article 3 goes on and fox a bit about the jurisdiction of the court and so on but many unanswered questions including for instance no mention of the chief justice in article 3. we only infer that there is supposed to be a chief justice because he is given in article 2, the presidential article, the right to preside--not the right, the duty to preside over the impeachment trial in the senate of the president of the united states. and remember william rehnquist did that in the bill clinton impeachment child -- trial. when asked what it amounted to be delighted nothing in particular and do it very well. duties of the chief justice are undefined. much about the supreme court

initially was and defiant. it really had to create itself and it is done so not in a straight wine progression but it is done through its cases. the cases that in the early years had to the side because it had very little discretion over what to hear and it chooses to be side. even that was the choice by the supreme court. most appellate courts in this country have to take what comes. they act sort of as courts of review. courts of appeal. courts of error -- that was the supreme court's initial fate or so it seemed but william howard taft, the capstone after his

presidency, he sized this up and he thought the court would benefit from the ability to create his own pocket and not have to take every case that came along. so under his leadership, his urging, congress passed in 1929 what was known as the judge's bill because all the judges of the country got behind this effort and gave the court for the first time discretion over its dockets. that is the place we are today. we have the supreme court that is capable of setting its own agenda. in doing that it sets the legal agenda for the country. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. coming up next david campbell examines the current state of religious observance and interfaith relationships in the u.s..

the author focuses on reaction to public and -- republican presidential candidate mitt romney mormonism and his thoughts on what it says about religious tolerance today. mr. campbell takes audience questions for an hour and 20 minutes. >> thank you very much for those words and the introduction. it is nice to be here. as a notre dame guy that is really saying something. i have mixed feelings coming here. i have never been to u.s. c before but i know all about this place. one saturday every year it is u.s. c all the time. i was very pleased when i was in the bookstore today. i buy a t-shirt from every campus allied deposit a little money to get my t-shirt but i was pleased to see a table in the bookstore with a bunch of leprechauns for sale. very classy move. then i walked up to and realize this was a notre dame flag

bearers selling because of st. patrick's day. and a biographical information about myself might be relevant for the discussion. i teach at notre dame which means there can be a little confusion about my own biography. people often assume i am catholic. i teach and write on american politics which often means people assume that i am an american. it turns out neither of those things are true. i am neither catholic nor am i an american. yet i teach at a catholic university about american politics. a few years ago this all came to head with biographical facts about myself when i was asked to participate on a round table at notre dame. the sorts of things campuses do all the time.

panel discussion -- went to the event and introduced myself the way i did now saying two things you should know about me. i am neither catholic nor am i an american. if you want to hear what a non catholic non-american has to say about catholics in american politics stick around. they got the same crowd they did here. passes for a joke in political science. the next day the campus newspaper asked notre dame, the observer had as its front page story an article about that round table and the story began with the following sentence -- yesterday professor david campbell, neither catholic nor an american said -- i always feel like a fish out of water. there was one other biographical fact you may have picked up in the introduction. some would have clued in the

important detail that came from my undergraduate education. i attended brigham young university and if it isn't clear already you should know now that i am not a catholic but i am a mormon. i do speak from inside the culture. i will talk a little bit about mormonism today. felt like it was important for me to get that out there. i want to point to my opening slide that there is -- it is possible for trojans and irish to live together in harmony. if there's anything else we can learn from this is a great bridge building opportunity. there we go. i am going to talk about mitt romney, john f. kennedy but more importantly some broader

questions given the comparisons between the two presidential candidates. before i get into that i want to make the point that we all know i am here today because a few years ago a mormon almost won the most important election in america by which i mean data are gillette on american idol. i am here to talk about this guy. mitt romney. not just about him but he will set the stage for our discussion of the role religion plays in politics today and this question of whether or not mitt romney's mormonism has and will present the same obstacle john f. kennedy's catholicism caused him to face in 1960. before i get into the discussion and a comparison between mitt romney and kennedy and what we can learn from these examples i want to set the stage for the overall state of religion in america and more specifically

what we might think of as the state of religious tolerance in america. i will talk for a few minutes about some findings from the book mentioned in the introduction that was given that i recently published with robert putnam and title of american racing. of religion divide that unites us. this is the paperback edition which is just out today. this is not about mormons or catholics. it is about religion in general. it covers a lot of questions and themes about religion in american society but it primarily answers the following question -- how can americans simultaneously be three things. how can we be a country that is religiously devout and compared to other advanced industrialized democracies america is a very religious country. how can we be religiously diverse? we have a wide array of

religions in america and only get more diverse as time goes on. how do we combine those two fact with smooth third characteristic of religion in american society. a high level of religious tolerance? the third claim that some audiences are a little skeptical of it but let me show you a little evidence to suggest perhaps americans actually do get along to a much greater extent than is appreciated by those who might only be watching cable news programs. american graves. the book that i mentioned has as its back but a major survey we commissioned of over 3,000 americans randomly sampled from around the country. every imaginable thing you can come up with a. religion, demographic background, family life, you name it, we ask.

we asked the following question. do you believe that a good person not of your faith can go to heaven? what you are looking at is how americans from many religious ragoo cf1 oo of mainline that includes 83% of evangelical might think had some strong /yo cf1 o this is a pretty skeptical bunch who are thinkm

methodists think the presbyteri:,:g2rorz/; lutherans can go to heaven? go to heaven. or 54% of evangelical protestants lower than the percentage we saw earlier still over half of evangelical protestants. one group the might see have the strongest opinions who gets to have an 54% of them still say

that even a non christian can go to heaven. i spoke to many different audiences about this finding and i can assure you among evangelical christians themselves or evangelical christian clergy and theologians this is a very troubling number. but they are the facts. most americans are perfectly willing to accept those of other religions to the extent that they're willing to say those folks can even go to heaven. list you think that particular question is somehow quirky or idiosyncratic there's more idea that americans are comfortable with people of other religions. on our survey we also ask do you think religious diversity has been good for america? what you are looking at is the percentage of americans of varying degrees of their own personal religious yasser your religious commitment how they answered that question, and across the board you see the overwhelming majority of americans say religious

diversity has been a good thing for america. though least religious people, 84% to the most religious, 74%. overwhelming majority say religious diversity -- you believe that there's very little truth in any religion, or one religion is true and others or not which presumably means your only religion you answer yes or basic truths in many religions? an overwhelming percentage of americans fall into that middle category. basic truths of many religions. however, that is not to say that all religions are viewed with equal favorability. on the survey i mentioned earlier we asked a series of

