream at home. if you'd like to submit a question online, you can submit it via email, you can get it on the events webpage, and you can also submit questions online where all of us pursue happiness, at#aei pursuit of

happiness. how did this book come about? you've written about justice brandeis and you've written over the years in your journalism at the new■=ublic, the atlantic, and elsewhere. what brought you to write this book, which i think is very different from what you have been writing over the years? >> it was a very unusual covid reading project. it came about in this way. i was rereading franklin's famousperfection. i'd seen this before, he's in his 20's and decides moral perfection by making a list of 13 virtues that he wants to practice every day. temperance, prudence, order, cl, and he save the one he finds hardest for last, humility. he decides to make a chart and each week he■ will pick a different virtue to focus on and he will make an smart where he

fell short. found it depressing but he thought he a better person for having tried it. i knew about this because my friend and i had practiced franklinyste at the recommendation of our local rabbi here in d.c.. recommended a jewish system of r, which we didn't know at the time is the franklin system translated into hebrew. there was a hasidic rabbi who left franklin and put it into he view -- hebrew. so we tried this for a while and wend up. but we thought we were better for having practiced it. during covid i noticed for the first time that franklin chose as a model for his system a book by cicero i had never heard of. ■the model was without virtue, happiness cannot be.

a few weeks later i was on the uva campus and saw that thomas jefferson had made a list of 12 virtues for his daughter to practice, and they are almost identical to franklin's. if angry count to 10, a very angry, count to 100. at jefferson to pop, when he was asked for the core meaning of virtue and asked to define happiness would give a passage from cicero from this book that says that he who has a mind was neither exalted by wanton exuberance or unduly despondent, he is the tranquil soul who has a happy man. so i figured up got to read this book, it was so important to franklin and jefferson. found this golden reading list that jefferson would send

out to kids who were going to law school and people who asked life how should i be educated? it has a rigorous schedule where you have to wake up before read until sunrise, watch the sunrise, moral philosophy early in the morning, history in the late morning, lunch, then geography and astronomy and lighter subjects, and after dinner, some shakespeare and then tday. what drew my eye was the section called ethics for natural religion. at the top of was cicero's dissertation. marcus a really us, as well as some enlightenment philosophers, hume and■@ francis hutchinson. i thought i had to read these books, it's a gap in my

education. ■ s at wonderful universities, and i was an english major in college, studied politics andy and law, t missed these books of moral philosophy that were so important to jefferson. so during, i developed an unusual practice. i was inspired by jefferson, so for the first time ever i would get up before sunrise, read for an hour or test oh, watch the sunrise, and then i found myself writing these sonnets to sum up wisdom that i'd learned. i realized is very difficult to write sonnets. it was just the urge to kind of sum up the wisdom because it was so precious and harmonious and symmetrical. i discovered that all these people in the founding era wrote sonnets when they read the wisdom.

john quincy i later learned, would wake up in the white house, read cicero, watch the sunrise, and right sonnets. that was what the project involved. it was completely transformative because it both changed my understanding of the pursuit of happiness and help me see the founders understanding of personal self-government and political self-government. but the most significant take away if i can share it right now was liberating , radically empowering practice i had gotten out of the practice of reading outside of my job or my immediate deadlines, and just taking the time to dig in deep created wonders that i had forgotten, and i'm so grateful to have rediscovered this practice. >> you survey figures and

next-generation thinkers like lincoln and frederick douglass. lincoln, hamilton, whifranklin,e spectrum of. yet they all came around to this. how was it that they all were brought to this? ■utwven that they came from such different backgrounds or educated in such different ways. jeffrey: it must be the shining idea, embodied in this wisdom. isn't it remarkable? think of phyllis wheatley, the great african-american poet who is literally brought ern chains, but she is educated along with her masters children,

and she reads this classical will -- classicalreads virtue, t the importance of self-mastery. think of frederick toklas -- think of frederick douglass who has by reading lessons on the street of baltimore with bread. he pays boys to teach him how to read because his master has forbidden him from being taught how to read. at that moment, he felt he was more crushed than when his body liberty was taken aw. he learned how to read and he finds this book called "the colombian order" the fate -- which he pay■[forhas experts of. it resolves him to become the greatest freedom fighter and abolitionist of his time. you can get it in the great universities, you can get it from readers like the mcguffey the self-taught taught lincoln and douglas got it from.

