available every weekend on c-span3. tonight we begin with women's history. the national world war i museum and memorial hosted mona sequel to talk about her book, peace on our terms, the global battle for women's rights after the first world war. the history professor argues that a diverse group of women pushed for more rights and some of these women who were attending the paris peace conference helped push president wood hydrowils wilson to suppore 19th amendment. each week, american history tv's american artifacts visits historic places. next we travel to independence national historical park in philadelphia to visit the assembly room inside independence hall where both the declaration of independence and

u.s. constitution were debated and signed. this program featuring national park service ranger matthew ifel is about one hour. >> we are in a building that was built in the 1730s, so about 48 years before there was any such thing as the united states and at that time, of course, pennsylvania was a british colony. and this was its capitol building. they would make laws for pennsylvania and each of the 13 colonies has its own government. these are the issues in a lot of ways that are going to lead to the creation of the united states, most of which will happen in this room, because the colonies as time goes forward or at least many people of the political class in these colonies will start to grow dissatisfied with the way the british government is treating them, is affecting their lives locally. one of the other side issues is americans living in the colonies do not get to vote in british elections.

when the parliament in london makes laws for americans, the most famous being the various taxes you learned about in school, we're going to say "this is taxation without representation." it is that idea you are not getting the voice. thomas jefferson would write in the declaration of independence that government existing with the consent of the governed and americans feel like they are not getting that consent. especially when it starts disappearing locally as well as connected with the home country in london and britain that they are really going to get this growing dissatisfaction. this room is long in use by pennsylvania. but by 1775 pennsylvania will be inviting the continental congress into their space. the continental congress had met in philadelphia about one year earlier although they chose not to meet in independence hall that year. they met down the street at

carpenters hall. the first set of meetings, what we call the first continental congress, is sort of the first sitdown of these different colonies and it is this idea of expressing to the british government what would be under british constitution and bill of rights at that time this notion of redressing grievances we would have as british subjects and they will write to the king. they'll say, we are loyal british subjects in america, but these things are happening, we have these grievances over loss of rights, loss of connection with the government. the fact they are taking away some of our local government, closing down our local courts, giving us rules to follow that we have no say. they write this letter to the king, within your rights under british law. they agree as a group on an

association that these 13 colonies will work together on these big issues. what is going to happen is they go home after that set of meetings in the fall of 1774. communicating across the ocean in the late 1700s will take a while. they will not come back to philadelphia until the spring of 1775. however, things have changed in those few months. in the area of boston, you will have the battle of lexington and concord in april. when congress is coming back to philadelphia, this is the news. they are finding out about some of the conflict that has begun. 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 will

tackle is this notion of working as a group but the idea of maybe fighting for those rights, taking that militia around boston and making it an american army, the continental army. in june of 1775, one of the first big steps will be taken as far as changing the world is going to be creating this continental army, this american army, 13 separate colonies that had run their lives separately and for years had not necessarily resisted working together, but 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, making it

the american army, and picking george washington to be the commander of that army. that is one of the most important decisions made in this room. if you think about the way this war will go for the young united states, it is 8 1/2 years. george washington will be the only commanding general we have for all of those years. at the end, he will succeed. back in 1775, they're still friging out exactly what they're fighting for. that leads to one last letter to the king. we called this one the olive branch petition. like they had done before, it starts off with the idea that we are loyal british subjects fighting for our rights, following this chain of command in britain to the king that asks that he assist us in redressing these grievances. the other thing they will write is the declaration of the causes and necessities of taking up arms. these things will be written in july. it is putting out there to the world exactly what we are

looking to do, to correct this situation we feel has gone against us and our rights are being threatened or taken away. unfortunately, the british government in london will decide they will not communicate with the continental congress. the king himself will announce there is this rebellion in america, and the british government will essentially issue this letter to americans saying if you will be involved in this rebellion, we will view you as a traitor. at the crime of treason as serious then as it is now that could lead to a death penalty. by early 1776, that news arrived in philadelphia. we're a half a year, plus, into the war and it's getting very clear that negotiating, talking, isn't particularly solving

anything. of course, you do have this 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 payne's book "commonsense" published in philadelphia in january of 1776, selling tens of thousands of copies in the colonies and his simple argument is we do not need those guys in london. we are better off on our own. we could run america better than the british ever could. this idea of independence swells through that spring. by june, virginia introduces a resolution for american independence. they decide to not address it right away in june. they are going to want to consult their home governments, their home colonies or states, because we are getting to that point.

