>> host: okay. two questions, to e-mails, professor maier about canada. this one is from michael o'grady of california. why did the 13 colonies break away from england when canada didn't? and secondly, along the same line, why didn't canada join in the effort for independence from britain? >> guest: canada was of course primarily french. and it was settled by the french and it remained french until after the french and indian war. that is in 1763, britain acquired canada. why didn't it come into the american revolution? well, the greater part of the people in canada in that part where french and they were catholic. and i've already expressed the rather powerful anti-catholic sentiment is very important in the 13 colonies.

i could understand very well the french canadians didn't want to come into this revolution. the canada we know was people who went to nova scotia, some went to québec, largely. so it was a result of the revolution that the canada we know is predominantly a british .. and subsequently there was something called -- canada invited in to settle their territory. you can well imagine a population that had a substantial component of loyalists might not have been the most excited about joining the united states. >> host: to e-mails about slavery. this is from noel in fairfield connecticut.

can you tell how many and which philadelphia convention delegates were also slaveholders? and from tim anderson in michigan, there were several are divisive issues discussed at the constitutional convention, particularly slavery? what kept the convention together with those controversial issues? why didn't the states walk out of the convention instead of compromising? >> guest: i have not seen a precise count of how many members of the convention had slaves. we know that it was the most important institution. south carolina, georgia, virginia, maryland. benjamin franklin was raised in a family that had slaves. he didn't have them i believe at this point in time, but people had experience with the institution. why didn't this -- well, why, one thing, why did they get

votes based on the basis of the slave population? basically because south carolina and georgia insisted that there be recognition of slaves, or they weren't going to join the union. and then other said representation for a percentage of the slave population you will encourage increased, and those were morally contemptible. which is why they limit -- they went into the slave trade for 20 years. they just didn't want this over them. there was hostility towards slavery in the convention. the result said why are we represent slaves? is it because they are people or property? if they are property, why are we represent slaves? these issues came up and were debated passionately. the constitution itself is a

bundle of compromises. as madison said, we have allowed the slave trade to go on for 20 years, two in georgia and south carolina in the union. george mason said, and he's a virginian, he said we should have let them go. he thought that the continuation of the slave trade was a mistake, although he himself wa >> guest: that slavery itself was unrepublican and habits were unhealth for the republic. you had critics in the slave states at the time. this is no really simple issue. how did they overcome the differences? nay overcame -- they overcame them with compromise. there was representation. delaware said we can do nothing that hurts the state, delaware,

you know, just shackled. pennsylvania through the colonial period and shared a governor. when they thought it through at new jersey joined, and others joined and compromised with what we know, equal representation in the states and senate and in the lower house. the result was atrocity among them was james madison who thought it was a violation of another republican principle. there's one compromise, and there's the compromises over slavery that indeed that the commercial votes would not need two-thirds votes to pass commercial legislation. simple majority, and in return, arguably the south got protection for the slave institutions.

now, what does this mean? it meant at the end of the convention nobody thought the constitution was perfect, and if you look at the final days of the constitution, one person after another say, well, this is, this is not what i'd hope for. hamilton said nothing was further from my idea of what we needed. madison wrote jefferson, it's not going to work, it's not going to hold the union together. franklin in his speech said i lot in here i don't like either, but i'm not sure we can get anything better. we should pull together. what they said is this is the best we can get under the circumstances, and those who supported the constitution really pulled together to get it rad mid as -- ratified as written for fear of changes would simple unravel. it approved overtime by the amendment process, and so we look at this as some saying item

that it's the creation of men more brilliant than anyone who walked the face of the earth before, i don't think the record supports that. between 1787 and 1788, the institution was not that icon. it was a punching bag. people said the most shockingly negative things about it, but once it was ratified, it was striking how the country pulled together behind it, and you started to get people thinking it was the divine origin and people just can't believe this is happening, but it really quickly took on that, you know, a quality. >> host: in fact, you write and are quoted as saying, "these were ordinary men doing extraordinary things." >> guest: yeah, and we still have people who can do extraordinary things if they are called upon to do it.

john adams said beautifully in the 1820s in the letter to a younger american, best i can tell there was my generation was no better than yours. in fact, he said shockingly, there weren't that many talented people in the population of 1776, so it was easier to make a reputation. he said among the younger americans that there are more people with college degrees, more educated people. the population had increased, so there was more people and even a given percentage of highly capable people and clearly the numbers were greater. i think in some ways the founders had more faith than posterity than posterity expressed in itself. >> host: professor, were any of the founding fathers harvard grads? >> guest: yes, there were

some. now, who do you include? turn this around now. do you include those only who were in the -- >> host: those i've heard of. >> guest: oh, yes, there was rufus king. john adams was important in designing the constitutions of the united states. he was not in the federal convention because he was in the diplomatic ora at the time. i'm very proud on my chapter on massachusetts because it made such a lovely story i think. i had the count of a main delegate who traveled to boston. i think there's nothing that gives you a better sense of how the passage of time than to explain what it took to get from

maine to boston in the 18th century. we can drive it in a few hours. it took him a week, and then he had to figure out who would take care of his horse in the convention. it makes parking in boston look like child play. i could take him down in the beginning and take him home in the end. the debates themselves were so rich and tense because it wasn't clear what the vote was going to be, and the federalists didn't want any votes until they knew that it was going to be in their favor, so they avoided votes. they didn't want the opposition to realize how strong it was. there was a lot of tension, and it's exciting, and i could bookend it with the trip from main. often they said that the federalists said the critics of the constitution were uneducated sort of, well, what would you

call it? oh, you know, hicks, and they were often farmers, but they also had a number of people who countered as educated in temples of the 18th century. they had a handful of harvard graduates among them. >> host: if you're interested in that textture and feel of the times, you recount the journey down from massachusetts of john hancock and john adams together as they come down for the second continental congress on july 4, 1776, the declaration of independence. you've been patient, and thank you for holding. you're on the air. >> caller: professor maier, everybody has seen the famous picture of george washington and the delaware, but i don't think most people understand how

incredibly brave and critical that move was. don't you think it's intrirly not only possible, but even likely that without trenton and without princeton, there might not even be a united states of america today? >> guest: it is critical. david does a wonderful job of describing washington's crossing, and they all say they couldn't have been standing up. he says they were standing up because there was a couple inches of slush in the bottom, and this was the boat used for ferrying across the river, and you stood up i guess. yes, the importance of princeton is part of the most important. december 7 and then early january, 1776 and then january 1777. it looked like the whom

revolutionary resistance that the cause of the continue -- continental was unraveling. they lost in manhattan. washington was retreating, crosses the delaware, recrosses it, and those two victories, minor though they may seem on the scale of great military victories at least stopped the downward spiral and through that winter as well as david fisher explains well, they reclaimed territory and put the british on the defensive. it really was a turning point in the part of the war. on the other hand, you know, if you say what if the army had been defeated? what would have happened? well, we have the story in the south later in the war, then, in fact, lincoln was defeated, gates was defeated, and before

greene had brought a third army into the field in the south, the war continued, but it continued in the devastating way. what is the earlier callers talked about the brutality of the war. we think of it in civilized terms as if it was, oh, lexington was conquered. in the civil war you had in the south after 1770, you have a civil war which is man against man, and it's brutal, nasty. it's bloody, and it continued even in the absence of armies. it could be it wouldn't have been so easy for the british to simply retake this country. >> host: but you do write in "american scripture" that the american battle and prince toll, it was after them that the declaration of independence was finally -- >> guest: distributed precisely. that's right. the congress had to think there was a possibility of pulling

this project off before they would distribute it. you know, their necks were literally on the line. it is interesting that they deferred distributing copies of the signed declaration through the fall, but i think the only viable explanation i can come up with is that the army was doing so poorly. >> host: from michigan, this is william, pictures revolutionary america as 50% loyal to britain. the loyalists were very badly treated. is this a true picture? >> guest: 50% is too high. in liberties exhyls said -- exiles said a fifth to a third. i think the fifth is a wrong. a third loyalists and a third

neutral and gives other evidences of it. modern historians have made estimates of the loyalist population which is not easy to do. you have to take something that's measurable and then moment ply -- multiply it to figure out what is the larger group this is representative of. paul smith took the number of exiles who fought with the british. another historians looked at those who filed claims and so on, but the general estimate is one in five of the population. of the population in the mid-1770s, that would be about a half a million people. there's about 60,000 by another more careful calculation, so

they are a minority of the loyalists. most vanished in one way or another to remain within the united states. the exiles, of course, are kind of the trip of those who were most alienated and really didn't think they could remain. >> host: was there a lot of fear and pair know ya in this country in 1775 and 1776? >> guest: i think there was a lot of fear. pair -- paranoia assumes the fears were irrational. i don't know if they were. what happened of course once the war began, the divisions became very serious. i mean, if the british are moving into your territory and, you know, john smith down the road is going to help them, that's the question of considerable importance to the security of you and your family. there were organized committees on the local level starting

actually with 1774 and the continental association which was of economic boycott program. we had local committees elected by those who were qualified to vote for members of the assembly who were to enforce the policies of the continental congress. i think they moved into a military character and so that they were anybody who was hanging back, well, you would get a visit from the committee. there's stories of people who found, you know, their cattle dead in the morning. the signal was there. some people did suffer physical attacks, and actually that's both loyalists and supporters of the revolution and loyalists of the revolution as well. when people moved into a territory, the people had to declare and the mass of the

loyalists flood into the british lines. they are gathered in new york, charleston, and savannah. >> host: next call from alan in port, washington. >> caller: you're impressive. i want to go back to college and sit in the front row of your class and ask a lot of questions. >> guest: well, i could use you. >> caller: i was thinking about the writer of the declaration, and i think he was a brilliant polymath. a few of the things i've read with his writings on religion, do you think he could be president of the united states? >> guest: i think he'd have an upward struggle to get elected today. he was probably too radical for the current temperature --

temper of the country. his great cause was what i don't hesitate to call separation of church and state. the point is always made that this phrase comes from his letter to the danbury baptist association in 1806 and that, you know, it certainly isn't in the constitution of the first amendment, but jefferson himself was, he drafted the virginia statute of religious freedom which is one of the most important documents in american history,1785-86 which basically said the state had no business passing any regulations with regard to religion. if that's -- the state of virginia out of the religion business, and it begins with those moving words. the god hath made the mind free.

religion was a form of opinion, and the state has no business in your mind, in your cranium. you can think anything you want, and the state should not be regulating for it. within virginia, they had a powerful political support from individuals who were not members of the established church which was -- they suffered legal discrimination of the past and thought the state should be out of the business as well. they had their own constituency and radical thought. it was not let it be said in ire religious position. the opening words make that clear and it goes on to say religion practiced only because of the support of the coercion of the state is hypocritical and distasteful to the almighty

god. it was itself religious, but the state had no business in religion. now, this was the cutting edge of religious freedom in the mid-1780s. it wasn't until the 19th century that new england states like connecticut and massachusetts got rid of their state churches, but this was the trend. >> host: back to your book, "american scripture," and how did you come up with the name? in your book you say you're uncomfortable with how the constitution and declaration of independence is presented in the archives. >> guest: i am. they've redone it. the national archives redisplayed it. the book is archaic, at least the description of the display is archaic. when i visited it, it was like an altar, and that particular configuration with certain changes, well, in particular

this went back to 1952, but they've done an altar-like device in the library of congress for the constitution and bill of rights, or parredden me -- pardon me, for the declaration of independence from about the 1920s, so they changed the display. it's not much more democratic. you can walk along and look at it which seems to me much more appropriate. >> host: from maryland. hi. >> caller: good afternoon. i think history is exciting. that was my major, and one of the greatest quote ises the past prologue of the future. i wanted your opinion on the fact that during the revolutionary war, it was earlier talked about the fact that what someone had said something about the effect of our revolutionary war around the world, but i can imagine that in

europe there must have been a stirs because we certainly had several of the great military leaders come here to help george washington during the war. >> guest: yes, yes. >> caller: it's been said, if not for that, we may not have won the war because their teachings and the disciplining the troops and that, and i'd like your opinion on that. >> guest: we had no engineers. whatever earlier wars, the french and indian wars where colonial troops were involved in a subsidiary function. the british engineers did the work. we were deficient. the revolution of the continental army was deficient in that category. foreigners made up for our lack of capacity in that area. i think the alliance was

critical. we talked about strainton and princeton, but it was zaire -- saratoga that was the turning point. it was there where the american victory was sufficient where we defeated the british army, and it allowed the french to say they could come in. they weren't going to come in for a cause that was clearly stated to lose, and the french alliance was necessary. why? the french brought in for one thing a navy, and the french navy was superior to the british at this point. in the course of the war, the british at one point or another held every major port. they held boston. they held new york. they held charleston. they held philadelphia. they could hold any part because they had command of the sea. now, suppose, you know, we've

reached a stalemate and the british held the ports and the americans held the interior. what's the logical result? they negotiated peace which would probably have kept want americans under the british crown. exit the republic. exit the revolution. a very different outcome, but the arrival of the french navy made a victory possible, and i think also, you know, the advice of the commander. look, the critical victory in yorktown was a siege. washington had never mounted a siege before. we had the expertise of the french officers to advise the continental army and how to carry on this war, and we had their navy and we have their men too. >> host: after yorktown, was there, i'm thinking of ve day here in the states, anything

like that? >> guest: well, the british had new york, charleston, and savannah. it didn't look like the war was over. was why it over? because when the lord got the news, he said, my, god, it's all over because he couldn't get parliament to replace the army. they were tolerant of the sacrifices they had to make for a war that didn't look like it was going to bring gains to the cost. he knew it was politically impossible to carry on. >> host: significance of benedict arnold. >> guest: oh, the greatest military hero of the american revolution to a point. you know, he was the great hero at saratoga. don't go into action, but he couldn't keep out of it, road his horse, he was shot and kept fighting. he could have been the greatest

military hero possibly except washington in the revolutionary war, but the congress was slow in, you know, dancing him. he sold out. he sold out to the british, the story of where washington discovered this treachery. it's the most moving story. i remember reading it in the library and not breathing as i read thing the because washington happened to be there and discovered it at the very last minute, but arnold fled and got away. it's a moving story, and then, of course, he was fighting against the americans in the southern theater. he was in virginia leading an army against the americans. i mean, -- >> host: successfully? >> guest: well, they almost captured thomas jeferson in

1781, and obviously they didn't. it was a question whether jefferson should be chastised by this by the virginia legislature, and they decided not to in the end, but it caused a terrific amount of fear and terror fighting against his own countrymen with the king's army in the south. his son's ended up in india, so building the empire. >> host: in washington, good afternoon to you. >> caller: good afternoon. could it be said, professor maier, the essential role or purpose of our constitution and bill of right and declaration is to protect the individual from government, and as some other historians pointed out, perhaps our flaw in our constitution was that unlike the deck declaration, the constitution

never mentioned the creator of god, leaves that out, but leaves slavery in. >> guest: well, the references to god in the declaration of independence were not jefferson's. with the possible -- two exceptions. the god of nature, and nature is god, and the god who endowed us with rights, but the references in the final paragraph were added by congress. these documents you mention have very different functions. i mean, the declaration of independence ends the old regime which opens the way for the designing of new governments. did the constitution -- was the purpose of the constitution to protect individuals against government? i don't think the founders would have seen it that way. they understood that the actual exercise of freedom demanded protection so they saw government as essential to the

operation of liberty to liberty in a practical sense. that is your security of property, for example, is rather weak without rule of law, without laws that define your rights, and with an infrastructure that will protect you against people who would just assume help themselves to what you have. liberty in a practical sense demanded rule of law for the founders. was it to protect people from government or the government to protect the rights of the people? if you read the second paragraph of the declaration, a summary of the revolution, government was created to help protect the people's rights. was the constitution a protection of slavery and not of religious rights? i don't think so. slavery was understood as something which was not going to be lasting forever, otherwise, why did they avoid using the word slave in the constitution?

with regard to religion, i don't think that, the lack, for example of religious qualifications for office meant that religion was unimportant. i think that people had come to understand that religious beliefs was important enough that it was a private affair, and that keeping the state out of that area was, in fact, a protection for people's rights, that the virginia statute said al almighty god wants the mind free and people should choose their religious beliefs freely and can follow those beliefs without any interference from the states. >> host: i'm a junior in high school and will be participating at the national level in the we the people.

