in the parchment seemed less important than what the framers were thing and when they wrote them. we knew those. our present-day constitutional difficulties would vanish. the best-selling novelists, william martin wrote a dan brown style thriller of sites called the last constitution. the last constitution is about a draft of the constitution in philadelphia that in a break, the "washington post" take five, the delegates are up and stretching and they start saying let's make notes on the comp to sharon. so the publishers says that this draft is annotated by the founding fathers. the drafts marginal notes allowed in shocking detail the founders unequivocal intentions. the unmistakable meaning of the bill of rights, paddled and

purloined, trafficked and concealed for over two centuries. this last constitution could forever change america's history and its future. so the idea is that the words on -- that are upstairs in the parchment, those aren't clear. but if we could get a hold of some other word that those same people wrote, that would make everything clear. freedom of religion can date sovereignty, the right to bear arms. these other words are so powerful in the constitution that people are willing to kill for them. if we could just get our hands on these words, we would finally be will to read the words we do have. original intent of the original meaning of original understanding, whatever you call this idea, it is worth asking why so important in our national dialogue. there is a history here.

it is particularly american. we did people for the past 200 or 300 years have had a more intense relationship with the christian bible than probably any other people in history. that biblical tradition is where the idea of original intent as something that can be discerned and not originated at golf. christians have been reading the bible for nearly 2000 years. but there's been many way of reading at. throughout history, some have read it as an allegory of divine laws. some said it was a shot of parables to teach us how to live by reading these stories.

others said iverson and iguchi, which means a hidden key to events in another world that could be understood only by those who had gained mystical access to god, through meditation or divine grace. the idea that the bible has a single literal in tended meeting , by which i've named a meaning available discernible without the need for priestly interpretation or mystical revelation that in christian terms is a relatively new idea. it gained primacy only during the protestant reformation. you saw pelican, the great religious historian who taught at yale for many years wrote in 2004 at the luther and other reformers believe that scripture had to be not interpret it, but

delivered from interpretation to speak for itself. pelikan continued that would matter to luther was the original intent and the literal meaning of the word. pelikan saw a and luther's publicist on a direct for bearer of the way americans interpret the constitution. it became even stronger in this country over the past century. it is almost exactly 100 years ago between 1910 and 1915, a group of american evangelical theologians and scholars published a set of theological essays calmed the fundamentals of christian belief. these influential essays gave rise to the christian movement we call fundamentalism in honor of the series of pamphlets.

in large part, fundamentalism was the revolt against a certain style of bible reading, gives an 18th century scholarly movement we call the scholarly criticism. higher critics are scholars of a kind we would all recognize today. they applied recognized secular techniques of analysis to the text of the bible. they viewed some books is the bible as floods and other books, including some not at the hebrew tradition. some of the parts of genesis they thought actually began by describing other near eastern deities. they did not take stories that the deliverance of the chip for the age of the earth for the raising of latter is. they didn't regard these as historical fact. they interrogated attacks like historians historians, likely

was, looking for contrasting and confirming evidence and are very skeptical about the idea of miracles, such as making a sudden standstill. fundamentalists reacted very violently to the higher criticism. they felt that this method of reading the bible threatens the entire enterprise of the christian religion. they wrote that the bible is not to beat at it's like ordinary historical writings. it is the word of god and that means that all parts of it are inspired, created directly by the breath of god into the human soul and that inspiration is not general. it's not a set of ideas. it's verbal. god has fixed for all time, not just the ideas in the bible, but the words themselves. these words are inerrant and infallible. there are no mistakes in the bible. nothing that says its faults.

