bookstores in 2003 with his most recent work air clarkston makes a transfer to ghost story fiction the title no one goes alone is available on audio only. >> eric larson on this week's episode of book note plus you can listen to it in our podcast that a new c-span now app. >> i'm excited to be here live from the flags and founding documents, those of you that do not know me i am the exhibition of the american revolution i've been on staff since 2016 and i served as one of the leaders to a flags and founding documents of 1776, an exhibit that brings together historic flags and documents from private collections and tells the story

of a changing and growing american nation and tonight i will be joined by doctor james from arizona state university and were really excited to have jim join me and i would like to have, say a few words about himself and about his career and how he became a young constitutional history scholar, talk a little bit about yourself. >> thank you a pleasure to be with you and all of you out there like matt said at the arizona state of university, your guises favorite subject american revolution i am thrilled to be doing this with you guys, the american

revolution i received my phd to the university of virginia that's a huge diploma behind me. it is enormously large i don't know why they make them that large. but my history, i'm interested in the subjects that i working on a book about revolutionary constitution making specifically about the state of massachusetts, i was thrilled to work on this project that allowed me too range much more widely and that's what i'm here to talk about today. >> tonight's program jim and i are going to engage in conversation about the historic documents that we have on display in this exposition and we will be talking about a wide ranging subject it if you have questions we will save those to the end but as we are going through and discussing these constitutions and different stories behind them please put

your questions in the chat option at the bottom of your screen and then we will fleck some of those questions at the end and get engaged in conversation surrounding them. the chat function is the place to do that. i would like to begin with an overview about the exhibit and how he came to be. the flags and founding documents exhibit open over the weekend at the museum in the exhibit brings together as i said over 40 historic flags from the collection of jeff bridgman who is one of the leading collectors of anti-and historic american flags, the exhibit also features flags from other private collectors in the exhibit peers

those flags with a really amazing document collection focusing on estate constitution from the collection of the dorothy foundation and jim will talk about that in a bit. , the exhibit self is in a special exhibit gallery, patriots gallery on the first floor of the museum, that is where i'm sitting right now the exhibit was sponsored by a number of different supporters of the museum presenting sponsor is american heritage credit union located in philadelphia this exhibit was sponsored through chairman's grant of the national endowment for humanities, democracy demands wisdom, also sponsors include morris and mark shankman i would like to point out that this exposition is recognized by america who the museum of the

american revolution has partnered with in planning for the 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence coming up in five years from now and 2026. the exhibit has brought in its stores but the origins go back even before 2020 but even to an exhibit that was held at the historical society and i would like to have you talk about that and your involvement with that project. >> thank you, i should know at the start i am from ohio that is relevant really fascinating to see where everybody is coming from as well i was living right there in philadelphia a few years back at the university of pennsylvania, it was at that time it was a pretty fantastic opportunity i could not believe

my luck, that is a collector and toronto pissed based in new york and was looking to put on an exhibit of her fantastic collection documents of americana. she had acquired a huge, remarkable collection related to american constitutionalism over the years, this built on things acquired by her husband and this is a document that we will certainly talk about in the printing of the u.s. constitution printing of the constitution but over time dorothy had built up this wonderful collection of not just documents related to federal constitution but also state constitutions. she had all this cool stuff that

she wanted to do and as many people as possible see it. i was there in philadelphia working on constitutional things and since that is not a great portrait, look at what she hadn't see if it was a possibility that we could put out an exhibit that would accentuate the stuff that she had, it was obvious that that was the case, we began working and planning out and working with us historical society and it takes quite a while to do these things and certainly i was not alone there was a huge number of people the new york historical society and in dorothy's team was a pivotal in how they do all of that. definitely note that. when you work on putting the exhibit together and everything was in place, the grand opening

