as a podcast. find it where you listen to podcasts. announcer: up next on american history tv, jeffrey rosen talks about james madison and democratic ideals. mr. rosen's president and ceo of the national constitution center. he argues in part that social media platforms work against the core values.er's the james madison memorial fellowship foundation and national constitution center cohost the event. it is about one hour, 45 minutes. >> we welcome you to the james madison lecture which our foundation sponsors every year. seated today are 49 james madison fellows at georgetown university studying the foundations of american constitutionalism. they are all high school or middle school teachers of american history, american

government, or civics. we have several alums that have come. we have james madison fellows that are teaching those subjects across the nation. introducew like to our guest speaker. our guest speaker today is jeffrey rosen, president and ceo of the national constitution center. he is also a professor of law at the george washington university law school and contributing editor at the atlantic. is a graduate of oxford university and they gale law school. , "america profit," was published on the anniversary of the brandeis confirmation. the best-selling companion book

to the award-winning pbs series. the naked crowd: freedom and security in the anxious age and the unwanted gaze: the distraction of privacy in america, which the new york times has called the definitive text on the privacy parallels in the digital age. professor rosen is co-editor freedom inin witt of technological change. the proceedings from the brookings project. his essays and commentaries have appeared in the atlantic, new york times, on national public radio, in the new republic where he is the first editor, and the new yorker where he has been a staff writer. the chicago tribune named him one of the 10 best magazine journalists in america and the los angeles times has called him

the nation's most widely read and influential legal commentator. let's welcome professor jeffrey rosen. prof. rosen: thank you so much. to addressan honor you today. teaching civics is the most urgently important task in american democracy. james madison said a popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is a prelude to tragedy or farce, and your efforts to educate young americans about the essence of american government and its fundamental principles will determine the future of the republic. polls show that young people are

more likely to support authoritarian alternatives to democracy than the older generations, and yet those in thed in civics and funnel principles of constitutionalism are more likely to support institutions like an independent judiciary, to resist overturning judicial decisions by popular vote, and to support the essence of constitutionalism. and that is why your task is so urgently important and i am grateful for it and honor you for it. my task today is also important. you have asked me to address a fundamental question -- what would james madison think of american democracy today? and how can we resurrect madisonian principles of reason rather than passion at a time when they seem under siege? a quotationgin with from federalist 55, which sums

up the essence of our common task this morning. "in all large assemblies of any number composed, passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason, even if every athenian had been socrates. -- reason. even if every offending and had been socrates, athens would still have been a mob." heads nodding. the founders were concerned about moms animated by passion rather than reason. they had in mind the cautionary tale of chaise rebellion -- of chaise rebellion -- shay's rebellion, and this fear that mobs, led by silver tongued demagogues could end up

threatening fundamental principles of property and concernwere the central of the constitution makers. therefore, they established the entire system to ensure the triumph of slow reason over time. i have been so influenced by gregory weiner's wonderful book "madison's metronome," and thatr shows in this book the founders, first of all, resisted direct democracy in favor of a representative republic. they feared that the direct expression of popular will could the to demagogues and mobs, 18th century equivalent of today's twitter polls and brexit wantedand therefore they thoughtful representatives of the people to channel and filter popular passions so that reason could prevail.

on the they were keen benefits of an extended republic. we know from classical theory that the classical sources believed democracy was not possible in large republics because face-to-face deliberation would create assemblies to large and would degenerate into -- assemblies too large and would degenerate into chaos. devising -- byt devising the representative system, believed they had made it possible for larger territories to rule themselves. madison believed the large size of the american republic meant that factions could not easily organize. the definition of action and federalist 10 -- in federalist 10 -- any group animated my passion rather than reason --

animated by passion rather than reason and by self-interest rather than the public good. the thought was that in a larger public, it would be hard for these groups to organize, discover each other, achieve their common purposes, and by the time they found each other, passion would dissipate. throughout the federalist papers, we see this notion of hasty and impetuous passion that, over time, can cool, and the large size of the republic was supposed to guarantee that cool reason rather than hot passion could prevail. it is important that the framers were not socratic. they were not in favor of oligarchy. they accepted, especially john adams did, the classic aristotelian trilogy channel by montesquieu that there were three forms of republic, aristocracy, monarchy, and democracy, all of which could degenerate into an oligarchy,

tierney, or gimmick dogs -- tyranny, or demagogues and the mob. the whole system is created to slow down deliberation. that is the big idea. back,s, when we step as we must do this morning, and reflect on modern america, we see how many of the cooling mechanisms that the framers put into place have been undermined by changes in institutional structure, politics, and technology. and i want to review with you those changes and then think about ways that we might resurrect the framers cooling mechanisms in an age of 24/7 news and social media and the very kind of hasty, impetuous decision-making that the framers feared. let's first think together about

the cooling mechanisms themselves and then examine the ways they have been undermined. and because this mic is going in and out, i will stand here for a bit and see if this one works better. ok. i will go in and out, but my passion will be cooled by the mic. it will then dissipate over time. what are the cooling mechanisms place?mers put in they are concerned with the design of congress. madison thinks congress will be an impetuous vortex that constantly demands more power for itself. they believe legislative tierney will be the main source of tyranny. belegislative tyranny will the main source of tyranny. checksion of powers and and balances. it is crucially important that

no one branch gets to speak for we the people, and here -- let's just channel not madison but james wilson, that underappreciated genius from pennsylvania, who wrote the first draft of the constitution at the national constitution center in philadelphia. bring your students. it is exciting to see the first words wilson put on paper in july of 1787. resolved words were that the government of the united states shall consist of a legislative, executive, and judicial branch. but it waspeople," the separation of powers and the idea that no one branch can speak for the people but the idea that our power has to be dissipated among them to prevent tyranny and slow down. draft, whichlson was produced a little bit later

in july, contains the words "we the people of the states of new hampshire, rhode island and providence plantations, massachusetts," and so forth. it was wilson who came up with the idea that we, the people are sovereign, not the king in parliament as in britain or the king himself and not the individual states. so that central notion of popular sovereignty was wilson's contribution. that signals, by the next strap to the preamble, later in august, which says we the people of the united states. that was the change made. some said it was the committee of style trying to ensure the fact that since they did not know who would ratify the final draft, would avoid that insist thatt others the choice was deliberate and we

the people of the united states was meant to signal the indivisible sovereignty of we the people as a whole. so that's the first central idea, that we the people govern thoughtful --, and through, considered -- and through considered, thoughtful majority well, we can rule. -- will, we can rule. order issued by the -- and that's why judicial review is justified. federalist 78 captures the whole thing of judicial review. when there is a conflict between the well of the people represented by the constitution and the will of our representatives embodied in laws, justices should prefer the master to the servant, the principal to the agent.

