director of pediatric neurosurgery compares the decline of empires past with america and shares his thoughts on what should be done to avoid a similar fate. sunday at 3:30 p.m. "book tv" every weekend on c-span2. over the next few hours, american history tv, focusing on the founding of the nation. a look at thomas jefferson's ideas on how the young country should be governed. then the role of women in the revolutionary war. later, a discussion on george washington's leadership as head of the continental army and as the first u.s. president. american history tv continues on c-span3 each night the rest of the week. wednesday at 8:00 p.m., historians consider who "time" magazine might have picked to be person of the year in 1862 when the country was in the midst of the civil war. among the names discussed,

abolitionist leader frederick douglas, robert e. lee, and george b. mcclellan, the union general who commanded a failed 1862 campaign to take the confederate capital of richmond. c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes our book tv and american history tv programming on the road the first weekend of each month. this past weekend featured little rock, arkansas, with book tv at the university of arkansas. >> he was particularly interested in the 19th century, the civil war in particular. these are two friends, union and confederate, who knew each other prior to the civil war, who fought against each other at the battle of pea ridge in 1862, survived the war, came out alive, and remained friends after the war. here they are at age 100, sitting on the porch, talking about the old days.

>> american history tv looked at life in a world war ii japanese internment camp. >> a wonderful book called "the art of goman." goman meant surviving the insurvivable, sort of. she talks a lot about how the arts and crafts were sort of how they kept their sanity. it gave them something to do. about how depression was so bad that a lot of the camps, that people -- there was the high incidence of suicide. and so people would make these little things of beauty to give to each other just as a way to say, we support you, we care about you. >> our cities tour continues the weekend of may 5th and 6th from oklahoma city on c-span2 and 3. each weekend, american history tv travels to historic sites, museums and archives to learn what artifacts reveal

about american history. "american artifacts" is sundays at 8:00 a.m. eastern, and 7:00 did and 10:00 p.m. on c-span3. find information about our programs and series including schedules and online video archives at c-span.org/history. thomas jefferson was in france as the constitution was being written but he had his own ideas for the new nation. next, university of virginia history professor peter onoff examines thomas jefferson's idea of america and how his relationship with james madison, whose ideas differed from his own, affected his opinions. this is 50 minutes. >> was that for me or jefferson? i confuse the two sometimes. i want to begin by talking about

the world of the founders. and i am controversially going to include jefferson as one of the founders. you students of american history know he wasn't there. and therefore he was not the father or in any way related to the document that was produced at philadelphia. but he and james madison of course were lifetime friends. madison is the so-called father of the constitution. and what i want to talk about a little bit today is the quarrel between these great friends who supported each other in a common project to secure the success of this great experiment in republican government, and what we can learn from their quarrels and their differences. and to get a better sense of this, i want to start by suggesting that the anxieties that president born articulated

about today's driftlessness, about the immeant collapse of the republic as the world gets warmer and warmer, i know that's a controversial position in oklahoma, and he didn't say anything about this -- i think the best way to get into the founding is to understand that these were anxious people too in anxious times. if you think things are bad now, put yourself into their world. imagine what it would have been like in a weak union of republican states on the brink of falling apart. when the very idea that the people were capable of governing themselves was extremely controversial. in fact, the idea of democracy itself had pejorative, negative connotations. what is democracy?

democracy is the rule of the mob, of the people. the people are a beast. what would they do if they got power? well, they'd redistribute property. have you heard that before? the first churches of socialism in american history go back to the founding period when anxious rich people worried that the common folk would gain control of the government and pass what they called agrarian policies, that is, to redistribute as in ancient rome. agrarianism used to be a dirty word. how did this people -- remember, the american revolution was not a popular movement in its origins. it was a movement of provincial elites. of people like thomas jefferson. to protect their position in the british empire. it was a movement to reform the

british empire. americans didn't want to be americans. sometimes these days some of us don't want to be americans. they wanted to be british. they wanted to enjoy the rights of english men. but their world was on the verge of falling apart. they won the american revolution, but that notion of 70% president boren mentioned, well, john adams thought that perhaps as many as 67% of the american people weren't fully on board with the american revolution. we historians think he's xnlg rating a little bit but you get the point. there were many loyalists. happily, most of them left. no, i'm joking. most of them were accepted and incorporated in american society. there were many people who thomas paine would have called fair weather friends. which army is where? the great problem was, how could this republic of republics, this