at the same time, they want to put something on paper. while they are each consulting home, they will form this five-man committee, john adams, who is probably one of the most significant guys in congress those early days. he is pushing for the creation of the army, the navy in the fall of 1775. he is pushing in the spring of 1776 that each of the colonies write its own constitution, another step towards independence each colony getting rid of that old charter from the british government, creating a new, independent constitution. he is one of the leaders in this movement. a man named robert livingston of new york who goes back 10 years to meetings held over the stamp taxes. you have a man from connecticut

named roger sherman who ends up signing the declaration of independence, the united states constitution, but the articles. there are two men who can make that claim. he's on our committee. benjamin franklin from here in philadelphia, who is a far and away the most famous american at that time, 70 years old, oldest man in congress. and one of the younger guys in congress, thomas jefferson, 33 years old, that growing reputation for his writing. the committee deciding what they should say decides jefferson should be the writer. he works for 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. it is generally his work. he is building on a lot of other things both he and others have written.

some of the grechbs grievances that they had already been talking about make up the bulk of the declaration. by june 28, the declaration is back here in the assembly room. that is a friday. they will wait to the next monday to start debating. july 1st begins debate on independence. the first thing they will debate is not the declaration but the idea. they will start discussing is this the best thing for us to do? should we become these free and independent states? most men in the room are at that point where they are ready to make this step. we're not going to have loyalists in the continental congress. there are men who are more conservative who say this might not be such a good idea. john dickinson is one of the most important. he was the author of the letters of the pennsylvania farmer,

which is against various taxes. he is one of our best-known political writers of the day. he is pulling back, the idea of how we are going to win a war against the british. this does not seem like the best idea in the world to declare our independence because this cuts off any chance of negotiating with the british. others might look at the idea that we do not have anyone helping us. britain is one of the great powers of the world. america, 3 million people and there are a chunk of them remaining loyal to the crown. there will be battles in this war with americans on the other side. some saying we should slow down but most men are ready to move forward. on july 1st, they will hold a nonbinding committee vote. the vote is on the question of being free and independent states. here is how voting works in the

continental congress, you have 13 states or colonies, depending on your time period. each gets an equal vote. one vote per state. they have different numbers of men at each table. some states allow their delegates to decide amongst themselves. some states will give their delegates specific instructions. so here in the room on july the 1st, 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 formal instructions, so they will not vote at all. delaware is divided. they have two of their delegates in the room, one for, one against. they're divided. pennsylvania and south carolina are going to vote no.

on the rest of the 1st into the 2nd, the politicking is we want to try to make this unanimous. new york they're going to ignore. new york hasn't gotten any instructions. new york, is going, we have to wait until they tell us what to do. delaware has a third delegate. he is at home, so they call for him to get here. so he rides overnight through the storm. if you did the state quarters, you would notice delaware's quarter has a guy riding on a horse. his name is caesar rodney. he is the guy how comes up from delaware and gets here on the 2nd to vote and break the tie in delaware. and make delaware's vote a yes for independence. pennsylvania and south carolina, south carolina has three delegates. we assume it is 2-1. they manage to get one of the guys to switch his vote. south carolina will be on board. pennsylvania is more complicated. they have got one of the bigger delegations.

when that vote goes south for pennsylvania, what they are going to do is convince two of the guys to walk away when they are 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 not vote amongst the pennsylvania delegates. instead of a one-vote loss, it becomes a one-vote win and now pennsylvania is on board. it is 12 to nothing. again, we ignore new york for the moment. on july 2nd, 1776, they will vote more or less unanimously with new york kind of waiting to approve the notion of being free and independent states. 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 2nd, it never gets particularly remembered. the 2nd, the 3rd, and the 4th are the days of debating on the declaration of independence.

