WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.160 Imagine fighting a brutal multi -year war to 00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:07.120 escape a global empire. You bleed for independence, 00:00:07.559 --> 00:00:09.560 you secure the victory, and you finally establish 00:00:09.560 --> 00:00:11.720 your own nation. Right, the ultimate underdog 00:00:11.720 --> 00:00:14.949 story. Exactly. But then within a few short years 00:00:14.949 --> 00:00:17.449 the new government you build is just it's so 00:00:17.449 --> 00:00:19.390 incredibly weak that they can't even afford to 00:00:19.390 --> 00:00:21.469 pay the soldiers who won the war Yeah, which 00:00:21.469 --> 00:00:23.629 is a terrifying position to be in and it gets 00:00:23.629 --> 00:00:26.850 worse The borders are completely porous foreign 00:00:26.850 --> 00:00:29.489 powers are actively harassing your shipping and 00:00:29.489 --> 00:00:32.350 get this Neighboring states within your own country 00:00:32.350 --> 00:00:34.869 are waging bitter economic trade wars against 00:00:34.869 --> 00:00:37.420 each other like their rival nations, right? And 00:00:37.420 --> 00:00:39.579 that wasn't some dystopian nightmare scenario. 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:42.520 That was the actual daily reality for the United 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:45.240 States in 1780s. So welcome to the deep dive. 00:00:45.320 --> 00:00:47.320 Glad to be here for this one. Today we are immersing 00:00:47.320 --> 00:00:49.640 ourselves in a comprehensive historical overview 00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:53.719 of the constitutional convention of 1787. But 00:00:53.719 --> 00:00:56.460 our mission here isn't just to look at the finished 00:00:56.460 --> 00:00:59.020 product, the Constitution itself. No, because 00:00:59.020 --> 00:01:02.619 you really can't appreciate the fix without understanding 00:01:02.619 --> 00:01:06.579 the problem. Exactly. We are looking at the absolute 00:01:07.429 --> 00:01:10.870 unmitigated systemic failure that forced the 00:01:10.870 --> 00:01:12.829 founders to write the Constitution in the first 00:01:12.829 --> 00:01:15.909 place. We are focusing on the catastrophic collapse 00:01:15.909 --> 00:01:19.810 of America's first governing document, the Articles 00:01:19.810 --> 00:01:22.579 of Confederation. And the context of that collapse 00:01:22.579 --> 00:01:25.959 is really everything. You cannot understand the 00:01:25.959 --> 00:01:29.019 medicine if you don't understand the severity 00:01:29.019 --> 00:01:31.879 of the disease. The disease was bad, right? Oh, 00:01:32.019 --> 00:01:34.340 it was nearly fatal for the early United States. 00:01:34.840 --> 00:01:37.299 Most historical narratives kind of gloss over 00:01:37.299 --> 00:01:39.560 the period between the surrender at Yorktown 00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:42.500 and the signing of the Constitution. Yeah, they 00:01:42.500 --> 00:01:44.659 treat it like this brief, quiet interlude where 00:01:44.659 --> 00:01:47.219 everyone just took a breath. Right, but the reality 00:01:47.219 --> 00:01:50.180 was a period of profound geopolitical and economic 00:01:50.180 --> 00:01:53.079 panic. The United States was not a unified country. 00:01:53.260 --> 00:01:55.920 I mean, it was a dysfunctional, bankrupt league 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:58.879 of states teetering on the edge of complete dissolution. 00:01:59.099 --> 00:02:01.200 The timeline itself is surprising to a lot of 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:02.980 people. We won the war, kicked out the king. 00:02:03.379 --> 00:02:05.260 And I think most of us assume the Constitution 00:02:05.260 --> 00:02:07.480 just, you know, immediately appeared. That's 00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:10.240 a huge misconception. But the Articles of Confederation 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:12.539 were actually adopted by the Second Continental 00:02:12.539 --> 00:02:16.280 Congress way back in 1777, right in the thick 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:18.280 of the Revolutionary War. And they weren't even 00:02:18.280 --> 00:02:22.219 ratified by all 13 states until 1781. Wow. So 00:02:22.219 --> 00:02:24.439 for the first decade of its existence, the United 00:02:24.439 --> 00:02:26.939 States was operating under a completely different 00:02:26.939 --> 00:02:29.740 operating system. And from the sources we're 00:02:29.740 --> 00:02:32.620 looking at today, this document wasn't a national 00:02:32.620 --> 00:02:34.599 constitution in the way we think of one today. 00:02:34.960 --> 00:02:38.159 It was, well, more like a treaty. Yeah. Under 00:02:38.159 --> 00:02:40.360 the Articles, the United States was really a 00:02:40.360 --> 00:02:43.020 federation of independent republics. The document 00:02:43.020 --> 00:02:46.400 explicitly guaranteed state sovereignty and independence. 00:02:46.699 --> 00:02:49.539 Which is wild to think about now. It is. It literally 00:02:49.539 --> 00:02:51.560 referred to itself as a League of Friendship. 00:02:51.860 --> 00:02:53.879 So if you want a modern equivalent, it was much 00:02:53.879 --> 00:02:56.080 closer to the United Nations or the European 00:02:56.080 --> 00:02:59.039 Union than a single cohesive nation. A League 00:02:59.039 --> 00:03:02.360 of Friendship. That sounds less like a functioning 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:05.199 government, more like a club. Exactly. And the 00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:07.180 organizational structure they implemented was 00:03:07.180 --> 00:03:09.580 the Congress of the Confederation. Its design 00:03:09.580 --> 00:03:11.639 perfectly reflects the immediate trauma of the 00:03:11.639 --> 00:03:13.900 revolutionary generation. Right. Because they 00:03:13.900 --> 00:03:17.479 just got out of a horrific war with a king. Precisely. 00:03:17.860 --> 00:03:20.560 The 13 colonies had just replaced their colonial 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:23.039 governments with Republican constitutions based 00:03:23.039 --> 00:03:25.580 heavily on the principle of legislative supremacy. 00:03:25.860 --> 00:03:28.280 OK, meaning the legislature had all the power. 00:03:28.659 --> 00:03:30.659 They put almost all the power in the hands of 00:03:30.659 --> 00:03:33.800 the legislature because they viewed it as the 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:37.020 branch most directly representative of the people. 00:03:37.139 --> 00:03:40.780 So they had just thought this. devastating war 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:43.000 against the king and his royal governors. The 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:45.060 absolute last thing they wanted to do was create 00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:48.699 another powerful executive who could just unilaterally 00:03:48.699 --> 00:03:51.819 dictate their lives. And that fear dictated the 00:03:51.819 --> 00:03:54.360 entire architecture of the government. They designed 00:03:54.360 --> 00:03:56.780 the national government to have no executive 00:03:56.780 --> 00:03:59.969 branch whatsoever. Wait, none. None. There was 00:03:59.969 --> 00:04:02.370 no president, no prime minister, no royal governor 00:04:02.370 --> 00:04:04.909 equivalent, nothing. Furthermore, they designed 00:04:04.909 --> 00:04:07.990 it to have no judicial branch. There was no national 00:04:07.990 --> 00:04:10.469 court system to settle disputes or interpret 00:04:10.469 --> 00:04:12.710 laws. So no president, no Supreme Court? Right. 00:04:12.930 --> 00:04:15.990 Just Congress? Yep. The entire federal government 00:04:15.990 --> 00:04:18.850 consisted of a unicameral legislature, so a single 00:04:18.850 --> 00:04:22.009 chamber. And the members of this Congress were 00:04:22.009 --> 00:04:24.370 not elected directly by the people. How did they 00:04:24.370 --> 00:04:26.689 get there then? They were selected and sent by 00:04:26.689 --> 00:04:29.050 the respective state legislatures. And when it 00:04:29.050 --> 00:04:31.949 came time to vote on national policy, every state 00:04:31.949 --> 00:04:34.649 was given exactly one vote. regardless of the 00:04:34.649 --> 00:04:36.930 population size or the geographic footprint of 00:04:36.930 --> 00:04:39.949 the state. Exactly. Virginia, which was massive 00:04:39.949 --> 00:04:42.670 and had a huge population, held the exact same 00:04:42.670 --> 00:04:45.209 voting power in Congress as Delaware or Rhode 00:04:45.209 --> 00:04:48.490 Island. That's crazy. So wealth, population, 00:04:48.850 --> 00:04:51.810 landmass, none of that mattered for political 00:04:51.810 --> 00:04:54.110 power at the national level. Entirely irrelevant. 00:04:54.730 --> 00:04:56.790 The founders essentially engineered a system 00:04:56.790 --> 00:04:58.949 specifically designed to prevent a centralized 00:04:58.949 --> 00:05:02.199 tyranny. But in doing so, they created a government 00:05:02.199 --> 00:05:04.759 that was structurally too weak to function. Because 00:05:04.759 --> 00:05:07.180 there was no executive branch and no judiciary. 00:05:07.399 --> 00:05:09.399 Right. The national government had absolutely 00:05:09.399 --> 00:05:12.040 no mechanism to enforce its own laws. They could 00:05:12.040 --> 00:05:14.300 sign a treaty with a foreign power, sure, but 00:05:14.300 --> 00:05:16.699 they had no way to force the individual states 00:05:16.699 --> 00:05:19.740 to comply with the terms of that treaty. It's 00:05:19.740 --> 00:05:22.740 like setting up a complex system of traffic lights 00:05:22.740 --> 00:05:25.519 in a major city. But you completely forget to 00:05:25.519 --> 00:05:28.279 hire a police force or establish a traffic court 00:05:28.279 --> 00:05:31.519 or institute any fines. That's a great analogy. 00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:33.920 The red light is just a polite suggestion to 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:36.720 stop. If you decide to blow through it, absolutely 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:39.899 nothing happens. A government of polite suggestions 00:05:39.899 --> 00:05:43.000 is the perfect description. And that structural 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:45.819 lack of enforcement immediately triggered a cascade 00:05:45.819 --> 00:05:48.980 of catastrophic economic failures. Because a 00:05:48.980 --> 00:05:51.300 nation's sovereignty is ultimately tied to its 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:54.370 ability to fund itself. Right. Exactly. You have 00:05:54.370 --> 00:05:56.149 to be able to fund yourself and defend your borders. 00:05:56.689 --> 00:05:59.029 But one of the Oracles of Confederation, Congress 00:05:59.029 --> 00:06:01.870 had no power to levy taxes, and they could not 00:06:01.870 --> 00:06:04.189 impose tariffs on imports. Which means the National 00:06:04.189 --> 00:06:05.970 Treasury is essentially running on the honor 00:06:05.970 --> 00:06:08.170 system. It really was. If the federal government 00:06:08.170 --> 00:06:10.250 needed to pay off the massive foreign debt it 00:06:10.250 --> 00:06:12.889 accumulated fighting the British, or if it needed 00:06:12.889 --> 00:06:15.470 to pay the soldiers guarding the frontier, they 00:06:15.470 --> 00:06:18.310 had to rely on this system of requisitions. They 00:06:18.310 --> 00:06:21.009 just had to send a request to the state legislatures 00:06:21.009 --> 00:06:23.399 asking for money. And the requisition system 00:06:23.399 --> 00:06:26.519 was an absolute disaster. Once the immediate 00:06:26.519 --> 00:06:29.579 unifying threat of the British military was neutralized, 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:32.240 the individual states just began to prioritize 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:34.980 their own local economic recoveries over the 00:06:34.980 --> 00:06:37.379 national debt. Of course they did. Why send your 00:06:37.379 --> 00:06:39.540 state's money to Philadelphia if nobody's forcing 00:06:39.540 --> 00:06:43.920 you to? Exactly. So, by the mid -1780s, the states 00:06:43.920 --> 00:06:46.699 simply stopped providing Congress with the requested 00:06:46.699 --> 00:06:49.600 funding. The National Treasury was effectively 00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:52.600 empty. Man. And the real world impact of that 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:55.180 was immediate and severe, wasn't it? Oh, yeah. 00:06:55.680 --> 00:06:57.759 The United States government defaulted on the 00:06:57.759 --> 00:07:00.040 interest payments for its foreign loans. They 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:02.860 had soldiers stationed along the Ohio River to 00:07:02.860 --> 00:07:05.060 guard the Western frontier, and the government 00:07:05.060 --> 00:07:07.339 just lacked the funds to pay them or properly 00:07:07.339 --> 00:07:09.939 supply them. And foreign powers were watching 00:07:09.939 --> 00:07:12.120 this weakness and actively exploiting it. I mean, 00:07:12.259 --> 00:07:14.740 from the sources down south, the Spanish controlled 00:07:14.740 --> 00:07:17.420 New Orleans, and they were severely restricting 00:07:17.420 --> 00:07:19.560 American navigation rights on the Mississippi 00:07:19.560 --> 00:07:22.269 River. Which was devastating for Western farmers. 