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♪ ♪ you're watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span 3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at cspanhistory. 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 assembly room inside independence hall where both the declaration of independence and the u.s. constitution were debated and eventually signed. this program featuring national park service ranger matthew eiffel is about one hour. >> we are in a building that is built in the 1730s. solve about 40 years before there is any such thing as the united states of america.

at that time, of course, pennsylvania was a british colony and this was its capital building. they would make laws for pennsylvania and each of the 13 colonies has its own governments and these arish issues in a lot of ways that will lead to the creation of the united states. most of which is going to happen in this room because the coloni colonies, it's affecting their lives locally and one of the other side issues is americans living in the colonies do not get to vote in british elections so when the parliament in london makes laws for americans, the most famous being various taxes and such that you all get to learn about in school, we're going to say this is taxation without representation and it's

the idea that you're not getting the voice, thomas jefferson would write in the declaration of independence about government existing with the consent of the governed and americans are feeling like they're not getting that consent and when it starts disappearing locally as well as connected with the home country in london and britain that they're really going to get this growing dissatisfaction. so this room is long in use by pennsylvania but by 1775 pennsylvania will essentially be inviting the continental congress into their space. the continental congress met in philadelphia a year earlier although they chose not to meet at independence at that year. they met down the street at carpenter's hall. now that first continental congress is the first kind of real sit down of these different colonies and it's this idea of expressing to the british

government what would be under british constitution bill of rights at that time this notion of redressing grievances that we would have as british subjects and ultimately writing to the king saying, look, we are loyal british subjects but these things are happening that we have these grievances over, this loss of our connection the fact that they're closing down our local court, giving us this rule to follow that we have no say so this write this 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's going to happen is they go home after that set of meetings in the fall of 1774 because obvious communicating

across the ocean in the late 1700s is going to take a little while so they won't come back to philadelphia till the spring of 1775. however, things have changed in those few months. in the area of boston you're going to have battles at the towns of lexington and concord in april so when congress is coming back to philadelphia, this is the news. they're actually finding out in some way about some of the conflict that has begun so suddenly things being a lot more serious leads to more serious circumstances when congress starts to meet in this room in may. the first big thing they're going tackle is this notion of, again, working as a group but the idea of maybe fight iing fo those rights, of taking that militia minuteman army around boston and making it an american army. they called it the continental

army. so in june of 1775, one of the first steps that is going to be taken as far as changing the world if we want to say that is going to be creating this continental army, this american army. 13 separate colonies that have run their lives separately and for years have not necessarily resisted working together but it never particularly worked out that they wanted to work together at the same time. they create this army june 14, 1775, taking the beginnings of the army up in boston that fought against the british already, making it the american army and then, to me, most importantly, picking george washington to be the commander of that army. i think that is really one of the most important decisions made in this room because if you think about the way this war will go for the young united states, it's 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. now, of course, back in 1775 they're still figuring out what they're fighting for. so that leads to one last letter to the king. we call this one the olive branch petition and, again, like they had done before it starts off with the idea that we are loyal british subjects fighting for our rights, again going, following the chain of command in britain to the king to ask that he assist us in redressing these grievances. the other thing they'll write is a declaration called the declaration of the causes and necessity of taking up arms. both of these things will be written in july and it's essentially putting out to the world exactly what we are looking to do to basically correct this situation that we feel has gone against us and that our rights are being threatened or taken away. well, unfortunately, the british government in london will decide

that they're not going to really 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're going to be involved in this rebellion we're going to view you as a traitor and 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're now half a year plus into the war and it's getting very clear that negotiating, talking, isn't particularly solving anything. and, of course, enough very radical bent of men that are 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" published here in

