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DDH - The Annapolis Conference · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

0:04
In the aftermath of the American Revolution, the fledgling United
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States was on the brink of collapse.
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Struggling under the weak Articles of Confederation, 5
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states sent delegates to Annapolis with one question on
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their minds. How could they save the nation
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from disunity and economic ruin? We'll uncover how this small
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gathering set the stage for something much bigger, the
0:24
Constitutional Convention, and ultimately the US Constitution
0:28
itself. History is strange, it's alien,
0:32
and it won't give us what we would like to have.
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Tuesdays at 8:00, we always head to Dave Does History.
0:39
You go to theshowpage@billmic.com today
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headline, there is cops and wide receivers.
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You just click on that. In the first paragraph, you'll
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see links to both Dave Bowman's podcast and his Dave Does
0:51
history.org page, which is full of these podcasts and other
0:56
history that Dave dives into one of very regular basis, and
1:01
you'll find an interesting page and a good place to go.
1:03
Dave. We're going back to post
1:05
Revolutionary War America as the country was trying to find its
1:09
splitting and see who it was and what it was going to be.
1:12
Tell us where we're going today. Well, things were perfect then,
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right? Of course they were, because all
1:17
the founders thought exactly alike.
1:19
My great great great 8 generations ago grandparents
1:23
never actually remembered their wedding anniversary date but in
1:29
the pension records my great great great grandmother wrote we
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don't remember the day but it was quote shortly after our
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liberties had been won. Oh, I like.
1:41
It somewhere around, you know, November, December of 1781 is
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when they got married. We have this image in our mind
1:49
that after the Revolutionary War, everything was perfect.
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But life for the average American was far from the
1:55
idyllic vision of freedom. The economy was an absolute
2:00
wreck. The war had left massive debts.
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We had no system really of trade.
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Farmers with a major portion of the population were burdened
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with taxes and debts they couldn't pay.
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Kind of like HOA fees and assessments in Florida.
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There you go, leading to widespread unrest.
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The main. Job was feeding and sheltering
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yourself, right? And you had to work at that
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constantly to live? Yeah.
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The Articles of Confederation which we had formed created a
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weak central government which could not regulate commerce
2:36
between states. It led to infighting, tariff
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wars, tariffs, states putting tariffs on each other, and that
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stifled economic recovery in towns and cities.
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Merchants were facing challenges of rebuilding international
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trade networks, particularly with Britain, which was now both
2:53
a former ruler and not all that excited about being a trade
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partner with us. Former soldiers were coming home
3:01
to find almost no work. Frontier settlers dealt with
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ongoing skirmishes with the Native Americans.
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Westward expansion was still continuing.
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Life was hard was marked by uncertainty and stability as the
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country grappled with how to define itself and to create a
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functioning government that could unite the disparate
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states. In the years following the
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American Revolutionary War, the United States found itself
3:26
Hanford by economic and political chaos, all caused by
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the weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation.
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Central government had no power to regulate Interstate commerce.
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It had none of these things. It couldn't couldn't do
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anything. Each state was acting
3:41
independently, setting its own policies, which caused confusion
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and inefficiency. Federal government lacked the
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authority to impose taxes, relying on inconsistent states
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contributions. Air quote Air quote which left
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the country struggling to pay off the war debt.
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As the economy's instability increased, it became unclear
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that the nation's loose confederation was incapable of
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addressing the pressing issues at the time.
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Leaders like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George
4:13
Washington saw the necessity of reforming the government
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structure to create a more unified and effective system.
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And on September 10th, 1786, many of these leaders from 5
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states gathered in Annapolis, MD, where tomorrow they would
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sit down for three days around the table and discuss these
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issues. One state, though, New Jersey
4:40
had a bigger idea. Dave Bowman with us with Dave
4:44
does history in this hour of Bill Mclaugh.