questions designed to gauge how americans feel about those of a different face. we did this using a rather hokey question and a survey done as a feeling thermometer. when i use that term i know it sounds like a sort of thing you might do in therapy. let's get together and talk about our feelings. all it is is on the survey if you were one of our responses we asked to give your ratings, how you felt for a series of religious groups. social scientists use this not just for religion. politicians. various companies. if you are interested in how the american public perceives your brand of toothpaste you might ask a similar question. we were interested in religion. we asked these folks how do you feel about the jews or catholics or evangelicals. between 0-100 with 0 meaning negative or cold, 100 meaning

you feel positive for warm told that group, 15 meaning you are completely neutral. put the score anywhere in between. a box of red sox fans, i give them a score of 90 or would have until their september collapse. would you are looking at here is a picture that raised religious groups and how they are perceived by everyone else in a population. this particular figure only tells you how other groups, other folks feel about a particular group. it is how non jews feel about jews how non catholics feel about catholics with different story how they feel about themselves. today i want to focus on how different groups are perceived by others. the first thing i want to point out is the range is compact between 40 and 60 which means most americans give most

religions a pretty moderate trading. there's some variation. the most popular religious group in america. the most popular religious group in america is the jews. but i assure you that note do believe that. there it is. you are going to think i am playing the hometown crowd when i say it is because i am notre dame but it is true. in second place and close to the jews is essentially a time, the catholics. and mainline protestants and other groups and i will get to those in a minute. it is remarkable thing that jews and catholics are at the top of the scale because even though we didn't do feeling thermometer's i can assure you that if we have 150 or maybe even 40 years ago jews and catholics would not have been at the top of that

west. it is because catholics were not viewed favorably in 1960 and 1928 when house smith and john f. kennedy ran for presidency they had to face voters concerns precisely because of that. here they are. it is a puzzle that we discuss and might want to think about this. what happened to those grooves to rise to the top? we have evangelicals and people who are not religious. some great symmetry here. a sense of universal justice that the evangelical and people are not religious argued about the same. down here we have the least popular religions in america. lou muslims, the buddhists and the group that is our greatest interest today, the mormons. any explanation we might come up with for house some groups are at the top also accounts for y.

other groups are at the bottom. size of each circle represents the share that that group has within the population. i point that out because it cannot be explained by the size of the group and the population. the most popular group are the jews and one of the least popular groups are the mormons and this is a surprise to many audiences. there are as many mormons in america as there are jews. has to be something else. the answer bob putnam and i put forward in our book american grace is why some groups are more favorable than others and why in general americans are comfortable with people of other religions is another drum roll, you might want to write this down, who is your and? your aunt susan is that person

in your family, the loved one in your close circle who is the kindest, sweetest person you know. she is the one who never forgets your birthday. she is the one who brings the casseroles. she is the one who is ready with the small loan if you need it. you know in your heart of hearts that and susan is going to heaven. if there is a 7 she -- she is going to be there. you also know on sunday you go and you hear theology that says that she can't go to heaven because she plays for a different team. you are catholic and she is jewish. she is morgan and you are a protestant. when faced with a choice between there and susan and their

theology almost all americans go with susan. i tell you that story and give you that name as a way to remember the concept. you are thinking okay, very nice. let's sing come by of. of me the data. there's an amazing amounts of data supporting the argument that americans have figured out how to get across religious lines because we made personal connections. almost all of us have a citizen in our family. that is what this shows you. this shows the percentage of americans who say that they have either neighbors, close friends or extended family members who are of a different religion than they are. 93% of us had neighbors of different religions. three quarters have close friends. personal someone within five closest friends and two thirds

of us have susans, people in our own family of different religions. americans grace we detail how it is that this bridge building across religions has led us as a people, as a nation to be very accepting of those of other religions. here is the message. remember. whether or not your group is accepted is its of related to the degree of bridgeing the group in gauges in. bridge building to other religions. there are lots of catholic students in america. a lot of americans would know and love a catholic and there are a lot of -- jews are not a big group. there's a group most likely to build a bridges be on their own faith. to one religious group in america that is the least likely to build a bridges are mormons.

there are a variety of reasons for that. one is mormons are geographically concentrated largely in the mountain west but even when you look at morgan's outside that they are less likely to have friends and family beyond their own religion. that works against them in ways that mitt romney has experience and is continuing to experience and should he prevail in the next few months, will experience yet more. that is the backdrop for what i'm talking about which is this comparison. the catholics were back in 1960 arguably in 1928 when al smith ran as the first catholic presidency. let's set the stage for kennedy's run in 1960.

the gallup poll has asked americans for many years the following question. if your party nominated a generally well qualified person who happens to be in this case a catholic but they asked the question about all sorts of religious groups and the demographic characteristics, happens to be a woman, african-american, would you vote for that person? they asked this question as you see going back to the 1930s and when they first asked about women, the question was worded if your party nominated an otherwise well qualified person who happened to be a woman would you vote for that person? we have come a long way. these are the numbers for the percentage of americans who say they would vote for a catholic

candidate for the presidency. go back to when this began in 1930s and all the way up through 1960 when kennedy was running we had roughly 25% to 30% of the american population who openly told pollsters that they would not vote for a catholic for the presidency. in those days interviews like this were done face to face. you had to sit in your living room and tell the person who just asked all sorts of things that you would not vote for a catholic for the presidency. we have every reason to think that that 30% was on the low side of the estimate because a lot of people in that situation would not have been able to say i would not vote for that guy because he was a catholic but in the voting booth the different story altogether. that 30% is modest. that is what kennedy was up against in 1960. he is elected and jump up and

stays high. it never comes back down. what i would like to do now is play for you a clip from a speech that many of you have undoubtedly heard of. from 1960, john kennedy, running for the presidency faces a group of protestant ministers in houston, texas. this is september of 1916 in the heat of the presidential election. 30% of americans said they would not vote for a catholic for presidency. kennedy figures i need to face my, quote, religion problem. he does so in this speech given truly in the lion's den where he meets a hostile crowd. in this talk i don't have time

to go through the whole speech and don't have time to show the question and answer period afterwards. if your interest i would encourage you to go on line and watch not just the speech but the q&a afterwards where you can see the facility directed toward kennedy by these protestant pastors asking questions that i would suggest to you are not so far, questions currently being asked of mitt romney as he runs for the presidency. questions that are hostile towards catholicism. they are often hostile. i am going to play the clip and talk a little bit about it. >> these are my views. contrary to common usage i am not a catholic candidate for president. i am the democratic party's candidate for president who happens also to be a catholic. i do not speak for my church on public matters and the church

does not speak for me. whatever issue comes for me if i should be elected on birth control to censorship, gambling or any other subject, i will make my decision in accordance with these views and in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates. no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise. if the time should never come and i do not conceive any conflict to be remotely possible, one my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interests than i would resign the office and i hope any other conscientious public servant would do likewise. >> here's what i want to point out about kennedy's remarks.