00:07:22.610 --> 00:07:25.069 Right. For an American farmer living west of 00:07:25.069 --> 00:07:27.810 the Appalachians, the Mississippi River was the 00:07:27.810 --> 00:07:30.470 only economically viable way to get their crops 00:07:30.470 --> 00:07:33.389 to market. If Spain choked off the river, those 00:07:33.389 --> 00:07:35.370 farmers were ruined. And the Confederation government 00:07:35.370 --> 00:07:38.230 was too poor and militarily weak to do anything 00:07:38.230 --> 00:07:40.509 about it. They couldn't push back. And the British 00:07:40.509 --> 00:07:42.930 were engaging in similar provocations up north, 00:07:43.149 --> 00:07:46.160 too. Oh, absolutely. Despite the Treaty of Paris 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:48.500 requiring them to vacate their forts in the Northwest 00:07:48.500 --> 00:07:52.139 Territory, so areas that are now Ohio, Michigan, 00:07:52.660 --> 00:07:56.540 and Wisconsin, the British military simply stayed 00:07:56.540 --> 00:07:59.079 put. They just refused to leave. They knew the 00:07:59.079 --> 00:08:01.000 American government couldn't afford to raise 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:03.180 an army to push them out. They were treating 00:08:03.180 --> 00:08:06.160 the United States not as a sovereign equal, but 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:09.040 as a temporary geopolitical anomaly that would 00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:10.959 eventually collapse under its own dysfunction. 00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:14.819 So if the system is clearly broken, if the treasury 00:08:14.819 --> 00:08:17.500 is completely empty and foreign empires are just 00:08:17.500 --> 00:08:19.420 squatting on your territory and choking off your 00:08:19.420 --> 00:08:21.939 trade routes, the logical next step is to change 00:08:21.939 --> 00:08:24.800 the rules, right? You amend the Articles of Confederation 00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:26.920 to allow the national government to collect a 00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:29.839 basic tax. You would think so. But the founders 00:08:29.839 --> 00:08:32.200 had built a fatal trap door into the amendment 00:08:32.200 --> 00:08:35.240 process. To change the Articles of Confederation 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:38.179 for any reason, it required a unanimous vote 00:08:38.179 --> 00:08:41.480 of all 13 states. Unanimous? Every single one? 00:08:41.539 --> 00:08:44.419 Every single one. A single state could veto an 00:08:44.419 --> 00:08:46.799 amendment that the other 12 desperately needed 00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:49.220 for survival. And that wasn't just a theoretical 00:08:49.220 --> 00:08:51.220 problem. That actually happened repeatedly, right? 00:08:51.220 --> 00:08:54.799 Oh, yeah. In 1782, a critical amendment was proposed 00:08:54.799 --> 00:08:57.259 that would have allowed Congress to levy a basic 00:08:57.259 --> 00:09:00.860 5 % tax on imported goods, a federal impost. 00:09:01.039 --> 00:09:03.240 Which seems reasonable. It would have provided 00:09:03.240 --> 00:09:05.860 a steady stream of revenue to finally start paying 00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:08.120 down the Revolutionary War debt and restoring 00:09:08.120 --> 00:09:11.340 the nation's credit. 12 states recognized the 00:09:11.340 --> 00:09:13.820 existential necessity of this tax and agreed 00:09:13.820 --> 00:09:17.379 to it. But let me guess. Yep. Rhode Island alone 00:09:17.379 --> 00:09:19.820 vetoed it. Rhode Island, literally the smallest 00:09:19.820 --> 00:09:22.220 state in the Union, single -handedly shut down 00:09:22.220 --> 00:09:24.259 the financial recovery of the entire continent 00:09:24.259 --> 00:09:26.519 because they didn't want federal tax collectors 00:09:26.519 --> 00:09:29.159 in their local ports. That's exactly what happened. 00:09:29.620 --> 00:09:32.440 And then three years later, in 1785, the financial 00:09:32.440 --> 00:09:35.100 situation was even more dire. So Congress tried 00:09:35.100 --> 00:09:38.100 again. They proposed another federal imposed 00:09:38.100 --> 00:09:40.080 amendment. Did he get Rhode Island on board this 00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:43.460 time? They actually did after intense lobbying, 00:09:43.700 --> 00:09:46.840 but then New York disapproved. Oh, come on. Why 00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:49.720 New York? Well, New York had a massive bustling 00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:52.799 port and the state government was funding itself 00:09:52.799 --> 00:09:55.539 by collecting its own state -level tariffs on 00:09:55.539 --> 00:09:57.860 goods coming into New York Harbor. They just 00:09:57.860 --> 00:10:00.539 refused to surrender that lucrative revenue stream 00:10:00.539 --> 00:10:03.039 to the national government. So the veto stood. 00:10:03.179 --> 00:10:06.000 The veto stood. The amendment failed. That structural 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:08.740 flaw meant the United States was paralyzed. You 00:10:08.740 --> 00:10:10.960 have a national government that cannot pay its 00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:14.019 debts, cannot fund a military, and cannot even 00:10:14.019 --> 00:10:16.659 agree to let itself collect taxes to fix those 00:10:16.659 --> 00:10:19.559 exact problems. Maddening. European powers must 00:10:19.559 --> 00:10:21.480 have viewed the United States with utter contempt. 00:10:21.759 --> 00:10:25.740 They absolutely did. Britain, France, and Spain 00:10:25.740 --> 00:10:28.879 recognized that the United States was completely 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:31.980 incapable of coordinating any kind of national 00:10:31.980 --> 00:10:34.820 policy. They realized they didn't even need to 00:10:34.820 --> 00:10:36.740 fight the Americans militarily. They could just 00:10:36.740 --> 00:10:39.279 squeeze them economically. Because the Confederation 00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:42.110 Congress lacked the power. to regulate foreign 00:10:42.110 --> 00:10:45.350 commerce. Crucially, yes. And they also lack 00:10:45.350 --> 00:10:47.730 the power to regulate interstate commerce, the 00:10:47.730 --> 00:10:49.909 trade between the individual states themselves. 00:10:50.190 --> 00:10:51.549 Let's look at the mechanics of how that played 00:10:51.549 --> 00:10:54.870 out, because it's wild. Britain starts imposing 00:10:54.870 --> 00:10:57.950 heavy restrictions on American ships and American 00:10:57.950 --> 00:11:00.330 products entering British ports. Right, trying 00:11:00.330 --> 00:11:02.269 to strangle them out of the market. If the United 00:11:02.269 --> 00:11:04.429 States had a strong central government, they 00:11:04.429 --> 00:11:06.549 could have responded with a unified retaliatory 00:11:06.549 --> 00:11:08.809 tariff. They could have said, if you tax our 00:11:08.809 --> 00:11:11.690 goods, we will place a massive tax on all British 00:11:11.690 --> 00:11:15.149 goods entering any American port. That provide 00:11:15.149 --> 00:11:17.330 leverage. That's how normal nations operate. 00:11:17.529 --> 00:11:19.590 But because Congress had no power over trade, 00:11:19.789 --> 00:11:22.090 the states tried to handle it individually, which 00:11:22.090 --> 00:11:24.820 resulted in absolute chaos. Yeah, Massachusetts 00:11:24.820 --> 00:11:27.179 and Pennsylvania attempted to fight back against 00:11:27.179 --> 00:11:29.919 the British restrictions by placing reciprocal 00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:33.220 duties on British trade entering their specific 00:11:33.220 --> 00:11:36.200 state ports. Which makes sense. It does, but 00:11:36.200 --> 00:11:39.039 the 18th century mercantile economy was highly 00:11:39.039 --> 00:11:42.139 competitive. When neighboring states saw Massachusetts 00:11:42.139 --> 00:11:44.759 turning away British shipping or taxing it heavily, 00:11:45.220 --> 00:11:48.000 they saw a massive economic opportunity. Oh, 00:11:48.279 --> 00:11:50.919 no. Oh, yes. States like Connecticut and Delaware 00:11:50.919 --> 00:11:53.720 immediately established themselves as free ports. 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:56.059 They actively undermine their neighbors. It's 00:11:56.059 --> 00:11:59.840 like a city council deciding to set up a tollbooth 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:02.480 on the main highway to raise funds and the neighboring 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:04.779 town immediately pays a dirt road around the 00:12:04.779 --> 00:12:07.320 tollbooth and puts up a billboard saying, drive 00:12:07.320 --> 00:12:09.879 through our town for free. That is exactly what 00:12:09.879 --> 00:12:12.960 happened. Connecticut basically invited the British 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:15.539 ships to unload their cargo there without paying 00:12:15.539 --> 00:12:17.940 the Massachusetts taxes. And then those goods 00:12:17.940 --> 00:12:20.039 were just smuggled across the poor estate borders 00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:23.019 anyway. Unbelievable. The states were cannibalizing 00:12:23.019 --> 00:12:25.379 the national economy to secure short term local 00:12:25.379 --> 00:12:28.299 advantages. And the economic warfare didn't start 00:12:28.299 --> 00:12:30.940 with foreign trade. Because Congress couldn't 00:12:30.940 --> 00:12:33.220 regulate interstate commerce, the states began 00:12:33.220 --> 00:12:36.000 treating each other like rival foreign nations. 00:12:36.740 --> 00:12:38.879 New York actually began applying customs duties 00:12:38.879 --> 00:12:41.460 against goods arriving from New Jersey and Connecticut. 00:12:41.620 --> 00:12:44.220 Wait, seriously? So a farmer bringing cabbage 00:12:44.220 --> 00:12:46.700 from New Jersey across the Hudson River into 00:12:46.700 --> 00:12:49.220 New York City? was being taxed as if he were 00:12:49.220 --> 00:12:52.200 a foreign importer from France. That is a total 00:12:52.200 --> 00:12:54.820 train wreck. They were strangling their own domestic 00:12:54.820 --> 00:12:57.639 trade networks. The obsession with individual 00:12:57.639 --> 00:13:00.779 state sovereignty had mutated into a system of 00:13:00.779 --> 00:13:04.039 active self -sabotage. In 1784, Congress made 00:13:04.039 --> 00:13:06.120 a desperate attempt to propose an amendment granting 00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:08.879 themselves the power over foreign trade just 00:13:08.879 --> 00:13:11.480 to establish a unified front against the European 00:13:11.480 --> 00:13:14.759 empires. It failed to get unanimous approval. 