the bible is true. we know it is true because it says it is true. we know it is true because the prophecies of the old testament have been fulfilled and the new. to read the bible without accepting before hand its divine nature is not to read it at all. every word has a meaning. that meaning is fixed. that meaning is not effected by historical context. that meaning is never subject to re-examination in light of moral and social change. and those meanings fit together into one divine whole. how does that sensibility play out in contemporary christian thought? to begin with, when americans talk about the constitution, they often mean something more than the document of. there is a kind of biblical canon of constitutional materials. we have the book of genesis,

which is the declaration of independence. we have the law and that is the constitution itself. but we also have the profits for the founding fathers, a wonderful mythological terms of the story of joe lepore recently pointed out that was coined, that term was coined in 1820 by the profound constitutional thinker warren g harding. the words of the prophets are collected madisons is said to debates. madison never thought of these notes as having any sort of official status. they are now a key part of the american bible. we have 10 commandment. as we call them, the bill of rights. a sacred number 10 by the way sequence even%rights. a sacred number 10 by the way sequence events. madison officially proposed or 10 amendments. two of them got lost in one to 200 some years to be ratified. the 13 articles of the bill of rights sounds different.

i always recall the scene in mel brooks history of the world part 1, for those of you seen it for moses comes down from sinai with three tablet is as the lord jehovah has given us these 15 -- one of them falls and breaks. 10, 10 commandments. so you know, all to obey. there is a certain accidental quality to the canonical nature of the bill of rights. the christian bible has the epistles of st. paul and the americans have grown epistles, the federalist or what we like to call the federalist papers. their status in the canon is also accidental. the late pauline maier read a wonderful book that i recommend highly caught ratification, the people debate the constitution in 1787 to 88. the first book length account of ratification. she explains that the federalist recirculated almost nowhere except new york, the essays were

written to procure ratification by the new york legislature. it was by no means a dispassionate analysis of the comp and touche and she says. it is vancouver this, the t is vancouver this, thed mnj. written by hamilton, madd mnj. madison had attended every day of the philadelphia convention. hamilton got there when he could. he was a busy guy. if jay was on a delegate at all. the authors of the federalist had no time to show each other their essays before handing them to the printer. in fact, sometimes they couldn't even reread their own work before it was putting to type. not only that, there's every reason to believe that the authors didn't themselves relieve some of the things they wrote. jefferson wrote my definitive letter consoling him for having to write the federalist. he said with regard to the federalist, in some part it is discoverable that the author

means only to say what may be bested in defense of opinions in which he does not occur. but by our time, the federalist has become divine, inerrant and timeless. in 2010, the scholar anthony peacock and an introduction to a pamphlet entitled how to read the federalist papers wrote quote cover use of a single pseudonym, publius, suggest that the federalist possess the uniformity of intent. the federalist was to be read as the work of one mind, not three and was coherent throughout. he adds, the federalist is intended to be true for all times and all places. martin luther couldn't have described the bible better. so when even scholars are rendered this way of this semi-religiousness week, how can we ask citizens to be immune?

the literal view i think may keep us from seeing everything in the constitution because the constitution is not coherent. it is in fact confusing and ambiguous in many places and it may also keep us from noticing what is not they are because the constitution is incomplete. there is a second problem with original intent as the source of the inside-out framing the thoughts of the framers. it is based. the constitutional convention doesn't sit. its members are dead. so are the members of the ratifying conventions that approved it and so in fact are all but a few of those who took part in writing and ratifying the 27 amendments that have been added to it since it was originally drafted. we can't revise the day wrote without great effort. why should their long-ago inten@ why should their long-ago intent or understand them find us, the living today?

well, if their intent was to write the words they wrote, fair enough. our job is to interpret them. but if their intent was that we should not apply the constitution for ourselves, that we should stand on tiptoe in the dark, hoping to hear their voicecomment then their intent was undemocratic, immoral and just plain silly. the final disadvantage of the quest for original intent original meaning original public understanding is that it is a highly tech to pull search involving etymology of words, the evolution of language, the intellectual history of anglo-american law and society. if we accept that as determining the meaning of the constitution, then the people don't cover themselves anymore. we are handed over to those like historians who have special knowledge of these things were