4:46
Dave, as I listen to you set up the Annapolis Convention, it
4:51
struck me, in homage to our buddy Rod Cook, that maybe young
4:55
America found itself too libertarian to succeed.
5:01
Well, that's one of the arguments that we're going to
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end up having in a couple years. There's this mindset that
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amongst the anti federalists particularly that republics have
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to be very small state sized. In fact, many of them believe
5:18
that some of the states, Virginia and New York were too
5:20
big to be republics and so they favored smashing those up even
5:25
smaller in some ways. But yeah, there's this, there's
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this tension that we take for granted today.
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We're a Republic, but we're also a democracy.
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We're we're, we're, we have this strange mix that really finds
5:44
its birthplace in this idea that, you know, sovereignty of
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states. Well, what what specifically
5:50
does that mean? We have formed a confederation,
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this idea of we are one nation, which sounds good on paper, but
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as Hamilton, I'm sorry, as Madison will point out in The
6:03
Federalist Papers, confederations historically
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don't work. There is no successful
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Confederate government in the entire history of the world, and
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they all fall down on the same 2 lines.
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And I don't care if you're talking about the Dutch
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confederations, the Italian Confederations, or even the
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Southern Confederation of the United States, they all fall
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down on the same 2 lines. Number one, they have no
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authority to command taxation. They can't fund themselves
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because they can't say to the states that make up the
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Confederation, hey, you owe this amount and if you don't pay it,
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well, there'll be consequences. They can't do it.
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And the second thing they can't do is defend themselves because
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they can't command the states, the elements of the
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Confederation, to supply what they need, be that troops,
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supplies, money, whatever, to defend themselves.
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And if you want to see this on display in full grandeur, just
7:12
take a look at the Confederate Congress in Montgomery and
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Richmond, 1861 to 1864. They had no ability to command
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anything. So beyond patriotism, supplying
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troops and those kind of things, from a governmental standpoint,
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they couldn't run things. And when the crisis moments
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came, they were unable to command obedience and they
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couldn't do those kinds of things.
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Well, they should have known better because this was the same
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argument that we had had, you know, 68 years before with the
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Federalist and the anti Federalist.
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Because this idea that as a confederation, we may have been
7:53
one nation, but we had a lot of problems and the the Articles of
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Confederation were too weak to do these kinds of things.
8:04
We were stuck with this massive war debt that we had no plan to
8:11
repay. Now you could argue, I guess
8:14
maybe that the French were headed into insolvency anyway.
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So I guess maybe if we just ignored it, it would have gone
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away. I don't know.
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But we had issues with Great Britain too, with we had to
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repay all the loyalists that had remained, you know, in the
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country. They, their properties had to be
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taken care of. We had, we had a lot of problems
8:40
that the Articles of Confederation did not allow the
8:43
federal government to actually deal with.
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And so how do you do that? You know, we, you send a message
8:50
to Congress saying, well, we need to take care of this.
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And Congress says, OK, you're right, we need to take care of
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this, let's do this. And Rhode Island says I don't
9:00
want to or Georgia, which I love Georgia, as you know, I spent a
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decade there. It's a great place.
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But Georgia had this issue with the, the Spanish in Florida, as
9:14
well as the Native American tribes to its W Alabama,
9:17
Mississippi, that area which it claimed as its own.
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And there was a real strong belief that Georgia was going to
9:25
start a war with Spain and the the Native American tribes.
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And they were expecting the other 12 states to go.
9:34
Sure, we'll send you troops and money to help, but that wasn't
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all that popular an idea, particularly in the Northeast.
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The Massachusetts was like, these people are insane.
9:45
We're not helping them. But if we're one country, aren't
9:49
we supposed to do those kinds of things?