note that he says in that speech i did not speak for my church on public matters and the church does not speak for me. he goes on to mention a series of issues. birth control once again. we're having a big debate over birth control. divorce. censorship. gambling or any other subject. i will make my decision in accordance with my own views. what my conscience tells me without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates. kennedy is standing for the audience of protestant pastors and the entire nation to say i will not be beholden to the church hierarchy. interesting to know the historical irony of the presidential candidate is if you look at the actual positions taken by john f. kennedy and richard nixon on the other hand, nixon was closer to the positions of the catholic church

on whether they were having -- on the question of public funding for catholic schools. today we call them school vouchers. nixon was actually on the side of the catholic church. not kennedy. with kennedy saying vote for me because i'm not going to do catholic stuff. i'm not beholden to the hierarchy. i want you to keep that in mind because it says something significant about how religion and politics were intertwined in 1960. all right. the more things change the more they stay the same. want to draw a contrast between the way catholics were perceive when kennedy was running and other groups today. gallup has asked the same question. lots of different groups.

jews and mormons. i want to point out the percentage of americans who say they would vote for a jew has risen over the last 40 years until now it is pretty much at universal level. not quite but well within that margin of error where we could say basically everyone in america is comfortable saying they would vote for a jew but compare that to the life of mormons. this is truly remarkable. gala first half a question of a mormon presidential candidate in 1968 because for there was a guy maybe you heard of named george romney, former governor of michigan, father to mitt romney was for a time a leading candidate in the republican presidency. it that time 25% of americans said openly they would not vote for a mormon for presidency.

galloped not ask the question again in 1999 and the line was flat. they asked again repeatedly and that wind has not moved at all. i would not worry about the fact that it is a lower than the statistical margin we have. it has stayed flat. actually other groups as well. they have not become more accepting overtime of mormons. that is the obstacle mitt romney faces today and obstacle that jon huntsman jr. would have faced had he stayed in the race and had more traction. the same issue any more and candidate will face today. there we have the parallel between mitt romney today and kennedy then. of course we are not running in the same political environment. lot has changed.

what changed? this will come as no surprise to anyone in the audience but we live in a time today when religion matters, lot more and in different ways today in how people vote than it did in the 60s, 70s and 80s. the correlation between how frequently someone attend religious services and whether or not they identify as a republican going back to the 1950s all the way to the present. the way you interpret this is the higher the point is on the graph the tighter the connection between how frequently you go to church and whether you identify as a republican. there's a strong connection and if it is low and below zero it means there is either no connection or those who go to church are more likely to be democrats than republicans. this is a surprise to those in the audience but we live in an era that has a strong connection

between how frequently you attend church and with you identify as a republican. what is amazing about this change is it is no longer divided along the old lines of religious denomination. when kennedy was running for the presidency politics divided along religious lines but it was catholic and protestant. now people who are more religious whether catholic or protestant or whenever versus those for less religious. that is a huge shift. that is why you get evangelical christians endorsing rick santorum, a catholic in the republican race for the presidency. i assure you john f. kennedy would be absolutely shocked if you told him if you had a time machine and went forward 40 or 50 years you would see evangelicals endorsing a strident catholic for the presidential nomination.

this is a world we live in now. interesting that not long ago there was essentially no connection between church attendance and whether you were a republican. what changed? make the point -- tell a story that this is a picture of george pataki, governor of new york at the 2004 presidential -- republican convention in madison square garden. if you look carefully at this picture you can see on the podium it looks like there might be a cross? maybe it is and maybe it is not. there in the republican convention in 2004 i was called by a reporter in madison square garden looking at this podium and asked me did i think it looked like a cross? the point are tried to make to the reporter is it doesn't matter whether the republicans put a subliminal religious imagery on their podium. this is a party that in the 2004

convention stopped the entire proceedings to say a prayer on prime-time television. that is not subtle. that is as overt as it gets. i made a statement that it doesn't matter if it is a cross on the podium. it is all about religious imagery and symbolism and george w. bush is a master at using this and the reporters that are just want to know is in a cross? when you are at notre dame you're the expert on crosses. my answer had denied that's because we don't like to be pinned down is -- looked this up in an associated press story -- i am not sure if it is a cross or not but it has cross like properties. that is maybe not a fair example because it is crazy subliminal thing on the podium. let me show you another example of what has changed in our

politics. here is an had that rick perry ran recently. >> not ashamed to admit i am a christian. you don't need to be in the pew every sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military and our kids can't openly celebrate christmas or pray in school. as president i will end obama's war on religion and i will fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. faith made america strong. it can make her strong again. i am rick perry and i approve this message. >> this is our politics today. this is a leading contender for the republican presidential nomination of openly speaking about the current administration having declared war on religion. rick perry is now relegated to the historical dustbin at least for now but we had newt gingrich who popped up with similar

things and rick santorum pop up and say similar things. this fema on the importance of not a particular flavor of religion about religion in a general keeps coming up in presidential politics. let me show you a couple examples here. you might say rick perry didn't even win. maybe it's just a loser and got to focus on the winners. how about george w. bush? he won two presidential elections using a lot of religious symbolism and imagery including the following flyer. this is a flyer that was distributed to hundreds of thousands of households in the state of ohio in 2004. you remember the 2004 presidential election came down to the state of ohio. the classic battleground state. in ohio it was not only a presidential election but also a ballot initiative on the question of same-sex marriage.