even worse, judges who usually have virtually no knowledge of these things, but believe they do and remember their eighth-grade civics class class quite physically. ordinary citizens however have no standing to engage in cost to cheval interpretation. if the constitution is binding not because of its pedigree, but because we the living pledge our allegiance to it, maybe what should matter is what the words say to us, the living today. our intentions, our understanding matter far more than those of the dead. now i developed this view over a number of years concentrating on the text of the constitution that of. as a legal scholar come you start out reading marbury versus madison and that's very exciting. you read a bunch of cases and articles about the cases and then you read articles about the curious lot and articles about the cases. but sometimes you skip the text

altogether. but what happened to me was this, you know, like every professor, for those who recognize the reference, i dream of writing a best-selling book, retiring to the bahamas, drinking rum through a straw, forgetting the whole thing. not long ago i spent a year and a half trained to do this. i was writing proposals for real lock buster books. i thought some of them are pretty good. the founding fathers quick weight loss diet i thought had money in it, but never of them got passed to the agent status, much less to the editors. then when they had a thought because it's getting more and more frustrated. it is this, i remembered my days as a starving novelist and freelance or an act that dude, you have every writers dream. you have an indoor comfort reasonably well-paid job you can't be fired from, where it is okay to write him off this time.

and you even get to take the big pants and take them home. i had a moment like the one experienced by william faulkner years ago. he wrote later one day i can to shut the door between me and all publishers addresses and booklist. i said to myself, now i can write. so i decided to write as if what i wrote would never be published anywhere. for nearly two years i read the constitution's text every day and wrote for my own satisfaction alone an analysis of what it really says, article by article, clause by clause, amendment by amendment, section by section. it was the most satisfying work i have done since i got into law teaching over 40 years ago. ..

and i began to find my poetic interest reflected in the text. i learned something from each way of reading. some parts of the constitution or biblical, some are as dry as the statute of frauds, and others are as elusive as a poem by emily dickinson, suggesting empty spaces that we are invited to fill with meaning. just as one example consider upon written by emily dickinson and he 1865. now, today people think of emily dickinson as a kind of pride that teaching in the garden and the drawing room, but the truth is she was michael a very

powerful instrument for detecting what was happening around her and expressing it in ways different from those that others to. 1865 was the turning point in which james mcpherson and others called the second american revolution, the surrender of the assassination of lincoln, the final approval of the 13th amendment, the beginning of the reconstruction congress and dickinson detected what was going on. consider 1865 was her most productive year as a poet whether there is any sink and a city in that or not i don't know, but it is a moment when all of american society was changing, becoming something radically different and she felt a burst of energy during that year. consider one that she wrote that begins like this.

revolution is the pond systems rebel from. when the winds of will are stirred, excellence is born. in this stanza she uses a natural image to eliminate a complicated social concept. she takes social revolution and juxtapose is it with an image of a seedpod in winter. we've all seen dry up waiting for spring rain and wind to break it open and spread new seeds to bloom in the following summer. those 17 words do a lot of work. now consider a text that holds a prominent place in the american imagination. a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms

shall not be infringed. this is ten words longer, 27 words like the dickinson poem that doesn't explain, it suggests by using images. it evokes the image of the militia into important but ambiguous concept. on the one hand a free state and on the other, the people and their rights. what is the free state? is it the state of maryland or the commonwealth of virginia? which by maintaining a militia can resist federal tyranny or is it a state in the international sense is it the united states that must have a strong militia as a part of its national defense? who are the people? are they the villagers gathered on the town green to use the town issued baskets during

training day or are they selling solitary from hersman for the protection against bears and cougars? even if you put a gun to my head, i'm not stupid enough to tell you that i know what the second amendment means. i do know that as i read it i respond on many levels. as a bible reader, i respond to the - commandment language, thou shalt not, which suggests to me i'm in the presence of something sacred. as a lawyer, i'm reminded that english man's right to bear arms for their defense stemmed from the bill of rights, the 1689 which explicitly recognized the power of parliament to define and limit that right as it shows. as a reader i think of the theme of homer as the great assembly. assembly is a very important