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And in fact, later on, when Georgia ratifies the
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Constitution, there is a strong belief that the only reason
9:58
Georgia ratifies as quickly as they do is because they want to
10:02
drag the country into a war. These are all arguments that are
10:07
happening. And on top of all of that, you
10:10
have this economic unrest. We've had, you know, we're all
10:13
familiar with Shay's Rebellion, but we've had other things going
10:16
on. We have the Newburgh conspiracy
10:18
a couple years ago. We've had paper money riots in
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Rhode Island. We've had Maryland has seen tax
10:25
protests. North Carolina has had
10:28
disturbances. Virginia, the veterans are
10:31
furious because they're not getting their their expected
10:36
jobs, they're not getting their their pensions, they're not
10:39
getting paid. All of these disturbances, along
10:42
with Shay's Rebellion, are causing a lot of tension in the
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country. And of course, then you got
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Rhode Island still over there refusing to help with anybody.
10:51
And everybody can see that the Confederacy is weak.
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Well, how do we solve that? Five states will send
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representatives to Annapolis. They arrived today, September
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10th, 1786, and they will sit down around the table tomorrow
11:06
and begin to try to make some sense of all this.
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But how do you fix it, Bill? What do you do?
11:14
Nobody else has managed to solve this problem in history, and
11:16
nobody ever will. What can we do?
11:21
Our weekly dive into history. Jane Bowman joins us on Bill
11:25
Mick Live. We'll get to your calls on the
11:29
Dave does history topic in our final segment of the day.
11:31
Right now we're in the middle of the story as Dave Bowman joins
11:35
us in this hour, brought to you by the McPherson Financial
11:38
Group. So Dave, they got all together
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today. Tomorrow they will.
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Tomorrow in 1786, we'll start trying to hammer out something
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other than a confederation. How's it coming together?
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So far, not really. I mean, there, there's no move
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yet to say let's dump the Articles of Confederation.
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The move right now is, look, we've got some weaknesses here.
12:03
We have no centralized power. We have no power to tax at all.
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And you can't run a government if you can't tax.
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Now, I'm not talking about income taxes and stuff like
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that. I'm talking about, you know,
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excise taxes, liquor taxes, those kinds of things that
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funded the government for many, many years.
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They have zero ability to regulate commerce.
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And we've talked in the past about how some states, looking
12:27
at you Rhode Island, took advantage of this and deflated
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and inflated their currency to their own advantage at the
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expense of their neighboring states.
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It wasn't fair and it wasn't it certainly wasn't in the spirit
12:42
of unite or Die. And there were.
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That's part of the problem. Could they do that because they
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were a port and they controlled a lot of the things coming into
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the country? There's that plus they're, you
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know, very libertarian, very independent sovereign states.
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You can't tell us what to do. And in fact, it's Rhode Island
13:00
that will veto the postal system, the postal roads.
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They, they wanted to do that. Rhode Island says, no, we're not
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paying for that. And and didn't, there's no
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national judiciary system. So how do you settle disputes
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between states? Imagine that the because the
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amendments to the Articles of Confederation required unanimous
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approval, you can't get any changes done because Rhode
13:28
Island especially tends to say no.
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And we still have issues, Bill. We still have British troops on
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our land. We have all these issues with
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the Native American tribes. We have this potential war with
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Spain and we can't raise a national army because there's no
13:45
government forced to do that. And lastly, because of the way
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things are set up, you have 13 states, you have 13 votes in
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Congress. Doesn't matter how big your
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delegation does is or how many people you have in your state,
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you get one vote and that's it. So is that fair?
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Is that a way to do it? I mean, this is all the problems
14:12
that you're having under this. And there's still this belief,
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George Washington especially still believes that all we need
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to do is revise the Articles, Confederate, Confederation.
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If we just revise these, then we can start solving problems like
14:23
navigation along the Potomac River and we can all do these
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things. Washington is not involved in
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the Annapolis Conference, but he is.
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His letters and conversations with James Madison lead to these
14:36
men gathering, these invitations to these other folks gathering
14:40
to come down there. Five states will represent New
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York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia.
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And if you think about it, those are the states around the
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Mid-Atlantic that really have the most at stake in the
14:52
economic issues and particularly the international issues.
