governor patrick henry, as a very young man, in his mid 20's. so, he achieved a position in the official post revolutionary government of virginia when he was in his 20's and that's when he started his career. his conviction on issues ran the gamut of basically every public policy issue the country was dealing with, especially at this young age. when he was a young aide to governor patrick henry, he became absolutely obsessed with the problem of military supplies. so this was a very difficult question at the time because the state was figuring out how to supply a federal, sort of part federal and part state armed forces that was fighting great britain and the revolutionary war which dragged on forever and ever. one of the problems was, how do you equip and supply the troops when the dollars that they're using are-- there were like five different kinds of money at the time and they were all incredibly inflated and it's difficult to find the food and the drink and the supplies needed. and you needed people in go of the actually trying to work that

i presented the idea to the 4 arts leadership, the wonderful chairman patrick henry, president david brenneman, and education committee chair shelly guglein. their reaction was positive. >> we then smoke to our marvelous can-do marley shareland, director of education, and tireless senior associate of education donna marie valley, and along with dependable administrative assistant stephanie grant, they all supported the idea of tanking on this big project. together, we hope to engage a wider audience in a national conversation about america's revolutionary generation. those political leaders present at the creation. the american founding is the big bang in american history, from which our core ideas, values and political institutions radiate. no other country in the history of the world came into being as these united states of america. we assembled speeches of unquestionable distinction with a proven capacity to bring a high degree of intellectual sophistication and contagious enthusiasm to a large audience. today we begin the series with the man who encouraged me to go forward. dr.

patrick henry hates them for it. you mentioned the enmity between henry and jefferson. it is the statute of religious freedom. having no religious test and having that prohibition in the federal constitution itself is a pretty significant, new thing in the world. carol: and i don't think it came out of hebrew school. [laughter] carol: if hamilton were here today -- oh. if hamilton wrote today a 52nd federalist paper -- that is all we would need. it is heresy to say, but if i have insomnia, picking up the federalist papers helps me go to sleep. what would it say about trump? i am going to pass on that one, i think. if either of you would like to step into that frey? john: it is usually a bad idea to raise people up from the dead and put them in modern politics. akhil: the world that hamilton -- hamilton writes the federalist essays on the presidency. the words he uses to characterize the american presidency, words like energy, vigor, unity, secrecy and dispatch. that is his vision of the presidency. the presidency actually is to be given to someone who is a doer and know

when even southerners like jefferson, patrick henry and henry lawrence publicly deplored the injustice of slavery, from that moment, declared the new york physician and abolitionist e.h. smith in 1798, from that moment the slow but certain death wound was inflicted upon it. of course, such predictions could not have been more wrong. far from being doomed, slavery in the united states in the 1790s was on the verge of its greatest expansion. at the end of the revolutionary era despite enormous eliminations of slavery in the north, there were more slaves in the nation than had existed in 1760. but such self-deception, such mistaken optimism by the revolutionary leaders was understandable. they wanted to believe the best and initially there was evidence that slavery was dying. the northern states where slavery was not inconspicuous, not inconsequential, 14% of the population of new york, for example, was enslaved, were busy from the moment of revolution, 1776, were busy trying to eliminate the institution and by 1804 all, all the states in the north had done so. the founders thought that t

and i had the most amazing positive support from chairman patrick henry, president david brenneman, and head of the with this would not have happened. we are here. thank you all for coming. give david: a warm palm beach welcome. [applause] >> think you -- thank you. thank you very much. morning and thank you very much. dear, for all that you said and all that you have done for your country. particularly, what you did for your country and the work you did year after year at mount vernon. there are very few sites in the much ofat harkin as what is important in our story as the people of mount vernon. also a perfect example of someone who understands that the only way to get something of consequence accomplished is to work together. very little is ever accomplished unless it is a joint effort. thank you very much. [applause] i also appreciate your reference to my mellifluous voice. you never know where problems can come from in life. one of them happened to me in boston two or three years ago when we had that horrific blizzard that followed another. we had a cumulative snowfall of five fee

given me lots of advice. .ut i had an idea i have the most amazing, positive support from chairman patrick henry, president david head of thend education -- i think her title is president of the education -- molly sherilyn. this really wouldn't have happened without them. it did, we are year, thank you all for coming. give david mcauliffe a warm palm beach welcome. thank you. [applause] david: thank you very much. good morning and thank you very .uch thank you, dear, for all of -- all that you said and all that you have done for your country. particularly in what you did for your country and the work he did year after year at mount vernon. there are very few sites in the departments much of what is important in our story is a people is mount vernon. i think that gay also is a perfect example of somebody who understands that the only way to get something of consequence accomplished is to work together. very little is ever accomplished alone, and boy can she bring us all together to create good things. thank you very much. [applause] i also appreciate your reference to my voice. [laughter] you nev

patrick henry, whom he hated, even got hold of it. his major opposition to the constitution was the president should only serve one year. it should rotate. akhil: rotation and the absence of the bill of rights. what we would today call term limits. carol: as soon as jefferson gets in office, it is really ok. akhil: to his credit, he does step down after two terms, and so does madison and monroe, and good for them. carol: no, i agree. but there is the sense that these things -- this power, this executive power in the right hands can be wielded, because in his case he is wielding it the sake of the people. for the federalists, who knows what they're wielding it for. akhil: in terms of the optics, washington does mimic certain symbolic and ceremonial aspects of the british monarch just in how he presents himself. and jefferson does present himself as more of a man of the people. he dresses down, he wears slippers, he shakes hands and said of bows. it is beginning of the more populist idea, man of the people. washington's enactment of the

that is, patrick henry in particular. so madison is forced to come around and say, all right, if we get this constitution adopted, i will work personally to get a bill of rights, which he does. in fact, in the first congress he starts immediately amending the constitution and his federal federalists who supported it said, what are you doing, mr. madison? you want to amend it? he said, look, i promised i would do this, and he does. we owe the bill of rights to madison. madison almost didn't get into government because henry hated him so much and he controls the virginia legislator. he ices him out of the senate which is where he wanted to go. then madison says if i'm going to get into the government, i've got to get a representative to be in the house. henry redistricts his district and then recruits this young war hero as an opponent, james monroe, to run against madison. madison has to make a speech, which he hates. the idea of having to make a speech, this gives you an idea of how different their politics was. he did no