in jefferson's draft, the declaration is about four pages long. they will go through every word. they will make a significant number of changes, but they will not change the basic nature of a lot of what jefferson writes. they will add words here or there. the most famous part is that opening paragraph. most of that remains intact. the early listing of grievances, the things we have been talking about for several years, most of that remains intact. probably the most famous section that gets changed is the section about the slave trade, specifically slave insurrections is another part of that. one of the big arguments that virginia makes is that their governor had said in the leading days of the war that slaves

should basically kill their masters and seek their own freedom, which for a slaveholding state, slave insurrection is a frightening thing. it is on the minds of jefferson and other virginians, this idea of slave insurrection. bringing more slaves into america becomes a part of that. we do not want to have more slaves to worry about in these kind of days. he goes after the slave trade, blames the king for importing these folks. that is a bit controversial in this room. you have a fair number of slaveholders and slaveholding states that do not want to talk about this. it does get put aside. it is not an attack on slavery so to speak but slave trade and some of these things they were worried about the british doing that would affect the lives in america. at any rate, as you get into july 4th, they're going through every bit of that declaration of

independence. taking a little bit out, adding words here and there but they get to something that all of the men in this room representing all 13 states can agree. they are ready to vote. it is 12-0 with new york waiting and july 4th becomes for americans our day of independence. it's the day we had something concrete to hold up to the world. this is the day we said, here's what we're fighting for, right here, there's a long list. again, when we look at the declaration of independence, we focus on that top, that opening section, all men are created equal. it justified independence. it justified a war against their own government which essentially what this start out being and it said it's the british fault for this. this is all the things they did

that are really not legal by british constitution, british bill of rights and we're just 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 4th they voted yes and they voted right away to send it out. we want this to go to the states and army. we want people to know what we're fighting for. that's what they needed. if you pull back to the big picture, we're not winning the war. the british army is invading new york that summer, massive invasion. hundreds of ships, tens of thousands of men sweeping down through manhattan, new jersey. the british army is sitting in this very room. they captured philadelphia. washington and his army spend the winter at valley forge. those early days are not good ones for the united states.

we had a declaration of independence we can hold up, announced to the world what we are fighting for. we had a general in washington that would keep going in difficult days. we had an army that managed to sur sur arrive those bad winters and we managed to keep ourselves going long enough that we could make changes. one other thing about our declaration of independence, about this room that people expect is that i will tell you that they signed the declaration of independence right behind me on the fourth of july, sadly, they didn't. it probably -- the simplest explanation, nobody thought about it that day. they wanted the words agreed to, they wanted it voted on and people to read it. they sent it to a printer. the oldest declaration of independence are printed on a printing press and have no names on the bottom.

well, you jump ahead a couple of weeks until the middle of the idea, one of the men will make a proposal that the they will engross the declaration of independence. you make a formal written version and it be signed by the delegates. and i'm sure most of the men in the room said, why don't we think of that sooner? that's a good idea. they're going to have it handwritten and by the beginning of august, it's done, it's checked over. they make sure it's all right. and they'll start signing. about 50 guys signed it on august the 2nd. a few more over the next couple of weeks. one guy for a couple of more years because he wasn't here for a while as a member of congress. that's of course 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 that we just kind of, like everything they're going to do here in this room, it's one that we get to by process rather than by some master plan that we have at the

beginning. they're sort of -- they're making it up as they go along and figuring it out as they go. the other big thing that is going to happen is benjamin franklin is going to go to france. he's going to be the guy that's going to help convince france to come into the war on our side. while the british army is in this room in early 1778, benjamin franklin is signing a peace treaty with france. that's changing the whole nature of the war because the british suddenly find 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. the british have to worry about being invaded. certainly guys like benjamin franklin working with france, work on the king to try to get some 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, 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 york town, we're probably not going to get that victory without the french navy. eventually the war slowly -- it is slowly, turns in our favor. 1783 back in paris, john adams and benjamin franklin sign a peace treaty. it's really back in 1783 that the continental congress can finally breathe that sigh of relief and know that we actually have aachieved this american independence. which it would be nice if that was the end of our story. of course, there's more to do. go back to 1776, each colony, each state writing 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 really a chief executive for pennsylvania anymore. they're going to have a fairly democratically run one-house legislature as opposed to 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 bit too radical to work in our 1776 pennsylvania constitution is only going to last about 14 years. they'll redo and go to the traditional governor, two houses setup. each of these states is going to 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 and so we do still have some of the vestiges there. 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 the united states, would sit and go, that could really be bad for us. you have states that start fighting with each other over who owns what land. they don't 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. the articles of confederation sort of sets the rules for the continental congress. that's an idea that comes into this room with benjamin franklin at the beginning of the war. it's an idea he dusted off from the 1750s, during the french and