14:55
Some of the attendees are people like John Dickinson, who was
14:59
instrumental in the independence movement and will be an
15:02
instrumental in the Constitutional convention later
15:05
on. Madison is there taking notes,
15:08
as always. And of course, Alexander
15:11
Hamilton is there, and he's got some ideas as well that he wants
15:16
to get on the table. Back to Dave Bowman and Dave
15:20
does history, so we've got some ideas ruined.
15:23
Dave, what's happening here? It's interesting to me that five
15:27
of the 13 states agree to send us now.
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Remember, George Washington was one of the people who sent out
15:33
letters to all the state legislatures inviting people to
15:36
come to this. Georgia doesn't show up.
15:38
The Carolinas don't show up. So all were invited, but five
15:43
only chose to participate. Massachusetts doesn't show up,
15:46
which is kind of odd if you think about it.
15:50
Which was instrumental in the revolution.
15:52
Connecticut doesn't show up. Rhode Island, nobody expected
15:55
them to show up anyway. And in fact, for the
15:56
Constitutional convention, Rhode Island will will never show up.
16:00
And all of these issues are on these tables.
16:03
Washington is deeply concerned about economic instability.
16:07
We're watching the country, all these protests around the
16:10
country. Again, Shay's rebellion is the
16:12
big one that everybody knows about.
16:13
But this is going on in every state where there's protests,
16:16
where there's anger, where the economic instabilities outside
16:21
of New York. Now, New York is doing pretty
16:23
well economically because of the policies of George Clinton.
16:27
But the rest of the country is just really struggling.
16:30
And I don't think, you know, we talked a lot about about 2008
16:34
and 1930s, the worst economic depression of all time.
16:39
I don't think we have any clue what the worst depression of all
16:42
time was being this country. Because clearly if you're having
16:46
tax revolts in Delaware and North Carolina and you're having
16:52
an absolute rebellion in Massachusetts, you've got some
16:57
problem, you've got some issues. I mean, even at the height of
16:59
2008, did we see a lot of protests over government?
17:05
It just wasn't happening. These people were doing this in
17:08
the week. Central government couldn't
17:10
handle any of these things. There's a whole lot of threat of
17:14
disunion. New York probably the only state
17:17
that could have made it on its own.
17:18
But but Rhode Island is certainly making threats that
17:22
it's going to go its own way. Delaware at one point will make
17:25
threats about a lying with France and so forth and so on.
17:31
These five groups gather and they get ready to sit down
17:34
around this table and their their intention is to recommend
17:37
to Congress changes to the government, the structure of the
17:42
government. And even in that bill, I mean,
17:47
how hard would that be? I mean, if we sat here and said,
17:49
OK, what could you change? Knowing that you have to have
17:51
unanimous 13 votes to make any changes at all to this, how
17:56
likely is it that any of these changes could actually be made?
18:00
Even if the kitchen. Yeah, even if it's a good
18:02
recommendation now, the government should be allowed to
18:04
tax Rhode Island says no. I mean, what do you do, kick out
18:10
Rhode Island? The the idea of reforming the
18:15
Articles Confederation is already running into a buzz saw
18:19
in in 1786. And it's, it's a problem for
18:24
some reason, New Jersey's delegation is sent to this
18:29
convention, sent to the Annapolis convention in 1786
18:33
with express instructions from their government.
18:36
The state of New Jersey says to their delegation, you know, if
18:41
we had something other than these Articles of Confederation,
18:45
it might be a good thing. So when you get there, kind of
18:48
bring that up, say, well, maybe we could do something else and
18:54
just see how it, you know, float that trial balloon and see how
18:56
it goes. And oddly enough, after three
19:00
days of discussions, people kind of said, well, that's the only
19:06
suggestion that's come out of this that makes any sense at
19:08
all, is that maybe we ought to get together and sit down and
19:12
talk about what we can do to revise, to really revise this
19:17
government to really make it work.