-- principle to the agent. that is the whole rebuke. it is the constitution, not any of the whole branches that embody the will of we the people. that is the structural -- the first big structural rentable. then we dig into each branch and see how carefully the founders divided power and gave it functions. there's the separation between the senate and house in congress. metaphorn's favorite of the senatorial saucer cooling the passions of the house. just do a word search and it is striking how many times the idea of reason and passion occurs and how centrally all of the structures were set up to assure the triumph of reason. concernre was a lot of about the size of the house. so another amazing document we have in the national

constitution center in philadelphia -- c-span friends, if you have not got the message yet, come to philadelphia -- there were 12 surviving copies of the bill of rights. george washington sent out 13 copies to the states and went to the federal government. 12 survive. one is at the national constitution center in philadelphia. the first amendment proposed by congress is not the one involving freedom of speech. shalls "resolved, there be one representative in congress for every 3000 inhabitants." if that a mimic had passed, there would be 6000 representatives in congress today, about the size of the athenian assembly that the founders believed had generated -- degenerated into demagogues and also the size of the chinese national congress today. the reason they were so concerned about the size of apportionment was because they wanted enough representatives to be responsive

to their constituents, but not so many that the size of the assembly would become unwieldy and degenerate into demagogues. cautionary tale is cleon in athens, who is supposed to be the demagogue who seduced the assembly into invading sparta, causing the peloponnesian war. supplement -- subsequent scholarship has suggested that aristotle and plato and other on,vented clea and that athenian democracy was more effective and may not have fallen because of the war but because of the plague and the war itself was supported by the 500 member senate and by pericles and, in short, it may

not do it justice, athens, to reduce it to demagogues, but this was the framers vision as it was the vision of florentine democracy as well as those in britain and france. so the original first amendment says one representative for every 30,000 inhabitants. it fails as of the original second amendment, which says congress cannot raise its salary. our first amendment was the framers third. it came first not because it was considered most important but because it was the first that happened to pass. it does not mean the framers were not centrally concerned. they believe our rights of speech are natural rights that come from god or nature and not from government. and in this state of nature, we are born with natural rights. remember, the right of complete

freedom of conscience is a preeminent and natural right because of the new hampshire -- because, the new hampshire constitution says in its preamble, men cannot be coerced. this enlightenment faith in reason, again. beliefs orienate my surrender them to government when i move from a state of nature to society. that is why the rights of conscience are unalienable. the other quintessential, anita rightright -- unalienable is the right to abolish government. that is why the second sentence of the declaration contains the entire theory of american government. we have to teach this to our students too. "we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. they are endowed by their creator with certain nail

people rights -- certain unalienable rights, and when the government becomes destructive of these, it is the right of the people to alter and abolish it." in other words, revolution is and unalienable right. -- an nail people right. that right is enabled in the imminent process of article five, which you can see from the wilson drafts was not actually specified until the very last days of the convention when they filled in the details about how many states were necessary for ratification. but of course, the right of revolution was central also to the convention because the constitution was illegal according to the pre-existing conditions of the articles of confederation. those articles require unanimity for amendment. the framers decided nine out of 13 was necessary. that broke the rules, but was justified because the right of revolution or amendment is an

nail people right and therefore a thoughtful, considered judgment of a majority of the people of the united states must always be allowed to be enacted into law. that's why some scholars, again, this is my law school teacher, have claimed that when majorities express our will in a thoughtful, deliberate way, which prevails over time, then amendments outside of article five might be permissible and we the people might amend the constitution in ways that are technically illegal under existing rules, as happened during the convention and the civil war. the post-civil war commitments to the constitution were illegal, ratified at gunpoint. the convention -- conditions for the rebel states to be readmitted. that was justified under the unalienable right of the people to alter and abolish government. we talked about some of the

cooling mechanisms of congress. let's turn to the presidency. the obvious cooling mechanism the framers put in place was the electoral college, which was supposed to be a group of solo ns, wise men who would look with cool reason over the scope of available candidates and choose the highest character and intellect, most governed by reason rather than fashion -- passion. we know that view of the electoral college proved illusory as early as 1800. essentially, the electoral college never served that kind of aristocratic -- i mean, intellectually aristocratic function, and with the rise of political parties in 1800, soon became a rubber stamp for the choice of the parties themselves, a transformation that was reflected in the 12th

amendment to the constitution, which assumes the existence of parties. the growth of political parties explosionsthe major of passion that the framers could not and did not anticipate. hamilton and madison thought of parties as a form of faction, thathey imagined, instead, representatives of the people and representatives in the electoral college what deliberate free of partisan passion. as it happens, the parties developed in a way that proved for some ofntive the cooling mechanisms as planned. manystorians have shown, of the greatest constitutional transformations in american history have come through mobilized clinical parties because the parties formed themselves on constitutional terms. the republican and democratic parties, formed by madison and jefferson, was organized by the

principle of popular sovereignty andstates rights limitations on federal power. the federalist party was originally the defender of aristocratic privilege and the national power to regulate the economy and therefore the clash between hamilton and madison and jefferson has defined american constitutional history. in 1856, when the republican platform was drawn by alphonso taft, the father of william howard taft, and others in philadelphia, it was based on the principle of an indivisible union, channeling james wilson and in opposition to the candidate -- the kansas nebraska act. so these parties were, for most of american history, ways of aggregating people from different regions, eastern manufacturers and western farmers in the case of the republicans and southerners and

small business people and agrarian interests in the case of the democrats, rather than being mobilized around personalities or around ideologies. and that's why the parties, for much of american history, were able to choose moderate -- rather than degenerating into factions. that vision of a president chosen by impartial party organized around constitutional principles and above all not tricky responsive to people was challenged in the election of 1912. so my new hero is william howard taft. i have just written a short biography of him, arguing that he is our most judicial president and presidential chief justice. taft be earned to be chief.

he took the presidency with the greatest reluctance and thought and the election of 1912 -- was in the election of 1912 on the principle of opposing populist demagoguery. woodrow wilson argued that the -- thattion could the president could do anything but constitution did not explicitly forbid. taft argued that the president could not do anything the constitution did not explicitly allow, the last madisonian president. he became our gilly one of our greatest chiefs since -- became arguably one of our greatest chiefs since john marshall. he ran to defend the constitution against roosevelt's populist incursions. roosevelt endorsed progressive mess and it comes --

progressive mechanisms like the referendum and the judicial recall of unpopular decisions. roosevelt attacked individual judges by name and demanded that the people overturned their decisions. in the constitution center, in our majestic temple to the constitution, there's a quotation in the lobby saying the people themselves are the makers of the constitution. it is an inspiring quote until you read the next sentence -- and when you disagree -- and when they disagree with judicial systems, they can vote to overturn them. i encourage you to send the alternatives to the excursions of this excess of populism so we can replace it with a quotation from madison or other framers expressing devotion to reason rather than passion. so taft runs for president because he rejects wilson's and

