c-span3 on american history tv. it is also available as a podcast. find it where you listen to podcasts. kermit roosevelt, constitutional law professor and the great-great-grandson of theodore roosevelt presented a talk titled "the constitution and declaration of independence, a contrary view." professor roosevelt argues that a be america today did not emerge from the revolution and that we should not trace our valleys act of the funders. instead he argues that through failures and interventions, we have used the constitution as it it will to -- as create our core values. the smithsonian host of the event. everyone, cang you hear me from the back? my name is bruce robbins. it is a pleasure to welcome you all here tonight for our program -- my name is r

ruth robbins. it is a pleasure to welcome you here tonight for the program. before we get started just a couple of quick things. if you have electronic devices, now is a good time to turn them off. as usual, there is no photography and no filming. also, if you are wondering what the equipment is in the back of the room, it is c-span. so show your nicest smile, brush her hair, get ready in case you get a cameo. and when we get to the q&a part, there is a microphone in the back of the room and we will let you know when it is time. you will just line up there to ask you questions. it is always worthwhile revisiting the documents but set us apart from british rule and created the framework for our government. tonight our guest speaker kermit , roosevelt, explores these documents and shares interpretation of their meaning and relevance. professor roosevelt teaches constitutional law at the university of pennsylvania law school. he was born and raised in d.c.

and attended harvard university and yale law. before joining the penn faculty, he served as a law clerk to supreme court justice david souter. book, "making sense of supreme court decisions," sets standards by which citizens can determine whether the supreme court is abusing its authority to interpret the constitution. he also teaches creative writing and is the author of two novels "in the shadow of the law" and , "allegiance." please join me in a round of applause for professor roosevelt. [applause] dr. roosevelt: thank you. thank you all for coming. happy super tuesday. [laughter] you know, of course, it is super tuesday. the democrats are in the process of choosing their nominee. later on we will have the general election and choose our president. that choice will reflect something about who we are as a nation.

and that is what i wanted to talk about tonight, who we are, are, andcide who we what our sense of ourselves means for our relationship to the constitution and our sense of ourselves as a country. and as a people. so, who are we? we are americans. this is the most american slide i could find. [laughter] but what does it mean to be an american, and how do we decide that? what gives us a sense of what america means? the first point i want to make is that stories do that. stories tell us who we are. they organize the world for us. this is true of individuals. when people think about their lives, they tend to think about them in narrative form. they find meaning in experience. they find themes, heroes, villains. james joyce said this is the artist's task, transforming the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of everlasting life. in that sense, we are all artists, we are all the authors of our own stories.

not because we decide what happens -- we don't actually get to decide that -- but because we decide what it means. we decide how it is interpreted and usually we pick interpretations that flatter ourselves. we end up being the heroes of our own stories. this is true for individuals and it is also true for nations. people have a sense of national identity that comes from stories about the nation's history. and that's what i am going to talk about tonight. i am going to talk about different stories of america. where they come from, how they relate to each other. but before i do that want to say thing about stories, which is they are powerful. so as you heard, i am a law professor. before that i was a lawyer. i was doing a pellet litigation, apellateas -- litigation, and it was my job -- in some ways it is still my job -- to make people agree with me about the correct understanding of the law. i learned something while working as a lawyer.

that has been reinforced from experiences with legal scholarship, which is that sometimes, on some issues, you can present a strong, logical argument and people will change their minds. sometimes the voice that persuades is an analytical voice. but that's not true all the time. and in particular, it is not true if you're dealing with an issue that relates to people's identities, to their sense of self. in those kinds of situations, you can make the best and most logical argument in the world and it will not have any effect. because logic doesn't make people change their minds about who they are. there has been some social psychology research on this, and it shows people are actually incredibly resistant to reason logical argument if it conflicts or with their narrative of the world. if it conflicts with the story they tell themselves to make sense of the world. they did a study where the two -- where they took people with certain beliefs. in this study, it was about climate change. so they took climate change

skeptics and climate change believers come and they took the group and expose them to facts that suggested their beliefs were wrong. so the groups got different information. in each case, information that challenged their belief. you would have thought this would make them less confident. result was the people on both sides expressed greater confidence in those beliefs because they thought a threat to their identity, and basically they responded by reaffirming it. those beliefs were not just factual beliefs about the world, they were beliefs that signal membership in a community. and because of that, they were a part of people's identity, part of the story they told themselves about themselves. here is an ordinary factual question -- is it raining outside or not? your belief about that does not relate to your identity at all. and with questions like that people do change their mind if , they are presented with contrary evidence. things, withr beliefs that are connected to identity, you can't dislodge those beliefs by fact.

or by logical argument. the analytical voice just doesn't persuade. so, what does? this is another thing i learned as a lawyer. i think it may be the most important thing that i learned as a lawyer, and it is something i try to teach my students in the creative writing seminar i teach at the law school. if you are wondering why there is a creative writing at the law school, this is why. because it actually can make you a more effective lawyer, because the narrative voice persuades. to change beliefs connected to identity, to the story we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it, you have to offer a different story. you have to offer a story that opens up a different way of understanding the world. and you can change people's mind. you can change their self conception if you talk to them the way that their interior voice does. and for most people on these important issues, the interior voice is not giving arguments, it is telling stories. stories tell us who we are, both

as individuals and as countries. stories are powerful. frequently, they can't be dislodged by reasoned argument or logical analysis. you might have heard some people say, "it takes a theory to be a "it takes aay story to be a story." what i want to do now is tell you some of the stories about america. about who we are. these different stories say different things about the past but, perhaps more important, they have different ideas about the essence of america. about what it means to be american. i'm going to compare them, analyze them, i will be doing some logical argument -- i am a law professor, i can't really get away from that -- but in the end, i hope you like the same story i do, not because of the arguments, but because it is a better story. it shows us in a better light. it's more inclusive. it's more optimistic. it is, i am going to say, more american. but i am going to start with what i call the standard story.

and according to this story, history ofstory, the america as a nation starts with the declaration of independence. here we go. the declaration. in a standard story should be weilar to you, this is what say in our basic celebrations of america, the standard story says, long ago back in 1776, our , great founders wrote down some wonderful principles. they called these self-evident truths. created equal, endowed by all men are their creator with inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. our founders fought a war for those principles. and they built a society around them. and the constitution was their vehicle for carrying those disciplines into execution.

