>> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org now one book tv lardy expense ten current political social issues from the national debt to health care and gun control and presents his thoughts on what america's founding fathers would think about each topic. the stock had books and company and beaver creek ohio is about 45 minutes. >> ..

>> and it struck me that while every american needs to know those documents, also you should have some context as to what those documents mean? what was in the hearts and minds of the founders when they wrote those things? for example, words don't mean the same thing over time. what did they mean at the time when they used terms such as militia or religious freedom? it's important to know that. so i took 10 events that were on the minds of americans about a year and a half ago, and i think for the most part those 10 are still on our minds. for example, what would the founders say about bailouts? well, the short answer we don't need to worry about what they say. we can see what they did.

in 1791 there was a financial panic and alexander hamilton was the secretary of the treasury and spent a lot of time in new york. and became secretary of the treasury and somebody who had just overseen the creation of the bank of the united states. hamilton had a tremendous personal interest in making sure this whole thing didn't unravel the minute he got it in place. what do you do when there's a financial panic and the large banking house collapse? he let it collapse. the guy's name is william duer. hamilton said you brought this on yourself and you live with the consequences. because of duer's consequences didn't go to everybody else, hamilton urged the bank of the united states which despite its

name was four-fifths private and he urged the bank of the united states and he didn't tell them they had to. he said look, i'd appreciate it if you see some banks in trouble, see if you can help them out but don't help deur. now, that's the quick and dirty answer on quick bailouts. you have to understand all the founders' primary concern, number 1, numero uno was with national security. so what would they say about a company like lockheed. i would say based on how they acted in other instances they would have grudgingly failed a bailout of lockheed because supplied the united states at the time of its top planes. you could have made an argument they would have supported the

chrysler of the 1980s but not the chrysler of 1980s. the chrysler made the tanks be in fact they were our own tank manufacturer and it's interesting when chrysler comes out of debt and repays the government loan and kind of comes back to health, the main way they do so is by selling off the tank division and plowing that money back into the company. so i think you can make the argument that there are instances where the founders would support bailouts but they are strictly limited to anything that has to do with national defense and national security. what about debt? this one is a no-brainer, folks. it's a no-brainer. not one of the founders supported heavy levels of debt, and i include hamilton whom i argue and what would the founders say gives a bad rap, gets a bad rap from most

conservatives. i don't think hamilton ever intended for the u.s. to have debt of this magnitude. if you read closely hamilton's views in his arguments to set up funding and assumption builds the report and public credit 1791, what he argued was essentially that the u.s. needed good credit, not a lot of debt, credit, as any parent knows, you give your kid a credit card that has a very small limit and your goal is to have that kid go out and use it and learn to pay his or her debts by dealing with small amounts of credit before they have to deal with large amounts of credit such as a car or a home. this is what hamilton had in mind. he was not a debt monger. he was not one of those guys that as many conservatives like thomas d. lorenzo try to endebt us to everyone. quite the contrary, hamilton sets up something called a sinking fund. and the sinking fund is the

early american equivalent of the american express card. it says congress, you've got to pay off your old debts before you get to generate new debts. now, how long does it take congress before it gravitates into the american -- into the mastercard visa version of debt instead of the american express version where you just keep raising your limit and raising your limit and, you know, the federal government unlike you with your visa card finally -- you do finally reach a limit. the federal government apparently never does. so hamilton tried to set up a system with a sinking fund where the government was carefully limited as to how much debt it could undertake and that it always had to pay this debt off. and his goals was twofold. one, to make sure that foreign states gave us credit when we needed it, especially, in times of war. and second, this is kind of strange, hamilton and jefferson greatly agreed that government had to be closely watched for tyranny. the difference was jefferson

feared a tyranny of the elites and the moneyed people and hamilton feared a tyranny of the majority. he was afraid that the majority of people would get hold of the public treasury and vote themselves the treasury. hamilton's system aligned the wealthy in a government in such a way they were beholden to government so that they would always come to the aid of government, in other words, he wanted to get the rich people behind government so that if the government gets in trouble, the rich would aid government. and so what happens? in 1793, you get a panic, threatens to totally destroy the united states. we are bankrupt. and president grover cleveland, whom i call the last good democrat, he's the last democrat that believes in following the constitution as far as i can tell -- cleveland asks for help and who shows up to help him? jp morgan, the most wealthy banker, the most powerful banker in the country and morgan gives the u.s. government a alone of

$480 million in gold. in other words, back in the day, the private sector bailed out the government. the banks bailed out the government, not vice versa. so what would they say about debt? none of them wanted debt to the extent we have it today and i think they would be appalled at where we are today. a couple of other topics here. what about the environment? this is one of these topics where the founders didn't have a lot of environmental problems as we would define them, so you have to read between the lines and see how they dealt with other issues related to the environment. for example, i think you can learn what they would say through the environment about their treatment of land. what was their policy on land? well, the first thing we learned about the founders' view of land, they thought every person

should own land. jefferson especially who's ordinance is felt was of the view you needed to get land out of the hands government which was the major land holder back then and get it into the hands of private individuals. so in the land ordinance of 1785, congress, based on jefferson's writings, sets up a system in which the modern day northwest territory, that would be us here in ohio, was surveyed and sold off at dirt cheap prices, about a $1.25 an acre. and again, it was to get it out of the hands of government because people will make the better choices as to how to protect the land and the environment. and moreover, the government should not be a landowner because in europe when you got kings, they tended to own a lot of land, then they got to tell people what to do. now, there were a couple of things that went along with that, landownership.

one was they expected people to do something with the land. you didn't get to just hoard land and sit on it like a european land baron. so there were a number of interesting sub of laws that started to come in to effect, one was squatters rights and preemption and with squatters rights and if you could find land and sit on it for seven years and don't get kicked off, that's your land. and this even occurs if you're sitting on land that, quote, belongs to someone else. if they don't kick you out in seven years, you can claim some of that land. well, what's the reasoning behind that? the reasoning is, you shouldn't just go fence off a bunch of land, fence off all of texas and say, hey, i own all of this and you never go out and visit your land or develop it, see, they wanted to prevent that. and so to do that, they made sure that you have to go out and police your land and ride your land and develop your land or

you might lose some of it. and another factor that was instituted over time towards enhancing development was the whole notion of property taxes. now, believe me, i hate property taxes as much as anybody. but there is a reason for property taxes and it's not to fund public schools. the reason for property taxes is to make sure that if you've got land, you're doing something with it. it's not sitting empty. it's not sitting vacant. you're using the land. they wanted the land to be used all the time, to develop for the good of your fellow man. now, the most interesting thing about the land use once they get the land into the hands of the people, also through jefferson's influence you pass the northwest horns what does it -- ordinance and what does it do? what does the northwest ordinance do, it says when you get people out on this land you set up a system those colonists,

those settlers become citizens. in other words, they wanted to make sure that what happened with the american colonies in england doesn't happen a second time with the colonies out west in indiana and ohio and elsewhere. so they set up a system that tied land ownership to citizenship. in other words, they made citizens out of people who were one-time just settlers. pretty amazing. and so i think again they would be appalled today at the notion that the largest landowner of the united states is uncle sam and certainly jefferson would say, hey, what are you doing? we need to move this land out of the hands of individual people. george, come over here. washington trundles over. you're a surveyor, would you mind getting out and start surveying the land. washington says, i'd be happy to. what would the founders say about such things as guns? guns is one of these cases where

you absolutely have to have a context of what is meant by the phrases in the constitution. and the necessity of a well-regulated militia. what's a well-regulated militia? does it just mean that these people need to drill? so the key word here is militia. what's a militia? well, if you look in english law, english heritage, the background of these terms you learn that a militia serves several functions. in england there was an elite militia that was training all the time. and then there was a more general militia that they would call up if they're invaded. a militia was intended to do two things. one, help protect you against invaders. and by the way, a militia is never used in the context of you arm people so they can protect themselves against home invasions or criminals or burglars or -- it's never used in that context. it's used in the context of helping to protect the nation against invaders if called up by

the government. and two, if the government in england and then later in the colony gets to be oppressive or tyrannical, the militia is to serve as a counter-balance to the standing army. and the colonial people and the early americans had a tremendous fear of a standing army because standing armies were the ways that governments -- the ways that monarchs would impose their will on the people. and so it was always assumed that the militia would act as a counterweight to that standing army and that all the militias, that all men armed combined by the colonies would equal the weight of the king's army or in this case the national army. washington is a very interesting case in this because he had fought with militia and he doesn't like them. they're not very well trained. they run at the drop of a hat. the only time they fight really, really, really is when they're on home ground and they're defending their homes and then

they fight like tigers. it's very difficult to get militia, say, from new jersey to march down to south carolina and fight. it almost never happens. so washington spends a great deal of his revolutionary military career trying to turn militia into regular soldiers, regulars. and there's a line in the movie -- the great most of the patiat and they are they are looking at a battleground there and gibson says that damn fool gates he spent too much time in the british army he's going toe-to-toe with the red coats in an open field is madness. that's what washington developed the continental army to do, to go toe-to-toe with red coats in the open field and that's of the battles and they are going toe-to-toe in the open field and

the blue coats win. washington didn't like them as an armed body. he thought you needed trained soldiers. he does counsel for a small army. jefferson reduces the size of the army. then jefferson does two strange things kind of out of character for him. first thing he does is, he recommends creating a military academy at west point to train professional officers. the other thing jefferson does, which is way out of character for him, is he sends the u.s. navy and marines on their first overseas foreign war. in fact, you could call it the first war on terror. and he sends u.s. navy and the marines over to fight the barbry pirates without a declaration of war. he sends them on a joint resolution of congress and it is jefferson who declares war on all the barbary states, and even

one that would be tripoli had actually, quote, declared war on us by cutting down our flagpole. that was the act of war but tunis had not, algeria had not, morocco had not and jefferson sends the military and it's very much the brush doctrine. he said you're either with us or against us. and if you're with tripoli, you're against us and he said take them all out. and it takes a while but eventually they do. okay. let's move on to banking. what would the founders say about banking. we know what hamilton does about banking. he creates a bank of the united states. i don't believe the founders interpreted the right to coin money in the constitution as strictly being gold and silver coins. i think they interpreted it broadly. there were -- there was plenty of paper money around. they were familiar with paper money. and i think that's how they interpreted paper money. they give the bank of the united

states the authority to issue notes. now, back then, i should add, any private bank could issue money. did you know that? back in the early 1800s, if you were a bank, you could print your own money. that'd be kind of cool today. unfortunately, it had to be backed by gold or silver. that would be kind of bad today 'cause, you know, the rates of gold and silver would be pretty high. but the idea was that the bank of united states, which was created by the federal government, but is four-fifths privately owned should compete with all other private banks on the same grounds, that is anybody can print their own money. that money has to be backed by gold and silver. let's see who has the best money. it kind of forced the federal government to be honest and to discipline itself in issuing these bank of the united states notes finally, let me take up the issue of religion, what would the founders say about religion? and this one, i think, has some of the greatest room for

interpretation. and the reason for this is context. if you read the constitution and if you read jefferson's letter to the danbury baptists out of context, you'd say, see, they meant for government to have no role, whatsoever, in religion. they want strict, jefferson's words, separation of church and state. now, that's not in the constitution. and you have to remember jefferson wasn't even here and he wasn't even at the constitutional convention. he wasn't there when the religious phrases were written into the constitution. nevertheless, this is the phrase that is already cited. well, what did they mean by that? what they meant in the context of christian religion, all these men were christian. the only one i can find who was even remotely a deist is jefferson. franklin is definitely not a deist. he urges other people to pray urgently. i think george washington's deism has been totally blown out of water by a number of recent

books. we even have a diary entry of a prayer that he wrote in which he signs the prayer off to my lord jesus christ, savior of my soul and words to that effect. so he's very clearly not a deist. how much of a practicing christian he is, depends on whether or not you believe that church attendance is the end all and be all but he did attend church quite a lot. so what do these guys mean when they talked about the freedom of religion? it's my view that based on what i've seen in the documents, namely, that all of the colonial charters involved references to god and most of them to jesus christ, that many of the state legislatures had to affirm oaths of allegiance to their office in the name of jesus christ. and that all of the state legislators of pennsylvania had to swear such an oath in the name of jesus christ. i find it hard to believe that you can take that out of the

context of them all being christian. in other words, what would they say if a muslim suddenly walked in and said, well, because of the separation of church and state, you have to fund a muslim foot bath in michigan, the university of michigan. i think they would find that ludicrous. what would you say, well, you have to remove a cross on a public space such as a park. i think they would find that silly but again, it's all in the context and you're not going to get that directly from the words. you can only get that if you get into the state constitutions and the letters of these guys in their private lives. of them like hamilton went through phases. he prayed constantly in his dorm rooms. in middle age he slips away from that and it's not really older age but as he gets closer to the time of death, he starts to

gravitates back toward god. i think you find all of these guys at different points of their lives are extremely religious and that when they wrote those phrases in the constitution and these other documents, they assumed everything would be handled in the context of a christian, mostly protestant nation and i like to use the example of the federal reserve system. federal reserve system does not mention gold in it once. the federal reserve act doesn't mention gold in it once, and yet everybody assumed when it was set up, it would be set up on a gold standard. it was so widely assumed nobody put the words "gold" in the federal reserve act. and that's the way it operated for the first 20 or 30 years. so there was just one other thing i wanted to mention on guns. i found this pretty funny. in connecticut, in 643, there was actually a statute that required you to bring your musket to church and i think i'll stop with that and take questions here.

if you don't mind, make sure you speak into the -- do you have a mic you want them to speak to? we're okay? i'll just repeat the question if we can't hear. if we're ready to go, we'll take questions. yeah, just raise your hand and we'll get the mic over here. such a huge group here. >> we were talking about bailouts at work today. we were discussing how does that work like california who's almost bankrupt and they may need a bailout. how does a state get bailed out or does that ever happened? >> it has never before happened in american history. i suppose, if you want to stretch it, you could argue that in the revolution, because so many of the states had big debts, and hamilton's plan was called assumption, we'll assume the debts of all the states, there's an argument to do that but here's the difference.

they assumed the debts of all the states one time and paid them off. they didn't say, california, you're in trouble, we'll help you but we're not going to help arizona. oh, idaho, you're in trouble but we're not going to rhode island. as best i can tell, it was a one-time thing and i see nothing in there that they would ever do that again. >> i know you touch on it, excuse me, in your book. what do you think the government's role in education is? they've taken quite control over education. >> right. the question is what's the government's role in education that's right and i didn't mention that very much. this one surprised me. i got to tell you, you know, i'd come up mostly -- i was educated in public schools. but my heart -- i taught for a long time in a private school and i've taught at the university of dayton almost all my college career and my heart is with home-schoolers and the

private schoolers, the founders are going to be right with me. they were all in favor of public education. and they all favored public education, grades 1 through 6, paid for by the taxpayers. the difference is, they favored the state and local taxpayers paying for it, not the federal government. the federal government was to have no role in public education. now, here's the kicker before all the public school unions go, yeah, popping the champagne cork. here's the second part of that. what were they to teach? all the founders, and this is mostly by benjamin rush, who's kind of the early father of american public education -- all of them believed that what should be taught was math, grammar and english, history. but what kind of history? a patriotic history. i'm sure they would like a patriots history in the united states. [laughter] >> a patriotic history. and they were very explicit about this. you don't just teach that all nations are equal and i'm

paraphrasing one of the guys i quote in the book. you don't teach that all nations are equal. all nations are fine but we are special. and you need to show why we're special. so they all believed in a patriotic history that should be taught and then lastly, they all believe that you should teach religion in the public schools because they all assumed that unless men were virtuous and taught virtue, you could not have a good republic. so while they believe in public schools, it is public schools to do what? to teach patriotic history, religion, math, english. >> when you use the term "religion," i mean, one could talk about spirituality and look at religion being more dogmatic with respect to to a denomination. what were they getting at? >> they were specifically getting at denominationalism within the christian church, though. again, i can't emphasize too

much that all these guys were christian. and what they feared was that, say, the anglicans would get in charge of the church in virginia and exclude the baptist and/or the baptists would exclude the catholics. what they never -- i don't think ever dreamed was that hindus or muslims would come in and say, you must treat my religion the same as the christian religion. the denominations were equal within christianity, but i don't think they envisioned having to share that with other religions. >> what do you suppose they would think today of the way we're all subjected to the tsa searches? [laughter] >> they would probably find washington's musket packed away with a flint packed away. what's that? it would be outrageous -- there's a story about

washington. you've probably heard this. that he was a very unemotional man. he was only seen to cry publicly maybe once or twice. once that people can document. and on one occasion at a dinner party, someone made a bet with a guy. i bet you can't walk up to washington and slap him on the back. so the guy, hey, george, how are you doing? and slaps him on the back. they said washington turned and gave this guy such an icy cold stare and he backed away and no one ever touched washington again. so what do you think he'd do with a tsa agent groping his genitals, i think he would pull out his pistol, put the flint in and say, meet my little friend. [laughter] >> anyone else? yes, sir. >> oh, i was thinking when you talked about the environment and you talked about the government owning -- being the biggest land

holder and i imagine a lot of that land would be held in national parks and that. >> yes. >> was the patriots against holding land such as that for the common use of everyone or -- >> well, certainly, if it gets to the point that individuals can't go out and get the land anymore, the land was to be moved into the hands of individuals. now, how do these national parks come about? they come about in the late 1800s when ranchers start asking for the land to be set apart for grazing. in other words, i don't blame the ranchers they want a free bee and they want their cattle grazing the land freely at taxpayer expense and the government goes along and it gravitates and we're letting you use all this land. this is now government land and then all of a sudden the individual farmers could not go out and stake that land off. that was government land. so would they be in favor of

national parks? probably one or two. but i think if they saw where it had gone today, you know, the vast majority of alaska is federal land. the vast majority of utah is federal land. they would not be in favor of that at all. they would insist that you get rid of most of that. and, you know, personally, i'm of the opinion if you want a park, get some friends and go buy some land. call it a park. that's what vanderbilt and that's what rockefeller and many of the others used to do in the 1800s, if you want a park, go create one. it's within your power to do so. nobody is stopping you. well, wait, the federal government is stopping you today. yes, sir. >> what would you say are the two or three -- i'd like to you pick two or three problems that you think facing our country today that are probably the major problems and how our founding fathers would handle it differently than what we have now? >> well, the number 1 problem, i think, is debt.