in february of 2020, it was a wonderful time, fortunately the new york historical society and everything else ended up closing down a short time after that, we were thrilled that we were able to put that together and the virtual exhibit that you showed a snapshot of unit people are not able to visit the exhibit in philadelphia i hope they go one line college citizens constitutions.org and they can cofound the virtual exhibit in the gallery in new york the exhibit b and ultimately for over a year that was an unprecedented run not for time for the reasons we would have hoped some people got to see it, not as many as we would like, we are thrilled that we are able to move it down to philadelphia

where you, matt and everybody at the museum combined the exhibit with flags and thematically complement our story extremely well. i will say a few things about what i think we are trying to do with the exhibit it's exciting and unique, the first thing something i mentioned the exhibit tries to present not just documents related to the federal united states constitution that's really important obviously but the state constitution and seen both of these things together i think there is a far more complete understanding that we call american democracy we will have plenty of time to talk about that. the federal and state

constitution together the chronicle logical scope this is the timeframe that the exhibit tries to cover not comprehensively but in some way we range from the charter all the way through the early 20th century and even that in date is a bit arbitrary and reflects the fact that he tapers out in the early 20th, the whole point of the exhibit is that this experiment in constitutional democracy is not limited to one moment by having that long timeframe in its geographical,

the geographical slope of the exhibit expands all corners of the united states ultimately, that's really cool i was there myself and it's very important we will talk about it it's only place the constitutional making is going on. and in small towns and places all over the country this was going on. i think the exhibit tries to make that point. finally all of this related and it tries to make the point that the constitution making is that something done by a small handful people, what happened a couple of blocks away from where you are the constitutional convention in 1787, we will talk about it, often you can kind of get sucked into thinking what is

the only really important constitutional discussion that ever took place in the united states history, in fact with the exhibit shows the huge numbers of americans that have engaged in this collective activity throughout the country's history, not just a handful of people but i cast of thousands, millions ultimately. their handiwork is on display in the exhibit. that serves as a big framework for all the stuff we're going to talk about today that is kind of what we were trying to do. >> thank you, we are going to go back to 1776, we are going to go ahead and look at the constitution of pennsylvania from 1776 here are some of the

questions i want to keep in mind as we have this discussion when american revolution began writing constitutions, what kind of questions did they have to wrestle with and decide, what kind of governments did they create and what was revolutionary about what they did, with pennsylvania as our first example, we are going to look into some of the details of the pennsylvania constitution. the pennsylvania constitution in 1776 on display is a printed version of the constitution that was written in a momentous year following on the heels of the declaration of independence in which the united states declares itself as an independent nation. each of the states and some of the states that were already engaged they are creating their

own governments, some are adapting their colonial charters and using it for the purpose of governing their newly declared states, but others are starting from scratch and rewriting or writing a new form of government for their state. that's what happens in pennsylvania. the legislature pennsylvania gets together and decides to write a constitution created a republican form of government and they come up with one of the revolutionary constitutions and maybe you can elaborate on that and reasons why. >> pennsylvania certainly one of the most fascinating cases of this like you said 1776, we not already we think americans must've been thinking declare

independence would grow a declaration we approved it, the declaration of independence itself is set out in places like massachusetts and people voted on that, should we declare independence, they had a right on their mind they were fighting the british the war had started and it was in full swing isn't they had enough on their plates, the problem was so you declared independence, what next, that means if you declared independence, whatever form of government you had before in most cases you will have to replace because isn't that the whole point of declaring independence. the question became how do you do that, what is the constitution and given what's revolutionary at this moment and what americans are doing i think

we have to remind yourselves of what a constitution is, the notion refers to an overall structure of the government in the fundamental set of laws and a set of rules that governs the political system, that notion of a constitution is not necessarily new and a large number of them very much in the english tradition and we would have thought it had a constitution, i have never read this british constitution and that is the sort of key, you cannot leave it in any one place, the british constitution over very long time his

accommodation of understanding 1869 in various others developments, to create a sense that there was a fundamental system that were certainly off-limits. great britain itself, this is one of the great ironies in the years preceding the american revolution the colonists would look like great britain, they thought of it as an empire of liberty great britain is a greatest force for freedom in the world and a large part of that is because great britain had a constitution instead of limits that he could not do anything he wanted, there was an understanding that any political