00:13:15.139 --> 00:13:17.299 Unsurprisingly, yes, the states were locked in 00:13:17.299 --> 00:13:19.659 a zero sum game with each other, oblivious to 00:13:19.659 --> 00:13:22.100 the fact that the entire ship was sinking. So 00:13:22.100 --> 00:13:24.639 the national government has no money, no military 00:13:24.639 --> 00:13:27.200 power. Foreign empires are laughing at them. 00:13:27.370 --> 00:13:30.289 and the individual states are locked in petty 00:13:30.289 --> 00:13:32.570 destructive trade wars with their own neighbors. 00:13:33.669 --> 00:13:36.669 The geopolitical situation is disastrous, but 00:13:36.669 --> 00:13:38.610 what's happening on the ground to the average 00:13:38.610 --> 00:13:42.309 citizen is even worse. Much worse. The post -war 00:13:42.309 --> 00:13:44.929 economic depression was devastating, and our 00:13:44.929 --> 00:13:47.549 sources show it was significantly worsened by 00:13:47.549 --> 00:13:49.970 a severe scarcity of physical currency. Right. 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:52.080 The United States was suffering from a massive 00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:55.419 shortage of specie gold and silver coins. During 00:13:55.419 --> 00:13:58.620 the war, physical currency was hoarded. And afterward, 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:01.720 whatever hard currency remained was rapidly flowing 00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:04.659 out of the country to pay for imported European 00:14:04.659 --> 00:14:06.980 manufactured goods. Because we didn't have our 00:14:06.980 --> 00:14:09.279 own manufacturing base yet. Exactly. There simply 00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:11.360 wasn't enough money circulating in the domestic 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:14.240 economy. Let's trace the causality of that shortage 00:14:14.240 --> 00:14:16.559 because it leads directly to the breaking point 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:19.799 of the entire era. If there is no gold or silver 00:14:19.799 --> 00:14:22.259 circulating, everyday people, especially rural 00:14:22.259 --> 00:14:24.879 farmers, cannot pay their taxes, and they cannot 00:14:24.879 --> 00:14:27.350 pay their private debts to merchants. And that 00:14:27.350 --> 00:14:30.250 lack of specie created an intense class conflict 00:14:30.250 --> 00:14:33.350 between debtors and creditors. The state legislatures 00:14:33.350 --> 00:14:35.850 during this period were highly sensitive to popular 00:14:35.850 --> 00:14:37.950 opinion. Because of the whole revolutionary spirit. 00:14:38.110 --> 00:14:40.789 Yeah, the revolutionary era had unleashed a wave 00:14:40.789 --> 00:14:43.610 of hyper -democratic sentiment. Politicians wanted 00:14:43.610 --> 00:14:46.230 to maintain popular approval. So when the rural 00:14:46.230 --> 00:14:48.669 masses began demanding relief from their crushing 00:14:48.669 --> 00:14:51.690 debts, many state legislatures caved to the pressure. 00:14:52.090 --> 00:14:54.169 What were the actual mechanics of that relief, 00:14:54.350 --> 00:14:56.850 though? How does the state government fix a debt 00:14:56.850 --> 00:14:59.730 crisis when nobody has any real money? Well, 00:14:59.750 --> 00:15:02.490 they turned to the printing press. Several state 00:15:02.490 --> 00:15:04.870 legislatures responded to the crisis by issuing 00:15:04.870 --> 00:15:07.629 vast amounts of unbacked paper currency. Just 00:15:07.629 --> 00:15:09.289 printing money out of thin air? Pretty much. 00:15:09.590 --> 00:15:11.909 They also passed stay laws, making it easier 00:15:11.909 --> 00:15:14.850 to defer tax payments, and tender laws, which 00:15:14.850 --> 00:15:16.950 forced creditors to accept this newly printed 00:15:16.950 --> 00:15:19.649 paper money at face value for the repayment of 00:15:19.649 --> 00:15:22.669 debts. Okay, let me walk through this. If I am 00:15:22.669 --> 00:15:25.820 a merchant in a port city, and I lent a farmer 00:15:25.820 --> 00:15:28.620 $100 in gold coins before the depression hit. 00:15:29.100 --> 00:15:31.940 I am legally owed $100 in gold. But the state 00:15:31.940 --> 00:15:35.299 legislature steps in and prints thousands of 00:15:35.299 --> 00:15:37.379 paper notes that everyone knows are essentially 00:15:37.379 --> 00:15:40.259 worthless. Because there is no gold backing them, 00:15:40.740 --> 00:15:43.080 severe depreciation kicks in. Merchants might 00:15:43.080 --> 00:15:46.480 charge $500 in paper money for a $5 physical 00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:49.169 good just to offset the risk. Exactly. But the 00:15:49.169 --> 00:15:51.629 state passes a law saying the farmer can legally 00:15:51.629 --> 00:15:54.429 pay me back my hundred dollar loan using a hundred 00:15:54.429 --> 00:15:57.169 of these worthless paper notes. Yep. The creditors 00:15:57.169 --> 00:15:59.929 were being legally wiped out. Wealthy merchants 00:15:59.929 --> 00:16:02.759 and the political elite were terrified. They 00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:06.080 viewed these populist state legislatures as engines 00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:09.220 of mob rule, legislating away private property 00:16:09.220 --> 00:16:10.899 rights. I mean, you can see why they'd panic. 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:13.500 The elite proposed that the Confederation Congress 00:16:13.500 --> 00:16:16.200 be given the power to intervene and prevent such 00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:19.340 populist economic laws. But as we know, Congress 00:16:19.340 --> 00:16:21.740 remained completely powerless. But not every 00:16:21.740 --> 00:16:23.600 state adopted these populist measures, right? 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:25.759 Right. Some states held a hard line and that 00:16:25.759 --> 00:16:28.519 rigidness actually sparked the powder keg. Massachusetts 00:16:28.519 --> 00:16:30.740 is the prime example here. Massachusetts is the 00:16:30.740 --> 00:16:33.220 crucial turning point. The government of Massachusetts, 00:16:33.860 --> 00:16:36.080 heavily influenced by the wealthy mercantile 00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:39.559 class in Boston, absolutely refused to enact 00:16:39.559 --> 00:16:42.539 debtor relief laws. They refused to issue cheap 00:16:42.539 --> 00:16:45.740 paper money. Instead, they aggressively demanded 00:16:45.740 --> 00:16:49.019 that all state taxes and private debts be paid 00:16:49.019 --> 00:16:51.299 in hard currency. Which, as we established, the 00:16:51.299 --> 00:16:54.340 rural population simply did not have. So the 00:16:54.340 --> 00:16:56.000 farmers in the western part of Massachusetts 00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:59.100 were devastated. The local courts began seizing 00:16:59.100 --> 00:17:01.620 their land through foreclosures to satisfy their 00:17:01.620 --> 00:17:04.039 debts. If the sale of the land didn't cover the 00:17:04.039 --> 00:17:06.180 debt, the farmers were thrown into debtor's prison. 00:17:06.910 --> 00:17:10.569 It is. And the bitter irony that fueled the ensuing 00:17:10.569 --> 00:17:12.529 violence was that many of these impoverished 00:17:12.529 --> 00:17:14.670 farmers facing the loss of their land and their 00:17:14.670 --> 00:17:16.970 freedom were veterans of the Continental Army. 00:17:17.150 --> 00:17:19.589 This is the environment that creates Shays Rebellion. 00:17:20.039 --> 00:17:22.720 This is the specific moment where the theoretical 00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:25.079 flaws of the Articles of Confederation translate 00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:27.319 into actual armed violence against the state. 00:17:27.859 --> 00:17:30.579 Daniel Shays really embodies the tragedy of this 00:17:30.579 --> 00:17:33.279 era. He was a former captain in the Continental 00:17:33.279 --> 00:17:35.819 Army who had fought bravely in some of the war's 00:17:35.819 --> 00:17:38.740 most crucial battles, Lexington, Bunker Hill, 00:17:38.920 --> 00:17:42.700 Saratoga. He was a legitimate war hero. Like 00:17:42.700 --> 00:17:45.000 many veterans, he returned to his small farm 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:47.720 after the war burdened with accumulated tax debts. 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:51.119 But the critical context is that Shays, along 00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:53.980 with thousands of his fellow soldiers, had never 00:17:53.980 --> 00:17:56.119 received payment from the confederation government 00:17:56.119 --> 00:17:58.880 for his years of military service. The narrative 00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:01.740 here is just stunning. You have an unpaid war 00:18:01.740 --> 00:18:05.380 hero who literally fought and bled to create 00:18:05.380 --> 00:18:08.029 this new nation. Now, the government he helped 00:18:08.029 --> 00:18:11.049 build is taxing him into poverty, dragging his 00:18:11.049 --> 00:18:13.309 neighbors into court, seizing their farms and 00:18:13.309 --> 00:18:15.349 throwing them in jail for failing to pay those 00:18:15.349 --> 00:18:17.690 taxes, all while the national government completely 00:18:17.690 --> 00:18:20.329 ignores the back wages they owe him. It's a recipe 00:18:20.329 --> 00:18:22.589 for radicalization. You couldn't design a better 00:18:22.589 --> 00:18:25.730 system to create a rebellion. In late 1786, the 00:18:25.730 --> 00:18:27.869 rural farmers realized that peaceful petitions 00:18:27.869 --> 00:18:30.569 to the legislature in Boston were failing, so 00:18:30.569 --> 00:18:32.490 they resorted to direct action. What did they 00:18:32.490 --> 00:18:35.589 do? Daniel Shays and other local leaders organized 00:18:35.589 --> 00:18:38.509 thousands of angry farmers into armed militias. 00:18:39.029 --> 00:18:40.950 They didn't march on the Capitol immediately. 00:18:41.410 --> 00:18:43.569 Their first tactic was to march on the local 00:18:43.569 --> 00:18:46.650 county courthouses. Because if the courts are 00:18:46.650 --> 00:18:49.309 physically shut down by armed men, the judges 00:18:49.309 --> 00:18:52.349 can't issue the foreclosure orders, and the sheriffs 00:18:52.349 --> 00:18:55.509 can't seize the farms or throw anyone in debtor's 00:18:55.509 --> 00:18:58.509 prison. Precisely. They were effectively halting 00:18:58.509 --> 00:19:01.680 the machinery of the state. The governor of Massachusetts 00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:04.180 realized the local militias sympathized with 00:19:04.180 --> 00:19:07.200 the rebels and wouldn't fight them. So the state 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:09.460 government appealed directly to the Confederation 00:19:09.460 --> 00:19:11.680 Congress for military assistance. They asked 00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:14.299 for federal troops. They asked the national government 00:19:14.299 --> 00:19:16.640 to send troops to put down the rebellion. But 00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:18.380 the national government has an empty treasury 00:19:18.380 --> 00:19:21.140 and no standing army. They're completely paralyzed. 00:19:21.619 --> 00:19:23.319 They couldn't even afford to pay the soldiers 00:19:23.319 --> 00:19:25.619 they already had stationed on the frontier, let 00:19:25.619 --> 00:19:28.000 alone raise a new force to deploy to New England. 00:19:28.170 --> 00:19:31.569 Massachusetts was entirely on its own. The federal 00:19:31.569 --> 00:19:34.069 government's inability to provide basic domestic 00:19:34.069 --> 00:19:36.809 security was laid bare for the entire world to 00:19:36.809 --> 00:19:39.750 see. So what did Massachusetts do? Because the 00:19:39.750 --> 00:19:42.210 state government lacks the public funds to raise 00:19:42.210 --> 00:19:45.369 a state army, they had to rely on private wealth. 