it will teach you how to read and write in tibetan. one african kids showed up. that was great, but the chinese, a group of chinese boys got all the fire and road don't go to the tibetan club, some -- come to the chinese go first because tibet is decided china or something like that. i mean, there were definitely tensions. as per romances, that said, there were crashes on chinese girls. a lot of chinese friends. you know, i think, you know, certain high-school thing is just trump political things. so really. and then there were a lot of interracial intercultural couples. if you look at the prom pictures all you see is contrast.

this girl from china. definitely a few grocer in china who were dating boys from the dominican republic. there were tons of couples. i don't know that they had to hide it. if they had to hide it they probably were dating in all. you know, some of the muslim girls whose parents are very strict, it's not that there would hide their relationship, it's that they wouldn't have relationships and high-school with boys from bicycles. but then there were a bunch of boys from yemen who would, you know, send a very, very romantic valentine's day cards to gross named geraldine and josephine and stuff. really seduce them. >> a question about all of the colleges and universities that you named. the think there was something

about all these? it made this will have more success with respect to how they perceive education? also what it says about the validation about our country in bringing coaches together. .. >> a lot of the kids i know have end up at the university of vermont, a couple kids within syracuse, and there have been repeat schools that now know what it means to get an

international high school student. i think that -- okay. >> thank you so much. thank you for brooke for an inspiring conversation. thank you for coming. brooke will be signing copies of her book and she'll be right over there signing, and we'll play a little movie. maybe brooke can say something about what it's about and also play some special music. >> okay. this is a video that diana castro, who works at the school, made for the class of 2011's graduation ceremony, and it's just goofing around but it's fun so we'll play that. >> oh, oh, and then we're going to play some music that you just have to pretend you're 18 to really get into it. it's an international high

school prom mix so you'll hear some chinese, mandarin, hip-hop, and reggae, and lady gaga, just pretend you're at prom. okay. [applause] >> brooke hauser reporting on the international high school in new york city to find out morning visit the author's web site, brookehauser.com. >> pauline maier, american history prefer at m.i.t., presents a history of the rad fix indication process of the u.s. constitution. miss maier recounts the year-long debates that took place throughout the country following the stungal conviction -- constitutional convention. she discusses her book at the national archives in washington,

dc. the program is just over one hour. >> very pleased to be here. thank you very much for having me. i also had an opportunity for a quick tour of the new display of our precious national documents. some of you may know at the beginning of american scripture, i describe the previous display, and i have to say this is so much more appropriate. they have these documents of the american people are now brought to a level where they are accessible to the american people, and i cheer you on. i am delighted to be here to speak about ratification, the book. i have gone around quite a bit in the previous years talking about ratification, a work in progress. and to have it finally in book form, it's a tremendous relief, and you'll understand that better if i tell you that the

contract i signed with simon and schuster, committed me to produce a manuscript in 2004. it is not 2004. in fact, over the years where i would give talks, coming out of the work i was doing, like in 2006, 2008, people would say, this sounds very interesting. do you have a deadline on this project? and i would always say, yes, 2004. which got a little attention. it may be useful to start here by asking what took so long? and there is an obvious answer to this. the project is a huge one, that has involved all 13 states, and which i do cover, not in equal depth but it is the story of ratification in all of the states that participated in those debates, and that it is

written from the documentary base for the most part. that is, this is -- could not be described as a synthasys of previous work. i have to confess that isn't the whole truth. i should also confess that when i signed that contract, i had no idea how long this book was going to take because i hadn't thought about it very much. the idea for the book wasn't may. it came from an editor at simon and schuster, and he came up with the ratification of the

constitution. he said there's no history appropriate for regular reader. a couple of attempts that didn't quite work. so, when i said i would do it, i said yes in 20 second, roughly, give or take one or two, and that wasn't exactly final for deep reflection so why did i say yes so quickly? again, i have a bit of a confession. the first reason is probably a little silly. in 1997, i published american scripture, making the declaration of independence, and i noticed something very peculiar was happening afterwards. starting with a young woman who was collecting books people were finished with in the office i was working in. they would say to me things like, you're the lady that wrote the book on the constitution.