philadelphia in january of 1776, selling tens of thousands of ofpies through the colonies. and payne's simple argument is we don't even need those guys in london. we're better off on our own over here, we can run america better than the british ever could. so this idea of independence kind of swells through that spring, by june virginia introduces a resolution for american independence but they decide to not address it right away in june. they're going to want to consult their home governments, their colonies or states, if we want to start calling them that because we're getting to that point. but at the same time they kind of want to put something on paper. so while they're each consulting home to see what home says they should do, they're also going to form this five-man committee -- john adams of massachusetts, who's probably in a lot of ways one of the most significant guys

in congress those early days. he's really pushing for that creation of the army in 1775, also the navy in the fall of 1775. he's pushing in the spring of 1776 that each of the colonies write its own constitution which is, again, another step towards independence that each colony sort of getting rid of that old charter they had from the british government, their old constitution and creating a new independent constitution. so he's one of the leaders in a lot of this movement. also on the committee is a man named robert livingston of new york who actually goes back ten 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, the united states constitution but also the articles of confederation. there's only two men who can make that claim. he's on our committee. benjamin franklin from right

here in philadelphia who is far and away i would say the most famous american at the time. 70 years old, oldest man in congressened then one of the younger guys in congress, our fifth member, thomas jefferson, 33 years old, but kind of that growing reputation for his writing and political thought. and the committee sort of sitting, deciding what they want to say decides jefferson should be the writer so he works then for about 17 days on the declaration of independence and he will especially go to john adams and benjamin franklin for some of their ideas and critiques of his writing. but generally it's his work. he's building on other things he and others had written. some of the grievances they'd already been talking about make up the big bulk of that declaration of independence. by june 28, the declaration is sort of back here in the assembly room. but that's afraid, they're going

to wait till the next monday to start debating so july 1st begins debate on independence. now, the first thing they're not going to debate is the declaration but the idea. so they'll 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 the r at that point where they're ready to make this step but there are others that are -- they're not loyal, we won't have loyalists in the continental congress, they wouldn't want to have anything to do with this but there are men that are more conservatives saying this might not be such a good idea. john dickinson is probably the most important of them. he was years earlier author of the letters of a pennsylvania farmer which is, again, against some of those various taxes and acts, stamp tax and so on. so he's probably one of our best known political writers of the day but he's sort of pulling back saying the idea is how are we going to win a war against the british? this doesn't seem like the best

idea in the world to declare our independence because this completely cuts off any chance of negotiating with the british. others might look at the idea that we don't really have anybody helping us and, again, britain is one of the great powers of the world america is maybe three million people and there's a good chunk of them remaining loyal to the crown. there will be battles in this war after all with just americans on both sides so there's some saying maybe we should slow down but most of the men are ready to move forward so on july 1, they will hold a non-binding committee of the whole vote. the vote is on the question of being free and independent states. now here's how voting works in the continental congress. you have 13 states or colonies, depending on your time period. each gets an equal vote to one vote per state they have different numbers of men at each table. some states allow their deg gatts to decide amongst

themselves, some states will give their delegates specific instructions so 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're not going to technically vote at all. delaware is divided. they have two of their delegates in the room, one for, one against. so they're divided. pennsylvania and south carolina are going to vote no so on the rest of the first and into the second -- because the second is the day they want to take the binding vote, the official vote, the politicking is we want to try to make this unanimous. now new york they're going to ignore because, again, new york hasn't gotten any instructions so new york is just going well, we have to wait until they tell us what to do.

delaware fortunately has a third delegate, he's at home so they call for him to get here so he rides overnight through the storm, if you did the state quarter, you would notice delaware's quarter has a guy riding on a horse, cesar rodney, he comes up from delaware and gets here on the second to vote and break the tie in delaware to make delaware's vote a yes for independence. and then pennsylvania and south carolina, south carolina has three delegates. we assume it's 2-1 and they managed to get one of the guys to switch his vote so south carolina will be on board and pennsylvania is a little bit more complicated. they've got one of the bigger delegates so when that vote goes south for pennsylvania, what they're going do is convince two of the guys to just sort of walk away when they're ready to make the final vote so that it can be unanimous, they don't have to vote against how they feel so john dickinson is one of those guys that will sort of knock