00:19:45.970 --> 00:19:48.289 The wealthy merchants and creditors in Boston, 00:19:48.470 --> 00:19:50.809 terrified that Shays' men would march eastward 00:19:50.809 --> 00:19:53.349 and burn their property or forcefully cancel 00:19:53.349 --> 00:19:56.549 all debts, pooled their private money to hire 00:19:56.549 --> 00:19:59.549 a mercenary militia to march west and crush the 00:19:59.549 --> 00:20:02.430 uprising. It's a dystopian scenario. a private 00:20:02.430 --> 00:20:05.450 army funded by rich merchants marching across 00:20:05.450 --> 00:20:08.930 the state to put down a rebellion of broke, unpaid 00:20:08.930 --> 00:20:11.349 war veterans. And it wasn't a quick skirmish 00:20:11.349 --> 00:20:14.369 either. It took months of tension and maneuvering 00:20:14.369 --> 00:20:17.130 before this privately funded army finally dispersed 00:20:17.130 --> 00:20:20.309 chase forces in early 1787. That had to have 00:20:20.309 --> 00:20:21.950 sent shockwaves through the rest of the country. 00:20:22.089 --> 00:20:24.470 Oh, the psychological impact of this event on 00:20:24.470 --> 00:20:27.289 the nation's political elite cannot be overstated. 00:20:27.470 --> 00:20:29.769 George Washington, who was in retirement at Mount 00:20:29.769 --> 00:20:32.390 Vernon, was receiving letters from his former 00:20:32.390 --> 00:20:35.430 officers, like Henry Knox, detailing the chaos. 00:20:35.750 --> 00:20:37.650 Where are they saying? Knox warned Washington 00:20:37.650 --> 00:20:40.009 that the rebels wanted to completely redistribute 00:20:40.009 --> 00:20:42.869 property and cancel all debts. If you are George 00:20:42.869 --> 00:20:46.190 Washington or James Madison, watching this unfold 00:20:46.190 --> 00:20:49.970 from afar, the implications are terrifying. If 00:20:49.970 --> 00:20:52.829 a few thousand angry farmers in western Massachusetts 00:20:52.829 --> 00:20:56.029 can bring a state government to its knees and 00:20:56.029 --> 00:20:58.349 force them to rely on private mercenaries because 00:20:58.349 --> 00:21:00.859 the federal government is entirely useless, What 00:21:00.859 --> 00:21:03.640 happens when the rebellion spread? Exactly. Or 00:21:03.640 --> 00:21:05.799 worse, what happens if the British or the Spanish 00:21:05.799 --> 00:21:08.420 decide this is the perfect moment to invade? 00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:11.720 Washington wrote that he was mortified. He believed 00:21:11.720 --> 00:21:14.200 the union was on the verge of anarchy and dissolution. 00:21:14.380 --> 00:21:17.000 The system wasn't just inefficient, it was suicidal. 00:21:17.160 --> 00:21:19.460 So it was a wake up call. A massive one. This 00:21:19.460 --> 00:21:22.240 acute panic over domestic security, combined 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:24.579 with the ongoing economic strangulation of the 00:21:24.579 --> 00:21:27.930 trade wars, forced a massive pivot. The political 00:21:27.930 --> 00:21:30.450 elite realized they could no longer ignore the 00:21:30.450 --> 00:21:32.750 terminal sickness of the Articles of Confederation. 00:21:33.369 --> 00:21:35.529 This realization led directly to a meeting in 00:21:35.529 --> 00:21:39.109 September of 1786, known as the Annapolis Convention. 00:21:39.450 --> 00:21:41.250 But the Annapolis Convention wasn't the main 00:21:41.250 --> 00:21:43.450 event, was it? Only a fraction of the states 00:21:43.450 --> 00:21:46.289 actually bothered to show up. Right. Only delegates 00:21:46.289 --> 00:21:49.430 from five states attended. The rest either didn't 00:21:49.430 --> 00:21:52.009 appoint delegates in time or the delegates simply 00:21:52.009 --> 00:21:53.769 didn't make the difficult journey. So it was 00:21:53.769 --> 00:21:56.910 a bust. Not entirely. The handful of men who 00:21:56.910 --> 00:21:59.430 did gather at Annapolis, which included Alexander 00:21:59.430 --> 00:22:01.990 Hamilton of New York and James Madison of Virginia, 00:22:02.589 --> 00:22:05.089 used the failure of the meeting to launch a much 00:22:05.089 --> 00:22:07.569 larger initiative. They realized that you couldn't 00:22:07.569 --> 00:22:09.950 just fix the interstate trade issues without 00:22:09.950 --> 00:22:12.789 addressing the fundamental lack of national power. 00:22:13.130 --> 00:22:15.230 The issues were too interconnected. You can't 00:22:15.230 --> 00:22:17.730 fix trade without fixing taxes and you can't 00:22:17.730 --> 00:22:20.630 fix taxes without an enforcement mechanism. Exactly. 00:22:21.069 --> 00:22:23.769 The Annapolis delegates drafted a formal report 00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:25.819 concluding that their current mandate was too 00:22:25.819 --> 00:22:28.200 narrow and the representation too defective. 00:22:28.660 --> 00:22:31.279 They called for a new general convention of all 00:22:31.279 --> 00:22:33.579 the states to be held in Philadelphia in May 00:22:33.579 --> 00:22:36.599 of 1787. With broader powers. With much broader 00:22:36.599 --> 00:22:39.140 powers to devise provisions necessary to render 00:22:39.140 --> 00:22:41.400 the Constitution of the federal government adequate 00:22:41.400 --> 00:22:43.680 to the exigencies of the Union. So they send 00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:45.900 this radical recommendation to the Confederation 00:22:45.900 --> 00:22:48.700 Congress. How did the Congress react to a group 00:22:48.700 --> 00:22:51.900 of rogue delegates suggesting a massive overhaul 00:22:51.900 --> 00:22:54.059 of the government? The Confederation Congress 00:22:54.059 --> 00:22:56.660 was incredibly cautious. They debated it for 00:22:56.660 --> 00:23:01.680 months. Finally, on February 21, 1787, they officially 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:04.160 endorsed the idea of holding a convention in 00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:07.759 Philadelphia. But they attached a massive legally 00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:11.019 binding caveat. What was it? They explicitly 00:23:11.019 --> 00:23:13.460 stated that the convention was approved for the 00:23:13.460 --> 00:23:16.180 sole and express purpose of revising the Articles 00:23:16.180 --> 00:23:19.559 of Confederation. Revising. That is a very specific 00:23:19.559 --> 00:23:22.140 legal parameter. They are telling the delegates, 00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:24.440 you can go to Philadelphia, you can tinker with 00:23:24.440 --> 00:23:26.779 the edges, you can maybe propose a new formula 00:23:26.779 --> 00:23:29.119 for requesting money from the states, but you 00:23:29.119 --> 00:23:31.579 absolutely cannot scrap the foundational document. 00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:34.019 Congress only granted authority for the convention 00:23:34.019 --> 00:23:36.839 to produce a report detailing suggested alterations 00:23:36.839 --> 00:23:39.200 to the articles. And those alterations would 00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:41.119 then have to be submitted back to Congress and 00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:43.279 unanimously approved by the states. Which we 00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:46.039 know was impossible. Right. And by the time Congress 00:23:46.039 --> 00:23:48.359 even issued this restricted endorsement, several 00:23:48.359 --> 00:23:50.240 states had already passed their own measures 00:23:50.240 --> 00:23:53.220 authorizing delegates to attend, relying on their 00:23:53.220 --> 00:23:55.299 own state authority rather than congressional 00:23:55.299 --> 00:23:59.279 permission. The entire endeavor was legally ambiguous 00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:02.460 from the start. Into this legally murky high 00:24:02.460 --> 00:24:06.049 stakes environment steps, James Madison. And 00:24:06.049 --> 00:24:08.269 Madison didn't just show up to Philadelphia hoping 00:24:08.269 --> 00:24:11.289 for the best. He arrived with a very specific, 00:24:11.309 --> 00:24:14.670 aggressive agenda to completely hijack the convention. 00:24:14.890 --> 00:24:18.069 Madison arrived in Philadelphia 11 days before 00:24:18.069 --> 00:24:20.210 the convention was scheduled to begin. He was 00:24:20.210 --> 00:24:22.670 arguably the most prepared man in North America. 00:24:22.990 --> 00:24:25.910 He did his homework. Oh, he did. For months beforehand, 00:24:26.230 --> 00:24:28.210 Thomas Jefferson, who was serving as a diplomat 00:24:28.210 --> 00:24:30.789 in Paris, had been shipping Madison crates of 00:24:30.789 --> 00:24:33.470 books on political theory and history. Madison 00:24:33.470 --> 00:24:36.089 essentially conducted a massive, comprehensive 00:24:36.089 --> 00:24:38.910 literature review of every republic and confederacy 00:24:38.910 --> 00:24:41.250 that had ever existed in recorded history. Wait, 00:24:41.250 --> 00:24:43.390 like all of them? From the Amphictyonic League 00:24:43.390 --> 00:24:46.279 of Ancient Greece to the contemporary Swiss Confederacy. 00:24:46.640 --> 00:24:48.680 He was looking for the historical patterns of 00:24:48.680 --> 00:24:50.640 why governments fail. He didn't want to just 00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:53.259 patch the leaks. He wanted to understand the 00:24:53.259 --> 00:24:55.920 engineering flaws of the entire boat. That's 00:24:55.920 --> 00:25:00.329 a great way to put it. In April 1787, he synthesized 00:25:00.329 --> 00:25:02.670 all of this research into a private memorandum 00:25:02.670 --> 00:25:05.450 titled, Vices of the Political System of the 00:25:05.450 --> 00:25:08.470 United States. He systematically diagnosed the 00:25:08.470 --> 00:25:10.650 fatal illnesses of the confederation. And what 00:25:10.650 --> 00:25:12.809 was his conclusion? He concluded that the system 00:25:12.809 --> 00:25:15.009 was unworkable because the states possessed too 00:25:15.009 --> 00:25:16.970 much power and the national government lacked 00:25:16.970 --> 00:25:19.230 the authority to act directly upon the citizens. 00:25:19.630 --> 00:25:22.470 His diagnosis is that you cannot have a national 00:25:22.470 --> 00:25:25.029 government that relies entirely on the voluntary 00:25:25.029 --> 00:25:27.869 compliance of independent states. What was his 00:25:27.869 --> 00:25:30.470 proposed solution? Madison believed the only 00:25:30.470 --> 00:25:33.509 path forward was a supreme overarching national 00:25:33.509 --> 00:25:36.549 government. Congress needed compulsory taxation 00:25:36.549 --> 00:25:39.589 authority. They needed absolute power to regulate 00:25:39.589 --> 00:25:42.269 foreign and interstate commerce. Okay, so total 00:25:42.269 --> 00:25:45.089 overhaul. But the most radical part of his solution 00:25:45.089 --> 00:25:48.289 was the enforcement mechanism. Madison believed 00:25:48.289 --> 00:25:50.769 the national government needed an explicit right 00:25:50.769 --> 00:25:53.289 to use military force against non -compliant 00:25:53.289 --> 00:25:55.950 states, and it needed a federal court system 00:25:55.950 --> 00:25:58.890 to establish the supremacy of national law. He 00:25:58.890 --> 00:26:01.029 wanted a government that could act on the individual 00:26:01.029 --> 00:26:03.349 rather than just politely asking the state governments 00:26:03.349 --> 00:26:07.369 to behave. But if Madison's plan involves creating 00:26:07.369 --> 00:26:09.390 a supreme national government with three branches, 00:26:09.910 --> 00:26:12.920 he is blatantly ignoring the instructions from 00:26:12.920 --> 00:26:16.079 the Confederation Congress to merely revise the 00:26:16.079 --> 00:26:18.559 article. Oh, completely. Madison, Hamilton, and 00:26:18.559 --> 00:26:21.180 their nationalist allies never had any intention 00:26:21.180 --> 00:26:23.839 of revising the articles. They knew the unanimous 00:26:23.839 --> 00:26:26.839 amendment process made revision impossible anyway. 00:26:27.019 --> 00:26:29.059 I mean, Rhode Island was already boycotting the 00:26:29.059 --> 00:26:30.920 Philadelphia Convention entirely. So they were 00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:33.039 basically starting from scratch. Their strategy 00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:35.480 from day one was to scrap the articles completely 00:26:35.480 --> 00:26:38.000 and introduce a brand new frame of government. 