theme in all of the ethic where the warriors gathered to determine what should be done and each one has a voice because and only because he is able to bear arms during the constant warfare of bonds each increase. finally, as a reader of poetry, i hear some fairly complicated verbal into relationships. security is as important as rights. for example, regulation is as important as arms. even the words themselves contain their own contradiction. take regulated. now in our time that word seems to have a pretty established meaning. it means mcgovern, jen, put in order. we are in washington. we are all familiar with

regulators. saving the presence of any of you that are here. because we regard them as powerful beings who are able to prescribe rules. it meant that in 1790, that meant something else. it echoed with a long forgotten meaning of the word of regulator which meant to those people and member of a self warned of violent vigilante gang that was fighting the local government. in the constitution itself, the militia is tightly held under federal control. but in the amendment guaranteeing the right of the people to bear arms, the words may also echo what revolt against established authority. what does the second amendment say? you heard the words what does it mean is a lifetime score last.

at the second amendment reads like a lyrical poem, other parts of the constitution read like a thick. article 1, which creates and in power were worse congress has the heart of the constitution, section 8 the catalog of congress' power is the heart of article 1. article number one and section 8 reminds me of the most powerful column in western literature. a book 18 of homer's iliad. in book 18, the god had faced has a new shield that the greek hero will carry into battle and final over the trojan hero hector. homer describes the shield as containing, quote, a world of gorgeous immortal work. it depicts the entire civilization of the bronze age

greece and the image of two cities one, the city of peace contains wedding feasts, athletic competitions, courts, farmers, plant, young girls crowned with a bloom of fresh garlands. the other city, the city of war is filled with combat and the devastation and death, a divided or mean glistening in the battle to year and a struggle where strife and have it plunge in the fight and violent death. as that shining shield reflected the greeks idea of their world, section 8 reflects the framers foreseen ideal commonwealth. it depicts the two cities. in the first case, in this case we might call them the city of

trade and the city of war. the first half of section 8 is taken up with matters of trade committed congress has the power to borrow money and regulate commerce, grant monopolies to authors and inventors and a style which rules for bankruptcy in the post office to claim and regulate money. the second half of section 8 is governed by war. congress has the power to declare the war and commission privateers, capture and punish pirates and sees the land and sea, establish and maintain an army and navy and call for them and regulate the militia even employing it if need be against the states themselves. in these two cities together, congress is given a wide tapestry of powers. section eight suggests a legislative body with comprehensive authority in these two areas. interestingly enough, however

section 8 is not like the achilles shield. it does not comprise all of human life. conspicuously missing is any reference to what the 18th or 19th century mind would have called the separate spier the private realm of the family, child rearing and sexuality. there is no reference to education come to howff come to morality to what today we would call the quality-of-life or the tone of society. that presents us with an interesting question to ponder. what does the silence mean clacks the way we read the constitution may matter quite a bit here. statutory leaders may invoke the outage defined provision in

biblical science. other forms of reading might consider the entire text and context, the general welfare and the necessary and proper clauses and note that other sections of the document occupy themselves with setting up limits on the commerce power explicitly perhaps this section is not to be read as a set of limitations. the answer a reader reaches depends on their idea of america on with that reader sees in the shield. even though the constitution contains many parts, i think it is our duty to read it as a whole. our job is to read the entire text with our entire stultz the ones suggested that a good reader doesn't need a critical pherae or specialized training in an english department but

does need a dictionary, some imagination, a good memory and some artistic sense. when i read the constitution has this kind of reader it says some interesting and surprising things to me. some of them it says in words it chooses, some in the way it pleases those words and ideas in conjunction or separates them. some it says in the words it doesn't. i'm going to throw out at the end of few things i found that the constitution says. if any of these readings are surprising, perhaps i can explain when we come to questions in imminent. to me, the constitution says that its purpose is to create powerful national government, not to restrain it. to me it says its aim is to restrain the state governments and not to in power them.