roosevelt's notion of the president as a direct steward of the people. it is important for us to teach our students that the framers did not conceive of the president as a direct expression of the people's passion. the national constitution center is nonpartisan. in every way. we are required by our charter to increase awareness and understanding of the constitution on a nonpartisan basis. i can say with complete nonpartisan confidence that the haveof tweeting would appalled the framers. it is exactly right. it says so in federalist 10. yes it is. i am sure he would stop our president from tweeting because it was what the framers did not want. the federalist says -- taking notes is fun. madison would approve. >> i will tweet it to the president. >> you can tweet to him, but he is not supposed to listen to

you. madison is considering should the people be able to issue direct instructions to the representatives and president and he says no, because you want to set up barriers and cooling mechanisms. our first tweeting president was president obama. the framers and madison did not think that that kind of direct instruction by the people to the representative or direct communication by the president and other representatives to the people was a good idea because they want slow reason to prevail. so when roosevelt and wilson are insisting that the president can channel popular passion, taft was appalled and he runs for president to defend the constitution. he loses, one of the greatest defeats in political history, but he goes on with great distinction to serve as chief justice. there is another important change in 1912 that transforms congress, and i am getting this from william conley's wonderful

book on madison. it was in 1912 that wilson insists that the congressional committee system, which requires the parties to slowly consider bills, before the regular order was challenged, and wilson, insisting that the president is a direct tribune of the people's will, also says that the president in congress, like the king and parliament, should be able to do whatever he likes over the objections of the minority and without compromising with the minority. and he sees the president in congress as a kind of parliamentary figure and his two books on congress and the constitution endorse this sort of parliamentary vision. george will, the great constitutionalist, came to the constitution center recently to talk about madison and said that all of american history can be seen as a conflict between two prince tony ends -- winston --

princetonians, james madison and woodrow wilson, and calls the election of 1912 that leads us down a path to 1994 and the gingrich revolution, who insists that the ruling party in congress should be able to wreak ill, precisely the opposite of the slow to slowation and -- deliberation and compromise the framers thought essential. we have thought about congress -- talked about congress. i am trying to distill the essential lessons we have to teach our students and all americans. just to review, congress is supposed to separate powers and have checks and balances in order to ensure slow reason. the president is not supposed to communicate directly with the people and is supposed to be chosen by a wise electoral college so that he or she can exercise independent judgment.

now we come to the judiciary, the least dangerous branch, as hamilton called it. and the most dangerous branch as alexander bickel called it, because the judiciary could be transformed beyond the framers view. madison saw the bill of rights as an inspiration to the people that would promote self-restraint and reason. he initially opposed the bill of rights on two grounds, unnecessary and dangerous. unnecessary because the constitution itself is a bill of the congressanting -- and dangerous because madison assumed that our rights or natural and it from god or nature and not government that they were so capacious they could not be reduced to a single, limited list and future citizens might wrongly assume that if a right is not written down, it is not protected.

opposition from heroic , madison changed his mind and came to endorse the bill of rights. when he wrote the bill of rights, he did not make up the rights out of thin air but cut and pasted them from the state constitutions and bills of rights in the revolutionary. -- revolutionary period. i want all of you to bring to your students and download and learn from this incredible tool. you can click on any one of the of the and see its -- amendments and see its antecedents in the revolutionary period. the bill of rights of pennsylvania, the people have a right to bear arms for the purpose of the --

defending themselves or killing game. -- talk about the right of the people to organize themselves and militias to defend liberty. it is a wonderful nonpartisan way of seeing the textual evolution of the bill of rights and you can see the rates evolve in real time. the other thing you can do on the interactive constitution is to have the top liberal and conservative scholars in america nominated by the federalist society and the american constitution society exploring areas of agreement and disagreement. so once again, click on the controversial second amendment and find leading liberal and on whattive scholars the second amendment means. it is like a unanimous supreme court majority opinion. every word in that statement is

agreed to by all five. then you can click and see areas of disagreement. being involved with the -- thistion is the most incredible free tool has gotten 17 million hits since it launched. i am thrilled, and just -- just last week, in colorado, the head of a board announced all ap students will be required to take a course at the constitute -- that the constitution center on the border creating constitution and we hope to bring the entire interactive constitution not only into ap classes but all classrooms across america. i have given this plug. i hope you will forgive it. it is in the madisonian spirit of promoting cool reason over time. we cannot have informed opinions about the bill of rights or about the supreme court opinions without listening to the argument on both sides and

recognizing there are good arguments on all sides of most contested constitutional questions. the constitution is made for people with from point of view, and we need to teach ourselves and students to read the majority, read the dissent, consider thoughtfully and slowly with an open mind, separate our constitutional and political views, asking what the government should do but what the constitution allows the government to do, and then to be open to the possibility of changing our minds. the is the civic exercise, constitutional exercise, we are trying to promote, and it is the essence of madisonian deliberation. and this brings us back to the judiciary. this is what madison hoped the citizens would do. he said the reason to adopt a bill of rights is that it will convince citizens to think twice before violating rights. they will not infringe speech or vote to oppressed minorities freethey are reminded that speech and freedom of congress

-- conscience are fundamental principles. it was only later, principally after the passage of the 14th amendment, that the judiciary, rather than congress or public opinion, became the main enforcer of rights. only twos struck down federal laws between marbury v madison and dred scott, and the notion of a martyr judiciary vigorously -- of a modern judiciary vigorously enforcing rights is essentially a 20th century construct that has to do with the incorporation of the bill of rights against the states. july 9 is the 150th in adversary of the 14th amendment, one of the most significant anniversaries imaginable, and how heartening it is that the original understanding of that unsung hero of the 14th amendment, hugo black, the james mimic, of the 14th of john bingham -- 14th amendment,

john bingham. bingham hoped the 14th amend and would incorporate the bill of rights against the states and required the states to respect the fundamental privileges or immunities of citizenship, which included most of the guarantees of the bill of rights. 's hope was thwarted by the supreme court in the infamous cases soon after the 15th amend was passed -- 15th amend was passed, and it took until the 1920's to the 1960's to vindicate bingham's hope. and i would like to have a vigorous debate with you and with our fellow citizens about whether the courts today are performing a function of cooling and checking that madison did not anticipate because he did not mostly expected judicial enforcement of rights, but that may substitute for some of the atrophying of the other cooling

mechanisms madison put in place. the idea of judicial engagement, having judges strike down laws, may or may not be more justified now that the other branches, ordinarily congress, have stopped playing his checking -- it's checking role, and passions need to be checked. media -- the fourth branch. the shaper of public opinion. it is fascinating that madison in his notes for the national gazette in 1791 is centrally concerned about new media press,ogy, namely the that he believed would slowly dissipate reason across the land. he is moved by the fact that the federalist papers themselves are distributed in the newspapers. we have in the constitution center the earliest copies of

the federalist papers in the new york newspapers, published soon after the numbers were written. madison thinks that a class of elite journalists, who he calls the literati, will slowly disseminate reason over the extended republic through these broadside newspapers. ryam seeing some w chuckles. the hope is that the newspapers are not be treating. -- beach reading. the idea is that citizens would buy newspapers like the national gazette, which are partisan newspapers, but publish thoughtful essays, and they would slowly be informed by the literati, leading citizens and journalists, and suppress their passions and would allow cool reason. madison thought that this technology would extend over the