vote amongst the pennsylvania delegates. so instead of one vote loss it becomes a one vote win and pennsylvania is on board, now it's 12-0 and we ignore new york for the moment. so on july 2 of 1776, they will vote more or less unanimously with new york kind of 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 and so on. sadly for poor july 2 it never gets particularly remembered because the rest of that day, the second, the third, and into the fourth are the days of debating on the declaration of independence. now the declaration in jefferson's draft is about four pages long. they're going to go through more or less every word. they're going to make a significant number of changes is but they're not going to change

the basic nature of a lot of what jefferson writes. they're going to add some words here and there. the most famous part is sort of that opening paragraph or two, most of that remains intact. the early listing of grievances, the things that we've been talking about for several years as far as what we're worried about the british doing 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 that virginia makes is their governor essentially said in the leading days of the war that slaves should basically kill their masters and seek their own freedom which, you know, for a slave-holding state is -- slave insurrection is a fright thing thing. so that's 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 don't want to have more slaves we have to worry about in these kind of days so he 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 slave holding states that kind of don't want to talk about that so it does get put aside. it's not an attack on slavery so to speak but slave trade and some of these things we were worried about the british doing that would affect lives in america. so at any rate, as you get into july 4, they're going through pretty well every bit of that declaration of independence but they finally -- taking some out, adding words here and there they get to something all of the men in this room representing all of the 13 states can agree and they're ready to vote and on the fourth it's the same vote.

it's 12-0 with new york kind of waiting and so july 4 becomes for americans our day of independence because it's the day we literally had something concrete to hold up to the world. this was the day we said, you know, here's what we're fighting for, right here, there's a long list. and when we look at the declaration of independence, we focus on that top, that opening section, all men are creating equal, the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. for them it's the list of reasons why they were doing this. it justified independence. it justified a war against their own government which essentially is what this started out being and it basically said, look, it's the british fobritish faul. these are all the things that they did that are not legal and we are acting the way we have to act because we got to this point where we can't stay under this rule anymore. and so they had something that on july 4 they voted yes and

they voted right away to send it out. they said we want this to go to the states, we want this to go to the army. we want people to know what we're fighting for. and that's what they needed because if you pull back to the big picture in the summer of 1776, we're not winning the war british army is innovating new york that summer. massive invasion, hundreds of ships, tens of thousands of men sweeping down through long island, manhattan into new jersey and by the fall of 1777 the brissish army ibritish arm this very room. they capture philadelphia, washington and his army are sitting at valley forge so those early days are not good ones for the young united states. but we had a declaration of independence that we could hold up and announce to the world what we were 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 the bad winters at places like valley forge and we

managed to keep ourselves going long enough that we could make changes now before we get to that, one other thing about our declaration of independence about this room that people expect is that i will tell you that they sign the declaration of independence right behind me on the fourth of july, well, sadly, they didn't. probably the simplest explanation is nobody thought about it that day. they hadn't got on the the point of preparing a nice fancy handwritten one, they wanted the words agreed to, they wanted it voted on and they wanted people to read it. so they sent it to a printer so technically the oldest declarations of independence are printed on a printing press and have no names on the bottom. well, jump ahead a couple weeks to the middle of july and one of the men here in the room will make a proposal that we -- the word they use is engross the declaration of independence. you make a formal written version and that it be signed by the delegates and i'm sure most