it is a shining example of how this wisdom belon t everyone, and it is an extraordinary affirmation of the potential of individual, and the ability of the individual through self-mastery and self-improvement, to achieve a moral perfection. it is the duty, as well as the opportunity and right, of each individual to liberate him or herself. adam book, you dedicate each chapter to a different one of the 1uss along the way, fran, jefferson, hamilton, madison, and others, they come up throughout the book. the way you structure the book is to center eache■ discussion,t least initially, around one of the framers. you begin fitting with franklin, foring the centerpiece of the chapter on temperance. resolution, george washington's

self command. rick douglass. may be my favorite is the counterexample, frugality, james wilson and george mason's death. how did you settle upon one founder versus another for each chapter? you could have easily dedicated, say, hamilton or adams to the chapter on industry. you chose jefferson. why was -- how■8 was it that you settled upon each one? jeffrey: absolutely. there is a kind of discretion in choosing who to match with which virtues. all the virtues are part of the family of the four classical virtues, which are prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. it is not a neat connection, but i thought it wasyou have to tely through people. it is all about biography. and then to try and show how

they match the virtue or not. some are obviously more obvious than others. ■d had to be hulity for john adams, because he struggled so mightily with it. most famously, self regarding of all of the founders. ■ his rotunda d in wanting to call the president has elected majesty. constantly beating himself up for his own suppose it vanity, and then overcoming it so movingly in his reconciliations with thomas jefferson. that was how i made the choice. adam: let's start with one of the most straightforward choices. resolution, your chapter on resolution centered around fort washington. washington famously in his upbringing, his education, self-education, in a w, only b, explicitly put the pursuit of virtue in a stoic sense for the

purs of happiness in virtue at the center of his self comportment. can you tell that story? jeffrey: washington becomes even he is the most respected, the most revered leader of his time, because of his self-mastery. and he is so self-conscious life to master his temper and his emotions, so that he can achieve that columndefined happiness. he read it not in the original, but in seneca, in the great translation. and in the spectator, the magazineand in popular moral ph. he has a very hot temper. the great biographer of washington things it may have come from his hypercritical mom who was always nagging him to be

better. control himself. it is at his moments of self-mastery that he is greatest. and at newburgh, when the soldiers are about to rebel because they have not been paid by congress, and they want their backpay, and there is a danger of miny, he mounts this wooden stage called the temple of virtue" from his favorite play which talksut the consolations of calm and mild philosophy. the play he has performed for the tricks. and thenis going to read his speech and struggles to read it, and takes out his reading glasses and says "forgive me, gentlemen, i have grown old and your service and now i am almost growing blind." it is the first time they have seen him acknowledge his frailty, and people weep because the great washington is human. but it is that combination of candor■5 and self-mastery that

makes him such a great leader. people almost never see him lose his temper in pli you times he . it is all the more notable. when he goes to congress and feels disrespected and storms out and says i will not come and personally wait on you again. ■othere is a great section in henry adams novel "democracy," where the river, they look at mn and they have to have a debate about the meaning of washington. what is at stake is nothing less than the meaning of america. and was he a paper figure who ad the virtues that had no substance? as great as he was reputed to be? and it seems that he was as great. and in mastering his temper, and en abandoning the opportunity for a life term and returning to his farm, he embodied the classical virtues so well.

adam:account of washington and his work to contain his anger, his frustration, it account of dwight eisenhower. a couple years ago, eisenhower himself, havg anger and ways tot away from his work. and i think it is striking, the other thing they have in common is that they were presidents, also generals, they were executives of a kind. washington, the fact that he was fueled by certain things, might have made him uniquely well suited to be president, a but he had to contain it in certain ways. we will circle back to that. i want to talk about phyllis wheatley. surely the least well-known of the figures in your book. and i really love the fact that your book is bringing her back to public attention. could you tell the story of

phyllis wheatley and i think it is sincerity, her chapter? jeffrey: what an extraordinary story.ey comes over as a teenager, enslaved, in chains. she is given this improbable classical education and she begins to write these poems of virtue. and they are recognized as extraordinary. they are so extraordinary, that the town o boston decides she has to prove she wrote her own poems. and in this remarkable trial of phyllisofessor gates calls it, presided none other than john hancock, along with cotton mather and all of the where these of boston, they examine her remotely on her classical learning. and she passes the test, and they gravely assert that she has written her nmsthen she becomesn international celebrity. and she goes to london and she meets royaltyan opera -- the

oprah winfrey of her day. she sends them to george washington, who acknowledges her genius, and says he is extremely grateful to be the beneficiary of them. she comes back voluntarily to the u.s. on the promise that she will be freed, because the somerset of food -- decision would have allowed her to stay in britain and be free. is freed. and she publishes a second volume, and then dies in freedom. is one founder who receives her genius less hospitable he then george washinon, and that is thomas jefferson. in a shocking passage in his notes on the state of virginia, he compares wheatley with roman poets who were enslaved, and says that wheatley's poetry is beneath contempt. essentially that no black people