and they would say, your book on the constitution, and at first i would correct them and say, actually, it's on the declaration of independence, and i soon learned that wasn't a great idea. they would basically roll their eye and say, another academic pentant. distinctions where none are need to be made. so why was i quick to say, hey, that's a good idea? i think i had in the back of my mind an idea that i could become the lady who wrote the book on the constitution, or the lady who wrote the book on declaration of independence and i wouldn't have to watch them roll their eyes anymore when i corrected them. second, the idea of writing a narrative was very appealing. historians aren't really trained to write narratives. we make arguments. i became -- and i was anxious to try the genre.

when i met thompson, he said, fine book. i don't do anything like that, he said. i tell stories. and i thought, hey, i thought i told stories stories in american scripture, and here was an opportunity to dedicate my skills entirely to telling the story, real complicated one, but, hey, story. and then i remembered that i heard barbara tuckman talk decade ago when i was still a graduate student, and one statement of hers stuck in my mind. he said it was possible to build tension in telling a story even if your readers knew how it would come out, if you only worked carefully, never to mention the you can or even to

allude to it, until you came to it at the proper place in your narrative. i thought i wanted to test that. nobody nobody does not know that the constitution was ratified. could i build up tension in telling the story with its narrative if i followed barbara tuckman's rule. when i described to somebody what i wanted to try to do, i recall -- this is maybe ten years ago -- the said, so, you plan to write a thriller? on the constitution? it seemed to improbable. i tell you, when people now say to me, ask me, i hear you've written a book, what it's about and, say it's on the constitution, they say maybe i'll read the next donna leeown book. i have a better once now. this is after some of the reviews came out. michael mcnon the "wall street journal" said it was gripping

story. and brooke hauser said it was engrossing. so now i have my answer when they say what's your book about, i say, i wrote a thriller on the constitution. you can make your own judgment on that, but at least they don't roll their eyes. also, the subject was important, and as soon as any hole in the story of american history is identified, that's standing invitation for the likes of people like me to jump in and get to work. i had also heard or knew of, i guess, james maddison's statement in congress in 1796 that if you wanted to know the meaning of the constitution beyond its words, the place to go was not the records of the federal convention, which only proposed it, but the state ratifying conventions where the voices of the people breathed

life into what was only a dead proposal previously. i later came to the -- i don't say much about the significance of that in the book. i came understand i'm a historian not a lawyer, i'll leave it to other to tieles out what legal implications but i knew it would be important and have audiences beyond a handful of historians, and that was certainly an enticement. finally, i knew, as i think robert bender did not. there was a massive project coming out of the university of wisconsin and the state historical society of wisconsin, the documentary history of the ratification of the constitution. there are to date 21 volumes in print, most of them focus on ratification -- or pulling together the documents of ratification in different states. in individual states, i should

say. some --some for some states there aren't vary men records. for some there are very rich, and certainly i would say the project still has five states to go, that it hasn't published anything on, but they have covered the major states. there's one volume on pennsylvania. three on virginia. four on massachusetts. and, of course, five on new york. the last of which came out only last year. literally could not have told the story of ratification in new york without the work of the documentary history of the ratification on that convention. so, you know, i couldn't have written it in 2004. i had no idea. but this is literally the earliest time i think i could have completed the book in the form i have written it. >> now, if you want to understand the importance of the documentary history, the

ratification of the constitution, think it's useful to ask another question, that is, why are those shelves of books on the federal convention and almost nothing -- really, only a few hittans -- historians have tried their hand at telling the story of the ratification of the constitution, and to start with, they're very different events. the federal convention was one event at one place, of course, philadelphia, with one set of delegates, and it happened over a four-month period between may and september 1787. the ratifying process is dramatically difference. it occurred in 13 states and some states had more than one convention. there were maybe a thousand different delegates, and it happened -- well, the core of it

that i talk about with most intensity, is roughly a year. but if you wait until the last of the original 13 joined the union, rhode island, it's two and a half years. one other consideration here, which i think is anything but insignificant, that the records of the federal convention were published in a professional form, in 1911. etiquette by max rand. the first two delegates -- volumes -- there are four all together, actually five with the supplementary volume published in 1987. the first two volumes are on the debate in the federal convention, and what rand did was pull together the official journal, which actually is not very good. william jackson, who kept it, did so carelessly and i come to think of him as rather a

scoundrel. and then rand collated them with notes taken much more partial notes by other members of the conversion often for their own reference. they didn't, i think, have the same mission as maddison of preserve these debates for posterity but he put them together and collated them, so for any one day you can compare the various accounts and figure out what went on. >> editing is not just copying manuscripts and -- madson change e changed his manuscript notes after the journal was published. he assumed the journal was authoritative. it was not. so in some ways he thought he was wrong, he'd fix it, and often what he went with was from