loose federation, survive? nobody was more conscious of the problems of union and the problems of the future of the united states than thomas jefferson, precisely because he was not in the united states but aware of its weakness, of its imtensi impotence, of the absolute compelling need to do something. but did they do the right thing in philadelphia? that is the short version of the question americans have been asking themselves ever since. i want to tell you, as a student of the early republic, that there is no universal agreement among the founders, some of whom didn't sign, among americans, in the ratifying conventions. it was a very near thing. the language of miracle, that there was some divine

intervention, is actually an expression of how close the whole thing came to falling apart. given the kind of people we are, you might say, how could the union possibly have survived? how could we have a union that would include the great slave holders of south carolina and the chesapeake and my ancestors, not on my polish side, the other ancestors, the flinty new englanders and their intolerance of the great nabobs of the south? that's just a caricature of some of the differences. but these colonies that became states had no common bond aside from their connection with britain. they were much closer because of the nature of their economies and societies to british society than to any emerging american society. the very idea of america is an invention. and this is the sense of the

significance of the founding enterprise. we better get it right now, because this is the only way we can guarantee that we will be remembered. the idea of the founders, it's their idea. they saw themselves as law givers. at this unique moment in world history. the first time you could ever do this, determine your own destiny. well, the idea that they got it right, of course, is central to our civic religion in america. we worship the founders. thomas jefferson said, don't. and that's the point i want to make today. there is nobody in the founding period who's more conscious of both the danger of the union, the risks, but also is more intensely conscious of the rights of an individual. there is a strong libertarian

tendency in jefferson's thought and his obsession with rights. on the other hand, there's a strong tendency toward realism to be aware of the great dangers confronting the nation and the need to mobilize the force of the nation to sustain its enterprise. so what was his problem with the constitution? why did he say to his good friend madison, i don't think we should revere this document, it has many imperfections, and nothing personal but i don't see you as a father or a founder. i'm paraphrasing. it's only because i know him so well i can say this, as i frequently point out, jefferson never would have gotten tenure at the university of virginia. his publication list is extremely limited and he was a lousy public speaker. so why wouldn't he say, good work, mr. madison, and we should

all rally around this document. why, at just the moment when madison wanted him to say, well done,understand you had to make compromises that you're not happy with but you did the right thing, why did jefferson say, everybody on earth has a right to a bill of rights and there's not one in the constitution, that's a major defect, and what about this idea that the president can be re-elected? you know, there's only one plausible candidate for president, and everybody knew who that was going to be. and i'm not going to mention his name. later today you'll see gordon woods' neck tie and it has this man's signature all over it. one person had face recognition, images circulated of this one person. but was that the future? well, what if this president is perpetually re-elected and that

becomes the constitutional precedent? then we are squinting, more than squinting, to borrow patrick henry's phrase, at monarchy. didn't we fight a revolution on the premises of the declaration of independence, that all men are created equal and government is based on the consent of the people? is that a one-off? did that just happen in 1787 or in the ratification meetings that took place thereafter when the people said, yes, that's it, folks. shut up, you have a constitution. what is consent? that's jefferson's question. that raises the question of democracy. and this is the main point i want to make in the few minutes that i have this morning. is to suggest, in case it's news to you, but i want to suggest that there's a fundamental

tension between the traditional rule of law and constitutionalism and what we call democracy. jefferson became a democrat because he recognized that tension. and that is, jefferson made war throughout his entire career against the principles of monarchy and aristocracy. that a few privileged families or one single family should rule time out of mind simply because of their genealogical connections. republicanism is based on the principle that, as he put it in a famous letter to james madison, the earth belongs to the living. every generation. and that would include us, now. we are the source of our own authority. here's jefferson's radical answer to the question of who