republic and make it impossible for factions to organize quickly, but also counteract -- by allowing information and reason to disseminate. it was necessary for citizens to educate themselves about complicated factual arguments and about the principles of government in order to make informed decisions. so the media is central to madison's conception and his defense of free speech in the virginia resolutions, opposing adams's infamous sedition act, which remains one of the greatest expressions of faith in free speech in american history. both madison and jefferson, in opposing the sedition acts, which allowed the president to put his critics in jail but not to jail critics of the republic

lan vice president. -- republican vice president. jefferson and madison said that because our rights of free speech are natural rights and criticism of public men is central to the triumph of reason in a democracy, the only kind of act that could justify the suppression of speech is the threat of violence. justice brandeis channels madison and jefferson in the greatest free speech decision of all time, where he talks about the importance of citizens cultivating their faculties of reason. this theme emerges in whitney, and brandeis says those who believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties, and in government, the deliberative forces ship reburial over the --

forces should prevail over the arbitrary. they believed liberty should be the -- they believed liberty is the secret of happiness, a translation of pericles's funeral oration. they believe that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth, that without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile. affordsm, discussion adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrines. the greatest threat to freedom is an inert people. it should be a fundamental principle of the american government. and those words are contained all of the things we are talking about, the faith and reason, the opportunity and duty of citizens to cultivate reason rather than passion, channeling jefferson's belief we all have certain

faculties, ranging from passion at the bottom to reason at the top, and reason has to be cultivated through education, and the belief that as long as there is enough time to deliberate, the best response to people speech is good speech, and speech can only be suppressed if it is likely to cause imminent violence, because then there is no time to deliberate. go kill -- that could be suppressed. it should be. but short of that, tweeting gets boring. in europe, if you tweeted that i could sue you, under the right to be forgotten on the internet. would have toge decide if i am a public figure and if your tree is in the public interest. -- tweet is in the public interest. if google refuses to remove it,

they would be liable of up to 2% -- for up to 2% of their annual income. that could never happen in america because of the madisonian and jeffersonian faith that offenses to dignity are not sufficient to suppress speech because of an overwhelming thief in the power -- overwhelming faith in the power of reasoned deliberation. as long as there is enough time to deliberate, speech should prevail. the element of time. is there time enough to deliberate now in this frantic world of tweets and referenda, brexit votes and twitter poles and instagram, when people are making decisions with snap judgments and impetuous passions the framers feared? as facebook and twitter consistent with madisonian -- is

facebook and twitter consistent with madisonian democracy? this is an urgent question we must discuss. it is clear that the speed with which information is disseminating and the ease with which factions can mobilize online are direct threats to the madisonian faith. madison thinks, do not worry about factions mobilizing quickly. they will never be able to fund each other. we are chuckling now. in a minute, on a chat room or post -- anagram instagram post, factions can quickly coalesce into mobs and punish any ideological nce, forcing our representatives to take positions like armies and polarized camps. -- in polarized camps. we are living in an america defined by polarization.

some have called it the big sort, or haverford to filter bubbles and echo chambers. -- have referred to filter bubbles and echo chambers. we are more polarized than any time since the civil war. that is how extreme the divisions are. in 1960, the most liberal republican and the most conservative democrats overlapped by 50% in congress. there is no overlap today between those parties. geographic self sorting, where people choose to live in blue and red on clive's, and because -- blue and red enclaves, and because of virtual self sorting, we are completely walling ourselves off from the positions of the other side. this is the exact opposite of what madison hope for. he believed that by slow deliberation with the opposite point of view, we could allow slow reason to prevail.

now we have polarization and snap judgments. what is to be done? this is an urgently important question that we must address as citizens and as teachers. and all citizens have to converge around recognizing that this is not a partisan problem. it is a constitutional problem of the highest magnitude. i do not have the solutions for you this morning. i want to begin a conversation with you in a moment, but i should say the constitution center has started an initiative called the madisonian constitution for all. for the topic, we are asking what would madison think about our current congress, president, courts and media and how can we resurrect the triumph of reason rather than passion? today, it is cochaired by the heads of the federalist society and the american constitution mikety, and by senators lee and chris coons in the amash ind laughlin and

the house. we will launch it in the fall with a special issue of the atlantic magazine that will ask some of these questions. we will spend some of the next few years trying to identify some of the concrete solutions. just to put one or two on the table to begin our discussion on the social media front, facebook, which has been strongly sensitized to the dangers of fake news recently, has started an academic project to explore the problem of fake news. they found that people are more likely to share fake news than real news because it appeals to passion rather than reason. if you see something that is really angry and emotionally galvanizing, people will share it quickly without reading it. that's why researchers in britain were able to predict the brexit vote before it occurred. they saw that the leave messages and appeal was to passion rather

than reason. the romaine messages were complicated economic arguments. -- the re-main messages were complicated economic arguments. this is a madisonian dystopia. chose, putuld, if it higher up on its algorithm only posts that people actually read. imagine that. inspiring from a madisonian perspective, although slightly creepy from a privacy perspective. facebook knows how long you are spending on every post, so they could choose to put higher up on the algorithm stuff that people read. that would be one example of a digital cooling mechanism in the madisonian spirit. they could also, if they wanted pute more interventionist, higher up on people's feeds arguments from sources that they might be inclined to disagree with. suggested years ago,

putting links at the bottom of webpages, at the bottom of cnn, you know, you put a link to fox and so forth. it seemed technologically quaint at the time because faced between choice something they wi disagree wi -- something they disagree with and cat videos, they might opt cap videos -- opt for cat videos. but today. this would raise grave questions of free speech principles as well as law. should facebook be in the business of deciding what sort of information we should see? do we want the algorithm to be madisonian rather than based on consumer preferences? and since the constitution says congress shall make no law -- it does not say facebook shall make no law -- it is not required to behave in a madisonian way and it is ultimately responsible to its shareholders.

there is a legitimate and there should be a robust debate about whether we want the platforms or the government or voluntary self-restraint of the citizens to ensure that we develop our faculties of reason by exposing ourselves to different points of view, but no one of any political persuasion can deny the urgent necessity for us to examine the task together. i think it is time for a question-and-answer, and i want to learn from you about these important questions. to us together begin identify other madisonian solutions to this urgently madisonian problem. but the task could not be more necessary. concern forghest the future of democracy that we fellow teachers educate our students to cultivate their faculties of reason, that we

remember, with brandeis, the importance of leisure. brandeis was so excited to learn from his favorite book, the greek commonwealth, the greek word for leisure was unemployment. "absence of employment." --said, what a happy what a happy land, that. leisure means more focused work n and onvating reaso reading and collecting facts and on reading tolstoy and industrial reports and the founders and philosophy so that all of us are capable of what he calls the duty of public participation. your task is urgent. it is central. there's nothing more important in teaching students about the essence of american democracy because democracy will falter into the mob in precisely the ways the founders feared unless you continue on your urgently

important path. therefore, i will close with two inspiring phrases of brandeis. he was called isaiah by many, including friends of roosevelt, partly because he looked like isaiah with his impressive shock of white hair and tendency to prophesies, speak up and down -- to prophesize, speak up and down, but also because of that beautiful phrase from the prophet, come, let us reason together. that beautiful phrase encapsulates brandeis's and the framers madisonian hope. and then we can just and with the final words of brandeis -- if you would govern by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold. thank you so much. [applause]