19:19
And it's New Jersey, which if you look at it on a map, has a
19:24
lot of reasons to be involved in.
19:25
New Jersey's smack dab in the middle of this thing.
19:28
They're the ones most exposed on the Atlantic Coast, if you think
19:31
about it, and they have the biggest issues involved here.
19:35
All those ports, cities, all those rivers, all those,
19:37
everything. But it's New Jersey that
19:40
suggests maybe there's something else we can do.
19:43
And of course, the convention will put that together as their
19:47
recommendations. And it falls to Alexander
19:49
Hamilton to write the report. The McPherson Financial Group
19:55
this hour sponsor Dave Bowman with us with Dave Coe's history
19:58
as we take a look at the Annapolis convention, which is I
20:03
guess they've a mini convention, five of the 13 states
20:07
represented. As they start to consider beyond
20:10
what their initial issues were, which was trade and regulation,
20:14
that type of thing, to how do we make this whole USA thing.
20:18
Work. It's not working.
20:20
I mean, not much is very clear. And the historians in the bunch,
20:24
Madison among them, recognize the fact that confederacies
20:28
don't work. I I'm always amazed by it.
20:32
To me, that's one of the greatest historical conundrums
20:36
and mistakes ever made. The Southern Confederacy was
20:43
part of this argument. They knew that.
20:44
They knew confederacies don't work, yet they were so ingrained
20:49
into this idea of independent sovereign states, libertarianism
20:54
that they went down that road anyway, knowing it wouldn't
20:57
work. It just it, it just continues to
21:00
amaze me. That said, these five states,
21:04
this convention in Annapolis, comes to some conclusions.
21:09
Well, they come to one conclusion.
21:11
You know what the one conclusion they come to is?
21:14
What's that? We can't do anything.
21:17
There's, there's we, we have failed to achieve our goal,
21:21
which was to try to resolve some of these trade issues and we
21:25
can't do it #1 not everybody's here.
21:27
And. They don't have the power right.
21:29
Not everybody's here. How do you solve a problem when
21:31
not everybody's here? When Maryland isn't here and yet
21:35
one of the primary issues is navigation on the Potomac River?
21:39
How do you solve that problem? You you can't, they began the
21:44
the report, which is written by Alexander Hamilton, starts by
21:47
saying, well, we couldn't do anything, sorry, we don't even
21:51
have a quorum under the Articles in Confederation to make any
21:56
binding decision, let alone get anything passed through
21:59
Congress. But the delegates recognize now
22:03
after New Jersey brings up their point that the problems were are
22:06
far deeper than just trade and really our system of government.
22:13
This article's confederation is just not working.
22:18
It can't work. And So what are we going to do?
22:23
The one recommendation that the convention comes up with is they
22:27
call for a broader convention. Hamilton report recommends that
22:33
everybody should send delegates to the to a convention in
22:37
Philadelphia starting in May of 1787 next year.
22:40
This convention's purpose would be to, quote, render the
22:44
constitution of the federal government adequate to the
22:47
exigencies of the Union, UN quote.
22:50
In other words, they recognize the fact that the issues facing
22:52
the nation under the Articles Confederation was more than just
22:55
trade reform. We need to fix this whole thing
22:59
because otherwise we're not going to have a country here
23:02
pretty long pretty soon. They knew that they needed to
23:05
have uniformity and trade and commerce.
23:07
And how do you get that under the Articles of Confederation?
23:10
You can't. You cannot command anything.
23:15
And so as long as you've got a Rhode Island or a Maryland or a
23:19
Georgia saying we're going to do it our way, you're never going
23:23
to succeed in this. One of the things they do do,
23:26
though, Hamilton calls and reminds people we have to have
23:33
national unity and survival. If we fail as the United States
23:39
of America, what's going to happen if we break up these 13
23:42
states into 13 independent countries, what's going to
23:45
happen? Well, we already know the French
23:47
are going to be in Delaware. We suspect Maryland as well.