ind indian war. well, he kind of 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 states to write the articles of confederation, the main writer would be another pennsylvanian, john dickinson. he would be famous for trying to slow us down for independence. but at the same time 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 wouldn't have to pay taxes and tariffs as you went from state to state. well, the first problem with the

articles of confederation, 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 the 9th, they're ready to sign the articles of confederation. the way the signing of that one works is a little bit of 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 delegates will sign it. so they're waiting for the states to make their decisions. so it's about half or so of them are going to sign it on that first day. 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 the 9th, 1778, it won't finish

until march the 1st to 1781. for most of that time it's maryland saying no. technically this can't go into effect until all 13 states have agreed and signed. maryland is feuding with mainly virginia, their neighbors, over land to the west. when the revolutionary war comes to an end, we go from our own colonial boundaries which would be about the appalachian mountains, now all of a sudden we end at the mississippi river. that's a lot of new land. you think of the states between the east coast and the mississippi river. all of the old states, the old colonies are looking at all of that land going, boy, that would be great as part of my state. they're arguing over who gets to use the potomac river and things like that. maryland is going, i don't want to sign this thing until everything is settled. there's a bill at one point

trying to pass through this room to raise money on essentially imports, take money from imports, a tax/tariff, and you put that to paying the soldiers. it seems logical. why would you not want to raise money to pay the army fighting for independence? well, 12 of the states agreed. that seems like a good idea. one, which happened to be rhode island, the smallest of the states said, no. and the vote failed. so the states individually have a lot more power and sometimes one can defeat 12. a lot of people start thinking, this isn't working so well, including members of the congress. to 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 isn't working between the states. maybe we need the strength of

the army. now, george washington, of course, is very much a believer in this idea of civilian control. that's one of the great principles that we've embraced in american history from our beginning points and i think george washington is a big part of that. one of what a lot of people would look at one of his greatest moments is at the end of the war, up in newburgh, new york, he's going to call a meeting together of all of his officers, maybe the army trying to change government a little bit. and he's against it. he calls a meeting. he puts some of the guys who 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 to talk amongst themselves but he shows up and he shows up and -- 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's going to do it. he starts making a speech and he wants to read this letter. he pulls out a pair of glasses

and puts them on and says to the men in the room, i've not only grown gray of the service to my country but half blind as well. he's talking about what they've fought for together for eight years and it not be ruined by rash actions in the end and the whole thing sort of -- what we call the newburgh conspiracy goes away. even though the problems hadn't been solved, the idea of military intervention in our civilian government fortunately fades out of view. but still washington does believe that something stronger is needed. but he is one of those guys who is going to go through the proper channels. george washington is a virginian. his state is fighting 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 about a year or so after, he has this what we call the mt.

vernon conference and they'll sign an agreement together 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. and, again, the big result is, it's going to lead to a bigger meeting. they're going to go and now our friend john dickinson is going to go to the continental congress with a letter saying, a lot look, we want to talk about the future and we want everybody to come. so they're going to sit down starting in may of 1787, what we 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 upsetting it up, they're going to pretend there's only 12 of them. not only that, when they vote, they're going to go to the people in each state, let the people vote on a special convention and then the special conventions will approval or not approve the constitution for each state and you need nine states to put this new constitution into effect. so these are guys who are trying to engineer something because they know something needs to be done to hold these states together. they know as separate entities, you know, you go back to benjamin franklin's design, the snake cut in pieces that benjamin franklin put together into the french and indian war when he's calling for this union, join and die. a snake cut into pieces is going to die but a snake put together and that's the idea that some are embracing in that summer. but the question 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 then they start saying, we want this national government. and then they start saying, well, then what? well, virginia had come very organized. james madison is going to get credit for putting together a lot of the virginia plan that is submitted by edmund randolph who is our first attorney general, another nomination is chosen by 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, and 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 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 had 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 of 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 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, one of the biggest things is this notion of voting based on american people.