of the men in the room said well, why didn't we think of that sooner? that's a good idea. so they're going to have it handwritten and by the beginning of august it's done, checked over, they make sure it's all right and they'll start signing. about 50 guys, we think, signed on august 2. a few more over the next couple weeks, one guy might not be for a couple more years because he wasn't here for a while as a member of congress but that's the one if you go to washington, d.c., the national archives, that's the one most of us think of as the declaration of independence but it's one we kind of like everything they're going to do here in this room is one we sort of get to by process rather than by some master plan we have at the beginning. there's sort of long run 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 franklin is going to go to france and he is going to be the guy that's going to help convince france to come into the war on our side and 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 they have to worry about a french navy. the united states doesn't have much of a navy to threaten the british fleet but france does so they have to worry about that. the british have to worry about being invaded. certainly benjamin franklin working with marquis de lafayette in france work on the king to get an invasion of england going. you're going to have to worry if you're great britain about islands in the caribbean. you're going to be fighting in asia, you're going to be fighting in africa, all over the world so a lot of resources suddenly aren't coming here to north america which makes george washington's life easier. we're going to get money from france, we're going to get supplies from france, we're going to get eventually french troops plus the french navy.

if you think of our victory at yorktown, our biggest victory of the war, we're probably not going to get that without the french navy. so eventually the war slowly -- and it is slowly -- turns in our favor. 1783 back in paris john adams and benjamin franklin sign a peace treaty. so it's really 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's the end of our story but, of course, there's more to do. again, go back to 1776. each colony, each state writes its own constitution. each one is different. each one has its own sets of government, its own sets of laws and i'll use pennsylvania, this room was pennsylvania's legislature. pennsylvania decides to write a constitution that's so radical for its day that they basically get rid of the position of governor. they're not going to have a chief executive for pennsylvania

anymore they're going to have a fairly democratically run one house legislature as opposed to the standard two houses that most of the states are going to use, that the united states knows throughout its history so pennsylvania has a very different setup. it proves to be a little too radical to work and our 1776 pennsylvania constitution will only last about 14 years, they'll have to redo it and go to the traditional governor two houses of legislature setup but this is the idea in 1776, each state will start itself over. now the problem is being all a little bit different and one of my colleagues loves to talk about that today. we still have differences from state to state as far as speed limits and some of the little rules for driving are going to be different so we do still have some of those vestige there is but the problem was in those early days they kind of manifested themselves in ways that threatened what someone

like george washington who is very much a nationalist, believing in this idea of a 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 owns what land, they don't particularly want to cooperate with each other. now what do 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's an idea that comes into this room with benjamin franklin at the very beginning of the war, an idea that he dusts off from the 1750s during the french and indian war, he put together this idea of confederation between the kwol colonies so th could work together to defend themselves against enemies such as france. he dusts off the old ideas, 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 state to write the articles of confederation. the main writer would be another pennsylvanian, john dickinson, again, dickinson would be famous for trying to slow us down for independence but at the same time he's making those arguments he's 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 kind of run their internal but they would cooperate with each other, you would haven't to pay taxes and tariffs as you went 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 continental congress comes back to philadelphia after the british army has left in 1778. the british leave philadelphia in june, congress is back

meeting here in july and on july 9 they're ready to sign the articles of confederation. now the way the signing of that one works is a little bit different. 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 degs will sign it. so they're waiting for the states to make their decisions so about half of them are going to sign it that first day and over the next weeks most of the rest will sign. now ultimately one state, maryland, will hold out for close to two years. so the signing will begin july 9, 1778, it won't begin until march 1 of 1781. so two and a half years of time. for most of that time it's maryland by itself saying no so technically this cannot go into effect until all 13 states have agreed and signed. well, maryland is feuding with mainly virginia, their neighbor,

over land to the west because remember when the revolutionary war comes to an end we go from our old colonial boundaries which theoretically would be about the appalachian mountains, although the colonies each figured they kept going. now all of a sudden we end at the mississippi river. that's a lot of new land. think of all the states between the east coast and the mississippi river, well all the old state, the old colonies are looking at all that land going, boy, that would be great as part of my state. so maryland and virginia are arguing over who gets to use the potomac river and things like that so maryland is kind of going well i don't want to sign this thing until everything is settled so there's your issue that arises and there will be others. there's a bill at one point trying to pass through this room to raise money on essentially imports, take money from imports as like a tax tariff and put that to paying soldiers which seems pretty logical. why would you not want to raise money to pay the army fighting

for independence? 12 states agreed, that seems like a good idea. one, which happened to be rhode island, the small est of the state said no and the vote failed. to states individually have more power and sometimes one can defeat 12 so a lot of people start thinking this isn't 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 in 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 here in philadelphia because this suspect working between the states, maybe we need the strength of that army. now george washington, of course, is very much a believer in this idea of civilian control. that's one of the great principles we've embraced in american history from our beginning points and i think george washington is a big part

of that so what a lot of people would look at is one of his greatest moments at the end of the war in newburgh, new york, he's going to call a meeting together of all his officers as this word of maybe the army trying to change government a little bit and he's against it so he calls a meeting, puts some of the guys he feels are behind a lot of this talk in charge of the meeting and he says he's not going to be there, he wants them all to talk amongst themselves but then he shows up. now washington is not a public speaker. this is not a man who wants to stand up and make speeches. if he can avoid it, he'll do it. but he starts making a speech and he wants to read this letter so he pulls out a pair of glasses and puts them on and he says to the men in the room "i have not only grown gray in the service of my country but half blind as well." of course he's talking about this idea of what they fought for together for eight years and that, you know, it not be ruined by rash actions at the end and he's got guys in tears and the

whole thing sort of -- what we call the newburgh conspiracy kind of goes away and even though the problems hadn't been solved, this idea of military intervention in our civilian government fades out of view. but still, washington does believe that something stronger is needed. but he is one of those guys who's going to go through the proper channels so george washington is a virginiaen. his state is fight with their neighbors in maryland. what can george washington do about that? he can have a meeting at his house. he can invite virginians and marylanders to sit together. so he will do that. after the war ends, a year or so after he has what we call the mt. vernon conference solving essentially years of problems between maryland and virginia which then leads to a meeting in maryland the next year where they'll invite more states, get five states to sit in annapolis, we call this the annapolis conference, annapolis convention

and again the big result is it will lead to a bigger meeting. they'll go and now our friend john dickinson again is going to go to the continental congress with a letter he's written saying look, we want to have a big meeting in philadelphia in the same room and we want to talk about the future and we want everybody to come. so they'll sit down starting in may of 1787, what we today call the constitutional convention, they're going to sit in this same room and address these issues plaguing the young united states. it's going to start with about 11 states. new hampshire will show up late. unfortunately rhode island will never attend these meetings. now this time they're not about to let one state keep them from getting something done so the way they're going to end up setting it is up they'll kind of pretend there's only 12 of them. not only that, but when they vote they'll go to the people in each state, let the people vote on a special convention and the

special conventions will approve or not approve the constitution for each state and then you need nine states, three quarters of them, to put this new constitution into effect. so these are guys who are definitely trying to engineer something because they know something needs to be done to hold these states together, they know as separate entities, you go back to benjamin franklin's design, the snake cut in pieces that benjamin franklin put together during the french and indian war when he's calling for june i don't know, join or die. a snake cut into pieces will die but a snake together is dangerous. that's the idea that men are embracing the summer of 1787. but the question they'll 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's the difference, what do we want? they're getting deep into these things and they start saying well we want this national

government and then they start saying well, then what? what is it going to be? well virginia had come very organized. james madison is going to get credit for putting together a lot of the virginia plan that's submitted by edmund 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, of course, equal now to franklin as far as american fame goes so washington will take the lead in the constitutional convention and, in fact, the very chair in 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 those events. that chair was made in 1779

after the british left philadelphia. a lot of things were gone between the americans coming and going, the british coming and going. we just don't have all the contents of the building anymore so pennsylvania's government has to make new furniture, including that chair for the speaker of pennsylvania so that was was in the room on that spot when washington took that position in 1787. so the virginia plan, three branches of government somewhat familiar to us today. here's some of the issues that are going to 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 to met one of the biggest things is this notion of voting based on american people. sort of seeing the states as artificial, everybody in all the states is american so wherever we do things we should just be americans, why be virginians or somebody from massachusetts or delaware or anywhere else? let's be americans.

