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DDH - Astonish the World · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

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  History's strange, it's alien, and it won't give us what we
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  would like to have. It's hour 3 of a Tuesday morning
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  on this September 17th and it brings us Dave does history.
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  Let's turn Dave Bowman loose, see what's going on in history
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  or wise. Bring us back down out of the
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  black helicopter realm into a little bit of reality.
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  What are we looking at today, Dave?
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  September 17th, 1787. The remaining delegates to the
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  Philadelphia convention are going to gather one last time
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  now. This time, it's to give their
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  ascent and to sign the Constitution for which they had
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  worked so hard to create. Not everyone in that room,
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  though, thought that the document was perfect.
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  In fact, a few of them even admitted it had its flaws.
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  George Washington himself acknowledged that while it
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  wasn't perfect, he believed that it was, quote, the best that man
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  could do UN quote. Then there was George Mason,
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  also from Virginia. Now, he had stayed throughout
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  the entire convention, even though he had long before become
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  convinced that their work there would be in vain.
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  He saw two major flaws in the document and felt that without
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  holding another convention to fix those flaws, the
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  Constitution was doomed to fail. There was a mix of optimism,
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  though, and concern in that room that day.
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  One state had failed to take part entirely.
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  Rhode Island. Another state had seen its
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  entire delegation walk out, and then the one delegate who had
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  already walked out came back to represent one of the largest
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  states in the country at the convention.
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  Even so, that state's governor, New York, and their legislature
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  were not on board with the whole thing anyway.
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  Virginia, which had LED most of the early discussions about how
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  to to form this new government, now found itself unsure if it
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  could fully support the proposal.
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  Meanwhile, in the North, Rodger Sherman from Connecticut, the
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  man responsible for the Great Compromise, was completely
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  satisfied. He believed that the
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  Constitution protected the rights and concerns of the
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  smaller states, so he was prepared to back it fully.
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  Alexander Hamilton, on the other hand, saw the proposed
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  Constitution as a chance to push for what he really wanted a
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  strong, centralized, powerful national government.
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  Although the document as proposed didn't quite give him
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  that at the moment, he believed that it laid the groundwork for
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  a more powerful federal government that could unify the
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  country and lead it into prosperity.
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  James Madison thought that the Constitution was excellent and
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  he disagreed with those who saw one of those two fatal flaws in
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  it. In fact, he would go on record
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  saying that what some saw as a weakness, the lack of a Bill of
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  Rights, was actually a strength if you people would just take
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  the time to think about it. The room was filled with as many
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  different opinions about the document as there were men in
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  the room. None of them had a crystal ball.
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  No one could predict what would happen once the proposal was
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  sent back to Congress. Speaking of Congress in New York
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  City, Arthur Saint Claire, the President of the United States,
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  a veteran of both the French and Indian War as well as the
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  Revolutionary War, would have his singular shining moment of
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  his life when he would receive the Constitution and recommend
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  that Congress sent it to the states for its ratification.
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  But it would be left to the oldest delegate there, the man
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  who really personified what it means to be an American.
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  To summarize the moment, Benjamin Franklin, too weak
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  really to speak, had another delegate read his words aloud.
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  He urged the men there to sign, and he encouraged them with a
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  call to astonish our enemies. Dave Bowman with us and Dave
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  does history as they're preparing to ratify and send
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  this Constitution forth. What is it that the Franklin is
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  saying and seeing Dave? Benjamin Franklin, as I said,
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  the oldest delegate there is going to give, although give is
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  kind of a a misnomer here. He's too weak to actually speak,
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  so he actually writes out his speech.
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  Imagine that. He writes it word for word and
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  he hands it to one of the other delegates to read aloud after he
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  tries to do it but can't stand long enough to do it.
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  The, the issue here is should we, the 55 men who wrote this
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  document, 39 of whom are still in the room, actually forty of
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  whom are still in the room, should we sign this thing?
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  Should we say this is the best we can do or not?
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  And of course, he's trying to convince them that they should.
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  He chooses this speech, this moment, to deliver what I think
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  is one of the most powerful speeches in American political
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  history and one that is virtually unknown today.
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  In this speech he's going to do essentially 5 things, the first
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  of which is he's going to acknowledge that it's not
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  perfect. I think this is important to
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  understand. The people who wrote the
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  document understood that it was not perfect.