are the founders. madison and his colleagues wanted to be remembered as founders. they wanted to have fame, a great obsession of the 18th century, a sort of secular substitute for going to heaven is to be remembered in future generations. this was a heady moment for these people. but jefferson said, wait. there's a problem here. if this experiment is going to succeed, it's because we are our own founders. we have created this republic and we will sustain it. they were anxious then, we are anxious now. that anxiety is the predicate of republican government. it's not going to be easy, folks. now, i don't want to get into a secular sermon about these times we live in but i want to give you some insight into how

jefferson went about answering the question of, how do you reconcile the sovereignty of the people with limitations on power that secure rights? here's the paradox. if all power comes from the people, the only legitimate break on the people's power is the people's power. how do you mobilize that? how do you keep a democratic people, through processes of majority rule, the mother principle of republicanism or democracy, how do you keep them from abusing that authority, because they will do it. madison famously talked about rp solutions to the problems of republican government. he was mechanic. devising elaborate machinery to keep americans from destroying each other. a balance of power.

jefferson said, you know, what you're really doing -- i am again channeling jefferson -- what you're really doing, jamie, you are repackaging the old regime. mixed government. you're just an anglo file. this is not the solution, this is the problem. this is, we don't have a house of lords, we come up with some fancy classical way of touk the senate. we don't have a king. we have a president. and of course a president merely presides. that's the theory. let's be honest about this new world that we have brought into being and let's make it thoroughly and comprehensively democratic, or republican. here are the two grand solutions that jefferson over the course of his later life, after having written the declaration of independence and served his country and his state in many

capacities, including as president of the united states, retires in 1809 and goes into his most mature period of political thought in which he brings these things together. there are two ways that we can limit the excesses of democracy, democratic ways to secure our rights. the first one i anticipated in talking about his letter to james madison. the earth belongs to the living. in 1789. in this letter, jefferson suggests that the vital principle of democracy is what he described as generational sovereignty. our right to rule ourselves. the idea of aristocracy is based on the supremacy of -- many of you are wondering what this hand

is doing. i'll put them both in the sky. these are, as i tell my students, it's very powerful because i've been threatening -- i describe myself as a nearly dead white guy in my last days. these are the dead hands of the past. i go but they still have a choke hold over you forever and ever. does that make any sense to you? the dead hand of the past. jefferson particularly worried about this because of course he was deep in debt his entire life. talk about dead hands. we need to do something. i'm not going to get somatic again. we need to do something about that great debt we have. jefferson's prophetic and it was very personal to him. he died $700,000 in debt, which was an incredible amount of money in those days, in 1826. he lived his entire life as if he would, as he put it, a slave to his creditors. that's a very powerful term for

a slave holder to use. we need to overthrow the shackles of aristocracy, of the dead hand of the past, of this emerging commercial money aristocracy. we need to guarantee to each rising generation that it will be able to right twrite the law which it lives. that is the vital principle of a successful republic. he wrote this letter to madison and madison couldn't believe that jefferson would say something so stupid. it was hard work getting that constitution through at philadelphia. and even harder work to convince voters in the state ratifying conventions. and you want to go back and do it all over again every 19 years? now you might well ask how we get 19 years. to be more precise, it's 18.8 years. and now you know jefferson is

completely gone bananas. why 18.8 years? it's because he studied actuarial statistics that were generated in france that suggested, according to the mortality expectations of the french population, that at any given moment, let's say we today all -- can't even begin to count this all. imagine there are 900 people, not to mention our virtual audience across is street, that we decide to pass a law of some sort decreeing that oklahoma sooners will win every football game in the future. i mean, that's taking popular sovereignty a little too far, i understand. but we pass a law, and be serious about it, think of some effective way to talk about it. we pass a law. and 18.8 years, the then-population will include exactly 50% of those people who are alive today. and there will be another 50% who will have come on board. did they have anything to say

about this law? no. they may be cornhusker fans. i know. this is such a logical absurdity. having cornhusker fans in oklahoma. but we're speaking now, this is a teach-in for all mankind, not just for you. so let's just imagine that we have this new generation arrive on the stage. well, the earth belongs to the living. we need to start all over again. now, madison says, that is stupid. because you know, and of course jefferson knows, that that generation, my generation for instance, or us, we don't walk off the stage together. we die one by one. and eventually, if you look at the aggregate, then we have half and half. how do you operationalize this principle? good question. but jefferson is doing a thought experiment here. he's asking us to think, and intuitively you grasp it. because all of us live

