please join me in welcoming professor rosemarie zagarri. [ applause ] >> thank you, rob. and thanks to president boren and to the university of oklahoma and to all of you for coming. this is just a special occasion. i'm really honored to be among such a distinguished panel of delighted that so many people care enough about the founding to come out and to listen to us talk about it. we think about it a lot, but we wish other people would think about it more, too. when the delegates to the continental congress gathered in philadelphia in the summer of 1776 to vote on the question of american independence, it's virtually certain that no one in that room with the possible exception of john adams was thinking about the consequences of their pronouncements for the status of women. in the revolutionary era matters of politics and government were thought to be exclusively the province of men. men were the primary land owners. ownership of land was thought to give men the virtue, independence, and stake in society that qualified them to vote. women, on the other hand, were politic

same way that the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, legal immigration, the 19th amendment rosemarie zagarri told you how it is building on a certain tradition of more inclusion than what happened the day before. that's my claim about this year. it's more democratic energy, more free speech than we've ever seen before. so i think, although they'd be shocked at the leveling tendencies and the fact that leaders actually don't lead so much anymore but just follow. there are things i think and gordon wood captures a little bit of this, their sense that something has been lost, some of the aristocratic virtues. but for all of that, i think they would recognize in us their posterity, the continuation of their radical revolutionary project. [ applause ] >> because the confederation of the states was in jeopardy, they wisely chose to stress unification of the states rather than the controversial subject of the abolition of slavery. as such the constitution was not necessarily pro-slavery. do you have any other proof that the constitution promoted slavery and, also, what is so terribly wrong with min