it is a rescue mission as much as anything. those that could make it got out. she went back to her normal duties on the north atlantic. in 1985 she became the most decorated ship in the country. 21 ribbons, 17 battle stars. they retired her in portsmouth in 1988. the unique thing about it is since it was the last ship of the class of 07 a lot of stuff was left on here. pretty much the way they left it. it should time capsule of the period when she wound up in 1988.

>> find out where c-span city tour is going next online at c-span.org/cities tour. you are watching american history tv all weekend every week and on c-span3. each week american history tv's american artifacts visits museums and historic places. next, we travel to independence national historical park in philadelphia to visit the assembly room inside independence hall where both the definition of independence and the u.s. constitution were debated and eventually signed. this program, featuring national park service ranger matthew ifill, is about one hour. matthew: we are in a building that was built in the 1730's, 40 years before there was any such thing as the united states of america. at that time, of course, pennsylvania was a british colony. and this was his capital building. they would make laws for

pennsylvania, and each of the 13 colonies has its own government. and these are the issues that are going to lead to the creation of the united states, most of which is going to happen in this room, because the colonies, as time goes forward or at least the many people of the political class and these colonies, will start to grow dissatisfied with the way the british government is treating them and affecting their lives and one of the other side issues as americans living in the colonies do not get to vote in british elections. -- the most famous is the taxes that you learn about in school. we will say this is "taxation without representation." thomas jefferson would write in the decorative independence about government existing with the consent of the governor. especially when it is starting to disappear locally as well is connected with the home country in london, in britain, that they are really going to get this

growing dissatisfaction. so, this room is long in use by pennsylvania, but by 1775, pennsylvania will invite the continental congress into their space. the continental congress had met in philadelphia a year later although they chose not to meet here at independence hall that year. they met down the street at carpenters hall. the first set of meetings, that first cut net of congress, is sort of the first kind of these different colonies. it is this idea of expressing to the british government what would be under british constitution, bill of rights this notion of redressing grievances that we would have as british subjects in all thoroughly the right to the king. we are loyal british subjects in america, but these things are happening that we have these grievances over this loss of our connection with the government. the fact that they are taking away some of our local

government. they are closing down our local courts. they are giving us these rules to follow that we have no say. so they write a letter to the king, which again, perfectly within your rights under british law. and they also agree as a group on an association that these 13 colonies will kind of work together in future on these big issues. so what is going to happen is they go home after that set of meetings in the fall of 1775 because communicating across the ocean in the late 1700's is going to take a while. so, they are not going to come back to philadelphia for the spring of 1775. however, things have changed in a few months.

in the area of boston you're going to have battles at lexington and concord in april. when congress is coming back to philadelphia this is the news. they are actually finding out in some way about some of the conflict that has begun. so, suddenly things being a lot more serious leads to a lot more serious circumstances when congress starts to meet in this room in may. the first big thing they are going to tackle is this notion of again working as a group, but the idea of may be fighting for those rights, of actually taking that minuteman army around boston and making an american army. they called it a continental army. in june 1775, one of the first big steps that is going to be

taken as far as changing the world is going to be creating this continental army, this american army. 13 separate colonies that of always sort of run their lives separately and for years had not necessarily resisted working together but it never worked out that they wanted to work together at the same time. they create this army, june 14 1775, taking beginnings of the army up in boston and making it the american army. to me most importantly picking george washington to be the commander of that army. that is one of the most important decisions made in this

room. if you think of the way this war will go for the young united states, it is eight and a half years. george washington will be the only commanding general we will have for all of those years. and at the end, he will succeed. of course back in 1775, they are still figuring out what they are fighting for. so that leads to one last letter to the king. we call this the olive branch petition. it starts off with the idea that we are loyal british subjects fighting for our rights. again, following the chain of command in britain to the king to ask he assist us in redressing these grievances. the other thing they are going to write is the declaration called the declaration of the causes and necessity of taking up arms. most of the things are going to be written into life. again, it is putting out to the world exactly what we are looking to do, to basically correct the situation we feel

has gone against us, our rights are being threatened or taken away. well, un fortunately, the british government in london will decide that they are not going to communicate with the continental congress. the king himself will announce that there is this rebellion in america. and the british government will essentially issue this letter to americans that says, if you are involved in this rebellion, we view you as a traitor. the crime of treason as serious then as now could very well lead to a death penalty. so, by early 1776, that news gets to philadelphia. so, we are now have half a year plus into the war, and it is getting very clear that negotiating is not solving anything.