00:26:38.200 --> 00:26:40.500 The environment in which they execute this plan 00:26:40.500 --> 00:26:43.279 is fascinating. They are gathered in the Pennsylvania 00:26:43.279 --> 00:26:45.779 State House Independence Hall in the middle of 00:26:45.779 --> 00:26:48.500 a sweltering Philadelphia summer. And one of 00:26:48.500 --> 00:26:50.039 the first things they do is nail the windows 00:26:50.039 --> 00:26:53.059 shut and post guards at the doors. They instituted 00:26:53.059 --> 00:26:57.319 a strict rule of absolute secrecy. No delegate 00:26:57.319 --> 00:26:59.539 was allowed to speak to the press, write in their 00:26:59.539 --> 00:27:01.680 private letters or discuss the proceedings with 00:27:01.680 --> 00:27:04.099 anyone outside that room. In the middle of summer. 00:27:04.430 --> 00:27:06.930 That sounds miserable. Despite the brutal heat 00:27:06.930 --> 00:27:09.170 and the lack of ventilation, the windows remained 00:27:09.170 --> 00:27:11.750 closed to prevent eavesdropping. Because they 00:27:11.750 --> 00:27:14.569 were orchestrating a bloodless bureaucratic coup. 00:27:15.509 --> 00:27:18.089 If the state politicians back home caught wind 00:27:18.089 --> 00:27:20.369 that these delegates were secretly tearing up 00:27:20.369 --> 00:27:22.869 the Articles of Confederation and designing a 00:27:22.869 --> 00:27:24.990 supreme national government that would strip 00:27:24.990 --> 00:27:27.849 the states of their sovereignty, the state legislatures 00:27:27.849 --> 00:27:29.789 would have recalled their delegates immediately 00:27:29.789 --> 00:27:32.940 and shut the whole thing down. Absolutely. The 00:27:32.940 --> 00:27:35.240 secrecy was a crucial operational necessity. 00:27:35.799 --> 00:27:38.180 It allowed the delegates to speak freely, debate 00:27:38.180 --> 00:27:41.299 radical ideas, and most importantly, change their 00:27:41.299 --> 00:27:44.420 minds without fear of public backlash. or political 00:27:44.420 --> 00:27:46.799 retribution back home. So who was in charge once 00:27:46.799 --> 00:27:49.000 they locked the doors? Once they finally achieved 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:52.940 a quorum of seven states on May 25th, they unanimously 00:27:52.940 --> 00:27:55.279 elected George Washington as the president of 00:27:55.279 --> 00:27:58.160 the convention. Washington rarely spoke during 00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:00.339 the debates, but his mere presence sitting at 00:28:00.339 --> 00:28:02.420 the front of the room lent the secret proceedings 00:28:02.420 --> 00:28:05.539 an aura of unimpeachable legitimacy. With the 00:28:05.539 --> 00:28:08.460 doors locked and Washington presiding, Madison 00:28:08.460 --> 00:28:11.150 makes his move. the Virginia delegates present 00:28:11.150 --> 00:28:13.970 his blueprint to the convention. On May 29th, 00:28:14.049 --> 00:28:16.329 Edmund Randolph, the governor of Virginia, officially 00:28:16.329 --> 00:28:18.829 introduced Madison's framework. It became known 00:28:18.829 --> 00:28:21.470 as the Virginia Plan. And this is the bombshell. 00:28:21.930 --> 00:28:24.190 It was a staggering departure from everything 00:28:24.190 --> 00:28:25.910 the delegates thought they were there to do. 00:28:26.630 --> 00:28:29.049 The Virginia Plan proposed a powerful national 00:28:29.049 --> 00:28:31.369 government divided into three distinct branches, 00:28:32.210 --> 00:28:35.539 legislative, executive, and judicial. It completely 00:28:35.539 --> 00:28:38.039 eliminated the unicameral confederation congress 00:28:38.039 --> 00:28:40.539 and replaced it with a bicameral legislature 00:28:40.539 --> 00:28:42.779 consisting of two houses. Two houses instead 00:28:42.779 --> 00:28:46.119 of one. And the powers granted to this new legislature 00:28:46.119 --> 00:28:50.289 were sweeping. Oh, incredibly sweeping. The proposed 00:28:50.289 --> 00:28:52.549 Congress would have the power to legislate in 00:28:52.549 --> 00:28:55.430 all cases to which the separate states are incompetent. 00:28:55.789 --> 00:28:59.029 It could levy taxes, regulate all commerce, and 00:28:59.029 --> 00:29:02.029 forcefully execute national laws. But the most 00:29:02.029 --> 00:29:04.190 controversial and explosive provision of the 00:29:04.190 --> 00:29:06.670 Virginia plan was the mechanism for representation. 00:29:07.180 --> 00:29:10.539 This is where the real war begins. How did Madison 00:29:10.539 --> 00:29:12.839 propose they allocate voting power in this new 00:29:12.839 --> 00:29:15.279 Congress? Madison proposed that representation 00:29:15.279 --> 00:29:17.500 in both the lower and upper houses of the new 00:29:17.500 --> 00:29:20.039 Congress should be strictly proportional, based 00:29:20.039 --> 00:29:22.299 either on a state's population or its wealth. 00:29:22.900 --> 00:29:24.779 The lower house would be elected directly by 00:29:24.779 --> 00:29:26.640 the people and the upper house would be elected 00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:29.220 by the lower house. You can instantly see why 00:29:29.220 --> 00:29:32.019 the small states would panic. Under the Articles 00:29:32.019 --> 00:29:34.900 of Confederation, every state had exactly one 00:29:34.900 --> 00:29:38.549 equal vote. If voting power suddenly shifts entirely 00:29:38.549 --> 00:29:41.750 to population size, the massive states like Virginia, 00:29:41.990 --> 00:29:44.329 Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts are going to 00:29:44.329 --> 00:29:47.230 mathematically dominate every single piece of 00:29:47.230 --> 00:29:50.220 legislation. The large states believed the one 00:29:50.220 --> 00:29:53.019 -state, one -vote system was fundamentally unjust. 00:29:53.559 --> 00:29:55.519 They were frustrated that a small minority of 00:29:55.519 --> 00:29:57.519 the national population living in places like 00:29:57.519 --> 00:30:00.799 Delaware or Rhode Island could veto policies 00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:02.940 supported by the vast majority of Americans. 00:30:03.059 --> 00:30:05.099 Which is a fair point. But the small states viewed 00:30:05.099 --> 00:30:07.500 proportional representation as an existential 00:30:07.500 --> 00:30:09.779 threat. They believed the large states would 00:30:09.779 --> 00:30:12.259 use their numerical advantage to completely consume 00:30:12.259 --> 00:30:14.660 the interests and economies of the smaller states. 00:30:14.900 --> 00:30:17.180 The small states didn't just accept this obviously. 00:30:17.259 --> 00:30:19.819 They organized a counteroffensive. They did. 00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:23.579 On June 15, William Patterson of New Jersey introduced 00:30:23.579 --> 00:30:26.460 an alternative framework known as the New Jersey 00:30:26.460 --> 00:30:29.640 Plan. This plan was much closer to the original 00:30:29.640 --> 00:30:32.359 legal mandate of the convention. It sought to 00:30:32.359 --> 00:30:34.700 genuinely revise the Articles rather than destroy 00:30:34.700 --> 00:30:37.220 them. How did it work? The New Jersey Plan maintained 00:30:37.220 --> 00:30:39.900 the unicameral confederation congress where each 00:30:39.900 --> 00:30:42.960 state possessed one equal vote. So it's essentially 00:30:42.960 --> 00:30:46.170 the Articles of Confederation version 1 .5. It 00:30:46.170 --> 00:30:48.730 patches the biggest leaks by giving the existing 00:30:48.730 --> 00:30:51.910 Congress the power to levy tariffs and regulate 00:30:51.910 --> 00:30:54.910 interstate trade, but it preserves the fundamental 00:30:54.910 --> 00:30:58.089 architecture of state equality. Exactly. It also 00:30:58.089 --> 00:31:01.369 proposed a weak, multi -person executive council 00:31:01.369 --> 00:31:04.569 chosen by Congress rather than a single powerful 00:31:04.569 --> 00:31:07.849 president. The convention debated the two wildly 00:31:07.849 --> 00:31:10.549 different visions for days. The dividing line 00:31:10.549 --> 00:31:13.509 was clear. The large states supported the Virginia 00:31:13.509 --> 00:31:16.089 plan's proportional representation, while the 00:31:16.089 --> 00:31:18.289 small states desperately clung to the New Jersey 00:31:18.289 --> 00:31:21.269 plan's equal representation. And there's a fascinating 00:31:21.269 --> 00:31:23.829 extreme proposed during this period by Alexander 00:31:23.829 --> 00:31:26.289 Hamilton. Because Hamilton listens to both of 00:31:26.289 --> 00:31:28.849 these plans and essentially decides neither of 00:31:28.849 --> 00:31:31.170 them goes nearly far enough in centralizing power. 00:31:31.369 --> 00:31:33.390 Hamilton's intervention is a remarkable piece 00:31:33.390 --> 00:31:36.250 of convention history. On June 18th, he delivered 00:31:36.250 --> 00:31:39.430 a massive, sprawling six -hour speech outlining 00:31:39.430 --> 00:31:41.329 his own vision for the government. Six hours. 00:31:41.470 --> 00:31:44.170 Six hours. Hamilton deeply admired the British 00:31:44.170 --> 00:31:47.369 system. He proposed a highly centralized national 00:31:47.369 --> 00:31:49.150 government where the states would essentially 00:31:49.150 --> 00:31:52.490 be reduced to administrative provinces, their 00:31:52.490 --> 00:31:54.509 governors appointed directly by the national 00:31:54.509 --> 00:31:56.329 government. He essentially wanted an elected 00:31:56.329 --> 00:31:59.029 monarchy. Pretty much. He proposed a national 00:31:59.029 --> 00:32:01.809 executive and senators who would serve during 00:32:01.809 --> 00:32:04.630 good behavior, which effectively meant life terms 00:32:04.630 --> 00:32:07.490 barring impeachment. He believed the government 00:32:07.490 --> 00:32:10.109 needed immense energy and stability to survive 00:32:10.109 --> 00:32:12.450 against European empires. How did the room react 00:32:12.450 --> 00:32:15.210 to that? His plan was so extreme that it found 00:32:15.210 --> 00:32:17.650 almost no support among the other delegates. 00:32:18.109 --> 00:32:20.930 However, Hamilton's radical proposal served an 00:32:20.930 --> 00:32:24.339 unintended psychological purpose. It made Madison's 00:32:24.339 --> 00:32:26.740 Virginia plan look moderate and reasonable by 00:32:26.740 --> 00:32:29.579 comparison. That's a brilliant, if accidental, 00:32:30.039 --> 00:32:32.500 negotiation tactic. So the convention votes on 00:32:32.500 --> 00:32:34.859 the New Jersey plan and the large states backed 00:32:34.859 --> 00:32:36.859 by the southern slave states who anticipated 00:32:36.859 --> 00:32:39.599 massive population growth manage to defeat it. 00:32:40.039 --> 00:32:42.000 The Virginia plan becomes the working document, 00:32:42.119 --> 00:32:44.420 but the small states refuse to concede the issue 00:32:44.420 --> 00:32:47.500 of representation. The convention grinds to a 00:32:47.500 --> 00:32:49.789 halt. The gridlock stretched through June and 00:32:49.789 --> 00:32:52.529 into July. The heat inside the sealed room was 00:32:52.529 --> 00:32:55.009 oppressive, and the political distrust reached 00:32:55.009 --> 00:32:58.650 a boiling point. The frustration was best articulated 00:32:58.650 --> 00:33:01.650 by Gunning Bedford Jr., a delegate from Delaware. 00:33:02.029 --> 00:33:04.970 He stood up and explicitly threatened the large 00:33:04.970 --> 00:33:08.450 states. He said, I do not gentlemen trust you. 00:33:08.930 --> 00:33:11.089 And he didn't stop there. He escalated it to 00:33:11.089 --> 00:33:13.349 a threat of national destruction, right? He did. 00:33:13.879 --> 00:33:16.660 Bedford warned that if the large states persisted 00:33:16.660 --> 00:33:18.420 in their attempt to strip the small states of 00:33:18.420 --> 00:33:20.420 their equal vote, the small states would walk 00:33:20.420 --> 00:33:23.319 away. He declared, sooner than be ruined, there 00:33:23.319 --> 00:33:25.519 are foreign powers who will take us by the hand. 00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:27.839 That is open treason being threatened on the 00:33:27.839 --> 00:33:30.059 floor of Independence Hall. He's telling James 00:33:30.059 --> 00:33:32.460 Madison and George Washington directly to their 00:33:32.460 --> 00:33:35.279 faces. If you force proportional representation 00:33:35.279 --> 00:33:37.960 on us, Delaware will leave the United States 00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:40.240 and forge a military alliance with Great Britain 00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:42.440 or France just to protect ourselves from Virginia. 