sort of seeing the states as artificial, everybody in all of the states is american, whenever we do things, we should just be americans. why be virginians or somebody from massachusetts or delaware, anywhere else. let's be americans. well, naturally the other side of that coin, as some of the states would look, is that virginia happens to have more people than any other state. so voting by people is definitely good for virginia. so a small state like delaware pretty much embraces one idea and that is the idea that every state be equal, the way it's always been. every state get an equal vote. delaware is digging their heels in and they're going to 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 and on. now, virginia's idea of congress is that we have these two

houses. upper house, lower house, what becomes our house of representatives, senate. it's based on population but as you start debating it, you have others say, no, let's base it on states. 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. it would give us this question of how about a senate wherever state is equal, the 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 will go. but not everybody loves that. so you're not sure if everybody is going to go for that. that's pretty much how they slot in for congress. the president, there's another one. there's multiple ideas of president, of executive. the virginia plan is 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. the -- another plan, edmund randolph of virginia says how about having three presidents at once, he's talking about three regional presidents. and alexander hamilton wants a strong executive. he says, how about president for a lifetime. needless to say, having gotten rid of king a few years ago was not popular to these men. they settled on the president for four years at a time. but then they have that level of electoral college. and we get a lot of questions about that. why would they do that electoral college. there's probably several reasons is, one of them is simple distance. the idea of having states that are days and days and weeks apart of each other 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 a lot of sense mechanically. then also you have this idea that with the electoral college, you're making sure the smaller states have a certain amount of say. 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 some 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 with a slave trade, importing slaves from africa. but that's about all the mention you get.

of course, anyone that is antislavery, which there are guys in this room decidedly so, is not very happy that we put this off for 20 years. and of course southern states would look at, in 20 years, this is going to come up again. we're not happy about that because we didn't put it away forever. again, you have a lot of people who are 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 in 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 that 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 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 one the three words "we the people" at the very beginning of the constitution. that's the beginning of that committee report is "we the people." he does start out with "we the people." as they go through then this committee of detail report, they get to a point where they've purchased worked out how they want it to be. they inform another five-man committee. we call this the committee of style. here's where some of your heavy hitters in early history are going to be, alexander hamilton, james madison on this committee. but the guy who is going to take up the pen is do most of the writing for them is a pennsylvanian known as governor

morris. and 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 go up and slap george washington on the back and say, how are you doing, kind of thing. and washington is a formal guy who doesn't like to shake hands. he prefers to bow. he can be a bit on the aloof side. hamilton is like, you're never going to do that. in fact, i'll bet you dinner that you're not going to do it. morris does it and washington gives him one of his glaring looks and shrinks him down. i'm sure hamilton is standing in a corner laughing like mad. morris is going to write that "we the people of the united states in order to form a more perfect union," that famous

preamble that we know. by september 15th, 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 really need one. the whole thing is a bill of rights. the government is only going to have the power we give it. why do we need it? others would say, that's well and good, but we would 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, there's this i don't like, there's that i don't like, i don't like this senate because it gives too much power to little states, the president is too strong. he's not strong enough. we didn't deal with slavery. there's no bill of rights. in the end, you come in the last day, it's not at all certain everybody is going to agree. these guys are signing it to send it out for their states to vote on it. 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 this new constitution to the people, to that "we the people" so they will then put it into effect. you're going to have benjamin franklin come in the last day of meetings. is 81 that summer. there are days that 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 out by saying there are things in this constitution i do not approve, but then he says i'm old enough to know i'm not perfect. my ideas aren't perfect. nobody in this room is perfect and we should all basically put aside our doubts and sign our names on this thing, he doubts ouren infallibility and it's wor another one of those typical franklin phrases. anyway, 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 that. in fact, i am not sure that this is not the best, and to be one of the most famous triple negatives in american history, i'm sure some of the guys in the room that were half listening or scratching their heads say what did he say? at the end it's kind of hard to argue with franklin. 42 men were there that day and 41 men were in the room that day. 31 men will sign 31 names and there's 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 is the wrong time and we're rushing too much and 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 reed, look,

