now, i want to conclude with a quotation from john dickenson. john dickenson, again, was -- this was his constitution in so many ways. and this actually gets back to that point i made before that we have a written constitution rather than an unwritten constitution. and people ask me, well, why are the founding fathers important? well, we have a written constitution, they wrote it, they ratified it, so we should listen to them, and this is why we should listen to them. l during the philadelphia convention when things were get canning out of whack and john dickenson thought we were going too far to the nationalist extreme, he said this: experience must be our only guide, reason may mislead us. it was not reason that discovered the singular and admirable mechanism of the english constitution, it was not reason that discovered or even could have discovered the odd, the absurd load of trial by jury. accidents produced these discoveries, and experience has given us sanction to them. this, then, is our guide. so he's saying, look, we have a constitutio

probably saying, well, who the heck is john dickenson? this is a guy that was actually called the penniman of the revolution. he was one of the most important men of the founding generation, bar none. and when he went to the philadelphia convention, he looked at this constitution that james madison had written, and he said, no, no, we're not having that. that's not going to work in these united states. or you have someone like roger sherman of connecticut, a man that thomas jefferson once said never said a -- i'm paraphrasing here -- never said a stupid thing in his life. this was also his constitution because, again, he was a conservative moderating influence. when he got to the philadelphia convention and he saw james madison's work, he again said, nope, we're not having that in these united states. it's not going to work. the people of connecticut will never agree to this thing. or john rutledge of south carolina, another very important founding father. john rutledge, of course, would later serve on the supreme court. he basically help

john dickenson, the golf, wasn't -- the governor, wasn't willing to help them out. and so they decided they would flee to princeton, new jersey, and they reconvened in james madison's old dorm at princeton. [laughter] one of the most important issues that both madison and monroe had to deal with during their time both in the virginia legislature and in congress is the question of the mississippi. the spanish were of a belief because they controlled new orleans and the port of new orleans that they were entitled to the mississippi river. now, james madison pointed out that under the international law that existed at the time that free and peaceful people could move across international boundaries without impunity. so why should the american people who were not at war with spain be more restricted than in any other place. and be imagine what losing the mississippi would have done to the united states, the westward expansion, the important ports of entry that we have, the growth of the american west. it's unimaginable had we given it to spain, we probably never would h