it says to me that congress remains the most important political institution in american life, not the president, not the state government and certainly not the supreme court. it says to me the constitution exists within the context of international law and that we are to use and apply the international norms and concepts in our courts and legislature and states and executive branch. it says to me the right to vote has become central to our form of government. that right is mentioned five times in the constitution. more than any other right. at no point does the constitution's text suggest there is a power in the supreme court to decide that congress has protected the right to much or that access has become too

easy. i could go on but my reading is my own. i'm not moses. i'm not even mel brooks. i'm not here to hand down word. if you may read the constitution differently, and if you do you have my respect as long as you are reading this constitution, not the articles of confederation, not the declaration of independence, not madison's notes, not the federalist, not the second treatise on the government, not the mega makarova. this constitution, not common law. this constitution, not the natural law. this constitution, not the final. if you are a reader of this constitution, then to quote walt whitman, the greatest constitutional poet every atom belonging to me as could be long as to you. thanks for your patience. i will now take your questions. [applause]

go to the microphones of you to ask questions because we are being taped for c-span. i think you were first. [inaudible] -- supreme court opinion justice scalia were justice thomas were to write that medicine has risen from the dead and appeared to them personally and the was behind -- or any of the other justices -- and there was behind their opinion. what would your reaction be? >> i don't want to become justice scalia -- that's a lie. i really do. he basically has said that in his opinion in his concurrence and citizens united. justice stevens writes a long descent in citizens united using the original list materials to

say he believed the framers of the constitution would not have wanted corporations to have a free-speech rights that were given to them or found for them in that opinion and justice scalia takes this on and he says that may be true, the things you found me the truth that's just because in 1787 people thought of corporations as involving monopoly. and our corporations don't. and our framers of the framers of the new that would really like them, which i translate as, you know, i knew the framers, i worked with the framers, the framers were friends of mine, trust me the framers would have thought this. and i think the answer of course would be -- first of all of madison did come back to life and you set and we have an individual mandate for health insurance, his answer would have been what is health insurance cracks he wouldn't have known what to say. but beyond that, i think he would have refused to say what his intention was. madison was very reticent.

he didn't believe the intentions of the framers should govern and if he did say i think we would say shut up, grandpa, we've got problems to solve now, right? because his opinion is very important. i'm a great madison fan, but our opinions are important, too. that is what living in a space country with the constitution means. >> my question me be more difficult to frame coming and that is what you're saying is music to my years. it's what i believe and it's everything you said about the bible, etc.. i live in california. i live in los angeles where i have people who also agree with me. but it seems as though the country overall does not agree with you. and my question to you is -- given today's congress and supreme court, i don't have to be tactful. so, my question to you is you've

written a book. you are hoping the people will listen to you but what is your overall sense of argue depressed, are you disheartened by what's going on and do you have hope things might change? >> that's a wonderful question i think well framed. i will say couple things. one is since 1992 or so -- so that's 20 years and particularly gaining force in the second term of boesh versus gloor and then coming through george w. bush's term it's been a great time to be a constitutional law professor. most of the time you say i read the original materials and people run away, but in the past 15 or so years they are like i want to talk to you. what about bush v. gore. the fact of the matter is in periods of time and constitutional purists are

prominent, these are not necessarily the best times for the republic to the and you know, i once framed an article that i published on the web in which it said increasing numbers of constitutional scholars are alarmed by the nation's prosperity and peace the founding fathers did not intend the country to try it and they say a crisis. and we are in a crisis. people are talking about the constitution and thinking about the constitution. that's exciting. there is unfortunately a lot of what i regard as fairly toxic nonsense being put out in many ways by some fairly self interested people. i actually attended 80 party constitutionalist school. i thought why not. and i went there and i learned -- it was in a church basement in virginia sponsored by the local republican party. and they told me the

constitution was written by god. literally, that was handed down to moses on mount sinai and that he used it to govern the israelites and after the babylonian captivity the ten lost tribes actually migrated to britain where they became the anglo-saxons, which strikes me as trading down -- [laughter] but i don't want to make a big deal about that. they became the anglo-saxons and then they brought the constitution across america where the result being anything that wasn't done in fifth century england is unconstitutional. so a lot of the stuff is being put out by people that have a lot of money behind them. and i think in the time of the institutional crisis the only thing that you can do is take part in the debate carried if what you think and you see people saying things that are wrong jump in. i think letters to the editor