>> tell him where your f -- where you are from. >> you talked about madisonian reason, but how would you explain that much of the revolution was, in fact, the product of passion -- pain, the sons of liberty, tea parties, and even much of the declaration was designed to appeal to people's passion? was the revolutionary product of passion, not reason? that would be my question. prof. rosen: that's a wonderful question. just to repeat it, the revolution, says, was arguably a product of passion rather than reason. the other revolutionaries motivated people withposition to tyranny,

madison distinguishing strongly between passion and reason. the answer to your question is yes. it is interesting that paine was fan of athenian democracy than hamilton and madison. and did not draw as firm a distinction between passion and reason as the enlightenment framers did. -- the greeks. they believed there could be reasoned passion and impassioned ceremonies they had designed to cultivate the productive passions rather than the unproductive ones, and the 10 tribes of greece during the height of the fifth century athens would file into the demos and it aside their differences. ull, 50was not the b

tribes -- my math is bad. there were a whole lot of representatives filing into the demos. once thoseat it was ceremonies broke down and the tribes began fighting that the whole thing broke down. also, modern scholarship suggests that the firm distinction between passion and reason is to overstated -- too overstated. theartes's error suggests enlightenment giants like descartes suggested -- distinguished to strongly between passion and reason and both are necessary. theink paine and un-channeled direct democracy is exactly the right model. as we think about resurrecting reason today, we cannot neglect both modern neuroscience and ancient greek learning about the importance of productively channeling passions so that it

can motivate people to defend liberty and to ensure the triumph of democracy without degenerating into mobs, so thank you for that very helpful thought. yes, sir. in the back. >> you were talking about technology and the speed, the cooling-off effect. being one of the old guys in the room, everything is feeling so much faster every day. watchrs are waving their at a laser to order coffee. now we are talking about virtual elections. wea practical sense, as think about how we approach this, this is a -- >> this is a crucial question. you say people are used to

immediate results. how do we slow things down without looking like meaningless luddites? that is the hard question we have to set up. the first thing we have to say is that the framers are not luddites. they are radicals. the idea of having slow, thoughtful deliberation by the majority is a radical idea in a world where kings and strongmen and thugs prevailed. so there's nothing luddites about the enterprise. and there's also nothing luddites about embracing social media technology for the remarkable ways in which it can fulfill the framers hopes. thatame technologies allow us to buy gumballs or watch cat videos allows us to download the federalist papers, the most inspiring books about the antidemocratic tradition throughout history, which i had

going to athens two weeks ago, or to listen to the most elevating music ever created at any moment. but it requires self-discipline. it is up to us to use these external technologies for high purposes and to promote reason rather than to amuse ourselves to death. part of it is not rejecting these astonishing technologies, which, i mean, how excited brandeis or madison must have been about the ability within moments to download the greatest thinking of all of history. medicine was sent by jefferson -- madison was sent by jefferson all these books of philosophy when he was preparing his notes on democracy. now we can get them in the moment. we just have to marvel and thank the almighty that we live in a this where we can access extraordinary information if we can train ourselves to use it properly, but the other question

about how to slow things down or just put speed bumps or br akes before instant voting is a political and constitutional question. one thing, if we can persuade our fellow citizens and our students that instant voting is not good. andging the constitution fund a middling withdrawing from the european union based on a one-off vote is not a madisonian idea. it is not possible in america, even with social media technologies, to make fundamental constitutional change with a single one-off vote. thank goodness. this is one of the many parts of the constitutional system that survives. amending the constitution's extraordinaire lee hard, and it should be. madison feared a second convention. unlike jefferson, who wanted to convention every 10 years, he thought it was a miracle that, given the fact it was politicians who gathered in philadelphia, they produced the

ingenious document they did, and he feared a second convention would degenerate into a mob because it was the same legislators wreaking havoc in the states. i do not have the answer on how to harness or slow down these technologies to promote reason rather than passion, although the facebook algorithm example is just one small tweak, but it is crucially important, as you suggest, not to resist these technologies and to say that people should leave in an age of horse and buggies and quill pens. we have to embrace these technologies, which is where we all live, and train ourselves to use them wisely for reason and debate constitutionally about preserving the structures that prevent those from using those technologies to make quick decisions that cannot be reversed. thank you for that. yes. ok. >> i am from south carolina. -- and ithe term

thought it has been with us since the gazette, the broadside, joseph pulitzer, william hurst. is there a danger in giving us a new term and that people will dismiss the other side by using the term fake news? >> yes, there is a danger. yes there is. i am so glad you raised that question. jefferson rejects any attempts to distinguish between facts and opinions. he says, because the natural rights of conscience are individual, and each individual must decide for himself or herself what is true and what is false, to empower a judge or a government official or a 27-year-old lawyer at facebook to decide what is true and what is false would be anathema to our rights of conscience.

somereject proposals by that facebook should decide what is true and what is false and label the false stuff. that is up to citizens to decide for themselves. this is not rejecting the enlightenment faith in facts. i mean, we must, as a society, converge around the idea that there is a distinction between truth and falsehood, but ultimately deciding what falls on which side is up to each of us as individuals. that also does not mean that, you know, facebook cannot identify accounts that are created by bots intentionally to create falsehood and downplay them, something like that, if it intentionalt falsehoods are being to liberally distributed. that may be a role for technology rather than law, because american law allows the

suppression of falsehoods only when they cause harm to reputation, and you could imagine falsehoods that do not cause actionable harm because they are essentially political could be downgraded because they are false. i thank you so much for reminding us. i might think that something is fake and i may be convinced that the facts say a and the news says be, but that is up to me to convince my fellow citizens to embrace and ultimately, we each have a responsibility on our own to make informed decisions and that is why the job of you teachers is crucially important. news literacy is helpful. teaching your students to distinguish between reliable and unreliable new sources is helpful. teaching them to be consumers of news so they can seek out positions they disagree and

debate them is helpful. listening to new sources that bring together opposite sources of view, i am plugging the constitution center's educational cereals. -- materials. thest a podcast called we people where i call upon scholars and debate the constitutional issue of the week. i learned so much from these amazing podcasts and so do our listeners. have an informed opinion on any of these issues until i have heard both sides, and i encourage your students to do that. the government or the president or the facebook decide for us what is true and what is false. thank you so much. [indiscernible] what are your thoughts in regards to a second