of course, you do have this very radical bent of men in this room that are pushing more and more towards this idea of independence. and finally, you get the last big push which is thomas paine's book " common sense," selling tens of thousands of copies to the colonies. and paine's simple argument is we do not even need those guys in london. we can run america better than the british ever could. so this idea of independence swells through that spring. by june, virginia issues a resolution for american independence, but they decide to not address it right away. they're going to want to consult their home governments, their colonies or states, if we want to start calling them that because we are getting to that point, but at the same time they

want to put some been on paper. so, while they are each consulting home, they are also going to form this five-man committee -- john adams of massachusetts who is a lot of way one of the most newbie can guys in congress those early days. he is really pushing for the creation of the army in 1775. also the navy own fall -- in the fall. he's pushing in the spring of 1776, that each of the colonies write its own constitution which. is another step towards independence these colonies getting rid of that old charter from the british government in creating a new, independent constitution. so, he is one of the leaders in a lot of this movement. also a man named robert livingston who goes back 10 years to the meetings held over the stamp taxes.

you have a man from connecticut named roger sherman,who's going to end up signing not only the declaration of independence, constitution, and the articles of confederation. he's on our committee. intimate franklin from here in philadelphia who is far and away i would say the most famous american. 70 years old, oldest man in congress. and then one of the youngest guys in congress, thomas jefferson, 33. that growing reputation for his writing and his political thought. and the committee sort of sitting, deciding what they want to say decides that jefferson should be the writer. he works for 17 days on the declaration of independence. if you will especially go to john adams and benjamin franklin for some of their ideas and critiques of his writing. he's building on a lot of other things that he and others had written. some of the grievances they had already been talking about make up the bulk of the declaration

of independence. by june 28, the declaration is back here in the us of the room, but that is a friday. they wait until monday to start debating. so july 1 begins debate on independence. now, they first thing is going to debate is not the declaration but the idea. so, they are going to start discussing, is this the best thing for us to do? should we become these free and independent states? most of the men in the room are at that point where they are ready to make the step, but there are others that are not -- they are not loyal. but they are men that are more conservative saying this might not be such a good idea. john dickinson is probably the most important of them. he was years earlier the author of the letters of pennsylvania farmer, which is again against various taxes. he's probably one of our best-known political writers of the day. but he's sort of pulling back saying, the idea of how are we going to win a war against the british? this does not seem like the best idea to declare independence because this completely cuts off any chance of negotiation with the british.

others might look at the idea we do not have anybody helping us. britain is one of the great powers. there will be battles in this war with just americans on both sides. so there are some saying maybe we should slow down but most of the men are ready to move forward. on july 1, they will hold a nonbinding committee of the whole vote. the vote is on the question of being free and independent states. no, here is how voting works in the continental congress. you have 13 states or colonies depending on your time period, each gets an equal vote. one voter per state. some states allow their delegates to decide amongst themselves. some states would give their delegates specific instructions. here in the room on july 1 you're going to have nine of the delegations voting yes that we should be free and independent

states. two will vote no. and two will be either divided or not voting. new york is still waiting for their formal instructions from home. so they are not going to technically vote at all. delaware is divided. they have two other delegates in the room. one for, one against. pennsylvania and south carolina are going to vote no. so, on the rest of the first and into the second, the second of the day, they want to take the binding vote. the politicking as we want to make this unanimous. new york they are going to ignore. they have not gotten any instructions. we have to wait until they tell us what to do. delaware has a third delegate. he is at home. they call for him to get here. he rides overnight to the storm. if you did the state quarters, you'll notice the delaware's quarter has a guy riding on a horse. he is the one who gets here on