well, naturally the other side of that coin, as some of the states would look srkts that virginia happens to have more people than any other state so voting by people is definitely good for virginia so a small state like delaware pretty much embraces one idea and this is the idea that every state be equal, the way it's always been, every state get an equal vote. so delaware is digging their heels in and they'll refuse to anything that doesn't involve equality amongst the states so you get the small states naturally liking delaware's idea, the big states virginia's idea and that's an issue that will pretty much go on for the better part of a month off anned on, now virginia's idea of congress is that we have these two houses, upper house, lower house, what becomes our senate and our house of representatives. again, it's based on population but as you start debating it you have others saying no, let's base it on states so eventually

when it seems like there's 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 how about a senate where every state is equal, a house of representatives where we base things on people. both sides getting some of what they want and eventually, of course, that's exactly how it would go but not everybody loves that so you're not sure if everybody is going to go for that but that's how they slot in for congress. now the president, there's another one. there's multiple ideas of president, of executive. the virginia plan as they start working through it is ultimately a seven-year executive elected by congress so a little bit different system obviously than we're used to today. another plan, edmund randolph of virginia says how about having three presidents at once? he's talking about three regional presidents.

then? you have alexander hamilton of new york who wants a very strong executive so he says how about president for lifetime? which needless to say having gotten rid of king a few years ago was not overly popular to these men. so eventually they settle on the president for four years at a time. but then they have the level of electoral college. and we get a lot of questions about that. why would they do that electoral college? there's probably several wr reasons. one is simple distance. the idea of having states that are days and days and weeks apart from georgia to new hampshire with not a lot of great roads and travel can be difficult so having this notion of sending people together to vote makes sense mechanically then also you have this idea that with the electoral college you're making sure smaller states have a certain amount of stay so you're trying to balance a lot of different things and talking about that, you know,

again, one of the things that will plague the young united states is something that does come up in this room that summer of 1787, 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 don't particularly want to talk about it. the only slavery -- the word doesn't even make it into the constitution. you have one little notion of the slave trade which they talk about in 20 years maybe we can discuss doing away the slave trade, importing slaves from africa. but that's all the mention you get. now, of course, anyone that's anti-slavery -- which there are guy this is room decidedly so -- is not very happy we put this off for 20 years, put off the entire discussion let alone action, of course southern states would look at gee in 20 years this is going to come up again, we're not happy about

that because we didn't put it away forever so again you have a lot of people looking at sections of this constitution that aren't very happy. now, who writes the constitution? declaration of independence, that's easy, thomas jefferson was on a committee but he basically wrote it. constitution, there's really not going to be that one obvious writer. you're going 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's the kind of men you're going to have on there, the very much legal-minded men, probably the main guy who puts together most of their report is a man named james wilson from pennsylvania. he is one of the signers of the declaration of independence as well and he will end up on the united states supreme court and more than likely he came up with the three words "we the people"

at the very beginning of the constitution because that's the beginning of the committee of detail report is "we the people." nothing else that would be recognizable to us today but he starts out with we the people. as they go through this committee of detail report, they get to a point where they've pretty much worked out how they want it to be so they formed another five-man committee, we call this one the committee of style. here's where your heavy hitters in early american history will be. you'll have alexander hamilton and james madison but the guy who is probably going to take up the pen and do most of the writing is a pennsylvanian by the name of goouf more to morris. morris is a friend of george washington, in fact, there's a story that comes from that summer with morris and alexander hamilton, basically there's a bet made that hamilton makes

with morris because morris says i'll just go up and slab georp washington on the back and say "how are you doing?" and washington is this formal guy that doesn't like to shake hands, he prefers to bow and he can be a bit on the aloof side in public so hamilton is like you're never going to do that. in fact, i'll bet you dinner you're not going to do it. so of course morris goes up and does it and washington gives him one of his sort of glaring looks and shrinks him down. i'm sure hamilton is standing in the corner laughing like mad. but morris is the guy who will probably write that "we the people of the united states in order to form a more perfect union" that famous preamble that we know. so at the end of the day you have this constitution. by september 15, 1787, four pages, that's all it is, four pages. there's no bill of rights at that time. they kind of talked about it. alexander hamilton would say we don't 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 that's well and good but we like to see something like that there so again even by the time they're finished you have guys that look at parts or the whole and say this i don't like, that i don't like, i don't like the senate because it gives way too much power to the little states, the president is too strong, not strong enough, we didn't deal with slavery, there's no bill of rights so at the end you come into the last day and it's not at all certain everybody is going to agree. remember these guys are signing it to send it out for their states to vote on it so it's important to the group as a whole to try to have everyone on board because these are the guys that have to sell the new constitution to the people, to that we the people so that they will then put it into effect. so you're going to have benjamin franklin come in the very last day of meetings. now franklin is 81 that summer. there are days he's literally

being carried in and out of these meetings, he can hardly walk. but fortunately for everyone he's still the great sage, the elder statesman and on that last day he brings in a speech which he starts off by saying there are things in this constitution i do not approve but then he says, look, i'm old enough to know i'm not perfect. my ideas aren't perfect. nobody in this room is perfect and we should also basically put aside our doubts and sign our names. he actually says we should all doubt a little our own infallibility. which i always love. another one of those typical franklin phrases. anyway he says he says -- one of his great famous statements in the room, he says "we should all sign because i do not expect anything better than this. in fact, i am not sure that this is not the best." one of the biggest triple

negatives in american history. i'm sure half the guys listening were saying "what did he say? did he say to sign it?" but at the end it's hard to sign it. 41 men are in the room that day, 38 men will sign 39 "new york times." okay, there's a little bit of a story to that one, too. john dickinson who refused to sign the declaration of independence. again, not that he was loyal to the british particularly but that he was saying this isn't the right time, this is a bad idea, we're rushing too much, so he never signs the declaration of independence. he's sick the day the constitution is going to be signed. so he tells his fellow delegate from delaware george reid, look, i want you to put my name on that thing when you sign it. so george reed signs twice, once for himself, once for john dickinson. so 39 men sign the constitution, three would not. different issues, you have jerry of massachusetts who made a speech that last day saying

there was an excess of democracy which he called the worst of all political evils, the 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 6,000 heads and that's the sort of fear of democracy that it leads to some kind of chaotic anarchy which ultimately in history leads to a dictator which is exactly what france does going up to napoleon. and they went back to rome and saw the same sort of things happen. so democracy was always a little tempered here in the united states and in britain which is where we get our ideas of having that mix. we have a mix of states and people. we have a president and a congress, we divide our powers. so this idea that there's no one place that has too much strength coming. so jerry is afraid the democracy will overrun because he sees the potential for revolution in the future so he won't sign it. two of the virginians, edmund

randolph won't sign it but he's one of those guys that always likes to hedge his bets. he supports it when virginia votes on it but he wouldn't sign in the this room because he's afraid like that guys at home like patrick henry will go against him because he knows patrick henry is one of those guys that doesn't think this is a great idea the other one, george mason is looking that the idea of a bill of rights that he wants to see that so he's not crazy about parts of it. a lot of the guys from the big states like massachusetts or virginia don't like the senate. so there's all kinds of issues but most men will put aside their doubts as franklin hoped and sign their names. september 17, 1787. at that point, franklin looks at the chair where washington sits and he says look behind washington's head at this carving of a half sun on the back of the chair. he says all summer i've been trying to decide whether that half sun is supposed to be rising or setting and i could not make up my mind until now.