system already had fundamentals, the trick is if your british colony, you do not have hundreds of years to gain a general understanding of what the system should be, often that is really bloodied in the civil war, you do not want to go through that, the trick is coming up with a way to decide all of these things relatively quickly. one way to do that instead of having hazy notion of a constitution let's write it all down in one place, it's going to be tricky but you're not going to think of everything out once but you can do a pretty good job of laying out the basic structure as you said a lot of these colonies are building on earlier documents, charters, other colonial documents they give a framework for the

government so in pennsylvania's case, they have some of these things and it's been pretty messy in the colonial period or independence the task of creating a government and the first constitution for pennsylvania is going to lead to a very interesting document and that is what they do the pennsylvania constitution is notable in a few ways there is no governor in pennsylvania. there is a president in pennsylvania but he is the head of the council, executive council that is not a second of the assembly unicameral legislature. today the senate both needs to pass laws, not just one simply

that needs to pass the laws. and in fact this is one thing that we highlight in the exhibit, pennsylvanians have a sense that they really want to get government closer to the people and people should continue to exercise, ordinary people not just representatives in the assembly to continue to exercise a voice and the laws that are passed. and so one thing that they do, we are going to. all the proposed laws and we will send them out to people and everybody will be able to read them those laws will not go into effect until the next session of the legislature, intervening, this will be another election so everybody will debate the idea and they will be debating all these laws, they will presumably vote for candidates to represent them and those people in the

next set of representatives are going to be the one that will pass the laws, there will be an opportunity for people to continue to exert their voice in the political system, it is very novel and a lot of critiques in a form of government the people in massachusetts and ultimately they have to rewrite the constitution, in this moment 1776 is seems to embody something really powerful with the potential of the american revolution but the american revolution in practical terms in terms of the government and americans will establish. it sort of scopes out what end of the spectrum. >> one of the things i want to point out about pennsylvania, their voting requirement, their voting laws it's not a property owning requirement to be a voter

in pennsylvania, it is actually taxpayers over 21 years old and resident of pennsylvania they are the ones that are able to vote no racial requirement in pennsylvania, it is the taxpayer requirement rather than a property requirement other colonies turned states had certain levels of property that a potential voter had to be in order to be eligible to vote in our respective state. the other thing that is interesting about the pennsylvania constitution it did have a religious test for serving in the pennsylvania legislature assembly. that religious test required a

candidate before they take their seats in the assembly to actually swear that they believe in the old and the new testaments. that prevented u.s. americans from serving in the assembly. we have here on screen, the religious test that people had to before they served in the assembly had to swear to, so interesting, this religious test if you know your night's taste constitution abolished with the federal constitution in certain states did have these things in the revolutionary period. let's move onto massachusetts. near dear to your current research. >> the massachusetts constitution of 1780 amazingly

is still constitution that massachusetts uses today it's gone through many amendments, it is still the general framework of massachusetts government today. which is pretty amazing. it is the oldest state constitution still in effect. jim, tell us about the long-standing effort to get a constitution for massachusetts which involved a new thing called a convention. >> you are exactly right my advisor once said, i think he said this, it is the longest constitutional show in american history. like i said it is undergone lots of amendments but the fact is there all amendments to this document. and rightly so it is extraordinary and a number of ways, it took massachusetts unlike pennsylvania it took massachusetts a while to write a

new constitution for a bunch of reasons that would be very boring if i were to explain all of them. but you are exactly right the document that they finally did produce was grounded in the deeper legitimacy or potentially deeper legitimacy because of the process by which it was written. we were talking about it you need to write a constitute, how you do that people don't have any experience doing this it initially in places that did not have a functioning framework of government like after independence there is royal governors, you need something in place very quickly by necessity

americans end up writing a lot of documents quickly and i thing, this is the constitution down it was better than nothing but not ideal because think of the principles that you are familiar with with the making resolution the whole thing about consent in the making revolution to alter and abolish your government and the notion that the people have a say in this and even if the representatives of the people writing these constitutions and the fact that they say without any chance for anybody to fight and to say this looks good or know this does not look good. that can be problematic. what happens in massachusetts is a couple of different things, first of all they say we need a