hold on. there is the constitution. the constitution, according to standard story, sets out our fundamental values. what are our fundamental values? liberty and equality. it tells us what it means to be american. it tells us who we are. from where the 200 years, our constitution has served us well because of the wisdom of the founders. our tasks as americans is to live up to their example. to fulfill their vision of america. to be true to the principles that started in the declaration of independence were codified in the constitution. american history, the standard story, has not always been easy because we have not always lived up to those principles. we had slavery which is in direct conflict with the declaration of independence but , we fought a war for those principles again. the civil war was fought in the

name of the principles of the declaration of independence. how do we know that? abraham lincoln said so. that is an actual photo of lincoln delivering the gettysburg address. it is not very good but he is there somewhere. [laughter] dr. roosevelt: in the gettysburg address lincoln looks back to the declaration as the birth of the nation. it takes a little bit of arithmetic to figure this out but he is giving the address in 1863 and says "four score and seven years ago" and subtract that from 1863 and what do you get? you get 1776 and the declaration of independence. lincoln invoked this principles and says "the nation is conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." the civil war is a challenge but also an opportunity for americans to move forward, to realize the promise of the

declaration. of course, the standard story concedes that even after the civil war, the work is not done. racism and discrimination persist. the civil rights movement rises up to challenge the starker aspects of american life. it does so again in the name of the declaration. the civil rights movement sponsors the march on washington in 1963. hisin luther king jr. gives i have a dream speech from the steps of the lincoln memorial. this is a much better photo. [laughter] dr. roosevelt: he talks about the founders, the architects of our public, the people who wrote the magnificent words of the constitution and declaration of independence. they promised, he said, black as well as white would be guaranteed unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

you have fallen short he says. integration, the right to vote, and reaches of the promises made. he dreams of a day when we will rise up and live out the true meaning that all men are created equal. maybe that day has not come yet. the standard story concedes but it is getting closer because the story of america is living up to the ideals of our founders. the ideals that started us on this journey. we move forward but we are guided by the past, by the spirit of 1776. we remember, as john f. kennedy said, that we heirs of that first generation and carry that banner, the flag of freedom, the flag of equality. here you have three men marching forward and in the background, the betsy ross flag.

13 stars arranged in the circle. this is what i am going to call our standard story. this is what we usually tell ourselves to explain who we are. of the firstirs revolution. american history starts with that declaration. it starts on a high note and we are basically trying to sustain it. we are trying to live up to the ideals of the founders and signers. we are following their wisdom and for 200 years it has pointed the way to a better america and a more perfect union. i am going to tell you a couple of other stories. first, want to say a little bit about this one. the first thing to note is it is a backward looking story. the declaration is the central document in the story, it may be

more important and more truly american than even the constitution. the founders' constitution is important, too. the constitution has the answers to our current problems. america seems to be adrift, people think. what is the solution? go back to the wisdom of the founders. focus on the constitution. focus on the original understanding of the constitution. live up to the ideals of the founders, be more like them, the way forward is by recovering the greatness of the past. story.backward looking second, this is a success story. we have had our difficulties but back, america always succeeds. we always triumph and why is that? it is because the wisdom of the founders and the ideals of the declaration. the civil war is probably the best example. it is a terrible war, yes, that

the ideals of the declaration triumph and we improve. --take a big step board through the drafters of the constitution to us in the present day. we are the heirs of that first revolution and this is related to the fact that it is a success story because it is telling us basically we are the same people we have always been. we are the same nation. declaration,f the the drafters of the constitution, they got it right. we are living in the world they designed and fighting for the ideals they championed. this is a nice story in a lot of ways and you can see why it appeals to people. it says we are basically good, we americans. we start out with good ideals, we don't always live up to them, but we are getting better.

there is a sense of inevitable progress and when things look dark, answers exist if we look back to find them. there is authority in the past in a moment of unity everyone can rally around, everyone can share in. everyone feels a connection to the founding. one problem is that is really -- it is really not true. i know i have said logical arguments do not dislodge stories, but i'm going to give you a logical analysis of the story, which might not change your mind, but i hope it will provoke you to question the story a bit. i am going to present you with some claims you will find surprising, that you don't hear in the standard story, you don't hear very much at all actually. here's the first one. the declaration of independence does not actually set out our modern values of liberty and

equality. in fact, it is consistent with slavery. this should be a surprise. item think anyone else says this . often if you are the only person saying something, it is crazy and you are wrong, but hear me out because i have become quite convinced of this. generally speaking, people say of course, there is an obvious contradiction between the declaration of independence and slavery, but look at the declaration and its values. here is the preamble that people usually pay attention to. that is appropriate. after the preamble and a little bit of political philosophy we get grievances against king george, bad things he has done. those are not as important. that is evidence the founders are setting out in support of their argument but they are not the argument.

the declaration of independence is an argument of political philosophy, and argument that tries to establish colonies are justified in declaring independence and throwing off the authority of the british empire. to understand the declaration, the crucial thing is to understand how the argument works and how it makes use of these fundamental principles. i want to talk about the argument it doesn't make, the argument against slavery. why do people think the declaration is inconsistent with slavery? because of these self-evident truths, all men are created by their creator with inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. now, are those principles inconsistent with slavery? you can start with them and make an antislavery argument. it would go like this. people are created equal therefore no one is entitled, by birth, to demand

someone else be his slave. someone might have the power to enslave someone else doing so . could be considered a form of liberty -- just doing what you want to do -- but it conflicts with the slaves' natural right to liberty that is an infringement on natural rights, that is true. that is not justified because in the political world, there are lots of infringements upon people's natural liberty. if you use your liberty to steal someone else's property, we will lock you up and take away your liberty. if you commit a serious enough crime, we will take your life. that is what we do to our own citizens, members of our political community because those are justified.

the hallmark of civil society is when people come together to form a society, they surrender aspects of their natural liberty. their natural liberty is taken away from them. this is true of people who form a community, of the insiders, and more true of people outside our political community, so how does the nation relate to noncitizens? sometimes quite harshly. if you are an enemy soldier we will take your life without worrying too much about your natural right. that is justified because we are protecting our political community. different factors come into play when we talk about outsiders. it is more complicated when we talk about a situation where slavery exists are ready and the choice is not should we start slavery but should we end slavery? , and possible to think thomas jefferson did think that

slavery never should have come to america, but the answer to the second question was no. existed,t slavery maintaining it was the best option. what have i said so far? from the principles of the declaration, you can get an argument that slavery is a violation of natural rights but that does not tell you slavery is wrong because some are justified and that is particularly true if you are talking about outsiders, people not members of your political community, and more true if slavery exists already. to get to the conclusion slavery is wrong, you need another step. you need to say the justifications put forward for slavery are in adequate. what were the justifications? some people supported slavery as sayingive, good thing, slaves get christianity and civilization. then there were people who did not think slavery was good but

thought slavery should be continued in america. they said slaves if freed could not survive on their own, could not be assimilated into society, and would pose a danger to whites. this was jefferson's view. he said, should we give our slaves freedom and a dagger? those are terrible justifications. the declaration does not give you an argument of that form. it gives you a different argument because it is not concerned with the liberty and equality of individuals. it is concerned with the relationship between political communities, between one people who want to dissolve the political bands that separate them. this is what it is about. it says "the laws of nature and nature's god entitle individuals