the second to break the tie in delaware. a yes for independence. then pennsylvania and south carolina. south carolina has three delegates. we assume it is two to one. they managed to get one guy to switch his vote. south carolina is on board. pennsylvania is more complicated. they have one of the bigger delegations. so, when that vote goes south for pennsylvania, what they are going to do is convince two guys to sort of walk away when they are ready to make the final vote, so it can be unanimous. so, john dickinson is one of those guys who will not vote amongst the pennsylvania

delegates. so, instead of a one-vote loss it becomes a one vote win. we ignore new york for the moment. on july 2, 1776, they will vote more or less unanimously with new york waiting to approve the notion of being free and independent states. so, that is a day that john adams would write to his wife the next day and say, this is what we should celebrate with parades and fireworks and speeches. sadly for july 2, it does not get remembered, because the rest of that day, the second and the third and the fourth, other days of debating on the declaration of independence. the declaration -- jefferson's draft is four pages long. they are going to go through more or less every word. they are going to make a significant number of changes, but they are not going to change the basic nature of a lot of what jefferson writes. they are going to add some words here and there. the most famous is the opening

paragraph. most of that remains intact. the early listing of grievances, the things we have been talking about percent will years, as far as what we are worried about the british doing, most of that remains intact. probably the most famous section that gets changed is the section about the slave trade, specifically slave insurrections is another part of that. one of the big arguments virginia makes is their governor had essentially said in the leading days of the war, that slaves should kill their masters and sit their own freedom. for a slave holding state, slave insurrection is a very frightening thing. so, that is very much on the minds of jefferson and other virginians. so this idea of slave insurrections bringing more slaves into america becomes part of that. we do not want to have more slaves that we have to worry about in these days. so, he kind of goes after the

slave trade, blames the king for importing these folks. and that is a bit controversial in this room, because you do have a fair number of slaveholders and slaveholding states that kind of do not want to talk about this. so it does get put aside. it is not an attack on slavery so to speak, but slave trade and some of these things -- they were worried about the british doing that would affect lives in america. at any rate, as you get into july 4, they are going through pretty well every bit of that declaration of independence, but they finally take a little bit out. adding words. they get to something that all of the men in this room representing all of the 13 states can agree, and they're ready to vote. on the fourth, it is 12-0 with new york waiting.

and so july 4, becomes for americans our day of independence because it is the day we have something concrete hold up to the world. this is the day we said, here is what we are fighting for. this is the long list. again, when we look at the declaration of independence, we focus on that top, that opening section -- all men are created equal. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. for them, that is the list of reasons. it justified independence. it justified a war against their own government, which essentially is what this started out being. look, it is the british fault. this is all the things they did that are not legal by british constitution, bill of rights and we are just acting way we have to act because we have got to this point where we cannot stay under this rule anymore. and so, they have something that on july 4, they voted yes and they voted right away to send it out. we want this to go to the states and the army. we want people to know what we

are fighting for. and that is really what they needed because if you pull back to the big picture in the summer of 1776, we are not winning the war. the british army is invading new york that summer. hundreds of ships, tens of thousands of men sweeping down through long island, manhattan into new jersey. and by the fall of 1777, the british army is sitting in this room. they capture philadelphia. washington spend their winter at valley forge. so those early years, those early days are not good ones for the young united states, but we had a declaration of independence we could hold up and announced the world we are fighting for. and we had a general in washington that would keep going in those difficult days. we had an army that managed to survive those bad winters at places like valley forge. and we managed to sort of keep ourselves going long enough that we could make changes. now, before we get to that, one other thin about our declaration of independence about this room,

that people expect is that i will tell you that they sign a declaration of independence on the fourth of july. it probably, the supposed escalation is nobody thought about it that day. it had not gotten to the point that the. nice, fancy hand written one. they sent it to a printer. so, technically, the oldest operation of independence have no names on the bottom. well, jump ahead a couple weeks to the middle of july, one of the men in the room will make a proposal that we engross the declaration of independence and that it be signed by the delegates. i'm sure most of the men in the room said, why didn't we think of that sooner? that is a good idea. they are going to have at hand written by the beginning of august, it is done and checked over. then they start signing.