new constitution. we will elect people in the legislature but also the going to write a constitution. and in addition to that they are going to send the draft out to all of the towns in massachusetts under 1780s in these towns of various sizes and everybody will get together and look at the constitution and say what they like and what they don't like and they will vote on it and if they vote that they like it then it will be put in place and take advantage of that, this is what we call ratification of course. keep that in mind because that will come back and become a hallmark of the american constitutionalism. an advantage of that we will in

some plausible perfect way is never going to be perfect, people have some form of government that the living under, the problem is that's a lot of questions you have to work out of how the process actually works massachusetts has a constitution in 1778 they set it out for the towns in the towns a majority of towns for some reason that's why they don't like it. first try was down the tube, they have to get together and write a new constitution, by this point they decide you know the process of the members of the legislature taking down their data to debate the constitution, maybe that is not the best, they're doing a lot of stuff that relates to war, a lot

of stuff going on and it's hard to come cart metallized i can't multitask. maybe it would be better for that reason alone to have a separate set of people get together in the constitution but also a deeper theoretical foundation to this and if you have a sitting government writing a constitution, maybe because they are in charge of implementing it maybe it is not that good to have in writing the fundamental wall they will be the ones bound by it. if you have what you call convention that you will get a group of people together and they will come together for the civil task of writing a constitution and then they adjourn and go their separate ways and they have no power and

no existence past the writing of the constitution, that has the potential to endow this document with even greater legitimacy and that's ultimately what happens in massachusetts the convention constitution set out very complicated process of ratification intensive opinions on all sorts of things and break them down in a very complex way they send them all back, the convention looks at them because they have no idea how to sort through all of this, they conclude the majority in the constitution and i think that's probably right a few things that they probably did not approve but they declared that the constitution had been ratified, and perfection is notwithstanding in this suggested the kind of model that theoretical grounds americans

not just in massachusetts but throughout the united states recognized as having a lot of potential, the goal is to create governments that were legitimate and people will comply with they would see truly something that they had created in the new process suggested that they could take the theoretical notion that sovereignty lies with people in a tangible way into an actual document. that is one of the cool things that happen in massachusetts. >> i would like to point out that the bottom of the image that you see a declaration of rights, remember the state constitution had their own declaration of the rights of the people. . . . you can see the taxpayer but the first right all manner of worn free and equal

kind of quoting independence and the declaration of rights and people are paying attention to this and there is even cases of men and women suing for their freedom in massachusetts because of this and the case of elizabeth freeman successfully won our she won her freedom in court due in large part because of the declaration of rights as part of a massachusettss constitution ad of course these declarations of rights of a framework for the later of what we eventually call the bill of rights, the federal constitution. as massachusetts wrangles with how to create a new government, other states rapidly creating government and the articles of confederation bringing together the revolutionaryar war and a

loose confederation joining the effortsti together to do things like wage the war, engaging diplomacy as a nation but it certainly has limitations to enforce taxes and get funds from the states to conduct this so the states were operating as very independent states time together for one caused the articles of confederation plenty of issues in the constitutional convention comes about 1787 to revise these articles and ends up what happening. and fill it off cap in the summer of 17872 blocks of from where i am now, but ballots come

together to improve the articles of confederation but come upp with a brand-new document for the u.s. constitution and one of the amazing documents on display here is dunlop claypool printing of the constitution printed september 17, 1787 some of the day the constitutional convention and here in philadelphia. printed and distributed to the states for ratification consideration at the state level. this is really make amazing rare survivor, 15 or so survived from 1787. this is the only one who still remains, the rest are

institutional collections. it's a rare opportunity to seek a dunlop claypool printing on display and of course there's a lot of connection between the constitutional convention decides on and presents to the state between the connections between the revolutionary state constitution like massachusetts and pennsylvania we talked about. what are some of thehelv lessons constitutional convention learned from processing of creating constitution? can you share some interesting stories? >> a huge topic we won't be able to cover everything but there is a connection between what americans are doing at a state level in 1976 through the