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  I confess that I do not entirely approve of this constitution at
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  present, he said. I'm not sure I shall never
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  approve it, for having lived a long time, I have experienced
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  many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller
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  consideration to change opinions even on important subjects,
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  which I once thought right but then found to be otherwise.
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  In other words, I'm not always right, and I don't know that I'm
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  going to be right in the future. He supports the Constitution
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  despite those imperfections and his own reservations, he said.
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  Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I expect
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  no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best.
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  Furthermore, he goes on to remind the convention of the
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  need to compromise. For the older I grow, the more
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  apt I am to doubt my own judgement and to pay more
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  respect to the judgement of others.
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  For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of
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  their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble those men
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  with all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of
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  opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views.
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  But the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own
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  judgement and pay more respect to the judgement of others.
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  He really tries to explain to those folks these, these
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  delegates. Look, we need to, as he once
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  said before, hang together or hang separately.
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  I doubt, too, whether any convention we can obtain might
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  be able to make a better constitution.
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  He's addressing Mason's call for a second constitution.
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  He wants unity. On the whole, Sir, I cannot help
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  expressing A wish that every member of the Convention who may
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  still have objections to it would with me on this occasion
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  doubt a little of his own infallibility.
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  And to make manifest our unanimate unanimity, to put his
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  name on this instrument. Imagine that moment standing
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  there. We're sitting there at your
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  table. It's hot, it's Philadelphia,
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  it's miserable. You're next door to the prison,
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  and this is the last speech you're hearing.
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  And maybe you haven't made-up your mind yet.
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  Maybe as a delegate, you haven't decided yet.
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  When? When Benjamin Franklin's words
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  ring through the room. For when you assemble a number
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  of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, as they
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  said, you inevitably assemble those men with all their
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  prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their
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  local interests, and their selfish views.
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  From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?
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  If therefore, it therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find that
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  this system approaching so near to perfection as it does, it may
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  not be perfect, but it comes, as Washington said, as close as any
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  man could make, and then he closes with these words, and I
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  think it will astonish our enemies.
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  Now, that's an important thing to consider, because we don't
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  take this into account today. We it's like we somewhere along
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  the line, Bill completely forgot what was going on here.
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  Most of the world believed that the convention was going to
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  fail. Much of the United States
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  believed that the convention was going to fail.
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  Half the country didn't want it anyway.
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  They thought the Articles of Confederation were just fine and
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  that any threat to those articles was literally a threat
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  to liberty. There is an article in a Paris
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  newspaper early on in the convention that talks about the
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  fact that when the Americans failed to produce a new
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  government, it will open up opportunities for France to kind
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  of recover some of their lost territories and some of their
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  lost monies. England, of course, already has
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  troops on our land. They're looking to do the same
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  thing. Spain is looking to regain all
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  of these things. And it will astonish them if the
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  Americans can actually pull this off.
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  And it falls to Benjamin Franklin to remind the delegates
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  of that on the very last day of the convention.
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  This astonishes me, to find this system approaching so near to
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  perfection as it does, and I think it will astonish our
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  enemies. Let us therefore go forth from
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  here and astonish the entire world.
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  Our weekly dive into history. Dave Bowman joins us on Bill
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  Mick live. We're talking the adoption of
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  the US Constitution in people. A different mindset.
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  Dave, you mentioned that George Mason said there are two major
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  flaws to this thing, James Madison said.
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  Well, maybe not so much. Lay that out for us a little
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  bit, if you would. Well, he wasn't.
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  Mason wasn't the only one. There were generally considered
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  to be two flaws in the Constitution as proposed this
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  day in 1787. The first was that it did
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  nothing to address the issue of slavery.
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  Now, I don't know that that's a fatal flaw in the Constitution,
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  because in 1787, I don't care who you are, I get this all the
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  time. You know, if I had been there,
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  Dave, I would have fixed it. No, you wouldn't have.
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  No one could fix slavery in 1787.
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  There was no there was no solution to the slavery issue
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  that would result in the United States of America.
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  Any solution that you might have to slavery in 1787 would have
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  resulted in 13 independent countries, some of which would
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  not have survived, by the way, simply because they couldn't.
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  The 2nd and perhaps the most important fatal flaw that was,
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  as Mason referred to them, was the lack of a Bill of Rights.