?" now. and equality the laws of nature and nature's god to separate and equal status? no. status as nations. the argument the declaration of independence makes is about national independence, which is why it is not a declaration of rights. we have principles about people being created equal and being endowed with inalienable rights. they are not generate -- there to generate an anti-slavery argument because you do not find that in the declaration. what is the argument that the declaration actually makes? it is an argument about when one people is entitled to declare its independence. it is about when legitimate political authority can be thrown off, that is, when people

are entitled to rebel. how does that argument go? when are people entitled to rebel? in order to answer that question, we need to know where legitimate political authority comes from, how it is acquired for we can say when it can be rejected. that is what the self-evident principles are about. where does political authority come from? one answer would be from birth. some people are just born kings, born to rule, and that is an argument the british crown might make. the british crown might say you cannot declare independence. wasge is your king and he given that authority by god. king by the grace of god. rebellion against him would be unjustified and would be in fact a sin. that is the theory of the divine

right of kings. it is a bit of a strawman in 1776 because the english monarch is no longer claiming divine authority. the idea has been attacked by thinkers from milton to thomas payne in "common sense" but jefferson thinks he needs to deal with it. he does with this proposition all men are created equal. no one is born to rule. this is america. there are no kings here. this looks like -- to modernize -- a broad moral principle. it is a compressed argument of political philosophy. we are going to see this again with the declaration. to modernize, because we are not instepped in -- steeped political philosophy as the founders were, we tend to think of these as broad moral arguments. as tightlynderstood

compressed arguments of political philosophy. all men are created equal, there are no kings. this is what i am going to call jefferson's equality. there are no kings, but are there slaves? yes, of course. tells yous equality there is no person entitled to demand your obedience by birth, but slaves do exist. jefferson owned several hundred. you freedders did and your slaves when you died. jefferson did not even do that. he freed a small number on his death and those were actually his children. equalityis idea of that there are no kings, not the idea that there are no slaves. slavery is not inconsistent with jefferson's equality.

that only tells you people are born equal. they are born equal but they might not stay that way. people might acquire authority over each other. they might do this legitimately or they might do it through force. they might enslave each other. nothing in the idea of being born equal says that cannot happen in the way it says there cannot be kings, and it does not say that shouldn't happen. that is a separate argument you have to have. jefferson and the declaration reject the idea that some people can say to others, by your birth you are a slave and i am entitled legitimately to demand your obedience. it does not reject or conflict with the idea that people can say by your birth you are inferior and it is in your best interest to be my slave because i can give you christianity and civilization. that was a common justification at the time and fit pretty well

with jefferson's views. his views were complicated but he did believe blacks were inferior, flay's -- slaves that one freed could not survive their own or be assimilated into culture and would pose a threat. it is the idea of political equality as a starting point, in the state of nature, a hypothetical world that people exist in, in the absence of civil government. it is not saying people will end up equal or free and not saying governments should try to make them so. it is just a theory, just a principal of how people can legitimately come subject to an obligation to obey. it is not aey -- moral principle about equal treatment by the government. if you think about that and its relation to slavery, the principle that all men are created equal says different

things to different people. to king george the principle says flatly, you are wrong, that is not how people are created. to a slave who says, what about my equality, the declaration says, that is complicated. we would need a different argument to decide whether this is justified and the declaration does not give it. true --the same as the is true of the principle that people have in elia bill -- inalienable rights, including liberty. responding to the claim the british crown might make, the claim of an insoluble social contract. equal bute start out when they form a society, they irrevocably sister and -- surrender those rights to the government. this is the social contract theory of thomas hobbes rather

than john locke and it would have been familiar to people at the time. if you accept that theory, the colonists would say you have violated my liberty and king george would respond, you cannot complain i am violating liberty because you surrendered your liberty forever along with all of your natural rights in exchange for my protection, my keeping the peace. again, the declaration's principles say, you are wrong. the colonists did not surrender irrevocably. they could not have because that right is inalienable. think anden inalienable right is something that is important or that should not be violated, but it has a precise meaning which jefferson was surely aware of. something that is inalienable is something that you cannot give away. if you look at the virginia declaration of rights,

you get a more expanded statement of this principle. it says people have inalienable rights including liberty of which, by no compact, can that divest themselves or their posterity, so liberty cannot be given away. now, you can imagine a slave of the same thing as the columnists -- colonists saying, you have violated my , liberty but the answer the declaration regifted that is, well, that's complicated. sometimes they are justified. we lock up criminals and there is no philosophical error in that. is it justified to enslave people? of course not but the reason it is not justified is not that liberty is inalienable. it's the exerciseing dominion over another by force is wrong. might said as king george have said, that slaves

voluntarily surrendered their liberty. the principle that liberty is inalienable is when the colonists can invoke against the crown against an indissoluble social contract we form a society and lose the right to change it. again, it does not offer much help for the slave. then, we get to the heart of the declaration, the real fundamental principle. people create governments to secure inlay alienable -- inalienable rights. when the government threatens those rights people can alter or abolish their government. this is the right of rebellion. this says that if the government threatens the rights that are supposed to protect, you can change it. this is the heart of the declaration, not the principles that we find earlier on. if the government threatens your rights, you can change it. rebellion and when it is

justified is what the declaration is about. it is a declaration of independence. it is about the status of the colonies, which are political communities with respect to the crown. another political community. this, you might think, has relevance to the slides. at the colonial governments protecting the rights? of course not. but again, this is on another page. they don't claim to. they were not created by the slaves. here is another fundamental point about the declaration. it is all about relationships inside a political community, relationships between the governors and governed. legitimate authority, the declaration says, is based on the consent of the governed. the argument of the declaration is about when that consent can be withdrawn. slaves never consented. they are held in bondage by force. they are outsiders. the supreme court was

-- would say in the dred scott decision they are perpetual outsiders, the descendents of slaves can never become citizens of the united states. they can never be members of the political community. the argument the declaration is making about when it political community can be dissolved, when a legitimate government to be abolished, has nothing to say about the situation of slaves. what have i said so far? the principles of the declaration are not broad moral principles the way we often think they are. they are narrow political principles. they're pretty technical, compressed, this would have been familiar to people at the time. in fact, if you look the reception of the declaration at the time, people did not think the preamble was announcing anything revolutionary. these are not the ideals we now think of as fundamental to our identity. they are not our modern values of liberty and

equality. they are not even directly in conflict with slavery. so, what next? what about the founders' constitution? this is an that in founders hall in philadelphia -- in founders hall , is this aphia statement of our principles as americans? of the values we hold dear? no, it's not. the it is not for two reasons. second, the constitution is not our constitution. there is no line from the declaration through the constitution to us. we are not the heirs of the founding end -- founding of the revolution. that point is farther down the road. the main thing i want to focus on is the content of the constitution. what i just told you of the declaration of

slavery as that, i'm not sure anyone else agrees. what i am going to tell you now is relatively well accepted. even if you suppose the declaration contains these broad moral principles, they really did not make it into the founders' constitution. the founders' constitution contains very few strong statements of principles or values. we talk about it as if it does. we think that the founding constitution gathers together our american ideals, that it tells us what it means to be an american. if you look at the document that was written, there are no undiluted principles. if there is an overarching theme of the constitution, it's compromise. there's compromise between big states and small states. that is how we end up with two houses of congress. one has senators and one has one based on population. it is compromise between free states and slave states. that is

most notably the 3/5 compromise. based upon the population they enslave. what about the values of liberty and equality? equality is hardly in there at all. it is there mostly as a right of state. states are guaranteed equal representation in the senate. liberty does a little bit better. there is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the bill of rights. but like all original bill of rights, the right to free speech and free exercise of religion are available only against the federal government. the states can basically do what they want to their own. another thing about the want to their own citizens and to their own slaves. another thing about the