constitutional convention that called for separate amendments to be proposed by the states or opening it all back up again? what are your thoughts? mr. rosen: what are my thoughts about the second constitutional convention? it's not hypothetical suggestion. 27 states have called for a convention of the states that would propose a balanced budget amendment can't just to the constitution. there are two ways to propose an amendment. either two thirds of both houses of congress can propose the amendment or two thirds of the state can call on congress to summon a convention of the states to propose an amendment and that has to be ratified by three quarters of the state legislatures or by special convention called in three quarters of the states. it is not completely beyond the realm of possibility seven more states could call for a balanced budget amendment and we would

have a convention of the states. what are my thoughts? i'm onedebated this and to give you the arguments. the argument in favor of it is ift we the people rule and we feel strongly enough about a balanced budget amendment to want to enshrined in the constitution and congress is refusing to enact the amendment because they for their own political reasons think that it would be not in their interest to balance the budget, then why shouldn't the people be able to call for an convention? amendments other that might not be able to be proposed by congress but could be by a convention of the states like term limits. some could argue that term limits are a good madisonian cooling mechanism that prevents representatives from becoming too entrenched and polarized. people would be less likely to pander to their base. yet the supreme course --

supreme court said the federal term limits are unconstitutional so you would need an amendment to have them, but congress is going to not propose it because they don't want term limits. is theument against it danger of a runaway convention. you could call convention just for balanced budget men or term limit amendment, but we know from the founding and the civil war that a convention once called is unrestrained by law and can propose whatever he likes. in this incredibly proposed -- polarized time, the argument goes that the people at the convention would be the same polarized state legislators or representatives who are already dividing america so dramatically now. a polarized convention might well repeal the first amendment or propose things that appeal to one side but not the other. the counter to that is fine,

they can propose what they like thatt has to be a majority would propose anything to get it reported out of the convention. the significantly, that high ratification requirement. three quarters of state legislatures is so hard to meet that if people try to repeal the first amendment or do other mischief, it would never pass being ratified. i'll tell you what i think in a second. based on what i have said, who believes with jefferson that there should be free constitutional conventions and we should have one now? who believes with maddison that it is very dangerous to have constitutional conventions and we should not have one now? this is a madisonian group. not everyone was voting. [laughter] you want to hear more arguments on both sides. i think i am with medicine here -- madison here. i think it unlikely that you

would get a majority to call the convention to begin with. convinced that the convention is self overcome polarization unless deliberation were structured in a more thoughtful way. -- at the university of texas has shown through poles are given ane opportunity to hear competing arguments and they are required to deliberate, often they can become less polarized. -- my fear is that the convention would convenient immediately vote on twitter. if you had to hear all arguments, maybe that would be ok and the three-quarter ratification would be adequate. now, i think better safe than sorry and i am with medicine. -- madison. >> my name is nicole and i am

from indiana. brandeis, wheno he had the opportunity to be a member of woodrow wilson's cabinet then turned down the opportunity or turned it away and was nominated for the supreme court and accepted that, i asked this the other day to chief justice roberts. in your opinion as well, when you are in that level of -- for the powers of the government, when you are in that position and you are no longer designated to identify by your political party that you support or that you are a member of, tell us what you think your opinions are throughout history of being on the supreme court the motives of your position than the power that you have with people as well to not be identified by a political party, but more so in your beliefs and what you are in favor of whether you would agree or disagree with a case at that

time. mr. rosen: chief justices roberts answer is more relevant than mine. i will check it out. that the courtea is a group of politicians. i agree with chief justice roberts, who has said repeatedly that it's important for the court to stand for a nonpartisan legitimacy that transcends politics and it is inaccurate, simplistic, and dangerous for citizens to perceive the court has five democrats and four republicans or what have you. , whilee course of time there is a strong correlation between the considered will of the people and the courts judgment, and other words the court has tended to reflect thoughtful considered popular opinion over time and on the ise occasion when it afforded it, that is a

.adisonian function this is not the court reading the election returns. it is the reason to popular opinion. in that sense, the the court has been appropriately responsive responding to what justice ginsburg has called nudges. she talks about measured emotions. that the court is sometimes moved gently ahead or behind not dramatically thwarted popular reason. the other thing i want to say and i want to teach and i hope you will all teach as well is to distinguish between a judge's political views and his or her constitutional views. it is urgently important to theh citizens about different methodologies of constitutional interpretation so

they understand there are different kinds of liberals and conservatives. is ane roberts institutionalist. he said i hope when people go back to my opinions, they will see that many of them reflect a concern for constitutional legitimacy. there's a gerrymandering case where the justices avoid polarizing broad constitutional decisions and converge on technical grounds. this is the chief's vision and he has said he is modeling himself after chief justice marshall and it is an inspiring vision good for the courts legitimacy. not all conservatives share that vision. judge thomas -- justice thomas is an originalist and justice gorsuch is as well. they believe the constitution

should be interpreted regardless of whether it is good for the courts legitimacy or will lead to the sense to perceive things in a partisan way and they will overturn decisions they think are inconsistent with the original understanding even if the heavens fall. souter was a traditionalist who thought the precedent was extremely important. on the liberal side, we have incrementalist like justice ginsburg who criticized roe v. wade for moving too broadly and deciding a hotly contested question in the most sweeping terms rather than deciding the case at hand. pragmatists like justices kagan and breyer who have joined justice roberts in a series of decisions over the dissent of justice sotomayor and ginsberg

because they believe the function is the court -- of the court is to function as a court and -- sotomayor who is an inspiring crusader for her vision of the correct constitution and the tradition of justice brennan regardless of particle consequences. i really want to work with you to teach these methodologies. text and original understanding. history and tradition. precedent. pragmatism. natural law, justice kennedy who just retired believed that we have certain rights that come from god or nature not from government and it should be strongly enforced by the government by the court regardless of whether they are enumerated in the text of the constitution. the right to privacy and autonomy which justice kennedy

summed up saying that the heart of liberty is the right to define conception of meaning of the universe and the mystery of him in life. justice scalia dismissed that. and strongerful expression of the natural rights of autonomy and dignity that the court has affirmed now repeatedly and decisions. a naturalsents rights-based philosophy. if we can teach our students not mode ofmb to the easy reducing every decision to 5-4 politics. encourage them to read the majority decision and dissent and enjoy the philosophy from the different judges so they can understand why in the recent cases it was 8-1 with justice alito the only dissenter because he is more of a law and order

justice who believes an executive power and thinks the executive should have great deference. this is not to say that we don't live in a polarized time and we are about to experience the most explosive and divisive supreme court confirmation hearing since 1987 and the country will be dramatically tested because the stakes are very high. there's a big difference between liberal pragmatist and conservative pragmatist. it dismisses everything that is beautiful and meaningful and inspiring and limiting about constitutional law to reduce it all to politics. many of my colleagues in the academy do. as shorthand, it is not untrue that there is often an overlap between the politics of the justices and their results. not their reasoning. a reason to these decisions for

different reasons and all justices will say that they are motivated by their methodologies and their correct views of the constitution not by politics. i don't think any judge has ever voted saying i want to help this party or that result. they have worldviews and it is our job as citizens and students of the constitution to understand them and teach them. let's make teaching constitutional methodology part of our arsenal. just as all law students are required to separate their political and constitutional views and learn the methodologies of interpretation. let's teach the citizens those methodologies starting in middle school. thank you so much. i am from new jersey. we run a lot of field trips to the constitution center. you mentioned before about the electoral college and that was one of madison's cooling mechanisms.