23:52
We know that Spain is going to go to war with Georgia, which
23:54
means that Spain's going to beat Georgia and take over that,
23:57
which means now they're on the South Carolina border.
23:59
We have, you know, who knows what, how this whole thing is
24:04
going to end up. There is a strong movement in
24:07
the the northeast to kind of realign with England a little
24:11
bit. What if the north, the England,
24:13
the, the New England states reunite with England and now
24:17
you've got England and France on the same continent again.
24:20
What happens? What happens to the Americans in
24:23
the middle of it? We have to unite or die.
24:26
Hamilton reminds people of this, and they make it clear that this
24:31
has to happen soon. If we don't do this right away,
24:35
we, we have failed in our revolution.
24:37
We have failed with what we we spent for the Revolutionary War,
24:41
not only money, but lives as well.
24:44
And moreover, we failed in history.
24:48
It's important. Hamilton's report is very
24:51
important because it shifts the focus from not just solving
24:55
trade issues, but addressing instead the entire structural
25:01
problems of the United States. Government calls for that new
25:04
convention, which in May of next year will happen in
25:08
Philadelphia. Only 12 of the states eventually
25:12
will send delegations, 11 at first, but but eventually 12
25:16
will send delegations. And that conference will result
25:21
in the Constitution of the United States, which will be
25:24
signed next week. A year later, when it's that
25:28
moment that history really changes and the United States
25:32
really becomes a nation, and the promise of the American
25:36
Revolutionary War, the promise of our liberty, really begins to
25:41
take hold. How close was this fledgling
25:45
country to failure, Dave? It it it sounds like it was a
25:49
lot closer than we may like to. Think.
25:52
Well, let me put it to you this way.
25:55
During the Massachusetts elements of the of the these
26:00
rebellions that were happening in 1786, the American
26:04
Continental Army was shooting at protesters in Massachusetts and
26:09
killing them. That's how close we were to
26:14
failing as a nation. And how wise of these founders
26:23
to think man, we were short sighted.
26:25
We didn't quite put this together the way it needs to be
26:28
handled. Together.
26:28
I don't, I don't know that the short sightedness, I think in in
26:31
in the exigency of the American Revolution.
26:33
Remember that the Articles Confederation come into play in
26:36
17771777. We're busy and we have this
26:41
national unity thing going on, much like the Southern
26:44
Confederacy will have in 1861 and 1862.
26:48
As long as you have that spirit going on.
26:51
Yeah. But look what happened until the
26:53
French come in, in 1778. We, we really struggle because
26:57
the government can't command things.
26:59
And so we came close to losing. Well, same kind of thing happens
27:04
here, right? The the, the, the miracle here
27:07
is that the Annapolis Convention leads to Philadelphia, which
27:11
leads to us astonishing our enemies.
27:14
Line 2, you're up on Bill Mick live.
27:16
Good morning. Good morning, John and Melbourne
27:19
here. Yeah, John, Dave is using some
27:23
words like, well, they had to call and it had to happen soon
27:26
and exigency and all these type of things.
27:29
But we want to factor in that the time factors are different
27:34
back then now they probably had some vision version of a Pony
27:38
Express, but they didn't have the Telegraph and they didn't
27:41
have these things and the the time perspective that and
27:45
factors were much more stretched out.
27:48
And I I think that speaks to their resolve and perseverance
27:53
to see these things through in the, in the factors of it
27:58
doesn't happen like we think call soon and quickly.
28:02
They aren't electronic. Yeah, we're talking days if not
28:06
weeks, right? I I would imagine so, yes.
28:09
Dave thoughts there? One of the things that just
28:12
astonishes the British during the American Revolutionary War
28:16
is our ability to communicate Interstate so quickly.
28:21
So yes, it does. We we're not electronic, we
28:23
don't have phones, we don't have telegraphs.