i want you to sign it. so 31 men would sign the constitution. 31 issues. you have l. bridge jerry of massachusetts who made a speech that last day who said there was an excess of democracy who 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 once 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 trance does, and went off to napoleon. so democracy was always tempered 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 people and we divide our powers and there's no one place that has too much strength coming so jerry sees potential in the future. he won't sign it and edward randolph won't sign it and he likes to hedge his bets and he ends up supporting it when virginia is voting on it, but he wouldn't sign it in his room because he's afraid that guys at home like patrick henry will go against him because he knows that patrick henry is one of those guys that doesn't think this is a great idea. and the other one, george mason's kind of looking at that idea of a bill of rights and he kind of wants to see that so he's not crazy about parts of it and a lot of the guys in the united states like massachusetts or virginia don't like that senate. so there are all kinds of issues and most of these men put aside

their names and september 17, 1787, at that point franklin looks in a chair and look behind washington's head at this carving of the half sun in the back of the chair and all summer i've been trying to decide whether the half sun is supposed to be rising or setting and i can't make up my mind. he says now at length, i have the happiness to know that is a rising and not a setting sun. he felt good and he'd been working for this since the 1750s, this kind of unity of the american states and he finally sees it happening. one of the great stories that comes after ward is he is supposedly asked what kind of a government they've created here in philadelphia. he said it's a republic if you can keep it, his last warning to the rest of us, but think about the united states. one of the things i like to finish with that this idea that we're still using that same

constitution and we're still using that same government, but it's also allowed us, maybe not quickly and it's definitely allowed us to improve because ultimately slavery doesn't end just by the civil war and it's the constitution, the 13th amendment and the 15 thd amendment will give equality and voting by color and the 19th amendment would give equality in voting by gender. so through the years, maybe slowly, we have faced every wish that came up and our constitution has allowed us to continue to solve things and move forward. i think to franklin and his rising sun and that's exactly what we've seen through the years and so the humble room is really everything that the united states has been and will be is going to grow from the events that happen over about a ten or 11-year period in this room and 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 state hall is the city hall, and it was until 1889 and pennsylvania moves the government west to ultimately the center of the stays to harrisburg. well, at that point the building -- they're using space in the building and renting it out and it's not the capitol building anymore, but the city of philadelphia had started building buildings here on the block and by 18 -- the early 1800s essentially the city's going to 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 at 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 and

probably this room was independence hall before the whole building became independence hall and one of the famous early incidences, the marquee de la fayette after the revolutionary war and you're talking the 1820s. we have a very few of the founding fathers from the soldiers that are left and every town that lafayette visits you gather everybody like thomas jefferson and 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 that we're really kind of looking at embracing our history and that's the same time period when people started to be able to purchase their copies of the declaration of independence where they're celebrating the words and the actual document. so fortunately, this move kind

of becomes a historic place before getting to the point where totally getting rid of the building and tearing it down to build something new so we're 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 and one of the fascinating stories of this room when the liberty bell spent almost 100 years in the bell tower cracked and they put it on display in this room. where else would we put it? let's stick it in the room where the united states began and one of my favorite days that's not one of those days of the revolutionary war actually comes 1550 years ago this year in april after abraham lincoln was assassinated, his body lay in state in this room, but there is a back story. he came to philadelphia in washington's birthday, 1861 on his way to be inaugurated and washington's birthday and 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 to lincoln and in this space you had lincoln laying next to the liberty bell in the space where the united states was born and the ghosts of the founding fathers was present at one time and that's the kind of thing that makes the 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 the walls and made them fancier. you know, it's a room and it had things like, and our thing was

let's get it back to the way it looked to the plainer walls you have today. fortunate le, the main structure survived the years and we were able to get it pack to pretty close coto how it looked. it's not necessarily the original furniture. nothing was saved. the british army captures philadelphia and no one is thinking about history until we have some and they kept using it for different things so we don't necessarily have 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. weeknights this month we're

featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight we begin with women's history. the national world war 1 museum hosted mona siegel to talk about peace on our terms. the global battle for women's rights after the first world war. a diverse group of women from around the world pushed for more rights in the wake of world war i and that some of these women who were attending the 1919 to 1920 peace conference helped push woodrow wilson to support the 19th amendment. watch beginning at 8:00 eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span3. kermit rose relosevelt, a constitutional law professor and great-great grandson of theeder roosevelt talks the declaration of