saw a lot ofusly the undoing of his original intention of the electoral college. i wonder if he ever wrote about it? i have never read or heard anything about what he felt about the electoral college and how it contributed. be more concerned about the electoral college? usually after an election might 2016, there is talk about the electoral college, then it dies out and it is dismissed by the losers get upset about the electoral college whatever deal what the. -- deal with it. itave read some lectures on and how the dangers of the electoral college could it be the next example of minority rule or faction rule when we are looking at the numbers of people who live in different parts of the country. could there be an argument the people are being less represented the electoral college? it's not just about the

presidential elections. when you look at both political parties channeling so much money and favoritism to states that might went up help -- wind up helping them in a presidential election, are there dangers of electoral college with the country becoming more pollard -- polarized and did madison see that coming? mr. rosen: what a great and deep and important question. i don't know what if anything madison wrote on the electoral college after having founded the democratic republican party. have a great series of debates at the constitution theer on the question, has electoral college, is it not serving its original madisonian purposes? the argument in favor of it was made by a brilliant scholar who basically said it's true it doesn't serve the purpose of

wise aristocrats choosing the people of best character but it does serve the purpose of federalism. it would not serve madisonian goals to have a president chosen by new york and california. there is such diversity of views throughout the country that allowing states throughout the country to be represented will ensure more of a mix of madisonian reason van simply having the blue states elect the president. the counter to that is when you just made an interesting way, which is that giving each state the number of representatives it has and congress doesn't serve madisonian reason because in a polarized world with low voter turnout, our congressional representatives are pandering to the most extreme factions in each of their parties and the moderate middle is not

represented and therefore, we may be in the hands of minority rule. the counter to that is that the electoral college is just done numerically not the people who serve and it are not themselves publicly elected. that allu are assuming of those red state people are actually democrats wouldn't vote for the presidential candidate, then maybe there's not clinical process failure. probably the most immediate solution would be either some kind of representation so it's not a winner takes all system but you can divide the number of electoral votes as some states do and that would ensure in a divided country a diversity of views represented in the electoral college. another solution is the compact of the states where 10 states

have pledged to give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote and a certain number of more states say yes then that would guarantee a kind of popular election. that seems low, but that is a possibility. those are some of the arguments on both sides. there's no question electoral college is not serving its original function. it's not serving any madisonian function at all. the defense would be that some kind of geographic representation in the election of the president is helpful in a divided country because you don't just want a few regions deciding everything. and iore to the bait would look forward to more discussion about that. i am from southern new jersey. you have spent a lot of time siding the words of the federalist papers. wonder if you might be able to

bring in anti-federalist argument against the constitution and what you feel are the major conflicts that exist between the federalists and antifederalists during ratification. [laughter] mr. rosen: wonderful question. an unmet a sony in spirit having ignored the other side. george mason was a hero. it's not too hot today, so you could pay tribute to this great anti-federalist. he originally supported the constitution, but came to oppose it because it did not contain a bill of rights. the main concern of the antifederalists was the lack of a bill of rights but that was remedied by the adoption of the bill of rights. more broadly, the antifederalists were concerned about federal power that would be unchecked by either judges or

the other branches. in our explainer about the second amendment, to have a wonderful paragraph where they describe the conflicts although i need my reading glasses -- glasses to read it. an incrediblys is new app. it's called interactive constitution. explore it on the app store. i'm looking at the right to bear arms. i'm looking at how they agreed and disagreed. the debatelicit in between federalist and anti-federalist were to shared assumptions. first that the new constitution gave the federal government almost total legal authority over the army and militia. second that the government should not have any authority at all to disarm the citizen. they disagreed only about whether an armed populace could

-- federal oppression. ask what it means, i read this paragraph. there are federalist and anti-federalist agree about what powers. the anti-federalist are concerned about the remedy, the deterrence, the enforcement mechanisms to ensure that the federal government does not overstep its constitutionally assigned bounds. therefore, they were not confident that an armed populace could deter federal oppression while the federalist were more confident. that thesense is supported thes broad goals of the constitution to have a federal government with limited and enumerated powers and to ensure that the people rights of the

were retained by them and could not be threatened by the government. they disagreed about whether the structure that was created adequately limited to government to avoid tyranny. that is why the question of what would madison think about the government today is a question that invites anti-federalist as well as federalist thinking. to the degree that madison is concerned that the bill of rights itself will be a parchment barrier and liberty will be determined by the ability of citizens to educate themselves enough to avoid menacing each other's liberty. the antifederalists might have wanted more strong protections, but they would have agreed with that enterprise of public education. betweenhe division republicans and democrats today about policy issues, federalist and anti-federalist were both committed to a limited government strong enough to

achieve common purposes because they were not against any national government, but constrained enough to protect liberty and they disagreed only about the constitutional means for achieving that goal. thank you for that. >> i'm from california. as i listen to you, what i am hearing is that in our country, we have a crisis of courage. of a willingness to use constitutional mechanisms to exercise reason more often over passion. what i wanted to ask you about is regular order in the legislature. the constitution does not prescribe how congress should operate. congress has always operated with mechanism, with principles that force the legislatures to use reason over passion to make decisions. you mentioned the upcoming supreme court confirmation process. recently, we have had changes

where now you just need a simple majority to get a supreme court justice confirmed. i wonder what your thoughts on on thee, what your views regular order are and do we need some sort of constitutional circumscribing of congressional our leaderswe have using reason more often? mr. rosen: yes wonderful. regular order is one of the most madisonian solutions available. your absolute right that if we had to pick a single institutional reform to resurrect madisonian reason, it would be regular order. regular order requires that we go to the committee process and through a. of time rather than being pushed through by leadership without deliberation and consideration

or criticism by the other party. john mccain received the liberty metal in philadelphia last year from our current chair, vice president biden. one of the most moving ceremonies i have had the privilege of attending. they lamented the end of regular order. duringid that was an age the decades they served together that people of both parties would listen to the arguments from the opposite point of view and you couldn't have parliamentary system that would circumvent debate. whichwlett foundation, has a madisonian initiative which is very generously supporting institutional reforms and congress has identified the resurrection of regular order as another party. how precisely could be resurrected is not clear sense congress has control over its own rules.