poetry because black people are intellectually inferior. he says, this is a suspicion only, he wants to be proved wrong. but the degree of his racism is shocking. it's not shared by washington or franklin, who claimed her genius, or many of the other founders.it reveals the fact tht jefferson's hypocrisy on slavery was both that was unusual even by the standards of his time, and also in his avarice. it is really the question, how was it that these founders who claim to be so devoted to virtue and self-mastery frugality, could rely on enslaved labor to make their lifestyles possible. and what is so striking to learn is they didn't even try.l)theren from patrick henry, where he gives the give me liberty or give me death speech, quoting

from cato's letters, and he says, is it not amazing that i myself -- i will not justify it, i will not attempt to, it is simple avarice or greed. that is just a moment of remarkable self-awareness. he does not try to justify it and say it is right. not want to give it up. in jefferson and herm -- in his moments of candor what -- what attacked south carolina and of course, he more than anyone else in hisxc constructen it'll, whose education of the life of reason labor, of whom the centrally enslaved people are his own children. the level of self-denial that

was necessary to sustain this fantasy is striking. but it is striking and important to pair the genius of phyllis wheatley is an incredible achievement, inspired by this classical learning founders who recognize the hypocrisy as a form of avarice in classical terms. adam: this past are told, it was peak cherry blossom season. which means thousands of upon thousands of americans are wondering by the jefferson memorial. they passed■q through the memorl and and there is jefferson's statement. i tremble foremember god is jus. jefferson himself was well aware of many of the moral compromises and hypocrisies of his generation, of himself. what should we learn from? what you learn from jefferson's self uerit was not so much thats

blind to his hypocrisy. but he was very much aware of it. after thinking and writing about jefferson's self comportment, selfn, self understanding, what do you take away from that, how he saw himself, and the question of slavery? jeffrey: he had a remarkable capacity for self justification and compartmentalization. a protean figure who is divided against what he felt in the beginning. is two justifications for the e locates american liberty and the ancient myths of the saxon path -- past. and when that fails as a justification for revolution because parliament denies it, then he turns his gaze to the universal rights of all humankind. history, both

jefferson and his followers have sometimes invoked this exclusionary myths of liberty for white■ men, and others universal promise of liberty for all human beings. jefferson■3ecogom the beginning. he knew that slavery was at odds with the universalist's impulse. what is jarring about jefferson is the -- is he co less inspiring over the course of his lifetime and kind of doubles down on slavery. never justifying it but always insisting it has to end at some point in the distant future that is always receding and the horizon. áthe um for my country quote comes as he sees the missouri compromise. and says, -- and he sees nigh. and is always unwilling to take the steps for himself or for the

nation that would actually end slavery. he becomes all the more hypocritical because it is his own unwillingness to give up the eads him not even to free his own children until his death. he always incests that no generation --generation. he wants a constitutional convention every 19 years. almost suggests the bank is unconstitutional because any death can't be passed on from one generation to the next. yet heing debts to his own daughters and his enslaved population has to be sold on his debts with children separated from theirar think ito grapple with jefferson, because jefferson articulated the

american ideal. in the idea based on government by remains the american idea. but his own inability to live up to those ideals during his ■e■hlifetime makes him our most conflicted founder. adam: this is peers speculation, but i'm curious. since he spent so much time studying jefferson's education, his self formation, do you suppose his particular education, his moral formation, his philosophy, made it easier for him to live with this hypocrisy or harder? jeffrey: temperament was averse to conflict of any time -- of any kind. ad a horror of conflict, and a sensitivity to papering over differences with romanti had suf

the perfectibility of human reason,conflict was a horror to. i wonder whether, where in his upbringing, it came. he was devoted to his dad who died when he was 14. it was when his dad died that he writes in his commonplace book these excerpts from cicero's consultations to console himself. it is incredible that jefferson's main source of happiness is cicero's manual on grief. himself consolation at the loss of his father. what was his relation with his mom? he almost never referred tocold reference a year or so after she died. he wrote to one of her relatives and said, my mother, you may have heard, died the other day. the crops have been good recently. he papered it over. many have scut he was estranged.