00:33:42.519 --> 00:33:45.319 It was explosive. The entire country is on the 00:33:45.319 --> 00:33:47.000 verge of shattering right there in the room. 00:33:47.319 --> 00:33:49.779 It was the lowest, most dangerous moment of the 00:33:49.779 --> 00:33:52.839 convention. Realizing the entire project was 00:33:52.839 --> 00:33:55.220 on the brink of collapse, the delegates formed 00:33:55.220 --> 00:33:58.200 a grand committee consisting of one member from 00:33:58.200 --> 00:34:01.339 each state to try and break the stalemate over 00:34:01.339 --> 00:34:04.380 the Fourth of July recess. And did it work? The 00:34:04.380 --> 00:34:06.180 result of that committee's work is what we now 00:34:06.180 --> 00:34:08.380 call the Great Compromise, or the Connecticut 00:34:08.380 --> 00:34:11.519 Compromise. How did they finally split the difference 00:34:11.519 --> 00:34:14.699 and satisfy both the massive population of Virginia 00:34:14.699 --> 00:34:17.460 and the tiny population of Delaware? They blended 00:34:17.460 --> 00:34:19.880 the architectural concepts of both the Virginia 00:34:19.880 --> 00:34:23.239 and New Jersey plans. They agreed on a bicameral 00:34:23.239 --> 00:34:25.639 legislature. In the lower chamber, the House 00:34:25.639 --> 00:34:27.980 of Representatives representation would be strictly 00:34:27.980 --> 00:34:31.219 proportional based on population. This was the 00:34:31.219 --> 00:34:34.400 massive concession to the large states. To further 00:34:34.400 --> 00:34:36.840 satisfy the large states, the compromise dictated 00:34:36.840 --> 00:34:39.500 that all legislation concerning taxation or the 00:34:39.500 --> 00:34:42.400 raising of revenue had to originate in this lower 00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:45.019 house. The logic being that if the people are 00:34:45.019 --> 00:34:47.570 going to be taxed, The chamber that is most directly 00:34:47.570 --> 00:34:49.730 responsive to the fluctuating population should 00:34:49.730 --> 00:34:52.889 hold the purse strings. Exactly. But the critical 00:34:52.889 --> 00:34:55.309 concession to the small states occurred in the 00:34:55.309 --> 00:34:59.309 upper chamber, the Senate. The compromise guaranteed 00:34:59.309 --> 00:35:02.409 that every single state, regardless of its size 00:35:02.409 --> 00:35:05.929 or population, would have exactly two senators 00:35:05.929 --> 00:35:08.440 providing them with an equal vote. And these 00:35:08.440 --> 00:35:10.519 senators were not elected by the general public? 00:35:11.159 --> 00:35:13.619 No. The Constitution originally mandated that 00:35:13.619 --> 00:35:16.039 senators be chosen by their respective state 00:35:16.039 --> 00:35:19.440 legislatures. This was a deliberate design choice. 00:35:19.670 --> 00:35:22.670 it served as a protective shield for state sovereignty. 00:35:22.789 --> 00:35:25.150 Oh, I see. By giving the state governments the 00:35:25.150 --> 00:35:27.650 direct power to select the individuals populating 00:35:27.650 --> 00:35:29.469 the upper chamber of the national government, 00:35:29.949 --> 00:35:32.050 they ensured that state -level interests could 00:35:32.050 --> 00:35:35.309 never be completely bulldozed by national populism. 00:35:35.929 --> 00:35:38.289 That mechanism remained in place until the 17th 00:35:38.289 --> 00:35:40.269 Amendment established the direct election of 00:35:40.269 --> 00:35:42.949 senators in 1913. The great compromise saves 00:35:42.949 --> 00:35:45.260 the convention. They finally have a legislative 00:35:45.260 --> 00:35:48.199 structure capable of passing laws, levying taxes, 00:35:48.440 --> 00:35:51.059 and regulating commerce. The economic and structural 00:35:51.059 --> 00:35:53.199 failures of the articles of consideration are 00:35:53.199 --> 00:35:56.239 theoretically solved. But as we discussed earlier, 00:35:56.559 --> 00:35:58.739 passing a law means absolutely nothing if you 00:35:58.739 --> 00:36:02.079 don't have the apparatus to enforce it. The legislative 00:36:02.079 --> 00:36:05.119 debates were brutal, but inventing the enforcement 00:36:05.119 --> 00:36:07.360 mechanisms the executive and judicial branches 00:36:07.360 --> 00:36:10.619 required creating entire institutions out of 00:36:10.619 --> 00:36:12.900 thin air. And the creation of the presidency 00:36:12.900 --> 00:36:15.420 was incredibly difficult because they had no 00:36:15.420 --> 00:36:18.880 successful historical model to emulate. And of 00:36:18.880 --> 00:36:21.800 course, they were haunted by their colonial experience 00:36:21.800 --> 00:36:24.960 with King George III. They deeply distrusted 00:36:24.960 --> 00:36:27.719 the concept of a strong central chief executive. 00:36:28.010 --> 00:36:30.050 When the Virginia plan originally proposed a 00:36:30.050 --> 00:36:32.670 national executive, it was incredibly vague. 00:36:33.030 --> 00:36:34.670 It didn't even specify whether the executive 00:36:34.670 --> 00:36:36.690 should be a single individual or a committee 00:36:36.690 --> 00:36:39.510 of several people. Many delegates fiercely opposed 00:36:39.510 --> 00:36:42.590 concentrating executive power in one man. Edmund 00:36:42.590 --> 00:36:45.130 Randolph of Virginia openly argued that a single 00:36:45.130 --> 00:36:48.210 executive was the fetus of monarchy. The fetus 00:36:48.210 --> 00:36:51.349 of monarchy. That's vivid. He feared that one 00:36:51.349 --> 00:36:54.030 individual would eventually consolidate power 00:36:54.030 --> 00:36:56.730 and transform the republic back into a dictatorship. 00:36:57.639 --> 00:37:01.400 They heavily considered a plural executive, perhaps 00:37:01.400 --> 00:37:03.960 a triumvirate of three leaders representing the 00:37:03.960 --> 00:37:06.139 northern, middle and southern regions of the 00:37:06.139 --> 00:37:09.219 country. But if you put three politicians representing 00:37:09.219 --> 00:37:11.519 completely different regional economic interests 00:37:11.519 --> 00:37:13.820 in charge of enforcing the law, they're going 00:37:13.820 --> 00:37:16.099 to spend all their time arguing with each other. 00:37:16.559 --> 00:37:18.219 Nothing would ever get done in an emergency. 00:37:18.500 --> 00:37:20.699 That was exactly the counterargument advanced 00:37:20.699 --> 00:37:23.380 by James Wilson, a brilliant legal mind from 00:37:23.380 --> 00:37:26.739 Pennsylvania. Wilson was really the unsung architect 00:37:26.739 --> 00:37:30.099 of the American presidency. He argued forcefully 00:37:30.099 --> 00:37:32.539 against a plural executive committee. What was 00:37:32.539 --> 00:37:34.760 his reasoning? He recognized that the primary 00:37:34.760 --> 00:37:37.440 flaw of the Articles of Confederation was paralysis. 00:37:38.139 --> 00:37:40.900 He argued that only a single unitary executive 00:37:40.900 --> 00:37:43.480 could possess the necessary attributes to govern 00:37:43.480 --> 00:37:46.480 effectively. He summarized these attributes in 00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:49.780 three words, energy, dispatch, and responsibility. 00:37:50.179 --> 00:37:53.619 Let's unpack those attributes. Energy means the 00:37:53.619 --> 00:37:57.599 power to actually act and enforce the laws. Dispatch 00:37:57.599 --> 00:38:00.139 means the speed and efficiency to act quickly, 00:38:00.639 --> 00:38:02.900 especially in a military or diplomatic crisis, 00:38:03.440 --> 00:38:06.139 something a committee arguing over regional interests 00:38:06.139 --> 00:38:08.780 can never achieve. Right. But responsibility 00:38:08.780 --> 00:38:11.619 is the most interesting one to me. Wilson understood 00:38:11.619 --> 00:38:14.219 the psychology of accountability. If you have 00:38:14.219 --> 00:38:16.460 a committee of three executives and a disastrous 00:38:16.460 --> 00:38:18.960 decision is made, each member will simply blame 00:38:18.960 --> 00:38:21.710 the other two. The public never knows who is 00:38:21.710 --> 00:38:23.449 truly at fault. Everyone just points fingers. 00:38:23.789 --> 00:38:26.809 Exactly. But with a single executive, there is 00:38:26.809 --> 00:38:29.110 nowhere to hide. If the administration fails, 00:38:29.530 --> 00:38:31.849 the responsibility rests entirely on one highly 00:38:31.849 --> 00:38:34.349 visible individual. The public knows exactly 00:38:34.349 --> 00:38:36.769 who to hold accountable at the ballot box. Wilson's 00:38:36.769 --> 00:38:38.949 logic ultimately prevailed, and the convention 00:38:38.949 --> 00:38:41.190 agreed to establish a single president. They 00:38:41.190 --> 00:38:43.590 agree on one person holding the executive power. 00:38:43.949 --> 00:38:47.210 But the immediate, massive hurdle is how you 00:38:47.210 --> 00:38:49.829 actually select this person. They are fundamentally 00:38:49.829 --> 00:38:52.210 terrified of kings, so the position obviously 00:38:52.210 --> 00:38:54.590 cannot be hereditary. They have to design an 00:38:54.590 --> 00:38:57.030 election system. The method of electing the president 00:38:57.030 --> 00:38:59.710 was one of the most agonizing, constantly debated, 00:38:59.949 --> 00:39:02.510 and frequently revised issues of the entire summer. 00:39:03.389 --> 00:39:05.789 James Wilson, demonstrating incredible faith 00:39:05.789 --> 00:39:08.809 in the public, initially proposed direct popular 00:39:08.809 --> 00:39:10.949 election by the people. Which seems normal to 00:39:10.949 --> 00:39:13.320 us now. He believed that the executive needed 00:39:13.320 --> 00:39:15.539 to be completely independent of the legislature 00:39:15.539 --> 00:39:18.039 and drawing power directly from the citizens 00:39:18.039 --> 00:39:20.840 was the only way to achieve that. But the other 00:39:20.840 --> 00:39:23.920 delegates almost universally rejected that idea, 00:39:24.579 --> 00:39:26.159 not necessarily because they thought the general 00:39:26.159 --> 00:39:28.800 public was inherently foolish, but because of 00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:31.619 the sheer physical realities of the late 18th 00:39:31.619 --> 00:39:34.159 century. The logistics of a national popular 00:39:34.159 --> 00:39:37.750 vote in 1787 were virtually impossible. The United 00:39:37.750 --> 00:39:40.389 States was a massive, geographically sprawling 00:39:40.389 --> 00:39:43.610 agrarian society. Information traveled only as 00:39:43.610 --> 00:39:45.849 fast as a horse could run or a ship could sail. 00:39:46.110 --> 00:39:48.329 Right. The delegates feared that the average 00:39:48.329 --> 00:39:50.550 voter in rural Georgia would have absolutely 00:39:50.550 --> 00:39:52.889 no knowledge of the character or qualifications 00:39:52.889 --> 00:39:55.170 of a candidate from Massachusetts. And without 00:39:55.170 --> 00:39:58.010 national political parties or mass media to filter 00:39:58.010 --> 00:40:00.269 the candidates, people would naturally just vote 00:40:00.269 --> 00:40:01.969 for the most prominent politician from their 00:40:01.969 --> 00:40:04.429 own home state. Exactly. The vote would fracture 00:40:04.429 --> 00:40:07.340 endlessly. A candidate from a massive state like 00:40:07.340 --> 00:40:10.739 Virginia would always have a huge numerical advantage 00:40:10.739 --> 00:40:13.679 over a highly qualified candidate from a smaller 00:40:13.679 --> 00:40:16.400 state, simply based on local name recognition. 00:40:17.260 --> 00:40:19.559 Because of these fears regarding a popular vote, 00:40:19.940 --> 00:40:23.019 the convention defaulted for a long time to the 00:40:23.019 --> 00:40:25.659 idea that the national legislature, the Congress, 00:40:25.860 --> 00:40:28.460 should choose the president. It seemed logical. 00:40:29.039 --> 00:40:31.119 The Congress would consist of knowledgeable men 00:40:31.119 --> 00:40:33.920 who could evaluate the candidates properly. Wait, 00:40:33.920 --> 00:40:36.630 I'm stuck here. If the entire goal of the Constitution 00:40:36.630 --> 00:40:38.829 is to create a system of checks and balances 00:40:38.829 --> 00:40:42.230 with separation of powers, how does having Congress 00:40:42.230 --> 00:40:44.989 pick the president not violate that immediately? 