50 guys signed on august 2. a few more over the next couple weeks. one guy might not be for a couple years because he was not a member of congress. that is the 1 -- you go to washington, d.c., that is the one most of us think of as the declaration of independence. but it is one that we kind of, like everything they're going to do in this room, is one that we sort of get to buy process rather than by some master plan we have at the beginning. long run, they are making it up as they go along and figuring it out as they go. the other big thing that is going to happen that late year of 1776 is that benjamin frank when is going to go to france. and he is going to be the guide to help convince france to come into the war on our side. while the british army is in this room in early 1778, benjamin franklin is signing a peace treaty with france. that's changing the whole nature of the war, because the british

suddenly find may have to worry about a french navy. the united states does not have much of a navy to threaten the british fleet, but france does. guys like benjamin franklin working with lafayette of france working to get some invasion of england going. you have to worry if you are great britain about islands in the caribbean. you are going to be fighting in asia, fighting in africa. fighting all over the world. so, a lot of resources suddenly are not coming here to north america, which makes george washington -- we are going to get money from france. we are going to get supplies from france. we are going to get french troops, plus that french navy. if you think of our victory at yorktown, our biggest victory of the war, we are not going to get that victory about the french navy. so, eventually, the war slowly turns in our favor. 1783 in paris, john adams and benjamin franklin sign a peace

treaty. back in 1783, that the continental congress can finally breathe that sigh of relief and know that we actually have achieved this american independence, which would be very nice if that was the end of our story, but of course, there is more to do. agin, go -- again, go back to 1776, each state rights its own constitution. each one is different. each one has its own sets of government. i'll pennsylvania. this room was pennsylvania's legislature. pennsylvania decides to write a constitution that is so radical for its day that they basically get rid of the position of governor. they are not going to have a chief executive for pennsylvania anymore. they are going to have a fairly democratically run one house legislature as opposed to the

standard two houses that most states are going to use. so, pennsylvania has got a very different set up. it proves to be too radical to work. so, 1776, as a venue constitution will last 14 years. they have to redo it and go to the governor and two houses of legislature set up. but this is the idea in 1776 each state is going to start itself over. now, the problem is, being different, and one of my colleagues love to talk about that today, we still have different -- speed limits and some of the little rules for driving are going to be different. so we do still have some of those vestiges there, but the problem was in the early days they kind of manifested themselves in ways that threatens what someone like george washington, believing in the idea of the united states, would sit and go, hmm, that could be bad for us because you have states that literally start fighting with each other over

who owned what land. they do not want to cooperate with each other. now, what we have in the way of government? state governments very much hold the cards. there is our continental congress. now, the articles of confederation sets the rules for the continental congress. that is an idea that comes into this room with benjamin franklin. at the beginning of the war. an idea he dusted off during the french and indian war. he put together this idea of confederation between the colonies so they can work together to defend themselves against enemy such as france. well, he kind of rewrites this first version of the articles of confederation. the day after they chose the committee to write the declaration of independence, they also chose a committee with a member from each of the states to write the articles of confederation.

the main writer would be john dickinson. again, dickinson would be famous for kind of trying to slow us down for independence. at the same time he is making those arguments, he is working on writing the articles of confederation, this formal agreement between the states of how the united states is going to operate, where essentially, the congress would run the war run foreign policy. the states would run their internal, but they would cooperate with each other. he would not have to pay taxes and tariffs if you want from state to state. well, the first problem with the articles of confederation i think, and ultimately what dooms it, you can see from how it is signed. the signing is going to take place right when the cotton on the congress comes back to philadelphia after the british army left in 1778. the british leave philadelphia in june. on jly 9, they are ready to sign the articles of confederation --

on july 9. the declaration of independence is signed by the delegates and most of them sign it on the same day. the articles of confederation is signed as each state approves it, their delegates will find it. so they are waiting for the states to make their decision. so about half or so are going to sign it that first day. over the next weeks, most of the rest will sign. ultimately, one state, maryland will hold out for close to two years. the signing will not finish until march 1, 1781. you're talking about two and a half years of time. for most of that time it is maryland by itself saying no this cannot go affected to all 13 states have agreed and signed. maryland is feuding with virginia overland to the west.