28:26
But it's usually two to three days before one, say Maine,
28:31
which isn't a state yet new, let's call it New Hampshire, can
28:35
get a message to Georgia. It can go pretty quickly.
28:39
And this just flabbergasts the British.
28:41
They have no idea how we're doing this.
28:43
But even in that, I mean this, this happens in September.
28:47
The conference in Philadelphia is called for May because there
28:49
is travel time and it's these aren't Pony Express people.
28:52
And like Madison, when he goes to Philadelphia, he takes his
28:55
entire freaking library with him.
28:57
So yeah, it takes time to move. Yeah, I guess it does.
29:01
Line one. You're up next.
29:02
Good morning. Hey guys, this is that guy down
29:05
Tom Bay. You know, won't ask the last
29:07
question, but I was John stole my Thunder.
29:11
I was like, this is really impressive because, you know, it
29:13
was only a short year in between.
29:16
You talk about the distances and, you know, no telephone and
29:20
everything. I was wondering if there's back
29:22
stuff written about coalitions between states.
29:26
And, you know, they must have worked out a lot of compromise
29:29
and stuff ahead of time to get that far.
29:32
We see even get people who to show up the next year.
29:37
Now, I think there's probably a lot of that to get on.
29:39
Keith, I think you're right. Line three, you're next.
29:41
Good morning. Good morning, Mario.
29:44
Cape Canaveral. No, Mario, the, the, the most
29:48
find in this discussion is, is, is one that kind of two things.
29:53
The precursors that would lead up to the Civil war, the
29:58
precursors within, within the 18, you know, 1787 Constitution
30:01
that would, that would, that would create a problem.
30:04
And the Commerce Clause. I mean, even today, the Commerce
30:08
Clause is a problem because the people, a lot of people see this
30:12
as the, the, the federal government overstepping its
30:15
bounds. And I'd like to know more about
30:17
that. All right, Mario, thanks.
30:20
It was this, the start, Dave, of that federal overreach that so
30:23
many feared. The Annapolis conference, no,
30:27
but you could certainly have that debate constitutionally.
30:31
But part of the reason for the Annapolis conference is to have
30:35
that Interstate. You've got to have the ability
30:39
in the federal government to manage Interstate commerce
30:42
because if you don't have that, what you have is what you had
30:45
before, which is, you know, the Confederation.
30:48
You have Rhode Island saying no to postal roads.
30:51
You have Maryland telling Virginia to, in so many words,
30:56
bleep off because they didn't like the way Virginia was
30:58
taxing. They imagine this bill, imagine
31:01
trying to decide which side of the river you're going to travel
31:04
on, because on one side of the river the tariffs are higher
31:07
than they are on the other side. Each state watching you as
31:10
you're going up the river to see if you cross that line so that
31:12
they can pounce on you. Is that really what we want
31:16
versus a federal government controlling commerce?
31:20
So you've got the the commonalities between the
31:24
states, whether it's waterways, roadways, roadways, the postal
31:27
roads, whatever it may be, that seem to reasonably in most
31:32
people's minds fall into a federal jurisdiction.
31:35
I would certainly think so. You know, commerce, it involves
31:40
so much more than just that, though.
31:42
I mean, you've got monetary issues.
31:44
Each state is issuing its own currency.
31:47
And as I said with Rhode Island, Rhode Island is manipulating
31:50
that currency to its advantage to screw over its neighbors.
31:54
Well, it this is a mess. And while the Constitution
31:58
itself and the Commerce Clause aren't perfect, had we not gone
32:04
that direction, we wouldn't be a Nation Today because there's no
32:08
way this would have lasted. Can all confederacies fail?
32:12
Period. You can't find one in history
32:15
that's ever successful. And.
32:19
Tomorrow, in 1786, we begin that process.
32:22
Dave Bowman, always a good look at history when we get together
32:25
on these Tuesdays. Have you looked ahead to next
32:27
week? Next Tuesday bill is
32:29
Constitution Day. September 19, so we will get
32:33
there.