00:40:45.250 --> 00:40:47.570 If the legislature controls whether the executive 00:40:47.570 --> 00:40:50.570 gets the job, the executive just becomes a subservient 00:40:50.570 --> 00:40:52.869 puppet to the legislature. You've identified 00:40:52.869 --> 00:40:55.869 the exact profound flaw that James Madison and 00:40:55.869 --> 00:40:58.710 James Wilson wrestled with. If Congress chose 00:40:58.710 --> 00:41:00.469 the president, the president would spend his 00:41:00.469 --> 00:41:03.610 entire term making corrupt political deals with 00:41:03.610 --> 00:41:06.710 powerful senators to ensure his own reelection 00:41:06.710 --> 00:41:09.489 rather than independently enforcing the law. 00:41:09.969 --> 00:41:12.349 The executive would have no independent energy 00:41:12.349 --> 00:41:16.150 or dispatch. They also briefly considered having 00:41:16.150 --> 00:41:17.969 the state governors choose the president, right? 00:41:18.130 --> 00:41:20.590 They did, but that idea was discarded just as 00:41:20.590 --> 00:41:23.400 quickly. They realized that state governors would 00:41:23.400 --> 00:41:26.000 simply vote for themselves, or they would horse 00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:28.400 trade their votes to secure specific economic 00:41:28.400 --> 00:41:31.199 advantages for their own states, completely ignoring 00:41:31.199 --> 00:41:33.840 the national interest. So they're out of options. 00:41:33.980 --> 00:41:35.820 They needed a mechanism that was independent 00:41:35.820 --> 00:41:38.119 of Congress, independent of the state governors, 00:41:38.480 --> 00:41:41.579 and capable of overcoming the informational geographic 00:41:41.579 --> 00:41:44.500 bias of the general public. And to solve that 00:41:44.500 --> 00:41:47.380 incredibly specific web of problems, they invent 00:41:47.380 --> 00:41:50.619 an entirely new, deeply convoluted mechanism. 00:41:50.889 --> 00:41:53.690 The Electoral College. How exactly did they envision 00:41:53.690 --> 00:41:56.309 this working? The Electoral College was a brilliant, 00:41:56.570 --> 00:41:59.250 if highly complex, piece of political engineering 00:41:59.250 --> 00:42:02.769 designed specifically for the realities of 1787. 00:42:03.570 --> 00:42:05.889 The concept was that each state would be allocated 00:42:05.889 --> 00:42:09.150 a certain number of electors equal to their combined 00:42:09.150 --> 00:42:11.590 total of representatives and senators in Congress. 00:42:11.949 --> 00:42:14.110 Okay, so it mirrors congressional power. Right. 00:42:14.369 --> 00:42:16.429 And the states could choose these electors however 00:42:16.429 --> 00:42:19.519 they saw fit. These electors were temporary officials. 00:42:19.920 --> 00:42:22.179 Their one and only job in government was to gather 00:42:22.179 --> 00:42:24.199 in their respective states, cast their votes 00:42:24.199 --> 00:42:26.559 for the presidency, send the results to the national 00:42:26.559 --> 00:42:29.219 capital, and then immediately disband and return 00:42:29.219 --> 00:42:32.289 to private life. And the genius of that temporary 00:42:32.289 --> 00:42:34.750 status is that it prevents the corruption they 00:42:34.750 --> 00:42:37.110 feared with Congress. If you have a permanent 00:42:37.110 --> 00:42:39.630 standing body of men choosing the president, 00:42:40.329 --> 00:42:42.650 foreign powers like France or wealthy domestic 00:42:42.650 --> 00:42:45.590 factions have four years to bribe them, blackmail 00:42:45.590 --> 00:42:48.090 them, or influence them. Exactly. But because 00:42:48.090 --> 00:42:50.789 the electors pop into existence, vote, and instantly 00:42:50.789 --> 00:42:53.619 dissolve, they are essentially unbribable. It 00:42:53.619 --> 00:42:55.940 preserved the separation of powers by keeping 00:42:55.940 --> 00:42:58.280 the choice out of the hands of Congress, and 00:42:58.280 --> 00:43:01.059 it mitigated the geographic bias of the popular 00:43:01.059 --> 00:43:04.639 vote by entrusting the final decision to a group 00:43:04.639 --> 00:43:08.320 of presumably knowledgeable local leaders. They 00:43:08.320 --> 00:43:10.719 also instituted the mechanism of legislative 00:43:10.719 --> 00:43:13.460 impeachment, borrowing a concept from the British 00:43:13.460 --> 00:43:16.260 Parliament, to ensure that if this powerful single 00:43:16.260 --> 00:43:19.159 executive abused his office or engaged in treason, 00:43:19.179 --> 00:43:21.900 he could be legally removed before his four -year 00:43:21.900 --> 00:43:24.300 term expired. So the legislative branch is built, 00:43:24.460 --> 00:43:26.460 the executive branch is built. What about the 00:43:26.460 --> 00:43:29.460 courts? The third pillar, the judiciary, was 00:43:29.460 --> 00:43:32.480 also completely unprecedented. Under the Articles 00:43:32.480 --> 00:43:34.940 of Confederation, there was no federal judiciary. 00:43:35.659 --> 00:43:38.039 State courts handled everything, including disputes 00:43:38.039 --> 00:43:40.739 between states or cases involving foreign ambassadors. 00:43:40.900 --> 00:43:43.559 Which sounds like a mess. James Madison argued 00:43:43.559 --> 00:43:45.880 that leaving the interpretation of national laws 00:43:45.880 --> 00:43:48.960 to state judges who were pointed by and beholden 00:43:48.960 --> 00:43:51.880 to state politicians was a recipe for corruption 00:43:51.880 --> 00:43:54.480 and the complete fragmentation of federal authority. 00:43:54.880 --> 00:43:57.280 If a federal treaty says British merchants can 00:43:57.280 --> 00:44:00.179 collect pre -war debts, a state judge in Virginia 00:44:00.179 --> 00:44:02.800 whose salary is paid by the Virginia politicians 00:44:02.800 --> 00:44:05.940 who owe those debts is gone to find a way to 00:44:05.940 --> 00:44:09.019 rule the treaty invalid. Absolutely. To prevent 00:44:09.019 --> 00:44:11.420 that localized patronage, the convention quickly 00:44:11.420 --> 00:44:14.940 agreed to establish a supreme national tribunal, 00:44:14.960 --> 00:44:17.420 the Supreme Court, along with granting Congress 00:44:17.420 --> 00:44:20.159 the power to create inferior federal courts. 00:44:20.559 --> 00:44:23.059 This ensured that federal laws and the Constitution 00:44:23.059 --> 00:44:25.760 would be interpreted and applied uniformly across 00:44:25.760 --> 00:44:28.940 all 13 states, completely independent of local 00:44:28.940 --> 00:44:30.980 political pressure. The structural architecture 00:44:30.980 --> 00:44:33.480 is complete. The traffic light finally has a 00:44:33.480 --> 00:44:35.179 police officer to write the ticket and a judge 00:44:35.179 --> 00:44:39.389 to enforce the fine. But we cannot analyze the 00:44:39.389 --> 00:44:41.590 mechanics of this convention without addressing 00:44:41.590 --> 00:44:44.349 the darkest, most enduring shadow cast over the 00:44:44.349 --> 00:44:46.769 entire procedure. Oh, you really can? The desperate, 00:44:46.849 --> 00:44:49.250 panicked need to secure the survival of the nation 00:44:49.250 --> 00:44:52.170 and fix the failing confederation led directly 00:44:52.170 --> 00:44:55.389 to horrific foundational moral compromises regarding 00:44:55.389 --> 00:44:58.550 the institution of slavery. It is the great tragic 00:44:58.550 --> 00:45:01.170 paradox of the Constitutional Convention. You 00:45:01.170 --> 00:45:03.570 cannot understand the drafting of the United 00:45:03.570 --> 00:45:06.030 States Constitution without understanding that 00:45:06.030 --> 00:45:08.050 the architecture of the government was fundamentally 00:45:08.050 --> 00:45:10.409 shaped by the economic and political demands 00:45:10.409 --> 00:45:13.010 of slavery. Right. At the time of the convention 00:45:13.010 --> 00:45:16.550 in 1787, slavery was legal in all 13 states, 00:45:16.929 --> 00:45:18.809 though the northern states were beginning the 00:45:18.809 --> 00:45:21.550 slow process of gradual emancipation. However, 00:45:21.909 --> 00:45:24.769 the overwhelming majority, more than 90 percent 00:45:24.769 --> 00:45:27.059 of enslaved people lived in. southern states. 00:45:27.659 --> 00:45:30.840 The entire agrarian economy of the south, particularly 00:45:30.840 --> 00:45:34.519 the incredibly lucrative export crops of tobacco, 00:45:34.980 --> 00:45:37.940 rice, and indigo, was built entirely upon the 00:45:37.940 --> 00:45:40.679 brutal systemic exploitation of enslaved labor. 00:45:41.119 --> 00:45:43.059 It wasn't just a part of their economy, it was 00:45:43.059 --> 00:45:45.320 the foundation of their entire societal structure. 00:45:45.469 --> 00:45:47.309 And the Southern delegates at the convention, 00:45:47.670 --> 00:45:49.690 powerful men like Charles Cotesworth Pickney 00:45:49.690 --> 00:45:51.989 and John Rutledge of South Carolina, made their 00:45:51.989 --> 00:45:54.730 position unequivocally clear. They issued an 00:45:54.730 --> 00:45:57.710 absolute non -negotiable ultimatum. The Southern 00:45:57.710 --> 00:45:59.929 states would refuse to join the new union if 00:45:59.929 --> 00:46:02.230 the Constitution did not explicitly protect the 00:46:02.230 --> 00:46:05.510 institution of slavery. This is where the terrifying 00:46:05.510 --> 00:46:08.610 reality of the failing Articles of Confederation 00:46:08.610 --> 00:46:10.650 traps the Northern delegates, because if the 00:46:10.650 --> 00:46:13.010 Southern states walk out of the room, the convention 00:46:13.010 --> 00:46:16.130 collapses. The Northern delegates, some of whom 00:46:16.130 --> 00:46:18.869 were staunchly opposed to slavery on moral grounds, 00:46:19.110 --> 00:46:21.949 were forced into a brutal historical calculus. 00:46:22.550 --> 00:46:25.570 If the South walked out, the Constitution would 00:46:25.570 --> 00:46:28.369 not be ratified. The United States would remain 00:46:28.369 --> 00:46:30.650 under the Articles of Confederation. Which they 00:46:30.650 --> 00:46:33.139 all knew was doomed. Everyone in that sweltering 00:46:33.139 --> 00:46:35.400 room in Philadelphia believed that the articles 00:46:35.400 --> 00:46:37.960 were in a terminal spiral. They believed that 00:46:37.960 --> 00:46:40.480 without a new, strong national government, the 00:46:40.480 --> 00:46:43.079 country would quickly fracture into three or 00:46:43.079 --> 00:46:46.360 four separate, warring confederacies, vulnerable 00:46:46.360 --> 00:46:49.480 to imminent conquest by the British or the Spanish. 00:46:49.579 --> 00:46:51.579 So the Northern delegates weighed the immediate 00:46:51.579 --> 00:46:53.820 survival of the American experiment against the 00:46:53.820 --> 00:46:56.400 moral atrocity of codifying slavery into the 00:46:56.400 --> 00:46:59.139 DNA of the new government. And they chose survival. 00:46:59.420 --> 00:47:02.639 They engaged in highly transactional compromises. 00:47:03.199 --> 00:47:04.579 Let's look at the mechanics of the most famous 00:47:04.579 --> 00:47:07.619 one, the Three -Fifths Compromise. How exactly 00:47:07.619 --> 00:47:10.099 did this warp the balance of power? The compromise 00:47:10.099 --> 00:47:12.739 was rooted entirely in the battle over political 00:47:12.739 --> 00:47:16.739 representation. As we discussed, the Great Compromise 00:47:16.739 --> 00:47:19.159 dictated that seats in the House of Representatives 00:47:19.159 --> 00:47:21.739 would be apportioned based on a state's population. 