but that idea of forcing deliberation is crucial. what are other ways that we can force or at least enjoy the benefits of deliberation and congress? through supreme court confirmation hearings. truism to become a dismiss hearings as a kabuki dance. a formal political theater. the idea is that senators would ask political questions and the nominees dodge them and we learn nothing. i reject that characterization. when you go back to every hearing since 1987, you will find that the nominees specifically and clearly signal their judicial philosophies in ways that proved to be prescient. bork said he was an originalist and the congress should not enforce enumerated rights. theice kennedy endorsed right to privacy in terms that

specifically anticipated his pay in to the conception of the mystery of life. he said a short list of qualities that should be consulted and identifying unenumerated liberties. the right to personality, dignity. he signaling his views in the marriage equality cases. justice souter asked whether he was similar or dissimilar to justice brennan said justice brennan is one of the greatest constitutional heroes and american history. on the court, he performed as justice brennan did and conservative cries of no more justice souter's should not be surprised. hearings,confirmation they are not kabuki theater, but they are probably public education opportunities in which the result is preordained. the president's

nominee will be confirmed because the filibuster has been eliminated and the confirmation can take place by majority vote. the fact that the result is preordained doesn't mean we have an obligation to educate ourselves closely about the constitutional views of the nominee. whether you are a republican or , i would think you would have a civic obligation to find out what kind of conservative has been nominated and whether it is a pragmatic conservative or an originalist or a traditionalist. what is the view of president? a former judge and conservative hero has said that there are certain precedents that should be considered super precedents because they have been confirmed by justices appointed by both -- parties.

he believes that certain precedents are due respect because they have become embedded in the law. we must think -- find out from our nominee what here she thinks about that question. in this world of partisan polarization and democrat politics, we must have enough respect for our fellow citizens and c-span is the most beautiful educational platform that exists. it's the only place that will give citizens access to unfettered long hearings and long talks like this one. all of you wonderful c-span viewers who are watching this at three in the morning, i'm sorry you can't sleep, but i am honored [laughter] you are listening because you're educating yourself and that's what the hearing should be for. that's was going to save us as a democracy. people informing themselves about complicated arguments.

let's resurrect it. >> for a while, i have been frustrated with the polarization of political views and the appeal to the emotional side of the issue. newse news channels, sources. where you get your news? [laughter] national: from the constitutions website, of course. [laughter] i start there. we have a great constitution daily blog which has the constitutional news of the moment. i learned from the podcast. i can't have an informed opinion about any of the stuff that's coming up every day unless i have heard good arguments from both sides. these are technical open questions and not presuming to have an opinion until you have

at least taken a moment to listen or google is great and am lucky enough to do the podcast. times and the wall street journal and the washington post and i write for the atlantic and i google around a bit. theink the times and journal and the washington post are doing heroic work in attempting within the limits of all of our filters as citizens to tell the story. i think it's important not to dismiss the work of professional journalists and their efforts to folkstories neutrally as for partisan stuff. it's important -- don't watch tv except c-span. [laughter]

one of the takeaways i am having is as teachers, we can control so little of what happens in the world. we are small players and a big game. the one thing we can control is education. that's our game. that's war after. it seems to me that civic education needs some sprucing up. an advocateation is for civic education. what are some of the policies you think need to take place in all 50 states to better improve and get an educated citizenry? clear.en: madison is so he says it is absolutely central to the dutch survival of the republic and he supports a proposal for the diffusion of knowledge in kentucky which had some state support on the grounds that unless citizens learn about the science of government, then democracy will collapse.

important about the framers endorsement of civic education is that it's not endorsement of education in general. was important, but recent surveys have shown that educated people are likely to be even more polarized than people with less higher education. shouldn'tpants is fancy that we are any less polarized than anyone else. the constitution center, we have a radical notion. that citizens must be trained to think like constitutional inyers or at least to think constitutional terms. civic education is not just telling people to get out the vote. voting is fine, it's important if you feel like voting. that's not educating yourself about the structure of government. fellow to teach our

citizens about the complicated ideas that we have been talking about this morning. i tried to distill it, but that took an hour. that's not good enough. we need to make a list of 10 supposed. -- principles. to explain quickly and urgently why these principles are important. how do we show, you know that you are all master teachers. you tell stories about why this is relevant. howcan tell a story about the supreme court just said the government can't track our movements using our cell phones. it can't fly tiny drones in the air or take our cell phone records. you can tell the story about how that inspiring opinion sparked the american revolution and how king george tried to rummage through people's houses to find out if they pay the t taxes, this was so objectionable that

the framers not only had the theyn tea party, but passed the resolutions to oppose -- and john adams said at that time the child revolution was born. first, teaching history through storytelling. second, teaching citizens to separate their political from their constitutional views. third, encouraging civil dialogue by bringing different points of view together. that's what we're trying to do with tools like the interactive constitution, the podcast, and if you fellow teachers are inspired, i want you to join us in helping us bring these tools to your kids or we are creating lesson plans and leading questions to bring the amendments to light. then we want citizens to try to follow this inspiring and necessary enterprise as well.

-- here'sabout it is the farewell. it is necessary for democracy and we are all citizens, democrats and republicans, we know that we are in a perilous place. we are seeing waves of populism sweep across america and around the globe. inare seeing what countries europe without written constitutions are doing in the face of populist threats, eliminating their supreme court's, threatening journalists, undermining fundamental principles of liberty. we are wondering whether america in the face of these new technologies and new forces can preserve the structures that have defined us as a nation. it is necessary in order to preserve the structures and it is necessary to fulfill your faculties as a human being.

there is nothing more meaningful than lifelong learning every moment that we spent using our moments of leisure to elevate our faculties of reason, to and to readstory literature and inspired by great music and to converge around these principles that unite us is when we rise higher as human being's. this is not an enterprise just for students in middleton high school and college, although it is for them, it has to be a lifelong commitment to elevating ourselves as citizens. it will rise us up as human being's and help us rise together and ultimately, once we engage in this common enterprise, we will understand that the things that divide us are detritus. these are irrelevant sees. the difference between this gun or speechis gun law controversy is that we are united by the principles of the constitution.

around therge principles of the declaration of independence and red or blue, we are one is lincoln so memorably said. that's why your work is so crucially important and i want to and by thanking each of u.s. teachers for teaching history in when embattled times technology and science are all the rage. you understand the importance of kindling young students to love language and learning and words and thrill to the inspiring stories that create america and to converge around the great document of humans freedom that unites us, the u.s. constitution. thank you so much. [laughter] [applause]

[applause] >> this is american history tv featuring events, interviews, archival films, and visits to college classrooms, museums, and historic places. exploring our nation's past every weekend on c-span3. >> the united states entered world war i on april 6, 1917 when congress voted to declare war on germany. the conflict was already in its third year. more than 4 million american men and women would eventually serve in uniform. the influx of manpower changed the tide of the war, bringing it to a close in 18 months. next, we travel to kansas city to learn about the national world war i museum and memorial built to preserve the history of what was then called "the great war." >> i'm the president and ceo here at the national world war i