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  Most of the state constitutions contained bills of rights, the
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  Magna Carta course, a Bill of Rights.
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  There was this almost traditional belief that a Bill
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  of Rights was a necessity when it came to government.
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  Madison's argument was that you didn't need a Bill of Rights
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  because once you wrote a Bill of Rights, you are limited to those
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  you, you, if you wrote down these are the rights that you
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  have, you're essentially saying these are the only rights you
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  have. Outside of that, you don't have
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  any. And there's some validity to his
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  argument. You would have to, you would
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  have to. I mean, it's a simple fact that
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  the vast majority of Supreme Court cases in our history are
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  over the 1st Amendment, freedom of speech.
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  If we hadn't limited it as we did, would we have had those
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  cases? So it's one of those, it's one
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  of those things you look at now and you go, well, I can see his
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  argument. But at the time, there was a
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  deep concern that the federal government was going to become
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  far too powerful, far too centralized, and that it was
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  going to subsume not just the state governments, but the
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  individual rights of the people in those states.
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  And they were afraid of that happening.
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  And so the Bill of Rights actually became the first real
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  compromise. As you know, certain states
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  ratified it, but only under the understanding that there would
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  be a Bill of Rights amended to it.
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  And so the 1st Congress proposed 12 amendments, ten of which,
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  well, eleven of which were eventually adopted, ten of which
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  became the Bill of Rights. So those were seen as as the
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  flaws. Once the Constitution was signed
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  and sent to Congress, the Congress wasted no time.
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  Arthur St. Clair, really the only
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  accomplishment in his life as a military guy, he was pretty much
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  a failure. He saw the wisdom of it, pushed
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  Congress. They almost immediately voted to
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  send it to the states for their consideration for their
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  ratification. And so Arthur St.
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  Clair enters the stage, exits the stage.
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  The Constitution goes out to the states to begin that process.
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  September 17th, though, goes down as the day, much like
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  Independence Day. It's the day we declared our
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  independence. It's the day of the
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  Constitution's birth, if you will.
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  It's hard to pin down a ratification date because
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  they're all over the place before it finally goes into
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  effect. But early on, Americans valued
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  that day, but they didn't really.
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  It never really was a a full-fledged holiday.
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  I mean there were never parades or anything like there are for
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  Independence Day in 1940. It would become I Am an American
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  Day, which coincides with the build up towards World War 2 and
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  the things that were going on in the world.
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  That makes sense because we really wanted to differentiate
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  between the American system of government, the American system
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  of democracy and freedom versus what the rest of the world was
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  seeing at that point. So announcing I Am an American
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  Day was just another step in that whole process.
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  So this is in the ratification process and celebrating it has
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  not been what we might have thought, I guess.
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  Well, we're really not even to ratification yet.
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  Ratification is going to be one of the most interesting to me,
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  fascinating periods of our history.
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  But it's really not going to start until after Congress sends
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  it out there. Remember, this is September.
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  Delaware will ratify pretty quickly in December.
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  Georgia will follow them. But then after that, it becomes
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  a real fight Bill, and it's not clear until well into 1788,
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  almost the end of 1788. Then we're going to get the 9
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  states required to make this happen.
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  And even that is kind of an iffy thing because if you only get 9
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  states to ratify the Constitution and they form a
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  government, well, what happens to the other states?
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  I mean, where do they go? So realistically, it has to be
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  unanimous. If it's not unanimous, it's not
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  going to work. And so that process that plays
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  out over the next two years, including for everything from
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  Delaware to the arguments in South Carolina to the the issues
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  in in Pennsylvania to The Federalist Papers in New York,
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  is going to be absolutely fascinating.
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  And it's going to be an example of Americanism and what Ben
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  Franklin called for to astonish our enemies, put our own
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  opinions aside. Even Samuel Adams, who hates the
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  Constitution, he does not like it at all.
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  But he is elected to the Massachusetts convention.
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  And the people who elect him make it very clear when you get
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  there, you vote to support it. And he does because that's what
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  unity is really all about. After I'm an American day in
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  1940, eventually it became Citizenship Day.
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  If you watch closely the news today or if you happen to be
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  around a courtroom today, you will notice that there are lots
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  of citizenship swearing ends today.