when the revolutionary war comes to an end, we go from old colonial boundaries which theoretically would be the appalachian mountains. now we end at the mississippi river. that is a lot of new land. all of the old states, the old colonies, are looking at that land, that would be great as part of my state. so, maryland and virginia are arguing who gets the potomac river. so, maryland is going, i do not want to sign this thing until everything is settled. there is an issue that arises. and there will be others. there is a bill trying to pass through this room to raise money on essentially imports, take money from imports, attacks/ -- a tax/tariff, and you put that to paying the soldiers. which seems pretty logical. well, 12 of the states agreed. one, which happened to be rhode island, the smallest, said no. the vote failed.

so the states individually have a lot more power. and sometimes one can defeat 12. so, a lot of people start thinking this is not working so well, including members of the congress. so by the end of the war, you have members of the congress writing letters to officers of the army as the war is winding down saying, you know, maybe the army should try to throw their weight behind putting something a little bit more strong together in philadelphia because this is not working between the states. maybe we need the strength of the army. now, george washington, of course, is very a believer in the idea of civilian control. one of the great principles we have embraced in american history from our beginning point. i think washington is a part of that. what a lot of people would look at as one of his greatest moment is at the end of the war up in newberg, new york, he is going to call a meeting together of

all of his officers. maybe the army trying to change government a bit. and he's against it. so, he calls a meeting. he puts some of the guys that he feels are behind this talk in charge of the meeting. he says he will not be there. but then he shows up. he shows up. now, washington is not a public speaker. he is not a man that wants to make speeches. but he comes and starts making a speech and he wants to read his letter. he pulls out a pair of glasses and puts them on and says to the men in the room, i have not only grown gray but half blind as well. he's talking about the idea of what they fought for together for 8 years, that it not be ruined by mass actions. and he has guys in tears. the conspiracy goes away. even though the problems have not been solved, military

intervention in our civilian government fortunately, fades out of view. still, washington does believe something stronger is needed but he is one of those guys who doesn't go through the proper channels. so george washington is a virginia. his state is fighting with maryland. what can george washington do? he can have a meeting at his house. he can invite virginians and marylanders. after the war ends, he has the mount vernon conference. and they will sign an agreement together solving years of problems between maryland and virginia, which then leads to a meeting in maryland the next year where they invite five states. we call this one the in annapolis conference. and again, the big result as it is going to lead to a bigger meeting. they are going to go and john

dickinson again is going to go to the continental congress with a letter he has written saying look, we want to have a big meeting in philadelphia, back in the same room and we want to talk about the future. we want everybody to come. they are going to sit down in may, 1787. what we call the constitutional convention. they are going to sit in this room and address these issues plaguing the young united states. it is going to start with about 11 states. new hampshire will show up late. rhode island will never attend this meeting. now, this time they are not about to let one state keep them from getting something done. so the way they end up setting it up is they are going to pretend there are only 12 of them. not only that but when they vote, they are going to go to the people in each state, let the people vote on a special convention. and then the special conventions will approve or not approve of the constitutional for each state and then you need nine states, 3/4 to put the new -- of them to put the new

constitution into effect. these are guys that are trying to engineer something because they know something needs to be done to hold the states together. they know, as separate entities, you go back to benjamin franklin's design. the snake cut in pieces during the french and indian war. join or die. a snake cut into pieces is going to die. a snake together is dangerous. that is the idea that a lot of these men are embracing. but the question they face in this room is what exactly is it that we want? so, the first days of meetings are these very esoteric debates about the nature of federal government, national government, what is the difference, what we want? and then they start saying, we want this national government. and then they start saying, then what? well, virginia had come very organized. james madison is going to get

credit for putting together a lot of the virginia plans that's submitted by admin randolph, our first attorney general. another virginian is chosen by nomination from pennsylvania to sit in the back of the room and lead the constitutional convention. and that will be george washington. the big hero of the day. equal now to franklin as far as american fame goes. so, washington will take the lead in the constitutional convention. in fact, the very chair and the -- at the back of the room behind me is the chair in which washington sat, which interestingly is the only item in this room that we today have in this room that we know for certain was here as a part of this event. that chair was made in 1779, after the british had left philadelphia. a lot of things were gone. between the americans coming and going, the british. we do not have all the contents of the building anymore.