and debt at all levels is really starting -- it's starting to impinge on everything we do. i don't know if you saw how much you paid for gas this week. i don't know if you saw how much you're paying for food. all of this is the result of too much debt working its way through the monetized system. i mean, the saudis don't trust our money anymore. they're having discussions about going to gold as the international reserve currency. there was a state -- i think it was south carolina introduced a bill to have transactions be payable in gold. well, you know, that tells you that we're a long way from having the dollar as good as gold. and it is this debt issue that is eating us up on so many levels. and it's partly because of the housing collapse. housing prices got inflated and people start using their houses as atm machines borrowing against the equity in their house while their house is going up because of inflation. so i think the debt issue would

be the number 1 issue. i think number 2 we could lump two or three of them together and say security, national security. there's a terrifying story out there in drudge today that said there were 127 nukes planted across the united states by al-qaeda. now, i don't believe that, but do i think they've don't in two or three weapons of mass destruction? it's possible. i saw an interview with a san diego immigration official who was surprised on camera, and he said have any weapons of mass destruction come through your port, and he goes our port -- no, not our port. and the way he answered it just -- it gave me a cold feeling in my gut. it's very clear that something he knew had come through another port. okay. i can answer this question and make everybody feel good. it doesn't make you feel good. so i think they would be concerned about national security and especially a threat of terrorism.

now, how do you balance that with sharon's query about the tsa people? i think there are ways to do that. and i think we've -- you know, look how israel does it, for example. they don't -- they don't go through and grope every single person. they target certain people. and they target the people who are most likely to be terrorists, and it's not 83-year-old white-haired grandmothers. >> those are the two problems. how do you think our founders -- if they were here in charge. >> first, they would totally restructure the debt issue. schwarzenegger wanted to refinance the whole debt and then start paying it off at lower rates. i think you've got to -- you've got to begin by paying off the debt. you've got to cut government and you've got to cut entitlements. for example, when social security started under fdr, there were 14 people paying into

social security for every 1 taking out. today, there's 3 young people paying in for every 1 of my mother taking out. and by the time my students back there try to take social security out, there's going to be 1 person paying in for every 3 of them take out. the numbers don't work. you do have to finally get to the entitlements and you've got to get to the really big ones, a social security and medicare and i think they have no problem saying, hey, social security is unconstitutional. we've got to get rid of -- our greatly pare down these systems and get them under control. yes, sir. >> larry, what do you think they would say about our professional politicians who just stay on and on and on? >> what would they say professional politicians. it would really make them sick. do you know what john adams did

and this is in the first chapter of "patriots history" when he loses the election to thomas jefferson, he can't wait to get out of washington. he's in a carriage on his way home before jefferson even takes the oath of office. that's how little he thought of washington, how little he wanted to be professionally around politicians. the whole idea back then was that you would be a citizen legislator. that you would show up for a couple months, vote on a few things and then get the heck out of town for two reasons. one, you need to get out of town. because when you start hanging around with other people whose sole job is to give away taxpayer money and you start conadvertising a better way to give away taxpayer running. someone brought up the point, what does washington make as a city? you know what are they known for. hollywood is known for movies. detroit used to be known for cars, silicon valley is known for microchips, orlando is known

for disney world. what is -- what does dc make? what they make is influence. they make influence in giving away taxpayer dollars. so the other reason they would have you get out of town is so that you get back and you hang out with your peeps. you go back home and you hang out with average people so you know what a gallon of milk cost and what a home mortgage is like. so you see them and know their problems not so you see these other people who are getting these large salaries and riding in a limousines. it can't be too bad out there and go out and find out and i don't mean in a cloistered town meeting where only your own followers are invited. i mean, an open meeting where people can shout you down and see how many of them like you then. so they would be totally opposed

to that today. >> you talked about national security. >> right. >> at the time of the founding of our nation, would one say the loyalists were a threat to our national security? in other words, loyalists that might not have declared themselves as loyalists but they were infiltrated in the administration or possibly in whatever. today that infiltration, let's just say, it's jihadist islamists. >> okay. >> what would you believe the founders would do to deal with that threat like they did with the loyalists? >> they were pretty harsh on the loyalists. if you remember, they burned loyalists' houses. they drove a lot of them out of new york where they could get control of the area. they were pretty harsh on the loyalists. when adams is in power, they passed the alien and sedition acts and they try, you know, and stamp out criticism of the