1780s to 1877 i think one of the most fascinating questions in american history because as we see, americans are getting a lot of experience writing the constitution but it's for their states which is difficult enough, there are so many things to decide on in different ideas have to sort out and that's not easy. the advantage is a form of government basically that's designed to do something you are familiar with, governments and people writing prosecutions familiarity with how the governments work, they do the kinds of things governments needed to do so they had some

ideas in mind that they would build on and with new circumstances. it came to were all of the states are going to collectively revise. that was unprecedented. the state had all been part of the british empire, they have not had any formal connection to one another before they had been next to each other h but if you are in that, ultimately you had no say in what happened and in most cases, it probably didn't matter. this is very different because 1775, they are fighting a war against great britain, it's tough to beat great britain they

are powerful, so you have to cooperate in that endeavor and as we saw, you form the united states declaration, the declaration is fundamental path of union of the state of the idea being created not exactly what that is in an ongoing question the articles of confederation which we showed, it's an attempt figure out how this would work. it really resembled something more akin to an international alliance in some ways but it's very tricky because the continental congress confederation congress create this national body, it had lots

of powers to do stuff, borrow money for treaties in office but as hend said, it let to states that implement all of the policies voluntarily so it was very different from any state constitution so the question we are facing as they are gathering, how do we actually borne something that both respects the state from americans like their states, they don't want to get rid of them but it accomplishes all these others, we had agreed collectively we handle together so the strategy they end up adopting not many people grow for many people grow with this in mind but the solutions lay

themselves out as they debate this is. any society or state do you get bias from the people, past representatives that represent various constituencies, they get together, they are the ones that pass laws, agrees on what to do and the laws are seen as legitimate because the representatives of the people and back model, you need to represent all of the people of the state in a more nuanced way than the articles have, the key thing, every state gets one vote

no matter how big it is or how many people, every state gets one vote which is important because people like their state but if you try to portion taxation, not as compelling because if you live in a big state, why would i let delaware -- there's not many people in delaware, red state but you need a system of representation to allow you to say okay, we have consented to all of these things and we will do them. ultimately that's what they end up u doing and the great questin that faced the convection is how you represent all thehe states d the solution is in one house they have representation portions, population and another house, the senate, each state gets two boats so that allows

the convention to go forward and decide another questions but u.s.qu constitution acknowledgig and respecting this will function more like ain political society americans are familiar with on state level, sort of principle for a revolution applied on a different level and that allows americans to come to terms with this novel and sometimes new federal government but what does it mean for the future? i think that's how they ultimately began to do it. >> and there is concerned about strength of the states, this new federal government but ultimately what happened is the federal constitution leaves a lot up to the state and we are

going to see some issues played out in the 19th century about voting rights, slavery and popular sovereignty, there is a lot left up the state 1778 dictation and a block and a half away right now, we are in claypool, they printed that display so as the u.s. moves in to the early 19th century and the end of 18th century, states are being added to the union, they allow for new states and they have to create republicans forms of government, approved by congress so we see states like ohio, illinois, louisiana all joining this

union. of course the extension, this land is being taken from native americans, many native americans are resettled by the u.s. government preserved territories and what's now oklahoma, one of the nations removed is largely based in fort snow of mississippi and one of the interesting things they do is after they are forced to root be removed from their original homeland and moved to what's now oklahoma, they write their own republican form of government write it down in the constitution that's similar to the federal constitution that gives a quick word about this constitution.