so, pennsylvania's government has to make new furniture including that chair. so, that was in the room on that spot when washington to deposition in 1787. so, the virginia plan, three branches of government, somewhat familiar today. here are some of the issues that will face that plan as far as when you start debating. because other plans are going to get thrown out by other men. virginia's plan, one of the biggest things is this notion of voting based on american people. seeing the states as artificial. everybody in all of the states is american. so whenever we do things, we should just be americans. why be virginians are somebody -- or somebody from massachusetts or delaware? let's be americans. well, naturally, the other side of that coin, as some of the states would look, is that virginia happens to have more people than any other state.

voting by people is good for virginia. a small state like delaware pretty much embraces one idea, and that is the idea that every state the equal. every state gets an equal vote. so delaware is digging their heels in. they will refuse anything that does not involve the quality amongst the states. you get the small states naturally liking delaware's idea. the big states virginia's idea. and that is an issue that will pretty much go on for the better part of a month off and on. now, virginia's idea of congress as we have two houses, upper lower house, what becomes our senate and house of representatives. again, it is based on population. but as you start debating it you have others saying -- so eventually, when it seems like there is no answer to be found it would be connecticut that would make the compromise, what we call the connecticut compromise or the great compromise, would give us this

question of, a senate where every state is equal, house of representatives where we base it on people. both sides getting some of what they want. and eventually that is what -- how it would go. but not everybody wants that. so, you are not sure if everybody is going to go for that but that is how they slot in for congress. the president, there are multiple ideas of president, of executive. the virginia plan is ultimately a seven-year executive elected by congress. a little bit different system, obviously, then today. another plan, edmund randolph talks about having three presidents at once, three regional presidents. then you have alexander hamilton who wants a strong executive or -- so he says, how about president for a lifetime, which

needless to say, having gotten rid of a king a few years ago was not overly popular. so, eventually, they settle on the president for four years at a time. and they have that level of electoral college. we get a lot of questions about that. one of them is distance. the idea of having states that are days and days or weeks of -- a part from each other from georgia to new hampshire with not a lot of great roads, so having this notion of sending people together to vote makes a lot of sense mechanically. then, also, you have this idea that with the elect war college, -- electoral college, you are making sure the smaller states have a certain amount of say. and talking about that, again one of the things that will plague the young united states is something that does come up in this room, this is the idea of slavery.

is this the time to make that big step and do away with slavery? unfortunately, it wasn't. the southern states obviously are fairly attached to it. they do not want to talk about it. the only -- slavery, the word, doesn't even make it into the constitution you have one notion of the slave trade, which they talk about in 20 years, maybe we can discuss doing away with the slave trade, importing slaves from africa. but that is all the mention you get. of course, anyone that is anti-slavery, which are the -- there are guys in this room, is not very happy we put this off for 20 years. put off the entire discussion, let alone any action. and, of course, southern states would look at gee, in 20 years this is going to come up again. again, you have a lot of people looking at sections of the constitution that are not very happy. now, who writes the constitution? declaration of independence, that is easy.

thomas jefferson basically wrote it. constitution, there is really not going to be that one obvious writer. you are to have a five-man committee called the committee of detail, which name is exactly what it sounds like. the guys putting in the details of what this government is going to be. three of the five will be on the united states supreme court. one will be our first attorney general. so that is the kind of man you are going to have on there. the legal minded men. probably the main guy who puts together most of the report is a man named james wilson from pennsylvania. he is one of the signers of the declaration of independence as well. he will end up on the supreme court. and more than likely, he came up with the three words "we the people" at the beginning of the constitution. the beginning of that report is "we the people."