constitution in relation to liberty and equality, i said the declaration is not inconsistent with slavery. it is not concerned with slavery. it is neutral on the topic. the argument it makes simply does not relate to the practice of slavery. but the founders' constitution is proslavery. there is the fugitive slave clause which says a slave escaping to another state cannot thereby acquire freedom but must be returned upon demand of the person to whom service is due. this strips the state of some degree of sovereignty in order to prevent them from freeing slaves. there is a provision that protects the international slave trade until 1808. most important, there is the 3/5 compromise. this enhances the power of slaveholding states and the federal government. it gives them more representatives in congress, more votes in the electoral college. four of the first five presidents come from the slave state of virginia and

thomas jefferson would have lost the election to john adams of massachusetts if not for the 3/5 compromise. so, what have i said? being an american nowadays means being committed to certain values. most notably the values of liberty and equality. i mean that in the sense that these are aspirations. we think people should be free, people should be equal, people are entitled to complain if the government infringes on their liberty or treats them unequally. but you don't actually find those values by looking back to the declaration and the founders' constitution. they are not there. one problem with the there. one problem with the standard story is that it is imposing on the past a set of values that did not really exist. if you want to look back to the declaration and constitution and tell a story about an american identity that was born then and endure through the years, you can do it but it is not a happy story. if you are looking for a continuous theme in american history, the theme is putting unity ahead of

justice. putting unity ahead of equality. this is a story about the shadow of slavery hanging over the nation. it is what i call the darker story of america. this story starts with the declaration which brings together free states and the . -- the slave states. america is going to fight for freedom as one. we have to do that, have to do that to achieve independence because the states acting separately cannot defeat the british. this is the most powerful empire in the world. it means that free states and slave states have to join together and that means the declaration is not going to say much about slavery. jefferson's first draft does say something. first, it blames king george for the existence of slavery in america. jefferson did think slavery should never have come to

america. king george blames for inciting slave rebellions. jefferson thought slaves cannot be freed, they would be dangerous. the final draft takes up the attack on slavery itself but leaves in the complaint that king george and encouraged slaves to rebel. accepting slavery is the price of independence and also the price of union. after the revolution, we got the articles of confederation, basically a treaty among independent states. the people who drafted the articles of confederation remembered the tierney of the british. they set out to create a central government that is too weak bang -- a newak to

government is needed. that is what the founders' constitution gives us. we have to get everybody on board, get the free states and together.es off the european mass one by one. france, spain, england will come in and dismember the united states. accepunders' constitution ts slavery. one thing i do with my constitutional law students is take the first week of -- weeks of class and read through the founders' constitution clause by clause and discuss just about every sentence going through the bill of rights, and i ask them, do you think -- what do you think?

is this a glorious statement of american principles or a covenant with death and an agreement with hell? [laughter] dr. roosevelt: and they laugh, people always laugh, because they are surprised. they have been taught the standard story about how wonderful and successful the constitution has been and most have not heard the phrase covenant with death and agreement with hell, but lloyd garrison said that and of that description, garrisons is closer because the constitution is a compromise, a deal. you get an american nation, but you must accept slavery. that is a bargain with people, a deal with the devil. like most deals with the devil, it does not work out well, because what happens? the founders' constitution is proslavery but not as proslavery as it could have been.

it does not entrench slavery forever. its protection of the international slave trade expires in 1808. slavery gets pushed down the road and that road leads where? to the battlefields of the civil war. the civil war happened because the founders' constitution compromised and did not resolve the issue of slavery. i mean that first in a political sense. constitution could have taken a position one way or the other. it could have said slavery forever, and maybe that would have been ratified, or it could d, notaid slavery will en immediately, certainly would not have been ratified, but maybe in a number of years. it could have done something to set slavery on a path to extinction and a path everyone

understood. the most obvious way would probably have been to modify the 3/5 compromise so that the states would lose their power over the federal government. that might've been acceptable, structured thes constitution to support slavery. up until 1860, there are only two presidents, the adams' for massachusetts, who oppose slavery. then things change. the north grows in population. even with the 3/5 compromise the free states start exceeding the slave states in the house of representatives and the electoral college, so the north is increasingly controlling the federal government and the presidency. votes forhe south james buchanan and he defeats

john fremont. freemen, free soil, free land, it was a good slogan. but he lost. in 1860, the south votes for john breckenridge. he does not win. abraham lincoln wins. abraham lincoln, to an extent that is impossible to overstate, is not the southern choice. [laughter] dr. roosevelt: in 10 of the 11 states that are going to secede, lincoln gets zero popular votes. not a single person votes for abraham lincoln. why is that? he is not on the ballot. no one is willing to suffer the threat of violence and social opprobrium from trying to put lincoln on the ballot. in virginia, he is and he gets 1.1% of the popular vote. the south does not like abraham lincoln and the south sees the

federal government falling into antislavery forces. they fear the national government is going to end slavery which the republicans , were trying to do. they wanted to do it. they did not think it could do it directly but they had a strategy. seeing that coming, the south secedes. the civil war comes about in part because of a political failure. you can also see it as a consequence of a moral failure, a consequence of the acceptance of slavery, the deal with the devil. abraham lincoln understood it that way. he said the civil war is a judgment upon us that will last until every drop of blood will be paid by another drawn with the sword. after the civil war, we face a great task. what is it? you might think achieving true equality, and for a wild during

reconstruction, that did seem to be what the nation was doing. there is a brief period where we are working toward racial justice but then national mission changes back to what it was with the declaration, with the constitution, and what it was at the beginning of the civil war which starts as a war for slavery on the side of the south but for union. it ends as a war for freedom but does not begin that way. the national mission changes back to unity, bring the north and south together, heal the wounds of the civil war. how do we do that? in the same way the declaration and constitution did, by sacrificing racial justice. with the compromise in 1877, federal troops withdraw from the south, the integrated government set up are overthrown by force, and southern whites take back

control. it is southern whites like these. this is what people call the redemption of the south. what it means is the promise of reconstruction go unfulfilled for about 100 years, and there is a different version of the american story that focuses on this. it takes the redemption at the founding moment of america. there is a movie about the civil war and its aftermath and follows two families, one from the north, one from the south, they fight on opposite sides, but they are both americans. when the war is over the reunion of the nation symbolized by two marriages between these families, the bonds of matrimony knitting up the winds of war. the movie is "birth of a nation," from 1915. it is about the birth of an american nation. it is telling us that found america broke

apart into two legitimate sides. it came back together in the moment of redemption and that we can all go forward happily together because in the end, we are all americans. "birth of a nation" was controversial but very popular in its day including with , president woodrow wilson, the first southerner to hold the presidency since the civil war. if you look at it, it is pretty horrifying. the part of the movie where tensions are rising, things are getting worse, that is reconstruction. , a battle inimax which the ku klux klan defeats the integrated militia and police force that is the legitimate government of the south carolina town where the movie is set. and then there is the falling action that shows you everything will be all right and that occurs the day after that battle . the town holds a new election.