are tremendously important. and i think communicating with your members of congress and state legislators are tremendously important. there are people in misery who i think work to the governor and said no, whatever you may have read, we can't really repeal the federal law in missouri and make it legal to shoot the agents if they come to enforce the federal law and the governor from what i heard has now vetoed that nullification law. one of the nice things about the constitution is that people are really interested in it. they may have that idea is, but they are really interested in it and i think it's very important to understand that popular constitutionalism is an enormously powerful force in american history. a constitutional law and constitutionalism is not and should not be the property of

trained people like myself and judges. everybody needs to get involved and educate themselves and say what they think. so the answer is we are never going to get a place where it is really all okay because basically what the constitution is is a set of rules we can fight each occur without killing each other so let's do it. i live in the district of columbia which is the last colony in north america and we have no congressional voting rights. i was wondering how much you thought about that issue while examining the documents including history of supreme court decisions like dred scott and so on and the underlying spirit of who is for real. even when my skin is white i'm still invisible. do you see that in a deep love level of the constitution it should make us real people and if so, what can we do about it and especially can you tell your

senators and you're governor's campaign -- >> i hate to break this to you but [inaudible] >> so you know it in your heart every day. what can we do? because to me we all lose one of devotees comfortable with our lack of citizenship and ability to talk about it to make the connections. >> this became an issue most recently at the beginning of the obama administration because the congress had to foot a bill that would by statute would have given a congressional representative in the house to the district. and i hate to say this but having read the constitution over and thought about it, it was pretty clear to me that was unconstitutional that the house doesn't get to give representation to anyone but the people of the several states. that is the language in the constitution. the attorney general tried to make a run around the office of legal counsel that had offered the opinion by asking the solicitor general if he could

defend the of the statute and of course the solicitor general been a defender said yes. but i think it's pretty clear the constitution excludes the representation for the district. in order to get an electoral votes, we had to amend the constitution. if you read that amendment carefully i read a bunch of times you notice that even in giving the district its electoral votes, it insists that the district is still not equal to any other state in the union because the district can never have more -- if we move the entire population of the country into the district so that there were 300 million people living here, under the constitution we could still only have three electrons because the district can never have more than the least popular state. so, wyoming has three, the district has three.

there was a time when that amendment was passed the district would have been entitled to for so they have to make sure the district would get some representation but not as much as everybody else. so the inequality, the mindset of thinking about the district as unequal is pretty powerful and would take a constitutional amendment or congress could -- there's nothing in the constitution to forbid this by statute if the district does the state that doesn't take a constitutional amendment, just a statute. it's not going to happen, but they could. >> i want to ask you about something that's been very much on my mind in the country the last several weeks and that's the war making powers of the president and i want to ask you specifically what you see in the constitution that answers the question that we have been

pondering. as the president have to go to congress for authorization if he wants to say attack syria or is that as the president's language suggested something would be chosen to do but wasn't required to do. >> it's an illustration of my principle that when things are going well. we are faced in this situation by the assertion by the president of an authority that no president has ever actually used before. let me explain before the president uses and the terrie force under a number of circumstances without coming to congress. the president uses military

force of the case to defend american troops and personnel, to defend american civilians abroad and i think there is a pretty general agreement that no matter what interpretive method you use, the president is to have that authority as commander in chief. the president has asserted in the years since world war to the authority to use military force under statutes of the united states, statutes that have been ratified by the senate such as the united nations charter used as a justification for and turning the korean war without congressional authorization. even in kosovo and the administration was able to claim the authorization of a

multilateral treaty organization for which we were members and some that were in tune with the u.s. security council resolution although they did not offer vice the participation. ansi leah we don't have any of that. we don't have american troops or personnel or civilians at risk. i'm not disparaging were deprecating the horror of chemical weapons, but they are not being used on americans at present. we don't have a treaty. we don't have a multilateral alliance that is asking us to join in and we certainly don't have the authorization of the united nations. under that situation seems to me the president is beginning hostilities with what i call a standing start. we are not being told in to it.