accuracy to error. what do you do with this? well, forrand had to look at the manuscript and figure out where madison made changes in 1921, roughly. fortunately as he tells us, it wasn't so hard to do because the ink madison used in 1921 faded in a different way than the ink he used in the 1780s. so he could pull this off. and then if you look at his version, he has little devices by which a scholar or a very interested educated reader can look and see when -- which version of the document was written. look, this is a treasure trove for historians, and for jurist. in 1987, james hudson, who was

the chief of the manuscript division at the library of congress, published an article on this, and he pointed out that many states did not even have published versions of their debates. and that those that existed were flawed, hopelessly flawed, because they were bias temperatures the federalists. the federalists often paid for their publication, and there's no reason why they should gift publish to the opposition. there was considerable amount hudson was right. pennsylvania was the worst. they published only the supreme speeches of two federalists, james thomas and cain. you'd think they were debating with ghosts, exempt for one place, guy from western pennsylvania, john smiley, interrupted wilson to fill him

in on some point that wilson had alluded to so you'd know at least smiley was there so they purged all the speeches of those who were nonfederallist, and they went further. there was an editor in pennsylvania, alexander dallas -- went on to fame in other ways -- who published the pennsylvania herald, and he took it in his head that he would publish running debates, basically almost transcripts of what was said in the convention. these were very small. they weren't like "the new york times." sometimes they head four pages. to tell one day at the convention would take more than he had. so it took a lot of time and he skipped around at bit. he was still publishing these after the convention adjourned, and unfortunately, some of the speeches by what the federalists

called antifederalists seemed to be a little too persuasive, so the federalist cancelled their subdescription, dallas was fired and that was it. what this means is i had to piece together what critics of the constitution said in the late part of the pennsylvania convention from the notes of those who took notes so that they could refute them. not ideal. wasn't ideal at all. the federalists weren't trying to, you know, rewrite history. that was the last of their considerations. they were trying to win a very hard fight. and we have to remember that. this is -- what they did was not -- it was done in the course of combat. other states weren't that bad, but i do recall one point in the notes on the massachusetts convention where the note-taker said, essentially, the

following. just like every other day. the antifederalist made their stupid points and the federalists answered them. i account take all -- i can't take all this down. when you gate note-taker like that you have to wonder how much you can rely on it. some people were very good. david roberts took notes on the virginia convention and produced a 600 page book on the debates in the virginia convention in the summer of 1788, and i think robertson did pretty well. later, john marshal, the future chief justice, who was a delegate of the convention, looked back and he said, robertson did a pretty good job with those delegates who gave well-organized presentations and folks very articulately. he had a big problem. the convention wouldn't give him any preferred seating, and the federal convention, madison took

notes in the front row, so he was between the delegates and washington and he could hear everything, suppose. and some people gave him copies of their speech. poor robertson was up in a gallery with people shuffling in and out. it was very hot in the summer of 1788, in richmond virginia, and he had trouble with james madison, who had a very weak speaking voice. marshall added that nobody could have captured the torrent of words from patrick henry, although i have to say i thought reportson did rather well. if you read his accounts, you can, i think, sense both the power of henry's oratory and its incohesionsive, and that's a good trick, wonderful trick so

my hat is off to david robertson, if it wasn't for his heroic effort, the story, the marvelous story, the moving story, of the heroic meeting of minds at richmond in the summer of 1788 would be totally lost to us. we know also how well he did by one day he didn't go there. you should see the gibberish that his newspaper published that day. couldn't make sense of it. only by what robertson recorded later could you somehow read back because people alluded to what was said on that rather important day when he was absent. but i can reconstruct soming things about what was said on the day he one there. god bless the man. but now factor in the documentary history of the ratification of the constitution. hudson said that these books -- his point was quite simple. if you wanted to recover the

original meaning of the constitution, in the debates of the state ratifying conventions, forget it. it was hopeless. the documents would not sustain it. now you have the editors of the documentary history of the ratification, of the constitution, which sent teams of editors into states. they went through one archive after another. they vacuumed basically pulled out copies of anything that referred to the ratification of the constitution. and they published with regard to the conventions, not just the journals, which are often interesting. they're probably better kept than jackson's on the federal convention in many cases. they only tell you emotions when they need who came, the bare bones business of a convention. thank god you can get them online now. and i did that. but they used them -- sometimes i wanted to see the whole thing,