the freed slaves turn out to vote, they are met by armed klansmen standing in front of the polling booth, and they turn around and go home. that is supposed to be a relief. the resolution is the wedding. this reaffirms the nation can go forward as one, not so much because we are american but because we are all white. this is the dominant story for a about 19801915 until when scholars start to reassess reconstruction. the civil rights movement comes along in the mid-20th century, the warren court, often called the second reconstruction. congress enacts the civil rights act prohibiting racial discrimination, the supreme court issues brown v board of education which bans segregation in public schools, loving

down bansa, striking on interracial marriage. here are some headlines. the second reconstruction, like the first, is divisive. the 1960's, 1970's, are two mulches. -- are tumultuous. the america is being taken from them and the republican party campaigns against the warren court. ronald reagan talks about welfare queens, strapping young bucks using food stamps to buy t-bone states -- t-bone steaks. he said the voting rights act was accumulation of south. he kicks off his presidential campaign praising states rights in philadelphia, mississippi, where civil rights workers were murdered. reagan's presidency is notable because it brings so many people together.

obviously the electoral college , overstates the spis. reagan absolutely crushing victories. the pattern is repeated thereafter of bringing the nation together by pushing down issues of inequality. it is fading, i think, and if you want to tell a story of progress you could tell it that way but if you want to look back , to the declaration and founding for a basic theme of the american story, it is not liberty, equality, it is purchasing unity at the price of racial justice. if you listen closely, you can still hear that theme. my main point is that if you look back with clear eyes, the story of america is not so much a burst of idealism that cast its light into the present day as a primal sin. a betrayal that echoes down the ages. our standard story tries to put a happy gloss on this but it is not really accurate and the more

accurate it gets, the closer it gets to "the birth of a nation," which is much less happy. i want to explore why this is so. how did this come to be our standard story? why is this the one we tell ourselves? it is largely because of this man, abraham lincoln, who puts the declaration front and center. he did this consistently through his life but most notably through the civil war. why does he do this? this city. he is fighting a war against slavery. like i said, the civil war did not start as a war against slavery. lincoln famously said, if i could preserve the union by freeing other slaves, by freeing them of the slaves, i would do it, if i could do it by freeing none of the slaves, i would do it.

but the time of the gettysburg address it has become a war for freedom. what is the justification? the battle hymn of the republic casts it in religious terms, as christ died to make them holy let us die to make them free. religion is on the other. in the south, people are appealing to religion. what can lincoln invoke that is undeniable? not the founders' constitution. that does not protect equality. it protects slavery. lincoln turns to the words of the declaration. even though they do not really have the values he's appealing to either. second, by harking back to the declaration, lincoln is making a strategic move. he is saying the civil war, like the revolution, is a war for america. it is a war for the idea of america as a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition all men are created --al, and it is a war unfortunately i don't have this

part of the gettysburg address -- it is a war to determine whether a nation so conceived and dedicated could long endure. at the time of the civil war pretty much everyone looks back fondly on the declaration. following the revolution there was a purge and the people who opposed independence were largely driven from the country. the people who are left support the declaration. they look back fondly on the tryingion and lincoln is to convince people that the civil war union is fighting for the declaration. it is a good thing if you can convince people the declaration and the founders' constitution are on your side. union3, the civil rights -- civil rights movement marches on washington. martin luther king makes his i have a dream speech and it

starts by echoing the gettysburg address rhetorically. it is given from the steps of the lincoln mario and king starts out by saying "five score years ago." lincoln's county -- lincoln is counting back to the declaration but king is , counting back to the emancipation proclamation. then he goes back farther. he talks about the architects of our wroteic, the people who the constitution and declaration of independence that promised that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. well, both lincoln and king are wrong. i have said already the declaration of founders' constitution do not have the values they're trying to put there. but the mistake is a little more severe even than that. think about it. in the civil war whose side is the

declaration on? the answer is actually pretty clear. it is on the side of the rebels, the south. who marched on washington? marching in the name of the declaration? the civil rights movement did in 1963, but before them, the real champions of the ideals of the declaration are these guys, the confederate soldiers who marched on washington in 1863. the real heirs are the southern secessionists. this is something else you do not hear that much but within the professional , academic community i think it is relatively well accepted. if you are looking for documentary evidence, it is abundant. if you look at the secession letters the southern states sent to congress, overwhelmingly they invoke the

declaration of independence and they were right to, because the heart of the declaration is not a moral principle like liberty or equality. it is the political theory that people form governments to protect certain rights and if the government threatens those rights, the people can rebound. the southern states joined the revolution and joined the union to protect the rights they valued, and high on that list was the right to slaves. they might've feared that the british would take that away just before independence, a toision -- when they started fear the federal government would do that, they left the union in exactly the same way they left the empire. they started the second american revolution. second american revolution -- by that i mean the civil war -- and there is a big difference

between the first revolution and the second because the rebels won the first war and lost the second. want to talk about the similarities because these are both wars fought in the name of the declaration of independence under the political theory that people form governments to protect rights and can rebound if governments threaten those rights. the right to own slaves is definitely one of those rights. the declaration is on the side of the south. what about the founders' constitution? this is harder to see, but again, the answer is probably the south. what is supposed to happen when the states fear the federal government and take up arms to fight against it? who is supposed to win that contest? in the minds of the founders, the answer is clear. a distant general government might become a threat to liberty and might oppress its citizens like king george did, and when

that happens, the states stand up to defend the rights of their citizens. that is what the state militias did, fighting off the redcoats. the revolutionary war is the model that is built into the founders' consititution. that is what the second amendment is about. the well-regulated militia is supposed to protect the security of free states by fighting off the federal army. if it comes to that. along comes the second revolution, the state -- states stand up for the rights of their citizens and the states are supposed to win. according to the vision of the founders' constitution, the south is supposed to win the civil war. abraham lincoln did a lot of remarkable things at the most remarkable is the magic trick that he makes people think he is fighting for the constitution and the declaration when he is against them. if you draw a line, it does not

go to us. it goes to the rebels south and it stops there so as john f. kennedy said, we are not the heirs of the founders. we are the heirs who rejected the declaration by force of arms. there are several ways to make this point, but the one i like best is an analogy to a plot device you find a lot in science fiction movies. you have got the hero. the hero is supposed to be hunting sound -- hunting down some deviant, something that is not human a clone or alien and isn't. human but this is in blade runner. this is maybe a spoiler. anyway, the hero hunts this thing down, kills it, looking at the body, and realizes, that is human. then he realizes, if that is

human, who am i? i am the robot, the clone, the bad guy. that is the realization i want you to have about america and the declaration. what happens in the civil war? lincoln tells us, we are fighting slavery, fighting the declaration -- enemy of the declaration, and that is what we hunt down and kill, but it was the declaration itself, the body on the ground at the end of the civil war is the declaration of independence. it is the founders' constitution. they are dead and we are the ones who killed them. what does it mean? it means several things. our american identity does not first, come from the declaration of independence. the moral principles we think of are not there. jefferson's equality is not our