and like that is the circumstance under which the text suggests that in that circumstance the president has to seek authorization from congress. it doesn't have to be a declaration of war. the declaration is obsolete. the president doesn't have the authority and i can't find anyone who has asserted it until recently the president doesn't have the authority to decide we ought not to be in an armed conflict with another country and started. that is the kind of decision the president needs to go to congress for and i was extremely heartened when the president decided to do that. the second point is i don't need to ask for this, but i'm going to. to some extent, that is kind of the part of i would just assume he hadn't said that to be frank to be a the but it is a part of

the kind of game that goes on. the two branches are like rustlers and world wrestling entertainment. they are always talking smack about each other outside the ring to but i'm going to bring you down. i'm going to hurt you. and this is what the president -- the president is doing this in part to enhance his bargaining position with congress saying i don't really need this to be if you vote against it, i may do it any way and define a great success you will look like an idiot. but i am not sure in things you hear about what's going on inside the administration suggest that that really wouldn't have been kidding if congress actually held a vote and voted this down. it's hard for me to imagine that they would then say well we still have the authority. we don't know, however because as far as i can tell. and i asked in what historians about this in the last two weeks we've never had a situation in

american history where the president has asked for authorization to use military force and congress has refused. so i don't know. we are writing a new chapter and future constitutional groups will be discussing this president. it's a good time to be a law professor. what can i say. have we got time for another? one more. >> this is on the historical line again. you mentioned there were 13 proposed amendments to the constitution of which eventually ten have come into effect. one as recently i believe is the 90's. >> if you count the one in the early 90's. >> the first ten and then one came in the early 90's and you said there were two that got lost. can you mention the two that got lost? >> one of them was simply to add to the preamble that the sovereignty and all power would rest in the people. that is something madison believed in a lot of people believed and they just wanted to

spell it out. it wouldn't have been particularly operative. there was also to the antifederalists, the antifederalists were very critical of how small the congress was going to be. this was going to be a very elite organization and madison put in a provision that said that there can't be fewer than a certain number of people per representative or more than. but exactly governed how many people could be in a district. and it turns out that is good that we didn't put that in. and as i recall, that didn't actually make it through either house. there was also an amendment was proposed at that time that would have made the bill of rights in the states and we all know that didn't pass.

it took a civil war to do that. that the answer is extremely confused and i think you for asking the question. so we are done? thank you for coming. [applause] the book is on sale in the bookstore and also find booksellers' everywhere. thank you. next on book tv, laura gottesdiener looks at the impact of foreclosures on african-american communities around the country.

this is a little over an hour. >> thank you everyone for being here. i want to start by explaining some of the music you might have heard as he walked in. it was a mix tape created by oral historians who worked with the production house to turn of oral history in 30 years into a recording called home a musical conversation on the struggle for housing. and you can get a free download of that along with the book. now let's begin with the true story. the police were at the door. there were running footsteps on the stairs and then mrs. biggs a man shouted. she remembers the pounding of fists followed by the deliberate thud. she and her seven-year-old sister just finished eating

cereal and the two of them were playing more be in the living room in chicago where the family lived. it was the weekend and later that afternoon, july and her sisters planned to cut their progress report cards from cells are elementary school. outside the pounding grew louder she rushed to the window and peered out only to see seven police cars parked below with their lights flashing. the girl's mother, martha biggs heard the commotion and rushed to the door. she opened it and saw seven police officers, a blinding flash light and her dreams exploding once again to the the the year was 2010. the first year that in the united states history the bank seized more than 1 million homes. ejecting approximately 3,000 families every single day to the things began to happen fast enough house. martha yelled at the girls to get in jest.