president. now, that goes too far. and it was -- it was, you know, struck down. but nevertheless, that's kind of what they were thinking. i think the issue in the revolution is more like this. you have one-third of the people called loyalists who want to stay with the king. you've got one-third of the people who are called revolutionaries who want to separate of the king. you got one-third who don't give a crap one way or the other. they don't care. they want to be left alone and, of course, you can't be left alone. sooner or later, you got to choose sides. i always like casey stengals line as a famous manager and it applies to what we're doing, for example, in iraq or afghanistan. casey stengal says his job as manager was to make sure that the one-third of the players who hated him stayed away from the one-third who didn't care one way or the other. and that's pretty much where we are in iraq. if we can keep the 10 or 20% of the people who hate us from the 70 or 80% who don't care one way

or the other, we'll probably be all right. [inaudible] >> how would they deal with the threat today. well, jefferson did. jefferson went over without a declaration of war and hammered the barbry pirates. not just once but several times. [inaudible] >> if you can identify it, they wouldn't hesitate to, for example, hang traitors and they would call them that. as late as andrew jackson. look what they do suspected very clearly british agents. he doesn't wait for a trial. he hangs one and shoots the other one. the word gets out. you don't mess with andy jackson. i always thought if andrew jackson was president when cindy sheehan was around he would have gone to her house and given her an old-fashioned spanking. turned her over on his knee and gave her a spanking. >> in light of your response earlier to the entitlements, like social security and

medicaid, in what context would the founders have used that phrase "to promote the general welfare"? if it's not to support health care, social security or medicare, what did that mean to them? >> great question. and, you know, this is used so many times by liberals to defend all these programs. well, we got to promote the general welfare, well, that's part of the preamble. and you can find out what they mean by the preamble if you look at what they empowered the government to do within the document that follows. for example, provide for the common defense. well, what did they lay out in terms of providing for the common defense? create an army? create a navy? congress can declare war? i mean, they lay out all these different things that the government is empowered to do. what kind of things did they lay out in regards to the general welfare? coin money. contracts. patents.

copyrigh copyrights. in terms of all the things they provided for the general welfare are business-related things that would have us be prosperous, have our businesses prosper because of a flat and stable playing field. in other words, people know the rules. they know they'll be secure in the fruits of their labor, that kind of thing. they never once suggested there's anything such as welfare. they knew about welfare. no new england, there were rich houses and poor houses. there were two types of for the deserving poor and the undeserving poor and those who could work and if just given a chance would work and the undeserving poor were those who wouldn't work even if you got the opportunity. i'm reminded of a guy i saw in las vegas last time we were there -- we were walking between the mgm and new york new york and there's some beggars out there and usually they have a sign, you know, vietnam vet or -- i always see eddie murphy,

vietnam did this to me, but i ain't bitter. because but there's this guy there and he holds up a sigh, why lie, i like to drink. and he got more money than anybody else. so i think in the general welfare clause you would the find them things that provide for everybody's welfare, copyright laws, contracts, coining and making sure the money is sound so that people's lives aren't eaten up by inflation. you don't see any references to the poor houses or welfare. yes, sir. >> much of the expansion of power under federal government since the 1930s has been under the interstate commerce clause. >> yes. >> what use of that clause -- how was it used before the 1930s from the founders days up until then? >> well, of course, the interstate commerce sky rockets.

and that act more than anything was designed to control railroads because railroads run between states. okay, that's legitimate. you got -- it's kind of like a waterway but then they would start to get carried away and say, you know, there's a grain elevator over on that railroad and since the railroad runs between the states, that means that the grain elevator must also be a part of interstate commerce. so that by the new deal, what they are arguing is an astounding thing that a farmer in california who planted a crop, i can't remember if it was wheat or what, he plants a crop on his land and doesn't sell it out of state, and the roosevelt administration said he's engaged in interstate trade because even if he sells it inside the state, it affects prices outside the state. so in that kind of rationale there's no activity that cannot be regulated by government because anything you do here in

dayton are going to affect bookstores in other states. well, you're violating interstate trade. it's outrageous. don't get me started on trusts and antitrusts because the whole thing is -- it's impossible to come up with a reasonable logical way to approach this. if you undercut your opponents' prices, you're guilty of predatory pricing. if your goods on services are too high, then you're guilty of price-gouging and if you're goods and services are priced the same as everybody else, then you're guilty of collusion. so, you know, what do you do? i think that should do it. if everybody is happy, i'll be happy to come up and sign books for you. thank you very much again for coming out tonight on this cold and blustery night. thank you. [applause] >> for more information, visit the author's website, patriotshistoryusa.com. >> sophia rosenfeld, what's the