one scholar says it was his misogystic on the excerpts in his commonplace book from milton, which seemed misogynistic. but milton was not -- who knows if it was that. but i think there was some aversion tot that led jefferson to paper over these differences through romantic abstractions. and it was that bad allowed to live with these contradictions. adam: interesting. in this building here, a lot of us think a lot about madison and hamiltof course, one of the chai gravitated towards when i opened the book was your chapter on hamilton and madisonration. maybe one more example. what did we learn about moderation from hamilton and madison? jeffrey: first of all, he has an amazing book about the constitution, for which madison

is a hero, and i can't wait to discuss his great book. he is absolutely identify madison with moderation, in moderation is the touchstone of the constitabout t papers as well. what i learned by applying this lens of morals and the constitution, was that for madison, the constitution was itself ancation of the faculty psychology that he had learned at princeton from president witherspoon. suddenly, i underd light as a manual for what matters -- what madison and hamilton called public happiness. what is the connectionnd political self-government? which i had not seen before reading this moral philosophy. madison learns from witherspoon that just as individual has certain faculties or powers like

reason in the head and passion or emotion in the heart, and desire in the stomach. so does the constitution of the state mirror these faculties with energy executive, and tempering in the senate, and desire in the house. for example. 2 recognizes that the goal is to achieve the same harmony and balance and tranquility in the constitution of the state that we achieve in our own souls. that is why the whole system is designed to slow■ down deliberation. to prevent our immediate impulses so that we conserve our long-term interest. e definition of virtue for both, on the personal and political level, is essentially impulse control. resisting our immediate emotions so we conserve our true and substantial happiness.

that is why it is so significant to realize that the definition papers is an argument about the importance of the primacy of a reasonable fatback -- passion. fashion is any group, a majority or minority, animated by passion rather than reason devoted to self-interest rather than the public good. that is by madison says in all large assembliesf any fails to rest, even if every athenian had been socrates, athens would have been a mob. these are familiar quotations from the federalist papers. the antithesis between passion and region -- reason,hiuitous ie to understand is rooted in this moral psychology that also is applied to individuals. between the moral and political

psychology of the ancients rooted in pytgoras, applied by aristotle and cicero. and it was just rediscovering the private happiness that see it in a new light. this is why all of the authorities say that the primary goal of this state is public happiness, which i of leaders a. and that is why the federalist papers are a manual for blick happiness. the natural place to transition is what this means for self-government today. madison's system, the constitutional system, was one where he said, it is government fit for men who are not angels. the idea that ambition will counteract ambition. that is because we have the system of checks and balances, that is what is going to create moderation in government. it is not counting on individuals to necessarily all

be moderate, but it is a way to take a moderate politics channel it into something that in the end, receives moderation. what does your book or the lessons that you explain in your book, what does that tell us about actual government in america today? jeffrey: it is2÷ both. you are so right to pick the famous ambition counteracting ambition. which is an application of the there are these various unreasonable passions, and by clashing against each other by titutions that separate and divide power, we ensure no reasonable passion can too quickly prevail. although madon assume that men are angels, if men were angels, no government would be necessary. but without some virtue, there is a possibility on citizens to devote themselves to

the pursuit of virtuous without that, then the whole premise of the federalist papers, which is to test the pop -- the proposition that it is possible to conviction, not by force or violence, collapses that is why madison is struggling at the end of his life happiness through te education of public opinion. and he is now reading condor say, which he gets from a trunk of a books that jefferson sends from paris. he is struck by the idea that a new class of enlightened jour%ynalists will come up by slowly diffusing reason through the new broadside press, and other media -- and other media technologies, allow citizens to educate themselves to absorb complicated arguments, to deliberate with each other, and with their representatives, sson can prevail. that poses some grave challenges

for us today. because it is republic of instagram or x, for whatever it's called, or facebook, is the opposite of the republic madison envisioned. although the system is designed to ensure we don't put all of our in the individual virtual -- virtue without some degree of a willingness to resist anmmediate impulse on the part of citizens, they will fall prey to demagogues. that is why the grave threat of s will not find the virtuous self-mastery to resist the important nations of flattering demagogues. thhey will surrender liberty for cheap luxury. and that the republic will fall. that is why the combination of media technologies that are sleeting up deliberation and

amplifying the voices of anger and reason, along withich is leading leaders not to achieve moderation and compromise, but to play to their■c base and enre to engage, is such a great threat. adam: speaking of social media, we are still welcoming questions on twitter p thank you very much. to be fair, the same medicine has said, we need checks and balances because men are not angels. he is the same madison who wrote that republican government presupposes certain virtues more than any other form of government. i in part of government. as i have been thinking through similar themes, i tried to focus not just on virtue across the board, but on virtue and the particular parts of government. what makes a virtuous judge versus a legislator, versus president. discussion of washington, and this ambition, this often