generationally. that's the cycle of our lives. we have children, we have parents. they have a responsibility to us. we have a responsibility to our children. here is jefferson looking forward into the future with a notion of generational stewardship. our generation for the next generation. we have to make sure that they start with a clean slate. that they can devise their own constitution, their own way of living. think -- and this is a figure that jefferson used himself. imagine that when we were boys and girls, we are suited up in good costumes that are appropriate to our age, but then we grow and we grow and we outgrow them. all parents know that you have to get a new wardrobe for the kid every six months. imagine that the child has grown to adulthood. you have to have a suit of

clothing appropriate to your age. the constitution as a suit of clothing. that's his metaphor. something we put on. something we put on to establish our way of being, our way of life, to rule ourselves. that's a little different from the notion of an eternal framework. one that we must fetishize, cherish, and worship. jefferson says to you, you should never treat the constitution, any constitution, as if it were a sacred thing, the ark of the covenant. a constitution is good for what it does and how we can limit ourselves by establishing rules under which we will live as long as we live. but those are not rules forever. jefferson is famously known to be a strict constructionist. why is he a strict constructionist? it's precisely because he doesn't worship the

constitution. it's precisely because he wants to hold the authors of that constitution and the first federalist administration to their words. you are telling us this constitution will not destroy our liberties. you are telling us that you are not going to create a consolidated regime like the british imperial monarchal regime. you keep telling us this is a solution for the problems of the states. well, we'll see, won't we. because this is an experiment in republican government and i am going to hold you to the test. are you violating the things that you said when you sold it to us? were you lying? and of course hamilton would say, of course we're lying. any good politician would say that. we needed to get this damn thing through. but jefferson would say, in all seriousness, there are

fundamental principles, there are things that can never be changed without violating the spirit of republicanism. and those have been laid out in the declaration. that's something that will never change, that notion of consent, that idea of equality. those are there forever. all the other stuff is like this suit i'm wearing now. we need a new one as we get older. now, you might say, if you were a cynical 21st century person, jefferson just doesn't want to give madison credit, and he wants to change the conversation to say, you know, the really important document was my document. the declaration. and if this were a two-day considers, and if i were a little more irreverent, i would have worn the declaration today. but i am instead, and this can't do anybody any good who can't see this, this is the

constitution. it's a deep and important document. who wrote the declaration of independence? who wrote the constitution? well, we know who wrote the constitution. that's why we have all this mystifying nonsense about them being founders and framers and larger than life individuals. that's all a form of ancestor worship in the making. we're going to worship these guys. that was the problem with the old regime. you were supposed to worship kings. you were supposed to worship the succession of kings across time. all nonsense. jefferson says, i did not write the declaration of independence, the american people did. i was just the vessel, the medium through which the american people articulated these eternal truths. and that's the standard against which we need to measure the constitution.

the question is, we the people, as it says toward the bottom of my tie. who are these people? are they really speaking? did morris ventriloquize the american people? did they in one moment speak aloud and say, yes, this will be our law? what were the procedures that get us to the ratification? it's a complicated story. eventually madison, who of course argues against this notion of generational sovereignty. it's not practical, it's not prudent. will, in his emphasis on the state ratifying conventions, say, that was where the people came together in their capacity as citizens of their states or representatives of the citizens of their states to speak and to give life to this document. we the people is just a hope when it's written in the constitution. it becomes real as the people

speak. but as i say, the people. do they speak once and then be silent for the rest of time? no. so jefferson has these two answers. the first is, as i see it, along a temporal axis through time, that we need a constitutional renewal every generation. i think most civic-minded americans would agree, though the last thing any of us want right now is a constitutional convention. philadelphia would love it. they need the business. it would be the epitome, the ultimate climax of history tourism if we could have another constitutional convention. that's not going to happen. but the idea, the deep principle that jefferson's articulating, is very important. how do we speak now? and here's his idea.