my question is during the radification debates, some deeing gats argued that the traditional function of bills of rights to mark the limits of a king's prerogative made them irrelevant in republics where the people ruled. do you agree or disagree? >> guest: i disagree, and many people at that time disagreed. this was played out powerfully in the north carolina convention that you really didn't needs bills of rights in a republic, and james wilson of pennsylvania said we have a government that says what the congress can do, whatever we told, anything else they can't do, so it's dangerous to say, for example, in a bill of rights that congress can't interfere with freedom of the press if they have no power over the press. some lawyer could say it must have powers over the press that

aren't enumerated in article i section 8. this is why in the first ten amendments we say if -- really you can't read it that anything that's not granted is reserved to the states or to the people, and there was tremendous concern about whether it could be read in that way. no, jefferson made the strongest case on bill of rights. he said if nothing else, they educate the people on what their rights are and what they should hold the government accountable. moreover, and here he was way ahead of his time, if they are written out, they can be enforced in the courts. now here's way -- he's way ahead of his time at that point. he predicted the way the future would develop. >> host: patrick gavi from

baltimore, a student of david bers quinn, what founding father is most forgotten in history, but very critically important at that time? >> guest: langston smith. >> host: did he go to harvard? >> guest: no, no, founding father in a broad sense, not just who developed it, but got it instituted. langston smith was more responsible more than anyone else on getted it instituted. he ended his political career by voting for radification and brought 11 delegates with him. the country would have looked weird without new york. i think lan smith is somebody to raise our cups to. >> host: who was he?

>> guest: a merchant, some say a lawyer, but i don't think so. came from the hudson valley, moved to new york. >> host: what was new york's resistance to the constitution? >> guest: well the opposition was largely in the upper hudson valley. the lower counties, which, of course, are more commercially oriented favored the constitution because again, they thought a strong federal government would be strong for the economy. in the hudson valley, they read the constitution, and well, the reasons people opposed it were not irrational. they said it's the language is vague on critical points. it says there shall be no more than one member of the house of representatives for every 30,000 people. now, get your head around that. it's like a double negative. you have to think about it. they said it should say there will be one member of the house

for every 30,000 until the house gets to a certain size, and then you recalibrate, but it didn't, and they said this is dangerous. it leaves it all in the hands of congress. the rights of representation are more important to be left in the hands of congress. they should be laid out and defended in the constitution. it's not a stupid point at all. they said representation is so poor or inadequate that congress shouldn't be able to lay taxes that could well affect the welfare of the people. they don't know what the people can bear. it should be passed by the legislatures. you should have the chance to raise their part of a burden because representation is more than state legislatures. that threw people into high

argument. >> host: what is the role of economics and taxes in the trigger of the american revolution? >> guest: very important. i think the reason there was so many unrest is because it was high to pay state debts and one major contribution to the constitution was congress having had no taxing powers under the articles gets wall-to-wall taxes powers under the constitution. there's no form of taxes denied to congress. how are the state legislate legislatures going to support themselves? there's concurrent rights except with regard to taxing imports. well, the critics said, why doesn't it say that? some of the rights of the state were explicitly protected.

there's enormous concern about the taxes power of congress. this makes tremendous sense. the revolution was fired about taxes and representation. those are central issues for that generation, and they came up again in the debates of the constitution. >> host: i remember langston smith after that. >> guest: i surprised you, didn't i? >> host: yeah. >> caller: i can't tell you how much i'm enjoying this, three hours to be presented in a world of immediate sound bytes is so worth it. i represent the state of georgia, and we're working on a constitutional plan to go after a problem identified as civic illiteracy. we've been involved in this for 40 years, and it began with a document that we thought so important. it is signed by 56 senators and

195 members of the house. the first document ever signed by the entire body, and this effort is going to be so exciting. people are even calling it the last battle of the american revolution. >> host: ken, can i ask you a question? you represent the legislation in georgia, what do you mean by that? >> caller: our secretary of state at the time set it up for myself and a hand full of people to literally represent the legislature and advocacy of this. we became what he called the first lobbyists for the legislature which is the reverse of our experience where people would lobby the letture for something. >> host: now, have you, are you, have you ever been an elected official? >> caller: oh, no, i've done a

lot of things pretty much towards bad, but not that bad yet. >> host: okay. now, is there a website for your organization? >> caller: well, it's not an organization, but it's ourrepublicwalk.net. >> host: did you just want to acknowledge the professor or have a question? >> caller: in our effort to figure out what we're doing, we came across a historian with am herst college. he was incredible. we spent quite a bit of time with him back in the 80s and 90s. >> guest: i've never met him, but he was a distinguished member of the historical profession however.

>> host: have you heard of this group? >> guest: i have not. >> host: steve, hi. >> caller: hi, my question is you've already touched on it a little bit, but the establishment clause in the first amendment, a lot of educators today cite this establishment clause for, you know, prohibiting things like prayer in school and also things like any reference to christmas like you can't have christmas vacation and so forth. isn't that an exact corruption of the establishment clause when they say that because they are actually inhibiting the free thought, they are outlawing, you know, somebody that may believe in that, so when they cite that, are they incorrect or, you know -- >> host: thank you, steve. >> guest: well, the first amendment says congress makes a

law to establish religion and prohibiting the free exercise thereof. i suppose if it was required, everybody went to school on christmas, it would probably violate that. you know, what does it mean? madison himself gave it the most generous interpretation. he didn't think there should even be religious chaperons for army or for congress, but how it is interpreted over time has changed tremendously. i think these provisions to undercut the christian bias of our practices are well-meaning. i mean, are these practices offensive to nonchristians in our population? of course, the incidence of muslims has particularly increaseed. we have a substantial jewish population. are their rights violated by

provisions that -- by practices that are christian in nature? i think this is one of the concerns which have led behind, have been behind these practices. personally, you e -- you know, i think prayer has no place in public schools, and that, indeed that the big problem is that when we first started public schools, they were protestant. catholics felt they couldn't attend them. we want them to be so organized that anybody can attend them without feeling their beliefs are offended there. >> host: can you discuss the role of the vanderbilts in the american revolution? >> guest: i know nothing about them, so i guess the answer is no. >> host: denver, colorado, at the time of the constitutional convention, you mentioned there

were several written state institutions already, and the aim of writing a constitution. why did they seek a written constitution? where did the idea come from when england, the mother country, had no written constitution and none yet? >> guest: this is interesting. the time before independence, the colonies argued that they did and the stand backs were unconstitutional. to the britishs this made no sense at all because the constitution was basically the system. it's all of the laws, customs, practices, court decisions by which britain was governed, and this made no sense, but the americans had the idea that a constitution should be written. why? that's the question. well, several of them had written charters, and they had assumptions like what we recognize of that of a constitution. it laid out the structural

government that said what could do what and what could not do something else. others had a surrogate. it came with written instructions and had the same function. they had an experience of written documents that laid out the structure of powers in government. on the other hand, these with respect constitutions in our sense. they were issued by the crown, and somehow in their heads, the colonists confused their experience of the written documents with what was called a social compact that beings the basis that the government comes, the government comes out of a compact among the people who create it, and clearly their arguments made limit sense to the british. once they declare their independence, they have the challenge of trying to realize, in fact, this rather confused

idea that their head. clearly, they thought that the constitution should be written, and there are states writing them even before independence because the congress tells them well, write up a constitution for this period until we settle this mess with the british. south carolina and new hampshire have early constitutions that were meant to be temporary. virginia was told to do this. they didn't do it until they wrote a permanent one, that is one that didn't have a clear ending. then the question is how do you make these documents acts of the people? that was finally worked out, i think most successfully in massachusetts where on the insistence of people in the towns. the constitution was written by special delegates to a convention that did only this, that is it only drew up a constitution and then sent it back to the towns for rad

ification. this begins we, the people, of massachusetts, dot, dot, dot date, and establish. where have you heard similar words? the constitution clearly built on the massachusetts presence. >> host: 10 minutes left, this call is from arizona. >> caller: hi, thank you both for doing this. i'm so excited to hear dr. maier's disorration here like a previous caller. i'm so excited if i was close, i'd sign up to your class and sit in the front row. >> guest: i wish my students were so excited as having me as a teacher as your listeners are, peter. >> caller: my thought is one of the previous participants had said, i believe it was with madison, that he changed his views and became a republican,

and i was hoping you could explain the ideology or the comparison between the parties of the 1700s and the parties that we have today, the democratic and republican, so if you could do that, i'd appreciate it. >> guest: oh, this is a very big question, and there's a lot of ink spilled on this problem. basically, the radification of the constitution was -- there were no national parties in 1787 to 1788. we speak of federalists and antifederalists. i don't use that language actually. i don't use antifederalists unless the people described accepted it or it appears in a quotation because it suggests there were parties. there were no parties. national parties did emerge in the 1790s out of congress first of all in divisions over hamilton's financial plan and

over foreign policy, and here jefferson and madison became the leaders of what became known as the jefferson republican party, and they opposed the centralizing trend of the washington administration particularly in so far as washington being influenced by hamilton, and, of course, they didn't like john adams and his administration either, so you did get the beginning of a kind of party politics there. then they kind of die off by the 1820s, and emerge again, so you have the jacksonian democrats and what was known as the wig party, and they fall apart in the 1850s when you get the new republican party of the lincoln who opposes the old democratic party, and those actually were some tendencies still with us.