but he does start out with "we the people." eventually, they get to a point where they pretty much worked out how they kind of wanted to be, so they formed another five-man committee. the committee of style. here is where some of your heavy hitters are going to be. you are going to have alexander hamilton and james madison on the committee. but the guy was going to do most of the writing for them is a pennsylvanian by the name of gouverneur morris. a man with a wooden leg. but another one of these men very gifted with the pen. and morris is a friend of george washington. there is a story that comes from that summer with morris and alexander hamilton and basically there is a bet made that morris. -- that hamilton makes with morris.

washington is this very formal guide who doesn't even like the shake cans he prefers to bow. he can be aloof, especially in public. so, hamilton is like, you're never going to do that. i will bet you dinner. of course, morris does it. and washington gives him one of those glaring looks. i am sure hamilton is laughing like mad. but gouverneur morris is going to write that "we the people in -- of the united states in order to form a perfect union," the famous preamble. so, at the end of the day, you have this constitution. by september 15, 1787, four pages, that is all it is. there is no bill of rights at that time. they talked about it. alexander hamilton would say we do not need one. the whole thing is a bill of rights. the government is only going to have the power we give it, so why do we need it? others would say we would kind of like to see that there.

again, even by the time they are finished, you have guys that look at parts or the whole and say, this i don't like, that they don't like. i do not like the senate. the president is too strong. he is not strong enough. we did not deal with slavery. so at the and, it is not certain -- at the end, the last day, it is not certain that everyone is going to agree. remember, these guys are signing it to send it out for the states to vote on. so it is appointed a group as a whole to try to have everyone on board because these are the guys who have to sell this new constitution to the people so that they will then put it into effect. you are going to have benjamin franklin come into the last day of meetings. franklin is 81. there are days when he was being carried in and out of these meetings. he can have the walk. but fortunately for everyone, he is still the great sage, the elder statesman, he brings in a

speech which he starts off by saying there are things in this constitution i do not approve, but any says, look, i am old enough to know it is not perfect. my ideas are not perfect. nobody in this room is perfect. and we should all basically put aside our doubts and sign our names on this thing. he actually says we should doubt a little our own infallibility which i always loved. another one of those typical franklin phrases. anyway, he says, one of his great, famous statements in the room, he says, we should also -- all at sign -- all sign because i do not expect anything better than this. in fact, i am not sure that this is not the best. to me, one of the most famous triple negatives in american history. i'm sure some of the guys are scratching their heads going what did he say? at the end, it is hard to argue with franklin. 42 men are there, 41, excuse me.

41 men are in the room that day. 38 men will sign 39 names. john dickinson, who actually refused to sign the declaration of independence, again, not that he was loyal to the british, but he was saying, this is not the right time. this is a bad idea. we are rushing too much. he never signed the declaration of independence. he is sick the day the constitution is going to be signed. so he tells his fellow delegate from delaware, look, i want you to put my name on that thing when you sign it. so george signs twice. so, 39 men would sign the constitution. three would not. different issues. you have jerry of massachusetts , who actually made a speech that last day saying that there was in excess of democracy -- an excess of democracy, which he called the worst of all political democracy. fear of democracy at that point

in history is made evident a few years later in the french revolution when their new government went to the point of renaming months and starting over at year one and cutting off 6000 heads. that is the fear of democracy that it leads to anarchy, which ultimately in history leads to a dictator, which is exactly what france does going to napoleon. and they went back to rome. and it saw the same sort of thing. so the democracy was always a little tempered in the united states and in britain. we have a mix of states and people. we have a president and the congress. we divide our powers. so, it is this idea that there is no one place who has too much strength. so, jerry is a little afraid democracy will overrun. he sees potential for revolution in the future. so, he will not sign it. two virginians will not find it. randolph ends up supporting it

when virginia is voting on it but he would not sign in this room, because he afraid that patrick and he will, you know, go against him because he knows that patrick henry is one of those guys who thinks it is a great idea. and the other one, george mason, is looking at the idea of the bill of rights. so, he is not crazy about parts of it. a lot of the guys from the big states do not like the senate. there are all kinds of issues, but most of these men will sign their names. september 17, 1787. at that point, franklin looks at washington and says look behind -- at the chair where washington sits and says look behind washington's head at this carving. all summer i have been trying to decide whether that half sun is rising or setting. now at length, i have the happiness to know that is a rising and not setting sun.