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  People who are becoming American citizens, today is the day
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  that's traditional for that to happen because it's Constitution
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  Day. And so often times they will
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  have those ceremonies today. But it's in 2004 when Senator
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  Robert Byrd of Your West by God Virginia, wants to have an
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  actual Constitution Day. He wants to foster a deeper
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  understanding and appreciation the Constitution among American
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  citizens. He had a profound reverence for
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  its historical significance, believe that most Americans
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  lacked an understanding of this foundational document.
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  And he wanted it to be an occasion for reflection on the
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  importance of the Constitution in shaping America and
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  protecting individual rights. And so he did what Congress
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  does. Instead of proposing that we
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  have a Constitution Day, he attached it as a rider to an
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  omnibus spending bill that he knew was going to get passed.
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  Because that's how you do it, right?
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  And in two. 1000, he was the chairman of of the Finance
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  Committee, right? He decided what those monies
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  went right. So in 2004 attached.
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  To the roads and post offices in West Virginia, named after
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  Robert Burke. So in 2004, attached to an
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  omnibus spending bill, we got Constitution Day, and that's
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  what it's been called ever since.
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  How do we celebrate it? Is it enough?
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  Is there a lot of learning on it?
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  Well, those are questions that we have to answer and
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  contemplate for ourselves. And we will talk about that in
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  our final segment. A lot of wisdom in what was said
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  on this day as they were voting to put this together.
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  But we'll get back to it with Dave Bowman next.
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  Dave, let's wrap this thing up. We're going to call or two in if
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  we can a little bit later. Given the vision that and the
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  wisdom that these guys had these men and and the public
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  mindedness, we don't see either of those anymore.
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  I don't think not, not like they had willing to say, you know
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  what, I can compromise on this because it's far better than if
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  we don't get it done. I don't think we have the wisdom
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  to do that today or the public mindedness to do it.
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  Around 2010, 2011, I got invited to a panel.
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  It was a writer's panel. Now, as you know, Bill, I used
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  to be a newspaper columnist. I am a writer and I got invited
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  to sit on this panel. And this panel consisted of
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  myself, couple of book authors, some newspaper people,
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  specifically one from the Stockton Record, which have a
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  great story about, but that's for another time.
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  And it was in front of a bunch of high schoolers who were there
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  to talk about writing and those kinds of things.
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  And during one of the breaks, one of the one of the teenagers,
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  she was a senior as I recall. Really wanted to talk to me and
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  she kind of pinned me up against the wall talking about how she
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  disagreed with my political opinions about things.
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  This is a writer's conflict. And she was really into and, and
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  it turned out, though, that she as a senior in high school, was
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  reading Mark's Mao Communist claptrap to me.
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  And when I asked her, I said, have you read any of the works
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  of Madison? Have you read any Jefferson?
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  Have you read any Ben Franklin, any of this?
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  And her response to me was, I don't need to read that because
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  I know it's all propaganda. This was a high school student.
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  And I kind of started to realize at that moment, one day for
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  Constitution Day, it's not enough.
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  And if we have high school students who are living their
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  lives like that, we've got adults who are doing the same
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  thing because she's being taught by adults to do this stuff.
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  Oh yeah. Absolutely, when you consider
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  that Constitution date throughout our history, study of
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  Constitution has been lacking. The day I enlisted in the Navy,
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  May 28th, 1981, raised my hand, said I solemnly swear to uphold
• 21:34
  and defend the Constitution. United States, if you had said
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  to me, what does that mean, I would say, well, I have the
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  right to free speech. I have the right to worship.
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  I have the right to keep and bear arms.
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  Oh, and I have a right to a trial by a jury of my peers,
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  which, by the way, does not appear in the Constitution.
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  Right. When I got done with that
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  conversation and when I got done with that panel and with
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  everything that was going on in the world, there was a phrase
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  that was being repeated. We need to get back to the to
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  the values of the framers. We need to get back to the
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  values of the framers and founders.
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  And I kept asking myself, what does that question mean?
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  What is that meet? What are those values?
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  Because as you've learned this morning, 39 men signed that
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  document. One, the two that were there did
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  not. They were.
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  Third, there were 41 different opinions about what it meant
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  who, whose values am I supposed to be getting back to?
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  What is it I'm supposed to be learning here?
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  And I sat down and I said, OK, what are we going to do here?