one of 13 held that presidential election year. 11 were held the same day as the presidential election. this flyer reminds us republicans believe in america. we are told they're the only party that defense like and protect the unborn from partial birth abortion. we are reminded their newly party you can trust to defense traditional marriage, one man and one woman and a number of other things related to religion. what i want to draw your attention to the image of a church. we don't know what kind of church this is the it is definitely a church. this is brandon of a part of the republican party. unless you think that is an idiosyncratic example here the other one cent to hundreds of thousands of households from the great state of ohio. we are told this election is for families. that george w. bush is fighting for our values. strong family is the foundation of america. george w. bush is fighting to protect traditional marriage. we have the image of a church

and the most beautiful family you can possibly imagine. who would not want to be part of that family? they are such a beautiful family they don't even have to wear shoes. rules do not apply to them. for why do i point this out? these fliers make an important point. not only is the policy saturated with religious symbolism and imagery but we see an emphasis on the two issues and two issues only that separate religious and secular america. religious people and less religious people variously see the world in the same way on many issues. the death penalty and immigration and social welfare. contrary to what you may see on cable-tv most americans share similar opinions on those issues and religion does not divide them. where religion does divide americans is on issues of abortion and same-sex marriage. when we fight elections over those issues religious and secular voters pulled apart from one another and vote differently. when we fight over different issues we wouldn't expect

religious and secular voters to do differently. we would be divided in other ways. let me make a quick point about the saturation of religion in politics and especially on the right. in this big survey we have done we went back and interviewed them in 2011. it is important because we can tell you what change and what stayed the same over a very important five your period and america. in 2006 we first get our survey. we have not experienced the great recession. we have not yet elected barack obama as our president. and the tea party had not yet emerged. going back to our date in 2006 but predicts the tea party five years later in 2011? it is really interesting. because it turns out next to being a republican, no surprise there, the next strong this predictor whether you are a supporter of the tea party is

the desire to see more religion makes in with our politics. that is a stronger predictor of who turned out to be a tea party supporter than a desire for smaller government which is the ostensible reason for existence of the tea party. and not to question they don't have a busier -- since you desire for strong government but government goes along side the idea that we should have more religion in our government. we have this highly charged environment today where religion is something that we expect presidential candidates to address and this is the challenge mitt romney faces today because he can stand before an audience like kennedy did and said don't worry about my religion. because we expect our

presidential candidates and especially the republican base expects their candidate to speak very openly about their religion to where their religion on their sleeve. this is a difficult space that mitt romney has to negotiate. let me lay out why mitt romney's mormonism is an issue for him. in 2008 when he was first running along with some colleagues at brigham young university and john green in akron we did a number of experiments on people and brought them into the lab and poked them with needles. on a survey we asked some people one question and other people another question and compare the results depending how we phrase the question in order in this case to determine how people react to learning that mitt romney is either a local leader in his church or as i will show you later, local leader in the mormon church. the way you interpret this is if a dog appears below zero it means what we told folks made

them less likely to vote for mitt romney but these little things here if they cross zero it means we can't say that there was any attack whatsoever. it just measures the level of uncertainty and margin of error on the estimate. what does it mean? it means americans in general, mitt romney is a local leader in his church. little less likely to vote for him but not in a different way. that is true for evangelicals or people of high level of religious commitment. the republican primary voters, those who knew mitt romney's religion and those interested in politics. you are saying he is religious, that is fine. if you point out he is not just religious, he is a local leader in the mormon church of a sudden all those dots below zero, weather -- talk about the public as a whole or people at a higher level of religious commitment,

republican primary voters, all of those folks say now that i know that or i am reminded of that i am less likely to vote for mitt romney. that is the challenge mitt romney faces. why is this a problem? partly because there aren't many mormons in the country. to many americans mormonism is a strange alien religion they know nothing about. it doesn't help that mormons as i mentioned earlier have a very high rate of bonding. even a small number, that small number doesn't have a tendency to build bridges to other faiths. so mormons local lot like black protestants and latino catholics on the religious homogeneity index. a measure of how much bonding you have any religion. with your close friends or family members are the same faith and you see mormons' look -- the height of the bar is a greater degree of bonding. they look like two other groups. black protestants and latino

catholics both of which are racial groups or ethnic groups. there is a high level of tight knitted this within mormonism. this compares mormons on one of those questions with your closest friends share your religion. within communities that are heavily lbs versus mormons who live in communities where they are not. ..

>> and what do we tell them that romney's a local leader in the church, we find those who are not mormon, they're less likely to vote for romney. that part goes over to zero, so we really can't say there's an effect. but where we find the biggest effect -- and this is a message that should be sobering for any latter-day saint who might be in the audience today, those who know a mormon but only in passing, they are the most likely to have a negative reaction to romney's mormonism. why is that? well, we hypothesize because it's these folks, they know there's something different and distinctive about mormons, but they haven't developed that close, personal relationship that enables them to forge the personal connection that gets them over the distinction and enables them to recognize that maybe these folks are okay after all in the same way that we've

done this as a people with catholics and jews and many other religions. so it's with that context that i want to turn now to view a clip from a speech that mitt romney gave in 2007. this speech in many respects was like kennedy's in 1960. romney's running, in this case, for the nomination of his party, but like kennedy, he's faced questions about his religion. and even in the same state, texas, he went to address questions related to his religion. let's listen to what he had to say. >> almost 50 years ago another candidate from massachusetts explained that he was an american running for president, not a catholic running for president. like him, i am an american running for president. i do not define my candidacy by my religion. a person should not be elected because of his faith, nor should

he be rejected because of his faith. let me assure you that no authorities of my church or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. their authority is theirs within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin. as governor, i tried to do the right as best i knew it serving the law and answering to the constitution. i did not confuse the particular teachings of my church where the obligations of the office and of the constitution. and, of course, i would not do so as president. i will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law. >> all right. now, up to that point that sounds a lot like kennedy, doesn't it? he's basically saying the same thing. but remember that romney is running in a very different political environment. he's running in an environment

where we expect now our presidential candidates to speak about religion openly. and so the calculation he made in his speech is that it wasn't enough for him to do what kennedy did and simply say, you know what? yeah, i've got a religion, but don't worry about it. it's not going to effect what i do because that's not what we expect our presidential candidates to do anymore. so he went on to say the following: >> as a young man, lincoln described what he called america's political religion the commitment to defend the rule of law and the institution. constitution. when i play my hand on the bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to god. if i'm fortunate to become your president, i will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause and no one interest. a president must serve only the common cause of the people of the united states. [applause] >> so, again, that sounds very

kennedyesque, doesn't it? but hang on. [applause] >> there are some for whom these commitments are not enough. they would prefer it if i would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it's more a tradition than my personal conviction. or disavow one or another of its precepts. that i will not do. i believe in my mormon faith, and i endeavor to live by it. my faith is the faith of my fathers. i will be true to them and to my beliefs. some believe that such a concession of my faith will sink my candidacy. if they're right, so be it. but i think they underestimate the american people. americans do not respect respecters -- excuse me -- believers of convenience. americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs even to gain the world.

there is one fundamental question of which i'm often asked, what do i believe about jesus christ? i believe that jesus christ is the son of god and the savior or mankind -- and the savior of man kind. my church's beliefs about christ may not be the same as those of other faiths. each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. these are not bases for criticism but, rather, a test of our tolerance. religious tolerance would be a shallow principle, indeed, if it were reserved for faiths only with which we agree. >> now, that is a pretty remarkable statement. mitt romney, a front-running candidate for the republican presidential nomination, says the following: what do i believe about jesus christ? i believe that jesus christ is the son of god and the savior of mankind. that's a pretty perm statement. personal statement.

in 1960 nobody would have expected john f. kennedy to say anything like that. i would say that even as late as 1980, maybe even in 1992 we wouldn't have expected a presidential candidate to say something like that. but here's romney feeling like he needs to open up about his religion. that's the dilemma that he faced and continues to face. now, with that in mind let me go back to this big study that we've done of how people respond to information about romney's religious background. one of the most loaded charges made about mormons is that they are not christian. i will tell you as someone from inside the culture that that statement is very hurtful to many mormons. in fact, the pew research center recently did a big survey of mormons in america, and they asked mormons themselves, 97% said yes. who those 3% were, i don't know, they must have misunderstood the question. [laughter] because to a mormon, of course we're christian.

we put the name of jesus in the church's own name. but, of course, that charge that mormons are not christian to those who make it isn't about the name of the church or even confessions of the belief in christ, it's the specific things that mormons believe about jesus. i'm not going to get into that today. i don't think it's relevant for our discussion, i just want to make that point that that charge carries a lot of weight in america. so we gave people that information, we said and we phrased it very innocuously. we just said some people say that mormons aren't christian. in addition to this information about romney's biography, other things about him. and we asked, does that make you more or less likely to vote for mitt romney. and hearing that mormons are not christian, as you can see, knocks down support for mitt romney. then we dave people, another -- gave people, another group, countervailing information. others say that your faith, the faith of a presidential candidate should be irrelevant

when voters are making their decisions. that's, basically, the kennedy argument, right? we wanted to see whether that could move people's opinions, and it turns out, well, a little bit. made them a little less likely to say they wouldn't vote for romney, but even with that counterargument people are still saying i don't think i can vote for this guy. then we tried a different counterargument, what we'll call the romney argument. faith is irrelevant, that's kennedy's. this counterargument was, well, some people say we shouldn't worry about voting for a mormon because mormons have the same values as people like protestants and catholics. did that make a difference? well, it made people a little warmer toward romney, a little more likely to say they'd vote for him, but that line is still below zero which suggests there's still a potent argument to be made that we can't completely undo when we give people other information.

then we grouped people by three categories, those who didn't know a mormon, those who knew a mormon well and one who only knew one in passing. you give them the countervailing information, you say, well, maybe faith should be irrelevant or mormons have the same values as other religions, and support comes back up. why is that? because these folks don't know anything about mormons, so everything you tell them is new, so they're willing to be persuaded. and that's actually a big chunk of the population. here are the folks who say they have a mormon as a close friend or family member. for these folks it doesn't matter what you tell them about mormons because they already have their opinion made up. they've already made a personal connection with a mormon, and they've already decided in most cases that their mormon aunt susan is okay. here's the troubling group. these are the folks who knew a mormon in passing. tell them mormons aren't

christian, support goes down. tell them faith should be irrelevant, it doesn't budge. tell them that mormons have the same value as others, it still doesn't budge. what does that suggest? it suggests that for mitt romney he faces this obstacle whereby a sizable fraction of the american population are wary of mormons because they recognize the distinctiveness of mormons but have not yet forged that personal connection with a mormon. now, if i left the speech there, things would probably sound pretty depressing not just for the mitt romney candidacy, but maybe for the state of religious tolerance in america overall. because it would suggest there's not much he can do about this problem, right? it'd be very difficult to imagine how the romney campaign even with its many millions of dollars could somehow convince mormons to form these personal connections with their friends and neighbors. that would be a pretty tall task. but i will suggest this, that in

other reasonable research that e we've found that next to potential connections the other factor that matters to assuage people's concerns about religious background is information, factual information about a religion. and so if romney candidacy leads americans to have a conversation about religion even though at times it will be painful especially for those within the mormon community because they're going to hear a lot of things they hold sacred trotted toward the public, that in the long run we will be better off as a nation because we will move a little closer to having a greater understanding of those of a different religious background. so let me, if i could, play just one last clip of only a few seconds of manager john f. kennedy -- of something john f. kennedy said on which i will

conclude. >> while this year i may be a catholic, the guest of the finger of suspicion is pointed, in some years it may by a jew or a unitarian or a baptist. >> or maybe a mormon. so let me conclude with one question that i'd like us to think about. does the mormon moment, all the attention focused on his religion, mean that this is romney's year? will he be the mormons' john f. kennedy? maybe he will, in which case i would expect favorability towards mormons to rise although maybe not to the same extent that it did for catholics after john f. kennedy was elected. but, of course, the other scenario is that romney turns out to be the mormons' al smith where inted of prevailing, instead he goes down in flames, and history remembers him as a

candidate who suffered because of his religion. which way it will go, it's tough to say, but at least we know now what the road blocks are ahead of him. thank you very much. [applause] so we have a little bit of time for q and a. if anyone has any questions, remember, if you do have a question, we need to wait for the microphone to come. to the mormons in the audience, this is kind of like a testimony meeting, so we have our deacon here who will bring you a microphone. [laughter] to those who aren't mormon, i can explain that joke later. >> ask a question. the first slide you show, 98% of mormons believe nonmormons can go to heaven? >> yes. >> i think that's really a false doctrine because you, if anybody say so, mormon say so, they would be required to repent and recant, or otherwise they would be excommunicated because the mormons believe unless they're baptized, they cannot go to

heaven. [inaudible] baptized in mormon temple with god. >> right. >> so to the mormons to go to heaven as i understand, they are baptized -- [inaudible] and so many steps, repeat all the steps, you cannot go to hen. it depends what kind of heaven you're talking about. but that's not church doctrine. [inaudible] >> well, let me begin by answering that question by saying the following: i am not a spokesman for the lds church. i am an lds, but i'm not a spokesman, and i'm actually not an evangelist or missionary or anything like that for the church, nor am i an evangelist for the mitt romney campaign, as a matter of fact. but let me answer your question. so just to rephrase it, when i put that slide up early on in the talk and i said there's this

high percentage of americans who believe that those of other faiths can go to heaven, and the highst group of all were the mormons, some might say, well, that's not really a fair question because to mormon ears that's a different question than most every over religion. because mormons have this unique belief that those who have died and who were not baptized into the lds faith can have others baptized in their name. you might think of a posthumous baptism. and there's been some controversy about that recently, that the church has had to face victims of the holocaust have had their, they've been baptized by proxy or through this posthumous practice. and so maybe for mormons that's a different question. and it's even more complicated because the mormons have a very complex view of heaven. there's not one heaven and hell, there are multiple levels of hen, so when you ask people, well, yeah, they can sort of go

to the lower level, but not up to high. and, you know, we don't know what's inside people's heads when they answer these questions. we don't know. it's interesting that mormons are a little higher than everyone else, but they're not a lot higher. let's just take as a matter of argument that you're right. for this question the mormon response is different than it is for everyone else. the mormons have this unique belief, what that really means is they can go to heaven if they're baptized posthumously by a mormon. okay? i would suggest to you that even if that is true and that's what's inside a hour mono's head when they answer that -- mormon's head when they answer that question, that's important in the way they view other people's faith. because it means if they understand their own doctrine correctly, they should be looking at people not who are different than them, but who actually are their brother and sister and are destined for the same place, right?

they just have to work a little to get them there. and my evidence for why i think that is a plausible interpretation of this is i mentioned all this data on how people perceive religious groups. well, i showed you how everybody else feels about mormons. do you know how mormons feel about everybody else? they love everybody else. they love the jews,, and they love the muslims and the buddhists and the catholics which suggests maybe there is some of this idea. now as to the other things if people fall away from the church will they be excommunicated, i'll let a church spokesman speak about that, i will say people have been cut off from the lds church. it's quite a rare occurrence which is why you have provident mormons or people who have a nominal affiliation who clearly are not practicing but nonetheless are still on the rolls of the church. it takes a lot in order to be cut off, not a little. go ahead. >> you said that on the second

slide, i think, people feel good about various religions. >> yes. >> you used the word "popular." >> yeah, i did. >> and is that, evidently, that's the way you phrased the question? >> no, that's not the way we asked the question. people are asked to give a rating to these various groups. so maybe i should put popularity in air quotes. we don't use that phrase when we ask people. >> what about respect? >> well, we don't use either word, popularity or respect, but i think it probably is fair to say that the evidence that we see in the data suggests that when americans say that they're favorable toward another religion or they give another religion a high rating, that that does actually imply a high level of respect. so jews respect catholics and catholics respect jews, for example. >> yeah. because if you asked me, i wouldn't necessarily say mormons

are popular or that they make me feel good, but i would say i very much respect -- >> you respect them. right. >> so would you give them a high score on that 0-100 scale? >> yeah, very high. >> and do you know a mormon personally? >> several. >> ah, there you go. thank you very much, folks. [laughter] >> i mean, but in passing, you know, not -- never to sit down and discuss religion. and i've been to the salt lake city. but, you know, like you said, it's a strange world if you're not acquainted. i've read some of their pamphlets and this and this and this. fine. it's fine. you know, non-catholics have a hard time with catholicism. >> right. and the point i'm trying to make is that in 1960 there were a lot of americans who had never had any personal exposure to catholics. it was a very different world,

right? catholics went to different schools, they lived in different neighborhoods, and many protestants simply didn't know a catholic. and that changed. what you're describing is a similar story about your personal experience with mormons today. maybe not a mormon aunt susan, but at least you have had exposure to mormonism. >> as a mormon, would you answer this question? in, in your heart your values, how you would act, you wouldn't run to the bishop and ask him -- i agree with that if you're in political office. >> uh-huh. >> however, what you really believe in, let us say it's about abortion or it's about same-sex marriage or that sort of stuff. >> uh-huh. >> you wouldn't give it up to be popular, i don't think. >> um, i see what you're saying, and i think that's a fair comment to make that we, i would hope, collectively as a society

wouldn't expect our politicians or really anyone else to have to disavow any of their religious beliefs because they were running for public office or otherwise in the public. although it is interesting to note that in the case of mormonism there actually are far fewer specific statements ever made by church leaders that could really be construed as direction to any politician in office. the lds church really does make a policy of staying out of politics, and i can show you why it didn't in this talk. that really does work out on the ground. you never hear politics discussed in mormon congregations, for example, it's a rare thing. when it does happen -- and you all live in the state of california, so you saw this in 2008. the lds church did get involved on the proposition 8 campaign, so when it does, it can really ignite a lot of enthusiasm because there's a lot that mormons can draw on to mobilize politically. but that's a very rare, very

rare event. um, let's go over here. actually, okay, we'll do him, and i actually meant the woman in the row ahead. but, no, go ahead, you have the mic. >> i just want to ask about the survey. you asked a lot of very personal questions, really sensitive questions. >> uh-huh. >> and just like you say, you don't know what's in the heads of people. so my general question to you is how seriously are you taking this? like, for example, the very first thing about the, you know, will good people go to heaven. well, you had something about the jews, and they think that whatever it was, 58%, well, jews don't believe in heaven. so if you ask a jew that question, the right answer would be, you know -- do you see what i'm saying? >> right. >> so you're asking stuff about,

like, if you asked me about my sexual practices -- >> which i'm not going to do, by the way. [laughter] >> well, if i was going to answer, chances are, i wouldn't answer truthfully. you get my point. >> so in giving a talk, i have to take a lot of shortcuts. i didn't want give you -- i didn't give you the phrasing of every question we asked n. the case of who goes to heaven, we actually added goes to hen or attains salvation. and if it were the case that say your typical jewish respondent didn't think that question applied to them, they could have just said pass. but it turns out very few, or none of them did. and my co-author is actually jewish, and he was fine with the question. so i take that to mean that this is a question that even though it might not exactly map onto, in this case, jewish beliefs, that jews sort of get what we're asking. it's very difficult to ask questions about religion of people of different religious backgrounds because you have to come up with language that

translates across. you're concerned that nobody's going to tell us the truth about religion, or people maybe won't even want to talk about religion. we were worried that our response would be very low. especially my co-author who lives in cambridge, massachusetts, where there's like three people who go to church. [laughter] but it turns out that wasn't the case at all. in fact, when we met with the company that did the surveys for us and we explained we're going to do this big survey, and it's going to be on religion, and we mentioned to them, well, we're very concerned about the response rate, they said, oh, don't worry. it's not going to be a problem. we do 90-minute surveys on mutual funds. that's a problem. and it turned out they were right. the response rate we had on our survey was actually very high by the standards of modern polling, and the reason is that most americans -- this may come as a shock in southern california, but i assure you it would not be shocking to an audience in south bend, indiana -- most americans are very comfortable talking about religion.