frustration that really did mark him, it probably both made him a great executive and also, iheers undoing. he ultimately was a great president because he was able to bring these things under control. how do you think about his virtues in conjunction with the particular parts of government? put it this way, since he spent so much time so -- ti studying e virtues you catalog here, if you had to pick one for judges to think about, what would it be? not to put you on the spot. jeffrey: prudence is a fine virtue. it was striking that it said that only old men should serve as especially in death penalty cases, because they alone have known the joys and

challenges of raising children. and adams has that amazing passage where he is looking up at the portraits and says only sad men should be legislators. %l -- adam: legislators in this town are pretty sad, actually. jeffrey: and many are pretty old. the idea -- and of course, the virtues are all part of a family virtues of the harmony of the soul. it's not like one can be exalted over another. the idea of moderation, or pressing a particular vision of the constitution over all others, rather than recognizing that as justice holmes said, the constitution is made for peo with fundamentally different points of view, suddenly helps us understand why hol

and the famous quotation from learned hand that liberty is the spirit seems -- adam: now that you mention it, think of the epitome of a judge, someone who is old and wise and we now have a country where executives are old and judges i am not sure what that means. one of the criticisms of our foy

they were not stoics. >> it's urgently and weren't to recognize that all of the rely, no contradiction bwechristian a- the criticism comes from theocrat's who insist we are and the founders intended to embrace a vision ofanity and this is completely on some ordered.

the beef me but from thomas jefferson's inhappiness. it is very importaorecognize thd most celebrated of their all saw no contradiction bthe wt that a purpose driven life could be achieved by reason and reflection, not your authority or religious dogma, and all of

the founders -- some who became more practicing of christianity -- reject what jefferson called the monkish superstition that would take ideas -- the founders all believed we have to be free to speak as we will. that is both unconstitutional and a violation of the freedom of conscious t put that truth on anyone else. that is the purpose of the because. why is it unalienable?

re inherent in who we are and i can't surrender to you my power to control my thoughts and beliefs. it is important to stress that the virtues are jumping off the four classical virtues and not three of faith, hope and charity. this was not a coincidence because they belie be free to s they please. it is a complete misreading of m understated the role of faith or overstated the role of stoics.

of the christian sources fight back to cicero. adam: to be fair, the foundingg. i do wonder if it was needed to form virtuous citizenry. there is this question. , the structure of government. break he, they did seem to think you needed some type of religious formation. >> absolutely. without religion they said morality is impossible.

it is important to recognize all sources see the pursuit of happyness as a spiritual quest. the agents believed in a duty to align yourself with the divine. gq)■8 w so for me to see the connections. adams was so excited when he learned pythagoras might have read the hindu and adam sees the connection between eastern and ■lm. they talk about the n that only by abandoning attachment to the external results of our action can read -- brandeis also

recognizes the pursuit of happyness is a spiritual quest and that the founds saw an opportunity for a spiritual whether this is serious. it was his definition of the action pursuit of happiness in order to serve long-term interests. he thought the main thing was the spirit of religion. the question of whether the decline is an important

contribution to the abandonment of the traditional definition and question. adam: to be fair, one can make the mistake and assumenly religion will implicate this. your study reminds us that it is more than just religion. focus on education. one of the things that deserves greate attention is the fact that they were formed by communities, they came through government at the local level. one other of was how virtually all of the figures you study were practical.

careers outside of government, being professional philosophy. hamilton was a lawyer. adams, washington and jefferson we pjefferson was a businessman. madison might affect police practical -- i wonder how much the factha■t they had practical lives in arrears might have needed the formation. i sadie ette someone who runs a number off it. maybe there is something about practical careers outside of government that might have helped with the formation.

>> i'm sure it did. what is so inspiring is it is a philosophy about how to live. franklin encapsulated it. really, what united all of the education was the take away of the pursuit of virtue is a daily requires daily habits. they are assessed with schedules. they get up at the same time. they are mindful about what they eat.

they are looking to the great examples from history. not for abstract ideas about the meaning of life but for practical advice of how to live. as well as that of the ancients and you just want to get up earlier. adam: is this a guide for achieving greatness? all of the figures in youre gret turn out to be great leaders. what is there to be learned for those who don't aspire to that kind of greatness?

those who want to live their lives? is this for them? it is a self-help book for all of us that are struggling to achieve happiness. the most liberating take away i got is the power of deep reading. a habit i took away from covid and it just blows my mind that i was able to write the whole sitting on my couch at home because all of the books in the world are now online. i was a kid i went to the library of congress and i was so filled withwere there.

now they are on my iphone. all i needed to do is have the self-discipline to read them. so it's about politics. disease. it's very liberating.