he felt good. and he had been working for this since the 1750's, this unity of the american states. he finally sees it happening. one of the great stories that comes afterwards is he is supposedly asked what kind of a government they have created in philadelphia. and he would say republic, if you can keep it. a warning to the rest of us to make sure. think about the united states. one of the things i like to finish with is this idea that we are still using that same constitution. we are still using that same government. but it has also allowed us to improve because, ultimately, slavery does not really end by the civil war. technically it is the constitution, 13th amendment. the 15th amendment would give equality and voting by color. the 19th amendment would give equality and voting by gender. through the years, again maybe slowly, we have faced every

issue that came up and our constitution has allowed us to solve things and continue to move forward. so, again, i always think back to franklin and his rising sun. that is what we have seen through the years. so, this room is really everything that the united states has been and will be is -- and is going to grow from the events that happen over a 10 or 11 year period in this room. it is kind of amazing when you think of this humble place and the men that sat here, the things they did. it is really incredible the things that have grown from this place. this pennsylvania state house is the real name of independence hall. and it was pennsylvania's capital until 1799. pennsylvania then moved its government west to ultimately the center of the state, to harrisburg. at that point, the building, they are using space in the building and renting it out. it is not the capitol building anymore.

but the city of philadelphia had started building buildings on the block. and by the early 1800's, essentially the city is going to buy this building, and this whole block serves as city hall. so through the 19th century, this is city hall. the second floor would hold meetings of philadelphia city council until 1895. but the first floor is probably one of the first places in the united states that becomes a historical place. by the 1820, 1840's, people are coming to visit. it gets the nickname independence hall. probably this room was independence hall before the whole building became independence hall. lafayette after the revolutionary war returns to make his triumphant trip to united states. you are talking the 1820's. the have very few of the

founding fathers and soldiers left, but every town that lafayette visited, he would gather all the old veterans and anybody like thomas jefferson or john adams still alive, and they would get together and celebrate lafayette. so, it is this wonderful sort exclamation of patriotic memory. and it is probably one of the first times we are really kind of looking and embracing our history. when people are started to be able to purchase their copies of the declaration of independence and put them above the fireplace, and were celebrating the words and the actual document. so, fortunately, this room kind of becomes a historic place before they have gone to the point of totally getting rid of the building and tearing it down to build something new. so we are lucky it was in use long enough that it became important. by the mid 1800's, this whole thing is he museum. one of the fascinating stories of this room, when the liberty bell spent 100 years and our

belltower -- cracked, they put it on display in this room. let's stick it in the room where the united states began. and one of my favorite days of the revolutionary war comes 150 years ago in april after abraham lincoln was assassinated. his body lay in state in this room. he came to philadelphia on washington's birthday 1861, on his way to the inauguration. he made a speech at independence hall, washington's birthday. and he actually said in this room he would rather be assassinated on the spot that -- then fail the ideals of the founding fathers. because actually the kind of strength america needed. four years later, he comes back having been assassinated and having succeeded in saving the united states, and they put his casket next to the liberty bell. they ran 100,000 people to this

building in a day to pay respects. in this case, you had lincoln laying next to the liberty bell, in the room where the united states was born. the ghosts of the founding fathers present. that is the kind of thing that makes this room so great. the parks service comes in in the 20th century after world war ii, and unfortunately the one thing that changed a lot of the walls, they made them fancier. a plain room. and they wanted to have paintings up. they have that old-fashioned museum. our big thing was let's get it back to the way it looked. we stripped it back down to the planar walls. again, the made structure survived the years. and we were able to figure out the paint colors and everything. we were able to get it back to what we think was close to how it looked. the furniture is from the time. it is not the original furniture because in the early days nothing was saved.

the british capture philadelphia. nobody is thinking about history until we have some. they kept using it for different things. so we do not necessarily have the contents of the room, but we think everything here is a good match for what was here. as best we can tell from our research, this is pretty close to how it looked. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you are watching "american history tv," all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook. president dwight eisenhower, john kennedy, lyndon johnson richard nixon, harold ford, and george h.w. bush all served in world war ii.