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  And that was really the birth of what would become the known as
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  Constitution Thursday, a Thursday hour where we'd take an
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  hour the show and we would study the Constitution.
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  And it was, it was a lot of lecture, I'll give you that.
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  But it was we're going to get into this thing and we're going
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  to find out exactly what this means, why it's this way, how it
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  affect what it meant then and how it affects us today, Right.
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  And I think that's what Robert Byrd wanted.
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  I think that's what he was headed for.
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  I think that's what he passionately believed in.
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  Imagine this. Here's a guy, He's a Democrat
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  from West Virginia. He and I and you and your
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  listeners probably disagree on every political issue that there
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  is. But we are united in that desire
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  to study these things and to understand them and to make them
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  work. But let me.
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  Assure you that's what's missing today, Dave.
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  It's it is, but it's the reason that it's missing, because we
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  haven't carried out our, our side of this bargain.
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  We haven't studied these things. We don't know these things.
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  Absolutely. By way of example, do you have a
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  right to a trial by a jury of your peers?
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  No, you have a right to a trial by jury.
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  Yeah, but not of your peers. That's not in there.
• 23:48
  What's what does that even mean by the way?
• 23:51
  And yet people will say that everybody knows this is in the
• 23:54
  Constitution, but it it isn't necessarily.
• 23:58
  And when you have a document that's designed the way the
• 24:01
  Constitution is, as Ben Franklin said, close to perfection but
• 24:04
  not perfect, that leave certain things unanswered, certain
• 24:10
  things up to, you know, the discussion.
• 24:14
  It, it, it, it needs more study, it needs more discussion, it
• 24:18
  needs more questions, it needs more research.
• 24:22
  But who has the time to do that? Who's What American is saying to
• 24:26
  themselves today? All right, What is Donald Trump
• 24:29
  or Kamalas Harrison's position on Article 1, Section 9?
• 24:34
  Nobody. Nobody's saying that.
• 24:37
  Except this guy in Silverdale, WA.
• 24:38
  The only guy I know of. What's, what's your position on
• 24:41
  Article 3 justices? Do you actually believe that an
• 24:45
  Article 5 convention could work? I mean, these are all quite What
• 24:48
  about ratification processes? What does it mean?
• 24:51
  Let's talk about amendments. Why does the 11th Amendment
• 24:55
  exist? Why does the 12th Amendment
• 24:56
  exist? We are all, we're all on board
• 24:59
  with the 1st 10, we think, but what about subsequent ones?
• 25:04
  What is the 14th Amendment's affect?
• 25:06
  These are all things that Robert Byrd and others wanted us to
• 25:10
  learn about, to study, to understand.
• 25:13
  Is one day enough for that? I don't think so.
• 25:17
  But I appreciate the fact that we have it and it's one of my
• 25:21
  most important celebrations every year, and I'm happy to
• 25:24
  spend it with you here today. You know, Dave, one of the
• 25:30
  things that I think we're facing is there's plenty of education
• 25:34
  out there. There's plenty of intelligent
• 25:36
  people around. But you talked a moment ago
• 25:40
  about values of the framers and and how with 41 people there,
• 25:46
  there were 41 different ideas as to what the value of this
• 25:50
  Constitution would be. So with those diverse values,
• 25:55
  the one thing they had was the wisdom to see that compromise
• 26:00
  for the greater good was necessary or this never got
• 26:04
  done. Well, there was that and, and
• 26:07
  even the most of the even the most of the opposition to it was
• 26:11
  based in two things. One, you had the the, the hard
• 26:15
  line abolitionists who wanted to abolish slavery, which was never
• 26:19
  going to happen then, but the vast majority of the opposition
• 26:23
  was the lack of bill of a, of a Bill of Rights.
• 26:26
  Now I see Madison's argument. I disagree with him, but at the
• 26:32
  same time, in some ways he's proven to be prescient in the
• 26:37
  sense that by limiting those rights we seem to, or at least
• 26:41
  our government seems to think too, that those are the only
• 26:44
  rights we have, even though it's they don't think.
• 26:48
  We have those. Are you kidding?
• 26:49
  Me. Even though it specifically says
• 26:51
  in the 9th Amendment that if it isn't enumerated here, it's
• 26:53
  still reserved to the people. Well, those are arguments that
• 26:59
  you couldn't have foreseen them in 1787.