>> it's fascinating because native americans have strategies to respond all the things happening that you just described. what is the best strategy for preserving autonomy in the face of an aggressive federal government or state government, georgia for instance? key player in the removal of the cherokee nation a little earlier so a as they are looking at different strategies, oneer strategy they look to his trying to show they can combine their traditional forms of government

with these new american forms of government american authorities to allow them to retain a degree of autonomy, constitutional like that. very interesting for the ways in which is sort of incorporates aspects of traditional government with the form of what we've been talking about, this american constitutional form so fascinating and huge topic, i wish we had more time to get into this. >> speaking of, the next volume we are going to talk about, one of the largest documents is connected to louisiana and fifth

constitutional convention states like louisiana, alabama and others are looking to pennsylvania and massachusetts constitutionala collection in 1787 what to do about their owne adopted constitutions in the late 18th century, early 19th century making key changes like in pennsylvania racial requirements were added to the voting law in 1838 taking the vote away from african-americans, taxpayers and the state, a huge issue in pennsylvania, especially philadelphia. louisiana is debating you

constitution in the 1840s and unlike the secretive 1787 constitution, even historians know roughly little what went on inside the pennsylvania state house that's not independent tall. we know bits and pieces from note delegates were taking but louisiana actually printed and published all proceedings are back constitutional conventiontu of 1845. it literally word for word everything is in there. i just want toor -- i put some f us on screen, it's interesting statements, maybe you could talk about these one horse about where to put the capitol and issues regarding that. >> you are right. the contrast between the federal constitution, we have james

madison's notes which was only published decades later. not necessarily the case on state level. they do this for it's a free and open circus sort of -- circus is a strong word. it's an event people pay close attention to, their words of what's going on and there's almost a back and forth while conventions are going on about people back home are thinking so it's not something that happened in 1777 very much but louisiana is one of the states so we have all of these things talk about some of the things are just fascinating. one of thena things in an officl state, the little states are

changing, the question is often debated, where to put the states capitolal. how big of a deal is it? a huge deal especially in the 19th century because the 19th century, everything travels by foot. eventually you have the telegraph but still, geographical location of the capitol is a huge deal practically because it will affect so many things related to the development of that state. states start off -- they are all clustered in one area so you are looking to the futuren thinking how will this develop over time? how are we going to make sure the entire state gets developed

in a reasonable fashion? locating estate capitol in a particular place, often the center of the state, back would help because that means presumably you want the state capitol connected to other places by boats and things, if you go to the state capitol in the middle, that means you have toe go out of the state and its going to allow citizens living in every part of the state relatively equal access to the power. if you put the state capitol at one end of the state, the people on the far end won't be able to get there as easily so they have concerns about if their rights and views are being respected so in louisiana, an old state because french colony and

spanish colony at onesm time, fascinating history but by the 1840s, fair debating a new constitution and where to put the stateti government, it's currently in new orleans, by far the largest city in the state and even the southern half of the united states, it dwarfs anything, any other city around so it's a model in the area and the concern was self-serving by people not from new orleans, if you put the capitol new orleans, office of government will be in new orleans and we all know cities are kind of dense bribery and all kinds of nasty things that will corrupt the government

so this is a speech somebody gives and he's defending having the capitol new orleans and accusations going on about how often new orleans -- is anybody actually arrived -- i just don't know this portion, ways to tease out things we've been talking about, i ran across this so revealing of this particular place, i put in making a legitimate time americans, not just louisiana but every state and of debating. >> baton rouge was decided upon as a capitol and that still remains the capitol of louisiana but the next topic i want to bring up is the constitutional slavery that's rising in the

early 19th century but then secession of southern states and the establishment of the confederacy takes on a brand-new form, debate over the future of slavery in the unitedth states. what we have on display in the goldman foundation collection is a copy of the confederate state constitution which is reaffirming and establishing slavery is going to be protected inta the confederate states, a direct response to compromises made about restricting slavery the territory was the louisiana purchase for example if earlier in the 19th century you want

to talk about how the constitution is similar and different to the federal constitution of the united states? >> absolutely and there are so many things i wish we could go into greater depth. certainly slavery is a central topic in american history in this exhibit as well. we can explore all of the complexities here. the thing to mention is slavery is a huge topic of debate always an american constitution going back to the federal constitution of 1787 and acute you things to note here in large degree,

slavery was left up to the state to decide so with cap this, this is america deciding the future of their political society in different forms. allowing slavery in their state was one of those things americans debated so americans are always debating this question, it becomes the central of the 19thra century for americans and leads to a crisis ultimately when the question becomes whether the preponderance of government power will be represented.