00:47:22.139 --> 00:47:24.820 The Southern delegates demanded that their massive 00:47:24.820 --> 00:47:28.260 enslaved populations be counted fully when calculating 00:47:28.260 --> 00:47:30.679 how many representatives their states would receive 00:47:30.679 --> 00:47:33.539 in Congress. Which is a staggering display of 00:47:33.539 --> 00:47:36.559 political hypocrisy. Under Southern state laws, 00:47:37.039 --> 00:47:39.699 enslaved human beings were legally classified 00:47:39.699 --> 00:47:41.900 as property. They were granted absolutely no 00:47:41.900 --> 00:47:44.099 human rights, no legal protections, and certainly 00:47:44.099 --> 00:47:46.920 no right to vote. Exactly. But when it came time 00:47:46.920 --> 00:47:49.960 to calculate how much political power the white 00:47:49.960 --> 00:47:52.059 southern elite would wield in the new national 00:47:52.059 --> 00:47:54.860 capital, suddenly they demanded those enslaved 00:47:54.860 --> 00:47:57.420 people be counted mathematically as part of the 00:47:57.420 --> 00:48:00.179 population. The Northern delegates aggressively 00:48:00.179 --> 00:48:03.019 highlighted that exact hypocrisy. They argued 00:48:03.019 --> 00:48:05.199 that if enslaved people were legally property, 00:48:05.380 --> 00:48:07.659 they should not be counted for political representation 00:48:07.659 --> 00:48:10.199 any more than a Northern farmer's horses, cattle, 00:48:10.420 --> 00:48:13.719 or machinery should be counted. The North suggested 00:48:13.719 --> 00:48:16.099 that representation should be based solely on 00:48:16.099 --> 00:48:18.940 the free population. But the South threatened 00:48:18.940 --> 00:48:22.139 to walk away. Right. So to save the union, James 00:48:22.139 --> 00:48:24.699 Wilson and Roger Sherman proposed the mathematical 00:48:24.699 --> 00:48:27.980 compromise. Seats in the House would be apportioned 00:48:27.980 --> 00:48:31.320 based on a state's total free population plus 00:48:31.320 --> 00:48:34.219 three -fifths of its enslaved population. Let's 00:48:34.219 --> 00:48:37.079 trace the causality of that math because it dictates 00:48:37.079 --> 00:48:40.929 the next 70 years of American history. By embedding 00:48:40.929 --> 00:48:43.909 slavery into the mathematical formula for representation, 00:48:44.429 --> 00:48:46.510 the Constitution granted the Southern states 00:48:46.510 --> 00:48:49.429 an immense disproportionate amount of political 00:48:49.429 --> 00:48:52.349 power. It mathematically entrenched Southern 00:48:52.349 --> 00:48:55.369 dominance. Because of the three -fifths compromise, 00:48:55.750 --> 00:48:57.829 the Southern states gained dozens of additional 00:48:57.829 --> 00:48:59.429 seats in the House of Representatives that they 00:48:59.429 --> 00:49:01.030 would not have had otherwise. And it ripples 00:49:01.030 --> 00:49:03.760 into the presidency, too. Absolutely. Because 00:49:03.760 --> 00:49:06.019 the state's allocation of votes in the electoral 00:49:06.019 --> 00:49:08.519 college is derived directly from its total number 00:49:08.519 --> 00:49:11.059 of representatives and senators, the three -fifths 00:49:11.059 --> 00:49:13.780 compromise gave the South an outsized artificial 00:49:13.780 --> 00:49:16.940 influence in electing the president. This structural 00:49:16.940 --> 00:49:19.639 advantage is a primary reason why Southern slaveholders 00:49:19.639 --> 00:49:21.880 dominated the presidency for the vast majority 00:49:21.880 --> 00:49:24.880 of the pre -Civil War era. And that wasn't the 00:49:24.880 --> 00:49:27.239 only transactional bargain they made to keep 00:49:27.239 --> 00:49:30.199 the Deep South at the table. We have to look 00:49:30.199 --> 00:49:33.260 at the commerce and slave trade compromise. This 00:49:33.260 --> 00:49:35.719 compromise directly addressed the economic chaos 00:49:35.719 --> 00:49:38.019 of the Articles. The Northern merchant states 00:49:38.019 --> 00:49:40.519 desperately needed the new federal government 00:49:40.519 --> 00:49:42.920 to possess the power to regulate foreign commerce, 00:49:43.199 --> 00:49:46.260 to pass navigation acts, establish unified tariffs, 00:49:46.500 --> 00:49:49.400 and negotiate trade treaties with a simple majority 00:49:49.400 --> 00:49:52.940 vote in Congress. This was the only way to end 00:49:52.940 --> 00:49:55.119 the trade wars and fight back against British 00:49:55.119 --> 00:49:57.699 shipping restrictions. But the South was deeply 00:49:57.699 --> 00:50:00.539 paranoid about giving Congress that power. They 00:50:00.539 --> 00:50:02.619 feared that if a northern majority in Congress 00:50:02.619 --> 00:50:05.000 could regulate trade, they would immediately 00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:07.059 use that power to ban the international slave 00:50:07.059 --> 00:50:09.559 trade, or they would place heavy export taxes 00:50:09.559 --> 00:50:11.820 on southern agricultural products like tobacco 00:50:11.820 --> 00:50:14.219 to fund the national government. So the delegates 00:50:14.219 --> 00:50:16.860 struck another grim bargain. The South agreed 00:50:16.860 --> 00:50:19.099 to allow Congress to regulate foreign commerce 00:50:19.099 --> 00:50:22.000 with a simple majority vote, securing the economic 00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:25.260 survival of the nation. And in exchange. In exchange, 00:50:25.460 --> 00:50:27.719 the Northern delegates agreed to insert a clause 00:50:27.719 --> 00:50:30.760 into the Constitution explicitly prohibiting 00:50:30.760 --> 00:50:32.920 the federal government from banning the international 00:50:32.920 --> 00:50:35.800 slave trade for at least 20 years, pushing the 00:50:35.800 --> 00:50:38.659 earliest possible ban to 1808. Additionally, 00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:41.199 the Constitution permanently forbade the federal 00:50:41.199 --> 00:50:43.559 government from placing any taxes on agricultural 00:50:43.559 --> 00:50:45.820 exports. They were so terrified of reverting 00:50:45.820 --> 00:50:48.599 to the bankrupt, chaotic dysfunction of the Articles 00:50:48.599 --> 00:50:50.900 of Confederation that they essentially traded 00:50:50.900 --> 00:50:53.519 20 more years of the horrors of the transatlantic 00:50:53.519 --> 00:50:55.739 slave trade. trade just to secure the federal 00:50:55.739 --> 00:50:58.500 power to regulate shipping and save the economy. 00:50:58.920 --> 00:51:02.219 It was a cold, calculated transaction. The framers 00:51:02.219 --> 00:51:04.940 successfully designed a system to cure the immediate 00:51:04.940 --> 00:51:07.380 fatal diseases of the Articles of Confederation. 00:51:07.690 --> 00:51:10.190 the empty treasury, the trade wars, the inability 00:51:10.190 --> 00:51:13.030 to enforce the law. But to secure the survival 00:51:13.030 --> 00:51:16.610 of the Union in 1787, they knowingly embedded 00:51:16.610 --> 00:51:19.170 a profound moral and political contradiction 00:51:19.170 --> 00:51:21.789 into the foundation of the country, a contradiction 00:51:21.789 --> 00:51:23.809 that would inevitably fester and fracture the 00:51:23.809 --> 00:51:26.659 nation in the Civil War. We have covered an incredible 00:51:26.659 --> 00:51:28.639 amount of historical ground today. We've gone 00:51:28.639 --> 00:51:31.340 from empty treasuries and unpaid soldiers to 00:51:31.340 --> 00:51:34.360 secret meetings and massive constitutional engineering. 00:51:34.639 --> 00:51:37.139 Let's pull all of this together. If we look at 00:51:37.139 --> 00:51:39.559 the overarching narrative, the creation of the 00:51:39.559 --> 00:51:42.059 Constitution is not a story of philosophical 00:51:42.059 --> 00:51:45.300 demigods calmly handing down a perfect, sacred 00:51:45.300 --> 00:51:48.539 document from the heavens. It is a story of desperate, 00:51:48.860 --> 00:51:52.119 flawed men locked in a sweltering room, engaging 00:51:52.119 --> 00:51:55.750 in bare -knuckle political brawl. trying to stop 00:51:55.750 --> 00:51:58.449 their country from collapsing into anarchy and 00:51:58.449 --> 00:52:05.880 foreign subjugation. Why should you care about 00:52:05.880 --> 00:52:07.800 the failure of the requisition system or the 00:52:07.800 --> 00:52:10.579 trade wars between New York and New Jersey? Because 00:52:10.579 --> 00:52:12.539 when you look at the political architecture of 00:52:12.539 --> 00:52:14.400 the United States today, when you see endless 00:52:14.400 --> 00:52:16.179 debates over the balance of federal authority 00:52:16.179 --> 00:52:18.460 versus states rights, when you wonder why the 00:52:18.460 --> 00:52:20.380 incredibly complex Electoral College exists, 00:52:20.760 --> 00:52:23.039 or why the Senate gives a tiny state the exact 00:52:23.039 --> 00:52:25.659 same voting power as a massive one, you have 00:52:25.659 --> 00:52:27.500 to remember the crucible in which it was all 00:52:27.500 --> 00:52:30.239 forged. Our very first system, the Articles of 00:52:30.239 --> 00:52:33.059 Confederation, completely and spectacularly collapsed 00:52:33.059 --> 00:52:35.639 because it prioritized extreme local vetoes and 00:52:35.639 --> 00:52:38.159 absolute state sovereignty over unified national 00:52:38.159 --> 00:52:40.480 action. The Constitution we live under today 00:52:40.480 --> 00:52:42.900 is essentially a massive patch job. It is version 00:52:42.900 --> 00:52:46.280 2 .0. It was explicitly, specifically designed 00:52:46.280 --> 00:52:50.400 to fix the catastrophic, nearly fatal bugs in 00:52:50.400 --> 00:52:53.019 version 1 .0. They didn't build a strong federal 00:52:53.019 --> 00:52:55.659 government with a powerful executive and a Supreme 00:52:55.659 --> 00:52:57.920 Court because they were power hunks. politicians 00:52:57.920 --> 00:53:00.340 looking to rule the continent. They built it 00:53:00.340 --> 00:53:03.000 because their first attempt at a weak decentralized 00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:06.219 government literally bankrupted the nation, sparked 00:53:06.219 --> 00:53:08.440 devastating economic warfare between neighboring 00:53:08.440 --> 00:53:11.000 states, and invited armed rebellions from their 00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:13.730 own unpaid war veterans. The Constitutional Convention 00:53:13.730 --> 00:53:15.989 was a desperate, highly illegal rescue mission. 00:53:16.150 --> 00:53:18.610 And that rescue mission required immense agonizing 00:53:18.610 --> 00:53:20.730 compromise. They compromised on the structure 00:53:20.730 --> 00:53:22.829 of the legislature. They compromised on the nature 00:53:22.829 --> 00:53:25.949 of executive power. And they made horrific, calculated 00:53:25.949 --> 00:53:29.230 compromises on human morality to ensure the geopolitical 00:53:29.230 --> 00:53:32.010 survival of the state. Which leaves us with a 00:53:32.010 --> 00:53:33.650 provocative final thought for you to chew on 00:53:33.650 --> 00:53:37.210 today. Consider the foundational reality of how 00:53:37.210 --> 00:53:39.780 our government was created. The founders were 00:53:39.780 --> 00:53:41.820 sent to Philadelphia by the existing government 00:53:41.820 --> 00:53:44.920 with strict, legally binding instructions to 00:53:44.920 --> 00:53:47.280 merely revise the Articles of Confederation. 00:53:47.519 --> 00:53:50.099 Right, just a revision. But when they objectively 00:53:50.099 --> 00:53:52.800 analyzed the reality of the situation, they realized 00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:55.260 the existing system was too fundamentally broken 00:53:55.260 --> 00:53:59.420 to be saved. So, in secret, behind locked doors 00:53:59.420 --> 00:54:01.920 and nail -shut windows, they decided to throw 00:54:01.920 --> 00:54:04.489 their permanent governing document in the trash 00:54:04.489 --> 00:54:06.809 and write a completely new one to save the country. 00:54:07.110 --> 00:54:10.010 They engaged in a peaceful, bureaucratic revolution. 00:54:10.269 --> 00:54:12.250 They recognized that the survival and prosperity 00:54:12.250 --> 00:54:14.550 of the nation were vastly more important than 00:54:14.550 --> 00:54:16.710 strict adherence to a failing legal document. 00:54:16.949 --> 00:54:19.250 So if the architects of our government were willing 00:54:19.250 --> 00:54:21.889 to completely scrap their original permanent 00:54:21.889 --> 00:54:24.329 constitution when it stopped working for the 00:54:24.329 --> 00:54:27.449 people, well, what does that say about how we 00:54:27.449 --> 00:54:29.429 should view the permanence of the constitution 00:54:29.429 --> 00:54:32.840 today? Is it meant to be a sacred, untouchable 00:54:32.840 --> 00:54:35.880 text that we must blindly revere? Or is it just 00:54:35.880 --> 00:54:38.619 another prototype, an ongoing, adaptable experiment, 00:54:39.059 --> 00:54:40.760 waiting for the people to realize it's time for 00:54:40.760 --> 00:54:43.440 its next necessary update? Keep that in mind 00:54:43.440 --> 00:54:45.139 the next time you hear a debate about what the 00:54:45.139 --> 00:54:46.980 founders would have wanted. Thanks for joining 00:54:46.980 --> 00:54:47.920 us on this deep dive.