he says now at length i have the happiness to know that is a rising and not a setting sun. he felt good. he'd been working for since the 1750s, this kind of unity of the american states and he finally sees it happening. one of the great stories that comes afterwards is he is supposedly asked what kind of a government they've created in philadelphia and he said "it's a republic if you can keep it." his last warning to the rest of us to make sure. but think about the united states. one of the things i like to finish with is this idea that we're still using that same constitution. we're still using that same government but it's also allowed us maybe not quickly but it's definitely allowed us to improve because ultimately slavery in the united states doesn't really end by the civil war. technically it's the constitution, 13th amendment. the 15th amendment will give equality and voting by color.

the 19th amendment would give equality and voting by gender. so through the years so through the years, 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 so i think back to franklin and his rising son and that's what we've seen through the years so this little humble room is really everything the united states has been and will be, is going to grow from the events that happen over about a 10 or 11-year period in this room. it's kind of amazing when you think of this humble place. and the men that sat here and the things they did, it's really incredible the things that have grown from this space. the pennsylvania statehouse is the real name of independence hall and it was pennsylvania's capital until 1799. pennsylvania then moves its government west to ultimately the center of the state to harrisburg.

well at that point the building -- you know, they're using space and renting it out. it's not capital building anymore but the city of philadelphia had started building buildings here on the block and by 18 -- the early 1800s, essentially the city will buy this building and this whole block is going to serve as our city hall so through the 19th century, this is city hall, the second floor of the building 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 so by the 1820s, '30s, '40s, people are coming to visit, it gets the nickname "independence hall." probably this room, in fact, was independence hall before the whole building became independence hall. and one of the famous early incidences, the marquis de lafayette about 50 years after the revolutionary war return, make this is trip through the

united states, you're talking the 1820s, we have a very few founding fathers and soldiers from the army that are left but every town that lafayette visits you gather all the old veterans and anybody like thomas jefferson or john adams that's still alive and they get together and they celebrate lafayette. so it's this wonderful sort of exclamation of patriotic memory and it's probably one of the first times we're really kind of looking at embracing our history. it's that same time period when people are starting to purchase their copies of the declaration of independence and put them above the fireplace and we're actually celebrating the words and the actual document. so fortunately this room becomes a historic place before they've got on the the point of totally getting rid of the building and tearing it down to build something new. so we're really lucky in a lot of ways that it was in use long enough that it became important. so by the mid-1800s, this whole thing is a museum.

one of the fascinating things in this room, when the liberty room spent almost a hundred years in our bell tower cracked they put it on display in this room so they said where else will we put it? let's stick in the the room where the united states began. and one of my favorite days that's not one of those days of the revolutionary war comes 150 years ago this year in april after abraham lincoln was assassinated his body lay in state in this room. but there's back story. he came here to philadelphia, washington's birthday, 1861 on his way to be inaugurated. he actually said in this room that he would rather be assassinated on the spot than fail the ideals of the founding fathers. exactly the kind of strength that america needed at the time and then sadly four years later he comes back having been assassinated but having succeeded in saving the united states and they put his casket literally almost next to the

liberty bell and they ran about 100,000 people through this building in a day to pay their respects. and you had lincoln laying next to the liberty bell in the room where the united states was born and all the ghosts of the founding fathers present at that one time. that's the kind of thing that makes this room so great. and the park service comes in in the 20th century after world war ii and unfortunately the one thing that had changed, a lot of the walls, they kind of made them fancier. it's a little plain room and they wanted to have paintings up so they had that old-fashioned museum filled with stuff and our big thing was let's get it back to the way it looked so we kind of stripped it back down to the plainer walls that we see today. but, again, the main structure, fortunately, survived the years and we were able to figure out well enough the paint colors and everything else.

so we were able to get it back to what we think is pretty close to how it looked. the furniture is from the time -- it's not necessarily the original furniture because nothing was saved. the british army captures philadelphia, nobody's thinking about the history until we have some so -- and they kept using it for different things so we don't necessarily have all the contents of the room but we think everything here is a good match to what was here. so we think really as best we can tell from our investigation and our research this is pretty close to how it looked. the first vice president of the united states, john adams, once said about his position that it was "the most insignificant office that ever the imagination of man conceived."