this is seen as an issue that's going to affect theha future of slavery where it already exists in the civil war of the question being debated whether the extension of slavery and the federal territories by 1860 in start of the republican party devoted to restricting the spread of slavery the first republicanre president believedn constitution, article four section three congress t can lit the spread of slavery, it's perfectly legitimate and constitutional, americans see his election as a precursor as inevitable attackvi on slavery even in states where it already

exists. that leads to secession, confederate show the threat from a perceived threat to the institution of slavery as overriding secede from the unit and form a new country which they are going to call confederacy of america and you might think if they're going to come up with something that looks like the articles of confederation, not really, not at all. they take the u.s. constitution because they are not stupid, the articles of confederation did not work. especially confederate looking ahead and realizing they will have to fight a war for their independence is inclined to do the trick anyway, we saw how

that went during the revolution so they take the u.s. constitution and they make a few changes, they make, the president will be eligible, he will have one six-year term and they make a couple of other minor changes but the key one is unlike the u.s. constitution which never uses the word slave orev slavery in several places. the right to own slaves and territories, all of the questions americans have debated in the 19th century have led up to this, confederates when they get the chance to write this new constitution, they will

enter in the foundational document sort of putting it beyond debate, these things will be debated anymore and when the first and only man ever elected by the vice president from ironically named alexander hamilton stevens gets up and marches 1861 to give the speech about the confederate constitution, he frames it as something that's in advance even on the founding generation of the drafters of the u.s. constitution because he says the cornerstone of t confederacy is the notion of white supremacy and he says that explicitly and he's talking about the constitution, this is the document that will allowbo us to enshrine the fundamental and

rural troops, an incredibly important thing to reckon with they were able to display this as part of a very complicated story in american democracy we are telling. >> thanks, i want to cash we have is on display, no unit with slavery, 13 alternating black and white and 23 stars on the flag from 1961, 34 states for secession so modest the state seated, a team exclusionary flam so removing the stars. abraham lincoln was very much against this when he became president and wanted to emphasize the union was stuck together for movie stars from the flag would serve as legitimized confederacy and

wanted to make sure the union held together so an amazing fight we have on display connected to that story of the confederate constitution and the crisis over slavery in the 19th century. a few things i want to bring up, as the u.s. expands further fact, there are some interesting things going on in places like wyoming and utah. the franchise is expanded into wyoming for example to include women, this is hardly progressive partly practical. i know you're right about this in the. book, the company exhibt but they are few women in wyoming at the time speaking to boost the population as more and more people are moving to wyoming, anything you want to

mention? >> one of the key questions, one of the many things that be great to talk more about, i know you're going to have an exhibit that explores more of this question of women building in the history of voting, the practice there is nothing in the u.s. constitution that would exclude estate from allowing them develop. there's nothing in there. it's up to the state to decide so maybe some states will explore this but it takes until -- 1890 with the exception of jersey but that is the exception until wyoming in 1889, women have been able to vote in territories before this, not a lot of people know white

settlers living in o wyoming at this time, we should note but in time from wyoming to writing the constitution 1989, theyy decided there revealing convention continuing the lineup about in 1989 so the first date who was we guarantees the right of women to vote, the dam is going to break in other statesu will alw the vote after this but it's going to take another generation so thehe idea women should voten general throughout the u.s. ultimately is guaranteed three through. what's going out on the state level, americans push for different provision that may not

be generally accepted applicant tried out convince other americans, look at wyoming, the sky has not fallen in wyoming. this is just an extension of the principles we talk more on the revolution and find ourselves on so that's an interesting connection in the state's and levels we've been talkingon abo. >> each is a little different t, bilingual constitution in 1910, it's reflective of the population living in new mexico at the time and still is so there's a lot of difference at the state level, federal amendments are sortt of leveling the playing field in many ways in terms of vote and who can be a citizen, 13th, 14th and 15th amendment, 19th