and i did it. dug them out. all right. they bring the journals, the published debates. that's kind of like forrand and then they collated those with newspaper accounts of the debates, and letters sent out by delegates. now, you don't have those by and large certainly not in the same volume for the federal convention because it was secret. the ratifying conventions were not seek. there were reporters there covering them, and individual delegates were sending letters to their friend back home or to their colleagues in other states, telling them what was going on in the convention, and better yet, off the floor. now, let it be said the politics of the federal convention is very different than that of the ratifying conventions, but glory, hallelujah, was it wonderful to get some account of what the caucuses were doing. why they were doing what they

were doing on the under of the convention. it allows a much fuller account of what was going on and its impossible to understand what happens at the end of the new york convention without these documents. the editor's focus was not just the convention. they wanted to document, and did in fact document, a broad based public debate. they give us documents to tell us about arguments in homes, like one -- i guess my absolute all time favorite, maine of all places, a rather energetic debate over the constitution in which women were full participants, indeed one of them provoked the argument. women weren't supposed to be interested in politics. yeah. we know better. how could they not? this was the issue of the year.

americans, regardless of gender, understood the future would depend on whatever decision was drawn. they would go into the towns and collected the records of towns in massachusetts and connecticut, and what they did about the constitution. these were not pro forma. there's one town in western massachusetts that had, if you can believe this, four informational meetings before they came together to see what that it thought. and they said, it's no good, as proposed. they also went into the streets. they tell us about a wonderful fracas. you can call it a brawl. in albany new york. it started when a group -- they called themselves that in upstate new york -- celebrated the 4th of july in 1788 by burping a copy of the

constitution. ceremoniously. after all, it threatened everything they fought for against the british. it was appropriate to burn it and for good measure they threw in a notice of virginia's ratification. that provoked some federalist and the federalists counterattack and trashed their favorite drinking place. you know, this is a rough place. what these documents do in other words, they tell us much more than about conventions. they give -- tell us about the broad public debates. they give us a picture of america in 1787 and 1788. look, my job -- what was my job? my job was to pull a story out of these documents, find a way of organizing it, and that was challenge. how can you tell a clear narrative about at event that

happened in 13 different places, sometimes simultaneously. my solution was to emphasize four major states and pull the others in at their appropriate place in the chronology. but this is challenging, and there certainly were times where i had the sense that all of the skills i had accumulated over -- you know, gray hair -- several decade as a historian were being mobilized in telling the story. ...

that is why i think i have such fun writing this book, which i

thought is such a wonderful story to sell -- to tell. now, i have five other states. i actually town that not to be such a problem. a lot of the documents among war in the library were worked and where a really get into trouble when i get help. another great benefit of being in this business for many decades is you get to know who to ask questions. of give you my favorite example. when i got to new hampshire i realize new hampshire is awfully important. new hampshire was so important, and did not have d.h. arce volumes. i started reading, and i came across a reference to a folder i'm at the state archives of new hampshire. i wondered if -- i didn't know what it was. just bear bonds delegate

credentials, you know, so and so delicate. did it include the instructions of town. something about their proceedings as they debated the constitution, and i've called the archivist to was a very nice man. he seemed rather puzzled. i've got, okay. thank you very much. who would know? remember the name -- i remember the man. just ahead of me at the harvard graduate school. his career at dartmouth and new hampshire. sure he would have read that folder. maybe jerry has e-mail. i mean of them and said, this folder. is it worth the drive to concord? remember me? playback. jerry did remember me. he said, answered quickly. i'm going to war again command of the back in a few days i. hold tight and melson use the material to answer all your

questions. what he sent me were copies of articles he had written. jerry not only read the folder in concord. he had gone saw all these towns. he knew who lived next to hope and how that affected the way the town voted. he had the most intimate knowledge of the politics on ratification in new hampshire. some of these articles i hadn't thought to look for. in new hampshire history. i suppose i would have gotten around to it, but i was just so grateful to him. then he answered my questions, correct the lead role. why would he do these things? he was anxious to have his very specialized work read into the general narrative. and the extent to which people can afford to help me is still exist are inspiring. richard loeffler, a retired editor of the documentary history for ratification of the constitution volunteered to read the whole manuscript.

well, i have friends to read part of it. and did not intend to give them the sole big book. somebody wrote the massachusetts. reed does with me. the way they read other people's work is different. this is what i learned. good arguments. finally gets taiwan paid stand. you get the name of the town wrong. you might rethink what you sent 23. end of the consultation. he went to this line for line. he had even gone through the notes. and he would -- he needed the documentary record so well. at one point he said you'd "john j. yes, you're right. the but you have the quotation from does say what you say he read your note is it wrong, but that is not what's to go to the

j papers on line on the columbia library side. of course he was right. who gives you disinformation? why did he do it? he said this is going to be a landmark book and you want to be as accurate as possible. you get my point. i put the better part of a ticket to this book. i was teaching a good part of that time. but that's a fraction of what this book tucked. how much time did those editors put in? i think a century would be modest. many of them are my age in this interval life doing it. but a century seems modest enough. then factor in all the time that jerry daniels put in. look. my name is on the title page.

it is properly understood a cooperative enterprise. it is built firmly on the labor of others. what did i learn? first of all, i've redefined the terms and was a story is told. always been told it's a conflict of federalist and anti federal isfahan. i started writing that way. sometimes a bit of a slow learner. by the time i got to the sixth state and read the documents by said, hey, the only people using the term anti federalist a federalist. what's going on here? and eventually i decided that i would not use the term anti federalist unless it appeared in equitation, and there were almost always written by federalists, that is people who supported ratification of the

constitution as written. or if the people willingly accepted the term, and that is pretty nice, biting me to a group in the upper hudson valley of new york. so-called "anti federalists are as i call the critics of the constitution and the lower countries of new york prefer to call themselves republicans. and i honor that. once i get away from federalist and anti federal sell-off followed. first of all, to use those terms is just the report is involved. a lot of baggage. we know how parties work. there were parties. also, its purpose -- it requires other dichotomies. one side left before the constitution, one must be against it. that also turned out to be wrong. in fact, once i got away from

the terms i was able to make -- i hope and pray clear that there were far more than two. in fact, probably a majority of americans accepted the constitution as better than the confederation. were the of being a basis for the new government, but a substantial part of the people said, look, as written it isn't going to work. massachusetts, ambiguous phrases and some things that really have to have. needs to be amended before it goes into effect. the other side said let's see if the problems really happens to be thin recommended using the procedure and article five. the fight was over amendments. then we can start to understand why eventually it was, you know, despite substantial criticism.

the heart of my story is in the conventions themselves. political analysis. these are just wonderful stories. i take sense of delight in them. i hope i can share it with you. you have to understand that these were the exciting events of the time. you didn't have theories. what did you do for amusement? you go to church. dino, you listen. the excitement here. orators. the rock stars of the day. the conventions brought together all the great political and some clerical workers of their day. people crowded then. they wanted to hear these debates. one of the big challenges that we face is how could they find holes big enough, not only for the convention, but for all the people that wanted to listen to the debate.

not the federal conventions is close the door. it met in secret. could you do that? for conventions that were making a decision, an important decision. the people, of course, not. so you couldn't say, sorry. people should be able to listen to this. they wanted to accommodate them. there was excitement. i hope this comes through in the book. it requires our imagination sometimes. the documents give us tremendous amounts of information. and as i looked at the conventions i thought there was something of a line of development. that is to say one way of looking at this is the federal list whatever else to think about them than from their mistakes, and they really did. in pennsylvania the first. when in with a two-thirds

majority. two to one majority. they understood this because the divisions in pennsylvania roughly correlated with divisions in state politics. they knew they had the majority. they just went over the opposition. in fact, they treated them so poorly in the in the minority was used to exempt the decision. they said it did not speak for a majority of the people, and they did not exempt the decision. they kept trying to overturn it. there was a lot of chaos consequently, even some riding in the town. okay. this was not good. a lot of people get very suspicious, and this was probably the story. whether it's fine to put overestimate you would act like this. it really was. this was a constitution that you could really consider openly. they don't seem to adjust open

debate. pennsylvania really made ratification much less likely to happen. it was a shot. the federalists shot themselves in the feet of what they learned. washington, you can see in the correspondence. washington, benjamin, lincoln, massachusetts. basically what they learned is that washington has to win. you have to have a victory that was worth having. that is a victory in which the minority didn't go away mad. and you can see them doing that in massachusetts. maybe they had their alternative. they had no idea how the convention is going to decide, but they treated the opposition with consummate courtesy, even when, as you can tell from the private letters, they despise them as supporters of shay's rebellion. on the floor of the conventions they listened to them, this incident seriously. you give one of the best and

most probing and most innovative debate over constitution. i also, when that didn't work they came up with another strategy. i mean, they still weren't sure. the federalists said massachusetts would have a conversation, not a debate. was the difference? well, if you have a conversation you don't take notes. they didn't want of vote and so they knew there would win. interesting. with all these debates, converting many people, so they came up with another strategy. they would suggest that the convention adopts the constitution without any condition, but recommend a series of amendments for consideration, you know, once it was put into effect. and it wasn't going to work unless they could get the right people in line. the person they needed was john hancock. a very popular governor of massachusetts.

hancock was a boston delegate. indeed, the commission had elected him as president, but he wasn't attending. he was summoned his magnificent house suffering from an attack of gout. with his cane, a federalist, and get better soon enough when the understands how the convention is going to decide. in other words, he thought it was a political defeat. in any case, what we can see from the documents that these wonderful collections of his have brought together, the deal that put together, the emissary, the way they played to his pride and his political smart, how he responded, and a wonderful scene of when he arrived. they carried amen, wrapped in flannel. can you imagine? people would leave their seats. during the noon hour they have

along in our. because lots spirited pro we have a bigger meal costs. the inside was intense. i think alike massachusetts because there is an account of a delegate to comes remain. there is nothing that gives you a better sense of change over time than some give step-by-step an account of what it took to come to boston in 1787. it took the men six days. there were faeries, bridges, snowstorms. he had to go to church. stop to go to church. you know, we can do this in a couple of hours now. it took him six days. i love doing that. back then there was the vote. the vote is in the federal. this is stuff. we are told there were people.

galleries that would accommodate a hundred people. there were 364 delegates to appeared. on the floor of the church. then they're seems to be people stuffed into every nook and cranny. it was an upper floor. even a law office stuffed with people. the question was put at 4:00. the convention approved ratification of the constitution and nine recommended amendments. the names of the delegates were called out one by one. according to the counties and towns that represented, and they answered with a yea or nay. the rule must have gone at a fast clip here. six months -- six votes a

minute. it was finished by five. we can only imagine christopher gore and other practices scorekeepers checking the votes against their lists of who they expected to vote for or against. meanwhile he noted the crowded hall fell into a deep quiet except for the litany of names and votes. he might have heard a copper fall on the gallery floor. there was such a profound silence. when the vote was complete hundred and 87 delegates had voted for ratification, and hundred 60 against. nine delegates were absent. massachusetts had ratified the constitution with a majority of only 19 out of 355 votes. san bells all over boston began to reign in this city's people

poured into the streets shouting in celebration. a glorious victory. virginia, virginia is different. massachusetts, all the people up practiced eloquence, allocated and famous orders were for the constitution. the other side were farmers and mill owners. it was a little lopsided. virginia was also very close. they didn't know how it was going to go. all seemed to turn on 14 boats from kentucky which was still part of virginia, and virginia -- kentucky didn't seem very happy about the constitution. i really think james madison are was and is now through the whole episode. and, indeed, divided, if you take oratorical strength probably the opposition had the edge because they have patrick kennedy.

patterson call them the gre3 patterson call them the greatest orator of all time. if he did accomplish by somebody you hate him as much gives a special credence. was there were in a fight with henry and the other side. jefferson said set at us, we just have to give up. the odd thing we can do is pray for is an early death. henry highjack the virginia convention site degrees suppose to be going to the constitution line by line. no such luck. he said, raised vegas use. made in debate. and then there was is thunderstorm speech. the hon. gentleman does you of important lessons which he imagines will result in mankind from the adoption of the system.

hewith speak and what might have been the high point of his rhetorical performance at the convention. he sought instead the awful immensity of the dangers with which. i see it. i feel it. he could even see beings of a higher order thaman system concerning their decision. when he looked beyond the horizon that buys humanize at the final consummation of all things human hands of those intelligent b sengs which inhabt the imperial mansions, reviewing, this is what they do, reviewing the phewitical decisions and revolutions which in the progress of time will happen in america and the consummate happiness our misery of mankind he understood how much would depend on what we now decide. at that point of violence storm

shut the hall and forced henry to sto up it was as if the beings of a higher order and there is a real man since streamed out to support him race thundered. i couldn't make this stuff u up i'm not imaginative enough, but you see how wonderful these stories are. that's why the conventions were the heart of my book. the book goes roughly from -- no, the heart of the book gems from september 171787 when the federal convention adjourned to septtlber no, when the confederation congress declared the constitution ratified and made arrangements for the first federal elections. there were still two states out of the union, but for all practical purposes i thought that is the ratification controversy. th he 're is a prologue which looks at the background of the conventions and try to describe

while this had to happen through washington's eyes. there is an epilogue which talt about what hand trpens to the amendments in the first federal congress and manages to get north carhewina and rhode island back into the union, but i could stop. that is what i signed up to do. i had sat in the hall with these guys, and i came to light some of thetem you know, and we know what happened to washington. we know what happened. 1804. hamisulon. those born really what i was curious about. i was curious about some of the unknowns, the local phewiticians to perform so brilliantly. what happens to them? some of them were really have a relic. for many this is the high point of a phewitical career. it tells you what happened to some of these. to close i will close here as i close the book.

a story of one delegate from western pennsylvania who was really badgered by the federalist in the pennsylvania ratified convention but who was impressive. actually, he bested, he be, so to speak, proved wrong the chndef, the supreme court and ghjmes will first, the leading lawyer on an issue in the history of jury trials. so i like this gzo. it turns out he went to congress, had a long and distintroished career in conh after ratification of the constitution. he was known there as the venerable family. but in 1796 select back over the ratified convention. he talked a little bit about how his thinking had changed. he referred to the pennsylvania ratifying convention with considerable understatement as one where some circumstances of

irriere stion were ued triendlyo cool discussion. but later on reflection he decided that, you know, maybe the massachusetts solution of ratifying and recommending amenepilents made a lot of sens, that we needed to improve the federal government quickly and to call another federal co conention, better avoided. he even bought through his positions and decided that not all of his objections to the constitution were well-founded. after the conh the sere stes ratify some of the amendments that he wanted he became confident that additional amenepilents could be enacted wn they became necessary. in the end, like some anyone time critics of the constitution william family embrace the government as my own in my children's ienteritance. he the constitution had defects,

and plenty of friends. peution ection was not to be expected in the work of moral man. in his mature judgment the constitution was, however, not just good or may be good enough 3 ht simply came to belndeve he was cand trable of being well administers and on the whole the best ghat ert went in the world. and so i want to close saying this was a cooperative enterprise, not only of living people, but ildn so grateful to william family for giving me a way to end my book so well. thank you. [applause] [applause] i feel i talked too long, but we do have qovstions. >> to questions.

>> zillow. >> hello. appluse just to cagerify, the ratification is purely dna, yes and no. use in the end they had to vote ll s and no, right. >> how long was it before the bill of rights was basically a nknd of accepted. yeah, we would accept them both in the but we all want cerere sn changes. appluse what happened is startig with massachusetts the state's would ratify and recommend amenepilents. after massachusetts every state of maryland did that. now, don't assume that what the recommended was the bill of rights. it participated in the first congress. only virginia formally as the bill of rights be amendmed to te constitution, 3 ht most people wanted improvement on representation and some

restrictions on federal taxing powers because they thought, well, this is the nature issue of american revhewution. no t moation without representation. that was the big issov, and that frightened the federalists including madison. well we got, that is the tlinence that madison proposed were an effort to bury the tax amendment. and he was actually -- i thiman he belndeved in what he was doing. he was also playing a very interesting phewitical game. the amendments that were -- madison wanted to change the body of the constitution. we all know that. his proposals in the first federal conh th he got changed into a list o be pasted at the end because roger sherman of connecticut said you couldn't change the body of the constitution.

the people had ratified it. morehat er they had all the signatures. if he chases it would look like what they ah changed document. it would be very confusing. megapolis to the end, like the to tterthoughts th he were. nobody called them a bill of rights that i can find bl gween septtlber 1789 and february no,2 when jefferson announce that they had been ratifnded. ten of thewho2 proposed to been ratified. this is a whole nother subjects. i don re know if answered your su he eects. i seem to be hard to stop. i am, what you call,. [inalenible] appluse you use the phrase origl beings in the lecture. were you suggesting that there was a consensus finally. among the state conventions as the various terms.