it was charles pinckney who initially said we should oppose rights against the mandatory quartering of soldiers, he talked about liberties of the press but we were not ready for it at the time. madison comes to the rescue, interestingly, madison is initially opposed to coming up with a list of the bill of rights. but madison comes on board and not only can we call him the father of the constitution but perhaps the father of the bill of rights. can you talk a little bit about his leadership role in putting together what would be known as the bill of rights. >> he knew the importance of talking to everyone and making his case convincingly. but as you point out he was worried if you listed a bill of rights, if you had ten amendments, say of the rights of people to do "x" and "y," you were impliying they didn't have rights to do anything else. so one bit of his genius is the way he phrased the bill of rights. he wrote, well, you know the bill of rights, that the government shall not abridge the right to free speech and to free allegiance to religion. think about that. the government shall

second is charles pinckney, a delegate to the constitutional convention. here is what he said in the 1787. america was not only very different from the inhabitants of any state we are acquainted with in the modern world but also distinct from either the people of greece or rome or any state we are acquainted with among the ancients. believed america is, quote, had a greater equality than to be found among people of any other country and that inequality would continue because, quote, the nation possessed immense tracts of uncultivated land which would ensure there would be few poor and few dependent. what you see here is a belief that the first, economic equality was necessary to have a republic and second, that american this were relatively economically equal so a republic would be possible. there is good reason to think they might have been right about this. it wasn't just a belief they had. two economic historians, have done extensive work on economic inequality and what they found it in 1774, on the edge of the american revolution the top 1% in america