amendment, these are increasing at the state level by making change at the federal level so interesting story of how that historic progression happened so we are winding down here and i wanted to open up for some questions i want to bring up -- we'll look at the chat from a person questions asked, we will look at some -- i want to look at -- second -- i think you can see these asee well. >> yes. >> okay, questions about the claypool family, an interesting

note without a donation from descendents of betsy ross connected to have the revolutionary war diary of john claypool, betsy crosses third husband, a story there. what is the best book on the constitution convention, any recommendations? >> there are so many. there's a good overview, a vast literature. but that could be a start for what happened and the debate. >> is another question about native american constitutions and one other, maybe you want to talk about the charity cherokee.

>> many did and do have constitutions today. the cherokee constitution is an especially notable one written in the 1820s and it was part of this attempt by the cherokees to secure their place in this new transformed continent and the cherokees and other nations did interesting things to try to -- these are all different strategies so different native american groups and different circumstances and different strategies but one strategy is to write a constitution,

cherokees like to write about slavery and they pointed to this as another sign of their ability to coexist in this american society alongside market society, owning in this 19th century context and could argue doing things like owning slaves was a sign of their -- the fact that they were just like other americans and adopting a constitution as we mentioned as another way to do that but in different circumstances, that act could be seen by white

americans as a threat and it's generally how it was received when the cherokees wrote the constitution, it seemed to in a greater degree, mobilize americans to figure out how remove the cherokees from the land they currently possess so i wish i was more of an expert on this to give you a full explanation but there's a wide range of scholarship available ons this and a big piece, we've been talking about americans taking a big role in drafting their own constitution and maybe what's not been emphasized among his obviously large numbers of

americans have not been granted the opportunity to participate in this way in writing constitutions but that should not lead us toti think about all of these groups sometimes or another who have been denied the opportunity have not exerted a profound impact on american democracy. they absolutely did and we need to pay attention to that, many groups fall into this category so i want to emphasize that. >> another question is about whether one particular state constitution served as our primary model for federal constitution. was it massachusetts that was a key model?

>> yes and no. in a lot of ways it was more of a constitution because john adams drafted -- didn't like pennsylvania -- the convention changed a bunch of things but one thing -- many things he did but one important thing, he really organized the massachusetts constitution structurally, a lot of things did end up resembling the federal constitution but looking at the constitution, it's organized and sections with different breaks and things, earlier constitutions, a lot of them purchase lists of provisions they want sort of grouped it especially organized way so in that regard, i think we can thank john adams people

aree. he did read, you could find what you're looking for pretty easily. >> thanks, i know we are at 715 now, i wish we could talk longer. i'm sure a lot more questions on the board here but i want to thank you for tuning in and thank you for coming to us live from arizona. >> download c-span's new app and stay up-to-date with live coverage of today's biggest event from live streams of the house and senate for key congressional hearings to white house events and supreme court oral arguments, live interactive morning program "washington journal" where we hear your voices everyday. c-span now has you covid. download the app free today. ♪♪

>> during a recent program hosted by the u.s. cap historical society, historian and best-selling author joseph looked at how the founding fathers provide wisdom for navigating today's society. >> the founders were brilliant and gifted but flawed. they succeeded triumphantly in many respects. they could imagine and successfully bring many awards against the dominant military power on the planet at that moment quickly and if you think about it, how many did they lose between 1750 and 1950? one. they could imagine the nation -sized republic that never existed before, they could imagine that separation of church and state, a secular society from the view of government authority. that had never happened before either.

finally, political scientists a crucial in the creation, the doctrine of federalism meaning there shared, there's no single source of sovereignty in the american republic which everyone that you had to have, all of the great triumphs and miss the triumphs, to enormous tragedies. one is failure to reach an accommodation with the native americans and the other is failure to end slavery. >> watch the fall program and thousands more at c-span.org/history. >> very excited about tonight's topic because on the american revolution for great britain and american colonies were united by culture, language, commerce and religion. the briti