definition of commonsense in politics? >> good question to start off with. the one thing is that we never talk about commonsense. we refer to it all the time. but it's not something that gets defined very often. commonsense is supposed to be at least the kind of thing you don't have to talk about. it's the wisdom everybody has. it's the obvious. the self-evident. and it's something politicians refer to a lot. if you ever notice that democrats or republicans -- they love to talk about a commonsense solution to health care, a commonsense solution to problems of the environment. but nobody ever actually asks what is commonsense? what would it be? but it's every day -- every day, ordinary wisdom, reasoning about every day ordinary matters that we're supposed to agree upon without discussion. >> when did it enter that term enter the political discourse? >> well, it's a very old term. the term goes all the way back to aristotle in different forms but it's not a political term

for a long time. it's something -- it's the faculty, it's the brains. but starting in the early 18th century in england first, it starts to become a political term. and it starts to suggest a kind of politics that everyone can participate in potentially. in a sense that politics isn't so complicated that ordinary people can't participate in it and that ordinary people have a kind of collective wisdom that lends itself to thinking about political issues. that happens after the glorious revolution in england first. >> well, how does aristotle use commonsense? >> yeah, it's completely differently and there's some residue of the term for aristotle it was an understanding of five senses. we still believe that and that's out of greek history. how do you figure out that sugar and salt were different?

they look the same. they tasted different. how did you put all your different sensory reactions together? and he suggested there was this commonsense that combined the five and left you distinguished things but also put together what was sweet and white was the sugar and what was a little bitter and white and granular was the salt, if that makes any sense. we have different explanations for that now. it's really fallen entirely out of psychology and brain science. but it lasts a long time the idea that there was a commonsense through the middle ages. >> so the glorious revolution in england happens in 1688. >> yes. >> who introduced the political commonsense? >> there's not a great book of commonsense but the term started to have as the old idea declined it started to have a more casual sense of -- much like today, things you just happen to know. either things you knew or the

faculty for figuring them out, every day perception. and after the glorious revolution, there's lots of angry zywhat are we going to do about preventing this kind of strife from happening again? and an idea that gets proposed but a lot of ordinary people do, newspapers and magazines of the period, that if we just use commonsense we wouldn't fight so much about things. we wouldn't fight about religion. we wouldn't fight about politics. ironically, of course, as soon as the term is introduced, everybody starts fighting over who has it but that's been the story ever since. >> okay. in the american political discourse, is it thomas paine who introduced the term? >> yes, it's a known term before paine but it's paine who brings it centrally into american politics and what he does most of all is attach it to the notion of democracy. it already helps bring about and

commonsense is already in circulation. it helps foster the ideals and they come up with this idea, why can't the commonsense of the people be the source of self-rule? >> what was the impact of his book? >> it's really hard to imagine. no book had anything like the popularity of paine -- >> it was a pamphlet. >> you can still buy the thrift edition for $2 because it's very short. and it was meant to be highly accessible. it didn't cost a lot in 18th century terms and no book was like as commonly as commonsense. 25 editions in the first year. it came out in every major city. editions came out in london and dublin, edinburgh. it was the right -- it was the right set of ideas for the right moment. it's rare for a book to have that kind of media impact and the pamphlet even more so. >> did he make a lot of money

writing? >> he did not. paine was not a very successful businessman. he died in total poverty. he had all kinds of schemes along the way. but he did not make much off of it. 18th century publishing worked a lot differently than today. it was pirated by all kinds of people. and paine was an obviously incredibly difficult man. he was a flop at most things. but he was always absolutely brilliant is a polemists and he wrote these one great track during the american revolution another great one during the french revolution. and changed opinion really internationally. it might be called -- you might call him the first international revolutionary. >> where did you come up with the idea about writing about commonsense in politics? >> yeah. i was intrigued with two things and they sound quite different. one is could you write a history of something it sounds like it's

outside history. commonsense isn't supposed to have a history. i guess it's the things we always agree upon, you know, don't put your hand in the fire, you'll burn yourself. that's commonsense. that doesn't sound very historical. but i was intrigued by the idea of where do we get the idea from the first place that there were these ideas that were outside history? and the second reason i really came to this topic that is that we're living in a moment of a resurgence of populism. i think we'd all probably agree on that. different kinds of populism and commonsense is the idea that it's at the root of populism. in some ways this book is a prehistory of populism. how did we ever get the notion that ordinary people together with kitchen table solutions might know better than experts, policy wonks in washington. that's -- those two roots that's kind of an interest in politics and an interest in historical writing combined. >> what do you think about the fact that glenn beck and the tea party movement have adopted