• 27:02
  There were things in there that you know, the Article 3 says
• 27:06
  this is the jurisdiction of the court.
• 27:07
  This is the jurisdiction of the court.
• 27:10
  And then you have the Federalist argument that that's not what it
• 27:12
  means, whereas the anti federalists are saying, well,
• 27:15
  then why does it say that? And of course, as soon as they
• 27:18
  have the first election, then they have to pass the OR not the
• 27:21
  first election, the first Supreme Court case, then they
• 27:23
  have to pass the 11th amendment saying this is what that means,
• 27:28
  the 12th amendment. Because the Electoral College
• 27:31
  issues and the manipulations of of those things in the politics
• 27:34
  of those days, it's a remarkable thing.
• 27:39
  It saddens me that we even on the conservative right, know so
• 27:44
  little of it. We know the part.
• 27:46
  It's, it's so much like scripture.
• 27:48
  I'm not saying the Constitution is scripture.
• 27:50
  I'm saying the study of it is like scripture.
• 27:53
  We pick and choose the little bits and the verses that we like
• 27:57
  and we ignore the rest. And we never put it.
• 27:59
  We never want to put it in context.
• 28:02
  It's it's frustrating to me, but it has been well now a 14 year
• 28:07
  journey through Constitution Thursday that has opened up
• 28:11
  vistas to me. I never even imagined that that
• 28:15
  day I had that conversation and asked her if she'd ever read any
• 28:18
  of these people. She said no, but it started me
• 28:22
  realizing that maybe I hadn't read as much of it as I needed
• 28:24
  to either. That's interesting and and what
• 28:30
  AI can't imagine. You were shaken to your core
• 28:34
  when she said that to you. It was a surprising day and that
• 28:38
  was one of two things that were said that day that were the the
• 28:41
  Stockton Record reporter also said, quote, and I I wrote it
• 28:45
  down. We can write the headline so
• 28:47
  that the reader comes to the correct conclusion about the
• 28:50
  story, UN quote. And it was it was a it was a
• 28:54
  wild day for me. It really was.
• 28:56
  But yes, she was it was the scariest conversation I've ever
• 28:59
  had with high school students. She was committed as she was as
• 29:03
  committed to communism at 17 and the senior as I was to the
• 29:09
  Constitution in the United States of America as a 40 year
• 29:12
  old was scary. That's something else.
• 29:17
  Back to what we're missing today.
• 29:19
  Could we do this today? No, this could not be achieved
• 29:22
  today. I believe that the idea of
• 29:26
  compromise has been trashed so bad neither side wants to will
• 29:32
  consider it. And anytime you bring up the
• 29:35
  idea that there's a compromise to be had, somebody points out
• 29:39
  the vile and evil nature of the other side and compromise with
• 29:43
  them is is a total loss. And I don't believe that's the
• 29:46
  case. I can see where it has happened
• 29:48
  in in some cases. But I think you have to have the
• 29:51
  opportunity to, for the greater good, do something.
• 29:56
  And people aren't looking at the greater good, they're looking
• 29:58
  at. Does my side win?
• 30:01
  So back in was it 20/12/2010, whenever the Republicans retook
• 30:08
  Congress under Obama and the first thing they did was read
• 30:12
  the Constitution aloud in, in Congress and that was
• 30:16
  controversial. People said, well, they
• 30:19
  shouldn't do that. There's no chance of this
• 30:23
  happening today, which is why we're blessed.
• 30:27
  And we should, we should celebrate it because if this, if
• 30:31
  we lose this, I don't know what you would replace.
• 30:36
  I do know what we would replace it with, which would be an
• 30:38
  empire and an emperor and a dictatorship.
• 30:41
  Hopefully that will not happen in my lifetime.
• 30:44
  Dave Bowman's been with us throughout the day.
• 30:45
  Dave, thank you as always for taking these Tuesdays and
• 30:48
  getting up bright and early. I appreciate you doing that
• 30:51
  every week. It's enjoyable.
• 30:53
  And I will look forward to seeing you next Tuesday, which,
• 30:55
  by the way, are we talking Star Trek next week or another
• 30:58
  Enterprise? Well, you'll just have to tune
• 31:00
  in and see as we talk about USS Enterprise.