equality. second, american identity does not come from the consultation. -- constitution. our values are not there either. the civil war and reconstruction are a rupture in american history. the rebels when the first revolution. according to the declaration, they are supposed to win the second but they don't, and that is the end of the theory of the declaration and the end of the founders' constitution. the declaration after the civil war is a break from the founders' design and just as big a break as the break created by independence from the british empire. the founders had a vision that the federal government is dangerous and a threat to liberty. states protect liberty and will fight off the to radical federal government. angst did not turn out that way

because the federal government won, but it turned out the states where the tyrants, the states pressed people, and the federal government fought for liberty and equality. they trust the federal government. they give it more powers. they distrust the states, put new restrictions on the states and give us our values of liberty and equality as broad moral principles. equality,us lincoln's not jefferson's. the reconstruction amendments were forced on the south, so we upend the founders' understanding and totally change the structure of our government, and we do this not really -- we say this now -- but rot -- not really through the ordinary article five process. we do this by dissolving southern legislatures, putting the south under military

control, and not allowing their representatives to return to congress until they ratify these amendments. war happened in the civil as the rebels lost but the revolutionaries won. sides aren, both fighting for their understanding of the status quo. the south says, we have the right to own slaves and if we think you will take that away we can leave. the north says, you cannot leave, we are a union. both sides are fighting for their own status quo. at some point, the vision of the union changes. they are not fighting for the union, they are fighting for freedom. jefferson david -- jefferson davis is leaving a rebellion and abraham linking is leading a revolution. -- abraham lincoln is leading a revolution.

another thing i do with my students in the beginning of the semester is ask them to list big important supreme court cases, the ones that define the constitution for us. withally, they come up mostly the same cases year after year. they say brown, loving, cases about racial discrimination. gideon, casesda, about the rights of defendants. may roe v. wade, the right to abortion. more recently, hodges, the right to same-sex marriage. all of those have one thing in common, none of them could have happened under the founders' constitution because all of those are asserting constitutional rights against the states, not the government, which is something they can only do after the civil war, after

reconstruction, after the 14th amendment. what are the battles that gave us the nation we live in today? is it bunker hill? if you are thinking about the constitution we have today, it is gettysburg. who are the soldiers who died for our rights? the minutemen and the colonial army? no. if you are thinking about the rights we enjoy today, the rights enshrined in the supreme court decisions, it is the union army. the best way to put this is to say the founders' constitution was a failure and has not served us well for about 200 years. it lasted about 70 years, failed , and it was set aside. we became a different nation. , bring lincoln said forth on this constitute --

continent a new nation, but it was not this one. it was not our america. our -- the reliance of the east side the east coast of vermont --ther they would be able to what do we do when we get a case of that? go ahead, mike. capacityognize the that is there but at the same time we want to be very cautious that -- >> we are going to leave this briefing to take you live to albany, new york. you can watch all of our programs on the coronavirus --

>> slavery is protected by the founders constitution. these things are absolutely fine in 1789 but in 1963 there is something they are not consistent with. that something is not a distant aspiration, not a gleam in thomas jefferson's side. consistentey are with the reconstruction. in supreme court said that the president sends the 101st airborne to enforce the orders. king's dream is that the nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of all men are created equal which was written 200 years before.

maybe instead of just looking down and reading the fifth amendment. -- the 15th amendment, which says no racial discrimination with respect to the right to vote. there is a promissory note that the nation is dishonoring in --3 that it is not the martin luther king knew this. there is documentary evidence if you look at king's writings you will find an early one. he wrote it in high school in which he prefigures a lot of what he says in the i have a dream speech but he talks about reconstruction, not the declaration, not the founders constitution. heswitches at some point, switches the focus of his rhetoric. why does he do this? it is a strategic. the declaration is something all

americans subscribe to, the call to live up to the declaration means something to everyone. thecall to live up to reconstruction amendments, not so much. reconstruction is divisive and you can see this by asking yourself a simple question -- who won the civil war? north.ople will say the i think they say that may be more consistently if they are from the south. [laughter] prof. roosevelt: that is clearly not the right answer because the north was not fighting in the civil war. from one perspective it is a war between two nations -- the u.s.a . into the confederate states of america. it is a war between the united states and it traders. in either case the winner is the united states. it is us. we won the civil war. we do not say that and why do

not -- why don't we say that? looking back, not everyone feels affiliated with the winning side. here is a way to think about that that i think makes the point -- you know the flag? that is our flag. and you know this flag. most people would also think that is our flag. flag andnow this probably fewer of you would say that is my flag. somewhat. even if you would not say it though, you know that flag. what about this? does anybody say this is my flag? this?t what is it is the fort sumter flag. it is the union flag in the civil war. i got it put on a mug to bring to my constitutional law class i

had to custom design it, so you a mugt a 50 star flag on very easily. you can get a betsy ross 13 stars flag. you can get a confederate flag on a mug but if you want the union civil war flag you have to special order it. that stronglytify with the union side in the civil war and that is true more so for reconstruction. to say that is us, that is where andame from it is divisive when you talk about the declaration, there is broader buy in. unavoidable,ious, unobjectionable because of course everyone can rally behind the declaration. course you cannot expect the same kind of support for reconstruction but i have come

to think that neither of those things is true. when we tell ourselves the standard story, when we locate our ideals in the declaration instead of reconstruction, we are not just using a convenient fiction. we are doing what the darker side of american history shows everyoneing -- can rally behind the declaration? can everyone say thomas jefferson stated my deepest ideals? notthe real declaration, the real founders constitution, not the thomas jefferson we have come to know through more detailed historical analysis and genetic testing. [laughter] black americans and any american who thinks compromising with slavery unacceptable old i'd find -- might find it difficult to accept it. black americans are not included in the promises of the declaration.

they are not included in the rights of the founders constitution. the supreme court said that in the dred scott case. locks are not included. they can't -- defendants of slaves can never be u.s. citizens. men march -- that is painted in 1876, which is right at the end of reconstruction. the nation looks back toward independence, move forward together, look back to a moment when everyone felt unified. so what about reconstruction? it is divisive but who feels feels excluded? not blacks anymore. is the point of birthright citizenship. there can be no hereditary outsiders. no matter who your parents were,

if you were born here you are one of us. who feels excluded? thele who identify with losing side in the civil war. people who identify with traders. traitors. it is not obvious to me that we should identify american identity in the declaration. if we are going to celebrate something that marginalizes, it is probably better to marginalize the traitors. who wond be able to ask the civil war and say we did, we the people of the united states. we should maybe have the battle hymn of the republic as our national anthem. should have the gettysburg address instead of the -- ofation of the independence as our founding

document. we should be able to say these men are the real heroes of our declaration. the case for black union soldiers as the heroes of our constitution is very strong. the civil war starts as a war for union, it ends as a war for freedom. how does that shift occur? no one is sure but i believe the answer is black military service. once you have black union soldiers fighting for their country, military service has always been a path to full citizenship going back to the days of the roman empire. it became obvious to lincoln, to the other people leading the union, if you have black union soldiers, you can no longer have slavery when this ends because blacks have to be full participants in american society going forward. what turns the civil war into the war for freedom? --t gives us the push that