martha and jajuanna began growing bags and running them down to the minivan. jimmya and justices emerged from the bathroom and a female police officer not down to remind them to put on coats and shoes sent it it was winter outside. martha roused her 3-year-old son and coaxed him into the car. altogether the five of them fit that was part. martha and jimmya in the front seat, justice and jajuanna smashed between coats and clothing in the back. as martha drove away from that house that had been their home and headed into salazar elementary school, she knew that this eve fiction wasn't only part of the 2008 housing crisis, she knew that it was part of a much longer story, one that stretched back to her own childhood and even further. one that stretched back to the founding of the united states. a story of housing, race and

freedom that leads to the nation's history like the crisscross stitches on the fabric of a quilt. that was the story to me recounted buy then not in 11-years-old jimmya biggs last summer as i stayed with the family for a week in their home in chicago. she was 11 at the time and is part of a brutal heat wave, the worst heat wave the city was going to have that summer yet she stood in front of me in the living room, the lights were off to keep it cool and she closed her eyes tight in concentration and the words poured out. she couldn't forget the sound. she couldn't forget the lights on the police cars. she told me that leader for months afterwards she asked her mother again and again, remember she was 11 at the time, why have the police come and take our home again? is that with the police are supposed to do? finally she opened her eyes and she said listen, when i was

homeless it wasn't like i was dirty because my mom made sure i wasn't. but then i would go to school with everything on my mind of what had happened the other night. but yesterday i bought a house but what about today? i might have to sleep in the card today. i might get a good meal today but will i clacks will something go wrong? what will happen? how will i get home today? thank you again for coming tonight. there's a number of people i want to think but i will make it brief. thanks to busboys and poets for hosting and c-span booktv for coming to film. thank you for everybody that made this event possible, john richards with the essential information, public citizen's, the center for public responsive law and the institute for policy studies for hosting. thank you so much to gregory f. the park my fabulous publisher. thank you to clearance who wrote the foreword.

i remember opening the word document for the foreword it was five pages and i said oh that was everything i was trying to say in this entire book but he said it better. i want to thank the two co-founders that take back the land national housing justice network african-american lead and one of the most visionary networks that is showing us how we could make housing different in this united states cannot and i also want to thank everyone who is not here. all of the activists and of the families who trusted me with their stories and opened their homes to me. obviously without them there would be no book and there would be no evening tonight so tonight i'm going to speak about my first a dream for closed black america and the fight for a place to call home. this book traces for families during the lead up to an aftermath of the world's worst financial crisis since the great depression. the book follows the stories of

martha, a grandmother in detroit who worked with her community to stop her eviction. michael hutchins in chattanooga tennessee who banded together with other residents of the public housing complex and stopped the city from tearing it down in samford not carolina he taught legally and aggressively what he calls a ten year crime spree in which he dealt with every single major wall street bank and almost every single one of the criminal servicers. and martha biggs in chicago, the mother of jimmya who lived with her family and young children as a homeless single mother for almost a decade in chicago until she worked with the chicago antieva action campaign to find them -- her family a safe place to live. but i want to make it clear from the onset i'm not a financial reporter. and more than the foreclosure crisis i'm going to speak about how we choose to organize

society and how that could potentially be different. we will travel from the inside of the burned out comes in chicago to the blocks in detroit to living rooms across the country. and now let us begin with a simple question. what is home? it is a small symbol word for letters come in yet the power of this word is nearly unrivaled. it is the prize of epic heroes for whom could forget a homecoming when he gets home finally after being battered for almost a decade in the seas and he makes it to his house and his wife penelope tests him and says let's bring out the matrimonial bed and he said do not do that because he knew that he had constructed it around a living tree and he was the only one that knew that secret. and when he said those words, she said i know you are my husband and now you belong in this home. and that is when he was home,

not when he reached the structure but when he belonged. who could forget the yearning for a decent home and a raisin in the sun in the iconic play. remember that mom and the rest of the family had been cooped up in this tiny little subdivided apartment on the south side of chicago. it was one of those tiny apartment where there were actual multiple families living in them because the landlord has thrown up the drywall and allowed four, five, maybe six families to live in them and the only reason the african-american families had to tolerate the situation was the white communities wouldn't allow them in and the federal government wouldn't lend to those families. the red line with the african-american neighborhoods and as a result they were forced to live in this indignity of situation. she said finally after living there and trapped in a tiny handan in decent home i i