they actually like talking about it. we listened in on a few of these interviews as the questions were being asked, and it's very clear that most of the people we spoke to because they themselves are religious, that's the way america is, they were very comfortable talking about these sorts of questions and found it to be a very natural thing. so i'll just sort of put that out there as, you know, sort of my counter as to why i do take these results seriously. i don't want to take everything with a grain of salt. i don't necessarily believe that everyone who says they're in church every week is actually in church every week, but at least they want us to think it. and that's worst knowing. another question here. >> as an academic, political theology or interplay between politics, i'm sure you could give us an opinion on religion not being as big in politics, but we've been seeing an increased involvement as a

specific campaign issue or creating division within political parties and within, you know, our congressional bodies. do you see any chance of that reaching a breaking point because of the ineffectiveness at this point of people to work together across party lines because of religious associations with ideologies, political ideologies? >> you, you don't realize this maybe, some of you are going to think i planted this question in the audience, but this is right over the plate. i'm about to hit a home run. >> [inaudible] >> well, no. it's actually in the book. remember i showed you that starting in the late 1980s, early 1990s we began to see this dramatic increase as to how often you attend church -- it was exactly at that point in time that we began to see an

acceleration in the percentage of americans who when asked what is your religion, answer: none. now, be careful, i don't mean the nun kind of none, i mean the n-o-n-e. roughly 5-7% of the american population said they had no religion. in the beginning of the 1980s, we began to see this acceleration until now it's about 18%. it's almost one in five americans today when asked say they have no religion. among young people, i mean, under millennials, those under 30, it's more like 30% say they have no religion. that's a stunning change. and why is that? can't be a generational story where the next generation is a little less religious than their parents' generation because generational change happens slowly. instead, something had to change in the world to lead to that spike. and what was the change?

well, i won't go into all the details here, but the data make it pretty clear that that growth in the nones is a direct response to the intermingling of religion and politics or specifically, religion and conservative politics. because those nones, almost all, liberals or at least moderates. certainly not conservatives. so when they're asked what's your religion, to them religion equals a conservative and partisan brand of politics. and that's not their politics, so they don't want to say they have a religion because the two kind of go together. they don't want the person asking them to think of them in a different way than they really are. so that reaction has led to this growth in the nones. now, how does that respond to your question? we have seen evidence in the last five years -- remember i said we did a survey in 2006, we did it again in 2011. the biggest change we've seen in

the last five years is a dropoff in the politicking over the pulpit. now, i want to be clear. most americans when they go to church or synagogue or whatever, they actually don't hear much politics over the pulpit. it's not as common as is sometimes suggested. but it's there, and to the extent that it's there, it's dropped off pretty dramatically in the past fife years -- five years. why is that? well, we don't know the reason, but i'm willing to bet that religious leaders on the ground have realized that this intermingling of religion and politics has been bad for religion. and, frankly, it's been bad for politics. and why is that? i am not for a second going to advocate that religious people ought to sit on their hands and not speak out in the public square. they ought to. but in the past when that's happened it has not been wrapped up in a partisan label. when martin luther king gave a stirring cry to us all to recognize the evil of racial segregation, he did so using

religious language. but it wasn't wrapped up in a partisan message. and that's been true at earlier points in american history as well when religion has transcended partisanship to call us prophetically to a greater moral vision for the country. that's the role religion should play. it should not be wrapped up in one party or the other. >> that's all the time we have for q&a, and it's a perfect place to end, so, please, join me in giving a hand to david campbell. >> thank you. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author or book you'd like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv@cspan.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> so my job in writing this book was to actually give people a readable story of the constitution and not just that, i went through clause by clause, and i broke it out so that students of the constitution, whether they're at cvcc or whether they're in california or

maine or hawaii or washington, d.c. or across the country would know what it meant to read the constitution and what the founding generation said this constitution meant. and i also was motivated to write the book because of the charge in the constitution itself. the founding generation left this constitution to their posterity, and that's often a word we don't use, but that's to us. and we have a sacred trust to know what that constitution means, to understand it, to read it, to digest it. and so, again, by doing this i hoped the american people would do that. if they were students of the constitution. now, often times you hear different ideas about the constitution. well, some will say the constitution's an elastic document. you can read into it. it's stretchable.

it has words, and you can read these words, but we have to go beyond that because that's what this supreme court judge or this constitutional scholar says it means. and then you have those that say the constitution is a limiting document. the constitution is what it says, you can't go beyond that. and so we should interpret the constitution literally. and there's this big debate, and people get confused by this stuff. which one is it? is it a loosely interpreted document, is it an elastic document, or is it a limiting document? so i actually thought to cut through all that. i really didn't care what modern scholars had said about the constitution, to be honest with you. i really didn't care what the supreme court had said about the constitution. i cared what the founding fathers had said about the constitution. and so my journey began there. when i first pitched this book to begin with -- and those of you who don't know the pitching

process, you pitch an idea, and then you're told yes or no, and if you're told yes, you go from there -- so when i pitched the idea, i was going to focus almost primarily on the opponents of the constitution, and i'll talk about some of these terms in a minute. but i was going to focus on what they thought about the constitution, and the publisher came back and said, no, no, that wouldn't be good because it might turn out to look like an anti-constitution book. so i said, okay, you know, how can we work with this? so we brainstormed a little bit, and we decided we would write a book on the constitution based on what the founding generation said on the constitution, both for and against the constitution. now, i had read a lot of material about this, but as i started digging through the mountains of research that's out there on this subject, i realized i'd only scratched the surface. and much of what i i -- knew was going to be changed at least in some ways what i thought i knew about it was only going to be more involved.

because as i got into the material i said, my gosh, this is deeper than i thought. what i'd often thought about the constitution is there, but there's so much more to it. it's so much more complex than even what i had said about the constitution in my first book. and, of course, when you're looking at this document, and i say it's a founding fathers' guide to the constitution because that's what it is, and it's not just the founding fathers that you're familiar with, and i'll talk about them in a minute. but it's all the found being generation. this is a generational book for the american generation. it's not just one, two, three people or four people and what they said. i went and looked at what everyone said about it that i could put my hands on, and public documents because, again, this thing had to be sold to people, and i'll talk about that in a second. so the founding fathers are important because they wrote it. and so i thought what source would be better than going to the people who wrote the document itself and who actually had to present this thing to 13

sometimes hostile ratifying conventions and tell people this is what it means. and they had to go to the press and say, well, this is what you might be saying the constitution will do x, y and z, but no, no, be reassured it's not going to do that. this is actually what it means. and so that's the constitution we should be looking at. that is the founding fathers' constitution. that is the constitution, as i say in the book over and over again, as ratified. and that process is very important. again, that whole ratification process, the constitution meant nothing until the states decided to ratify it. so that's the overall subject of the book. and i'm going to read you a quote in a few minutes from one, from a founding father of north carolina, and be i'll refer back to that quote quite a bit. but oftentimes you'll get this statement, well, you know, the founding fathers were just a combative group of people, they didn't agree on anything. what founders are you talking about? we all know some of the big names, or maybe you know some of

the big names. you've probably heard of alexander hamilton. you probably heard of james madison and john jay. they're the authors of the federalist papers, the 85 essays in dissent to the constitution. so most people that read the constitution and think that they understand the constitution will look at the document itself and then maybe look at the federalist papers and say, well, that's it. well, it's deeper than that. in fact, it goes much deeper than that. i would argue in the book, and i say this, that the federalist papers are not as important as you think. they were written in new york, and they didn't have much of an impact in new york itself. because the state of new york only ratified the constitution by three votes. three votes. so these 85 essays that people say are the definitive source on the constitution didn't have much impact at the time. but there are others, and there are other member bees of that -- members of that founding generation who perhaps are even more important than james

madison. he's often called the father of the constitution, but i say that's a misnomer, and the historical scholarship on that subject has kind of come around to that over time. he did present the virginia plan or at least wrote it and then, of course, it was presented by the virginia delegation at the philadelphia convention. but the constitution that we have is not his. it was gone over and over in the philadelphia convention and modified over and over again by a number of important people. so some of these people you probably never heard of before like john dickenson of delaware. probably saying, well, who the heck is john dickenson? this is a guy that was actually called the penniman of the revolution. he was one of the most important men of the founding generation, bar none. and when he went to the philadelphia convention, he looked at this constitution that james madison had written, and he said, no, no, we're not having that. that's not going to work in these united states. or you have someone like roger

sherman of connecticut, a man that thomas jefferson once said never said a -- i'm paraphrasing here -- never said a stupid thing in his life. this was also his constitution because, again, he was a conservative moderating influence. when he got to the philadelphia convention and he saw james madison's work, he again said, nope, we're not having that in these united states. it's not going to work. the people of connecticut will never agree to this thing. or john rutledge of south carolina, another very important founding father. john rutledge, of course, would later serve on the supreme court. he basically helped win the american war for independence in south carolina from the saddle of governor. so a very important individual. and he said, no, this constitution that you've written, mr. madison, is not going to work in south carolina. we need to modify this thing. so that's what happens in philadelphia. in fact, one historian has called it the miracle in philadelphia because no one was even sure if it was going to get

out of philadelphia to begin with. there were so many different ideas floating around that it appeared that the constitution was going to die before the middle of the summer of 1787. and the story that you often hear about that constitution is simple. it's the large states against the small states. the people i just listed -- dickenson, sherman and rutledge -- all came from small states. madison, of course, is from a very large state. but that's not the real issue. the real issue was what type of government were we going to have. was it going to be a national government or a federal government? and so today we have this term we have a federal government well, in the founding generation they didn't call it that. they didn't call it that coming out of philadelphia. the people like dickenson and sherman and rutledge said we don't want a national government, we want a federal government. james madison wanted a national government. there's a difference. a federal government was a general government meaning that it only had general purposes in

mind and that, basically, everything else was left to the states themselves. and that's what the majority of the founding generation argued for. not a national government which, basically, put all power in the central authority. they weren't going to have that. so when you start talking about general versus federal and national versus general, these are important terms. and, in fact, they haven't gone away. you still hear the term the united states is a nation today, and so that term is still thrown around. but the founding generation would say it's a general government for general purposes. so when the constitution came out of philadelphia in september of 1787, no one was even sure if thing would get ratified. they had written it, they had talked about it, they had sweated over it, they had poured their hearts out in it in some cases, but no one was even sure whether this would make it out

of nine states which is all they required to ratify the document. so then it had to be sold, and that sales job is actually what i talk about more in the book than anything else. i do bring up the philadelphia convention because sometimes you can't understand the constitution and the language without understanding what they said it meant in philadelphia. but oftentimes you can't understand the constitution and what they said it meant without understanding what they said in the state ratifying conventions all throughout the united states. in fact, james madison agreed. this is what he said. he said: the constitution only was brought to life and only found its meaning because of the state conventions which gave it all the validity and authority it possesses. in other words, what we presented in philadelphia means nothing. what the state ratifying conventions said it meant means everything. and we don't often hear about

these things. in fact, perhaps the most famous supreme court justice ever, john marshall, who was a member of that founding generation never one time referenced the state ratifying conventions in any of his decisions, and they really are never referenced. but those state ratifying conventions is where everything was discussed, everything was hammered out, and these states -- many of them wavering states in support -- were sold the constitution, sold a bill of goods, in essence, on the basis of what the constitution meant at the time. and that's why i said that i was going to write a book based on the opponents of the constitution and what they said it meant, but again, i bring in both the proponents and opponents. so let me talk about those two terms, proponents and opponents of the document. you often hear that there are two groups, the federal itselfs and the anti-federalists. those terms are wrong. in fact, eldridge gary of massachusetts said it best: they weren't federalists and anti-federalists, they were rats and anti-rats.

which is pretty funny. eldridge gary was very colorful. so you have these federalists when in reality what you're talking about there many times are nationalists. they believe in a strong central authority, they thought more power should be in the central government or the general government, and then you had the federalists who were often called the anti-federalists. they believe inside a federal government where there was a general government and the states had much of the authority. this is the debate. how much authority is that central government going to have, and how much are the state governments going to have? and that's what we get out of this entire process, and you hear it over and over again. and again, that's the main point of the book, to go through these different opinions. but what i found shocked me. i expected to write a book and say, well, yeah, there were a lot of different opinions, and so you kind of have to bring this out yourself and which one, which one was right. but what i found was this: over and over again the opponents of