the push? it is black military service. what does all this mean? it means we can tell a different story about america. it is a story about getting better, but it does not look back. it is not about getting better by getting closer to some mythical past. it is about making a nation that is more just. it is not a success story. it may never be over. it is a story of an unfinished project and it is not a story of continuity. it is a story of rapture. 1776 isica born in flawed. it is flawed of necessity because a compromise is required to win independence from britain , to win ratification of the constitution but it is greatly flawed by its embrace of slavery. improvement comes at a terrible cost, the death and destruction

of the civil war but the reconstruction amendments give us a much better constitution. generations later the supreme court and the civil rights movement start to redeem the promise of reconstruction and we keep going. there is opposition, there is always opposition and there are mistakes and setbacks but what makes us america, our deepest ideal is that we keep trying. america is born in an attempt to find a better way to escape this stale and oppressive monarchies of europe. we do not get it right immediately but we keep going. we are looking for america and we know the america we are looking for is not something given to us by the founding fathers. it is something we find inside ourselves. the true america is not handed down from the past but created and new by each generation. what we can give the future is an opportunity to get closer

than we did. that is the promise that makes us american. that is the promise we must keep . thank you. [applause] prof. roosevelt: now i think it's her. -- now i think we have a question and answer period.

>> thank you for an interesting lecture. i have one comment and one .uestion actually the emancipation passedation was only because the north was losing too many battles so that is why. after the emancipation proclamation, that is how we got black union soldiers. the question is this -- if the 15th amendment protects the vote, of all citizens to why do we have today in today's anti-votingany problems? thanks for the: comment. the question is about the 15th

thereent and the answer is the 15th amendment is pretty narrowly targeted. to 15th amendment is related racial discrimination with regard to the right to vote. to give women the right to vote, amendment.nother why do we have so much voter suppression today? immediately after the 15th amendment, it is a dead letter there is overt and explicit refusal to allow blacks to vote in lots of places in the country, a lot of the south, other places as well there are problems. eventually the nation moves forward a little bit. "you know, you cannot do this so explicitly."

then rather than explicitly discriminatory restrictions on the right to vote you get tests that are administered unequally or tests that are difficult to pass that most whites do not have to pass because there are grandfather clauses, which says something like "if your grandfather was allowed to vote, you don't have to pass this test." who does that affect? the descendents of slaves. how do you deal with that? it turns out to be very difficult because can have people who sue the states directly for denying their root -- right to vote, but how do you prove a particular cast is being -- test is being administered in a racially discriminatory way? it is hard. if you are talking about the

context of an individual election, can you get a decision in time to remedy the problem? no. then the case has no effect into the next election comes around and they are doing something else. eventually congress and ask theng rights act -- enacts voting rights act. it says certain jurisdictions with a history of a race-based voter suppression must get approval from the justice department before making changes to their voting laws. be enormously to effective because now rather bring theseto individual suits against states and trying to do things as the elections are being held, you can stop the discriminatory practices from going into effect before hand. the voting rights act works well.

it works so well the supreme court decides we do not need it anymore in shelby county against holder. invalidates the preclearance requirement and following that a bunch of states who had been subject to that and act a bunch of restrictions on voting, which they probably would not have been able to do if they had been required to get preclearance. --e again it is hard difficult to challenge these days. the answer is there are a bunch of people who wanted to restrict voting and the national government and the supreme court opposed that for a while and they are not opposing it in the same way anymore. >> thank you very much. thomas jefferson's draft of the declaration of independence has a paragraph that says" king

george has waged cruel war against human nature itself violating its most sacred rights , captivating and carrying us into slavery in another atmosphere." i do not think it was thomas jefferson who is against a slavery. he put that paragraph in his declaration of in-depth and's dutch independence. prof. roosevelt: -- independence. prof. roosevelt: that was in his draft. it was taken out. jefferson does have this passage in his first draft criticizing the practice of slavery. he blames king george for introducing slavery to america, which is a little strange if you think about it, the colonists were not objecting at the time that this institution had been forced upon them. >> i do not think it will be

accurate to say it was a gleam in jeffersons i -- not a gleam in jeffersons eye, he wrote it down. prof. roosevelt: when i said the passage was a gleam in jeffersons eye, i was talking about a race-based denial of the right to vote, which is what martin luther king jr. was objecting to. the standard story is full realization of the ideals of the declaration shows us that those things are impermissible. once you realize that the declaration has this passage criticizing the passage of slavery-- criticizes and its taken out and then we move on to the founders constitution, which protects slavery and has no problem with segregation or the race-based denial of the right to vote it becomes harder to say those are the promissory notes that the nature and -- nation is

ignoring. so there are parts of the constitution -- the question becomes more pointedly when you realize that as a high school a contest with an essay on the constitution that focuses on the reconstruction amendments and talks about being unable to conquer southern hate. move onto the sort of optimistic unity based theme of i have a dream, presumably he thought it would be more effective. later in his life king seems to have changed his mind again. he seems to have lost faith in the idea that appeals to unity are the most effective way forward. he said that the superficial optimism of the i have a dream speech needed to be reconsidered

and he expressed greater frustration with what i have come to think of as the consequence of the standard story. if you tell yourself american ideals from the beginning are anti-slavery, american ideals from the beginning are antiracist, you can look at the problems of racism and say it is overt racism. it is slavery, segregation, lynching. once we are not doing that anymore racism is over. it was an aberration. it is superficial. you can cut those practices out of american life and you have solved the problem. what king said was you need to realize racism is more deeply embedded than that. it is a deeper part of our nation's identity. that i think is true. the standard story that tells us aberration," encourages a complacency and an

unwillingness to engage with the depth and pervasiveness of racial inequality. hi. i only have about 15 questions. i will get to them quick. for me the punchline of your story is profound, that the union soldiers are what created this country, but i am i -- i am a biologist not a lawyer. laws based on the the constitution and i look at the future i want your opinion of the constitution going forward. right now the constitution looks like a profoundly flawed document and based on the concept of independence, which exists nowhere in the known universe from the current virus that is threatening us to cyber virus to climate change to say -- bioterrorism, our independent

agencies, our independent states and our states rights cannot problems without getting at the root causes. this story i am telling is what part about the laws of nature and nature's god do not you understand -- don't you understand? when i look at every religion that comes from the golden rule and it is abraham lincoln who declaration of independence is our golden apple and constitution is a silver frame around it. in order to make a more perfect union that would give us our maximum security we need to be responsible with our freedoms and we are not. ourstory we have about independence and our insistence on independence in our

constitution, our fourth amendment cannot protect us from terrorism. what the constitution is going forward, what is your view? i think theelt: constitution is flawed. there are several things in the constitution i would change if i could. i think a fixed term for the president is not a good idea. i think it should be easier to remove a president who has lost the confidence of the american people. [applause] i am not a big: fan of equal state suffrage in the senates. that was designed for a different world emma graphically. -- demographically. it is projected within a few decades that 80% of the population will live in 18 states. there will be dramatic

distortion through the senate. not a huge fan of that. particularly the electoral is a bad idea. [applause] conceivably we could get around the electoral college without amending the constitution if states to enough account a majority agreed to award all of their electors to the winner of the popular vote maybe we could get to a national popular vote without amending the constitution. there is an interstate compact where states are pledging to do this. unfortunately people think, and i think they are mistaken, but people think this would have partisan effects. anything that is going to have partisan effects, you probably cannot amend the constitution to achieve because it is so difficult to do.