it's a complicated procedure, and there's a reason to question when we got modern parties. what a modern party demands is, i think, a respect for your opponent. you don't think the opponent is trying to undermind the state. did you accept the differences and willingness to decide who wins through the procedures of democratic politics without acquisitions of disloyalty, and i think certainly we're there by the 1840s and 1850s. >> host: john clark, columbia, missouri, you mentioned the origins of the american revolution. i suspect that they used the term ideology in the neutral sense of ideas. today the term ideology carries considerable negative connotations of the limited prejudice and unexamined

belief. >> guest: beautiful. i'm sure what he moment by ideology was a system of ideas, and, in fact, people think that ideology is just the ideals. it wasn't. it was a system of beliefs. that was described. i consider this a continuing contribution. earlier, one of your callers talked about every generation should dispute what the earlier ones said and contest all these interpretations. occasionally there's contributions to our understanding of events which are of enduring value, and i think our capacity to understand the events of the revolutionary period in materials of the ideas -- terms of the contemporaries was an enormous step forward. >> host: this is from jim. why didn't rhode island ratify the constitution? >> guest: well, it had a lot of paper money issued, and it wondered whether it would remain valid because article 1 section

10 said the states can issue nothing but gold and silver as legal tender. rhode island did this in order to address a tremendous problem it had with regard to its war debt. the amount it had to raise just in interest was over five times what the whole budget of the state had done before independence, and this was held -- the debt was held by a handful of speculators, and they were going to impoverish everybody in order to enrich a few. they tried to address this with paper money. they did it in ways that was certainly questionable. however, they worried what was going to happen to this whole effort, what would be the fate of their money if the constitution went that way. that wasn't really enough. i think there was also substantial opposition in rhode island to the constitution's provisions on slavery. rhode island had a very high incidence of quakers.

>> host: jim's second question. what is your favorite painting from the revolutionary period? >> guest: oh, my. i think i have a great affection for the portraits of revolutionaries. what would be my favorite? oh, my. what a question. i have never thought about this. i really love the portrait of pall -- paul revere, but his family apparently was embarrassed by this later. it meant he wasn't a high-ranking person, and didn't like this portrait. i love it. i love also the portraits he did one of mercy warrens before the revolution, and you see her in, you know, in this glorious satin dress. now, she became kind of a republican, you know, fierce republican, in all of this luxury seems so out of keeping

with our revolutionary ideology, but this is how people showed their status by having been painted in their finery especially before the revolution. if nothing else, it shows how the revolution changed values and the way people wanted to present themselves to audiences. >> host: who was copely? >> guest: one the greatest painters of the century. he was part of a loyalist family and he ended up, certainly through his career. a painter found little consolation in a republic country. he found more business in eng england. >> host: from illinois, a minute left. >> guest: eventually i'll get my 15 minutes of fame if i get to the show. i read a book called the america the possible, how or why our

constitution should be rewritten. i read it twice over the years, but not having a great memory, i can't summarize for it. i wonder if you know about that, and a book that's rather controversial looked upon eyes of liberals and conservatives and the history of the united states. >> guest: i don't know the first book, and i will confess although i understand howard's history is popular, i have never really read it. >> host: dr. maier is a textbook clerk in the 90s and handled thousands of copies of your titles. we are not actually guaranteed life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. this is based on what his 8th grade american history teacher said which was that the declaration of independence predates our federal government and is therefore not a document of that government.

>> guest: well, that is a rather radical argument. without, independence, of course, we would have no right to found a new government. i think it's a critical component to the american political system. are we guaranteed? we said god has begin us, our creator has endowed us rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. why is the federal government exempted from that? i disagree with that assertion. >> host: thought aaron berg was demonized in our history books. i'll leave it there because we are out of time. what do you think? >> guest: he has been demonized. he had a very checkered career. i think his contributions are

highly questionable. he certainly isn't bun of the agree heros for me. >> host: pauline maier has been our guests for the last three hours on in-depth. here's her four title, first book, "from resistance to revolution," american scripture, and radification which just came out last year in 2010. pauline maier, thank you very much. >> guest: thank you very much. this has been fun.

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