thomas paine's commonsense? >> i find it fascinating. so for years and years, really until the reagan years, tom paine was kind of considered the pa pateren saint of the left. he was much hated really in the early 19th century in america for his supposedly atheist views, his radical political economy. and most people associated themselves with paine ideas were always on the left. for a very long time you notice nixon washington doesn't have a monument to tom paine he's the only founding father that we don't recognize as quite the same way as hamilton, madison, jefferson. here we are in jefferson territory, madison, territory and monroe territory. with reagan, something interesting happened. he started quoting paine quite often. he also appropriated the notion of commonsense. he often spoke of his own ideas as stemming not from, you know, his political wisdom or his

advisors but from the people of commonsense. and he opened the way for a kind of -- as opposed to a left wing populism, a right wing populist adoption of paine and the idea of commonsense and beck is the last of a long line of reappropriaters of paine to new effect but the book was again a bestseller this past year. it sold an incredible number of copies but i think beck writes a book pretty often. >> professor sophia rosenfeld, in your view was ronald reagan's adaptation of thomas paine purposeful? >> i think he recognized in paine very cleverly certain themes that continue to have a really good american resonance. a kind of tomorrow will be sunny outlook, a sense we can do this.

and in paine a kind of folksy quality that didn't have to necessarily be applied to the set of ideas that paine did but could be adopted and used for a lot of different purposes. the interesting thing about populism as a whole and commonsense more particularly it doesn't have to stand for any set of ideas. it's not an ideology that matches with some politics. it's a way of talking and a style of politics that can resonate in a lot of different context and to a lot of different ends. so it has this quality of being -- having sometimes revolutionary implications and sometimes deeply conservative ones. and reagan found in paine a temperament that he really could use. >> you teach history here at the university of virginia. >> i do. >> what do you teach? >> well, i'm by training a french historian. i'm an expert in the french revolution. and the enlightenment.

but i teach much more widely than that. i'm really interested at this point in teaching courses about the age of revolution, the american, french, haitian revolution among others. and he teach some more general courses about the history of europe in the world. europe's relationship to the world. i'm teaching a course right now on the history of human rights, where do we get the modern ideas of human rights. and i'm interested in the roots of our modern political vocabulary and our -- the concepts that we bandy about a lot, sometimes without exploring much. >> well, let's go to your expertise then. [laughter] >> is commonsense, a term or a concept used during the french revolution, 1789? >> exactly, exactly. what i found most interesting in this sort of came out of this when i started working on this topic is that the french revolution does adopt a french version, the bon sense which is

a very similar notion but to very different ends and this is where we see the roots -- if you see in paine the roots of a kind of revolutionary democratic populism. what you see in the french revolution is commonsense being used exactly the opposite way. as a kind of counter-revolutionary or conservative idea, meaning something -- an idea that could be leveled against the radical reason and a way of doing things in the traditional ways and the wisdom of the people in the countryside and the roots of modern really antidemocratic populism also, i think, lie in the age of revolution. but in the french context. >> and that revolution happened just a couple of years after ours. frmentsz it did. >> so were there were a lot of influences? >> incredible number. i mean, the -- jefferson was there for the beginning of the french revolution. he helped write the declaration and the rights of men and

citizens. the great document that frames the revolution. lafayette becomes immediately the head of the national guard, why? because he's the hero of the american revolution. and, of course, the real reason the french has such -- has a financial crisis to begin with, is it costs so much to participate in the american revolution about 15 years earlier. so the -- the french revolution is in some sense is inconceivable without the american revolution. not that it went the same direction. plenty of differences between the two, but one of the fascinating things about teaching them together or thinking about them together is figuring out how deeply interwoven the ideas, the finances, even the military aspects of these two revolutions were. >> professor rosenfeld, do you include any examples of uncommonsense, unnonsensical -- >> yeah, i do. the book, there's a final section on the politics of da-da which would seem to be quite far

afield. but the avant-garde of the 20th century, da-da being this artistic movement in the 20th between the two wars. it took really the approach that that commonsense had gotten us nowhere. commonsense got us to the first world war. mass destruction and that it was time that we considered the possibilities of undoing commonsense. and i'm fascinated by the idea that much of the artistic avant-garde literary painting movies of the 20th is focused on challenging commonsense. figuring out what -- attention to the surreal, the nonsensical, the absurd as a kind of response to politics of commonsense that ended, you might say in the 20th century with an awful lot of deeply destructive events. >> now your book, "commonsense:

a political history" is published by harvard. why? >> well, that's a good question. harvard does wonderful books that, i think, straddle this realm between the academic and the trade. really trying to reach a broader audience with intelligent, serious book and marketing them as such and it's hoped that many of their publications will fulfill this particular space in which they can be read by university audiences, whether they be students or other faculty, but also ideally make some sort of dent in public discourse and reach a readership that's interested in ideas and politics and harvard was willing to situate this book in that space and i hope that's what will happen. >> what's your background? where was you raised and what's your parents do? >> that's okay.