the party system is the other real problem. the party system interacts with our constitution in an unfortunate way. the framers did not anticipate the party system. they thought that members of one branch of government would necessarily feel loyalty to that branch of government and they would view members of the other branches of government as rivals . members of congress -- a member of congress looks at the president and thinks "there is a rival for the affection of the people." it does not turn out that way when you bring a party system into the equation. if the member of congress into the president are of the same party, the member of congress looks at the president and thanks" there is the captain of "there is theks, captain of my team." instead of checks and balances

based on independent judgments about policy you get either single party compliance and an absence of checks and balances hypertrophieds checks and balances. either way it doesn't work out well. a point i think you are , the idea of individual responsibility and the extent to which we have to be responsible and we should responsible feel for our political system is also i think a very important idea. franklin, leaving the constitutional convention was supposedly asked by some woman what form of government have you given us, mr. franklin and famously he supposedly responded a republic if you can keep it. that is something we all need to bear in mind.

question,n ask you a i do not disagree with a lot of the points you made, especially about the constitution being flawed and so much of who we are now coming out of reconstruction, but the constitution did have the bill of rights, with freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, double jeopardy and all that stuff. it seems that some of our personality, some of the positive things of who we are can be traced back to the constitution. i understand a lot of those freedoms did not come true until the 14th amendment applied them to the states but they were an integral part of who we are after the constitution was passed. prof. roosevelt: well, it is an interesting question. on the one hand, yes, i agree with you. there are these amendments, they

protect important values. it is an interesting fact that one, the bill of rights was understood in the same way as it after it started being applied against the states through the 14th amendment. if you look for early uses of rights,"e "the bill of you do not get anyone calling the first 10 amendments the bill of rights until after reconstruction. if you look at the content of those rights, it is very different. the bill of rights now has all of these really important rights and fundamental effects on the way government conducts itself. it didn't really do that until the rights started being applied against the states. part of that may be has something to do with the way in which the federal government differs from the states. may be the federal judiciary was

less interested in checking the federal government. these rights were just understood differently. the important thing to understand about the bill of rights i think is that in its initial version it is not quite as focused on individual rights as people might think. a lot of it is focused on empowering the states because the founders think the federal government is a threat to liberty and they trust the states. they think the states are going to protect liberty or at least they don't want to interfere with state practices. if you think of the establishment clause, it says congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. nowadays that means there can be no official religion. religion,l federal also no official state religion. establishment clause gets invoked when states put up religious displays in front of

courthouses or try to put 10 commandments in the schools. we think of this as an individual right. you have the right not to have the government telling you what the official religion is. but if you think about this before the 14th amendment at the time of the founding why did they say congress shall make no establishment an of religion? they were trying to do two things. they were trying to prevent the federal government from establishing a national religion into that is one thing the establishment clause clearly does that they were trying to text state establishments. at the time of the founding of bunch of states had official religions and the point of the establishment clause was congress can't disestablish those. the establishment clause is the most vivid example but there are a number of constitutional rights in the bill of rights -- the second amendment is also one

-- that change their meaning when they get refracted through the 14th amendment and they become much more individual rights and much less what they started out as, which is protection for state authority. >> you are certainly very eloquent on the question of both the constitution and the declaration of course involving compromises with slavery as a means of creating a union that involves the states but isn't it true that the soaring rhetoric in the preamble was interpreted by many contemporaries as condemning slavery and being inconsistent with slavery? even many of the southern slaveholders who had benefited from it personally felt it was an evil that would go into extinction, the most aggressive defense of slavery has been -- as being a moral good came later when the cultivation of cotton became so profitable.

prof. roosevelt: how was the declaration of independence understood at the time? very interesting question. the way that it looks to me and i think may be the best source on this is american scripture. she has done more research on this than i have. i depend a fair amount on her research. if you look at how the declaration of independence was received, at the time it is promulgated, most seem to understand all men are created equal into liberty is inalienable. there is some sarcastic commentary among the british about how ironic it is that the slave drivers are yelping about liberty but that is not really a serious engagement with the argument of the acclamation. when the declaration is celebrated, which it is --

argument of the declaration. when the declaration is celebrated, it is not celebrated as -- for its moral principles but for our independence. this changes around 1830, i think when the conflict over slavery is intensifying and abolitionists are looking for rhetorical resources, how can we effectively fight against slavery? it is effective to say it is inconsistent with their fundamental american values that were there since the beginning in the declaration of independence. they say that and i think they believe it. abraham lincoln said this consistently. i think he believed it. i think it is a misinterpretation. i think if you read that declaration in the context in which it was written, what we expect thomas jefferson to write something about how outsiders,

how people who are not a part of the political community should be treated by the government? that they cannot be enslaved? that seems a very strange thing for him to do because it is inconsistent with the practice of every government that had ever existed basically and it has nothing to do with the argument he is trying to make, which is about when legitimate political authority can be rejected. he wason himself said not trying to write anything novel, he was not -- he was plate to produce an euler enlightenment social contract political philosophy -- oiler plate enlightenment social contract political philosophy. he needed to distinguish between social contract theory, locke rather than hobbs and he does that in a precise way.

the part of the declaration that people considered important was not the preamble, not until about 1830. sorry. [applause] >> this is american history tv featuring events interviews archival footage -- films and visits to college classrooms, museums and historic places, exploring our nations pass every weekend on c-span3. tvight on american history the work of the public health service, a film from 1936 that details the history and shows the many activities of the

disease fighting service. here is a preview. ♪ >> scientific studies dealing with the diseases of man were made by the public health service as early as 1886. these studies have expanded until the research of the public health service on the method of spread and means of prevention of diseases among the most important services performed. a research laboratory for the public health service calls they hide -- called the hygienic laboratory was established 1901. congress changed its name to the national institute of health. famous institute in washington dc, most of the investigative work is conducted. studied are a

long list. it is first on the list of the causes of death -- more than 300,000 persons die -- the art electrocardiogram has aided thetly in the -- electrocardiograph has aided greatly in the diagnosis of heart disease. malaria is still an important public health program in 16 states of the union. -- 2 million patients annually. the fight against malaria is the fight against to the malaria mosquito. the prevention of mosquito removing -- eliminating all refuse piles insofar as possible.

in certain regions effective mosquito control has been affected by dusting standing water areas with poison. -- hand dusting machines and by airplanes according to the conditions. method is theive killing of larvae by the oiling water, other prevention measures include draining and keeping mosquitoes out of the home by screening. learn more about the united states public health service tonight on real america at 10:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. you like american history tv keep up with us during the week on facebook, twitter, and youtube. learn about what happened on this day of history and find

upcoming ash clips of upcoming programs. cspanhistory.@ the alliance documenting official state visit of the shot and empress of iran to the u.s.. at that time iran was a key cold war ally. the shah is welcomed by president john f. kennedy, , and visitsngress exercises andry attends a tickertape parade in new york city. ♪ >> door majesty, i speak on behalf of all of my fellow americans -- pres. kennedy: