 Well, hello everyone, I'm Doug Bradford, President of Mount Vernon I'm joined here with my friend and colleague Chris Pearl professor at Lakeham in college And we are honored to be part of the National Archives book series and today we're going to talk about our new book From independence to the US Constitution as part of the Constitution Day celebration to the National Archives very important Day and also, I just want to thank the audience for being here with us together I'm dialed in on this call from Mount Vernon, Georgia, Washington's home in a state here right on the Potomac, Chris Where are you calling it from? Calling in from Williamsport, Pennsylvania at Lakeham in college Is there anybody you want to give a shout out to there at Lakeham? Yeah, I want to give a shout out to the humanities research center whose live string streaming this right now Excellent with students that are eating pizza Hopefully, it sounds Fantastic, so the book is called independence to the US Constitution Reconsidering the critical period of American history, so I thought Chris we could talk a little bit about the critical period What it is and why we're interested in and so when historians say something like the critical period in the US history What are what are they referring to? Really mostly they're referring referring to the 1780s and this feeling of crisis and there's this sort of inevitability When they use critical period that that crisis ends up with the sort of ratification of the US Constitution So there's like a thorough line right through the 1780s. So the 1780s is sort of like precursor to the Constitution Yeah, so historians always trying to do short-hand to understand the past, right? We talk about the 1960s and that conjures images of reform movements and we talk about the 1940s and decades and the critical period is is a term that we've used for a very long time I mean it was coined by other people, but a lot of people associated with the historian a John Fisk And you've written a little bit about who Fisk is in our introduction to this Who is John Fisk Chris and why did he come up with this title? so John Fisk actually he wrote this book in 1888 the critical period of American history and He's not a historian. He's a philosopher and Yes But he is traveling around and he's lecturing at a series of universities in the United States And in England and he's really caught up in the works of Darwin in particular and so he's constantly looking for this sort of natural progression of man and where it happens and a lot of the work in History it's making it seem that that's taking place in Europe And so Fisk wants to make that a key theme for America So no the natural progression of man happens in America and he sort of outlines this in one of his I think his Favorite works for him himself It's I think it's outlines of cosmic philosophy. Yeah, right, which he uses the sort of ideas there in the critical period and so the critical period is it shows America going through stages as America's in anarchy and then there is this moment of sort of like cultural transformation and civilization through the heroic labors of the founders who saved this sort of disjointed Republic on the brink of collapse with the Constitution itself and so it's this this story of progress and He's not the first person to coin the term critical period that I think that's Trescott Was many years earlier, but he's certainly one who popularized it and we have to realize just how significant Fisk's work was At the time so when it was published in 1888 the Journal of Education picked up on it and They made it oak from from 1888 to about 1941 that Journal was publishing Fisk as the third most important book for teachers to read behind only Shakespeare and Addison That's pretty remarkable to think of you know a book today that really only historians know anything about and Many of them don't that it was so popular or so influential on The way Americans were thinking about their own history of course the context there is Fisk had lived through the American Civil War Right, he Despite that would argued that the 1780s was the most important decade in American history You know, I mean that's kind of remarkable Do you think about it because it's sort of an afterthought you have the American Revolution of course 1776 and that ends in 83 the war and then you've got the Constitution and the first Presidency and Fisk was saying this in-between time Was actually more important than anything that had happened and he was particularly interested In emphasizing why the United States didn't have what he called a European outcome, right? And Europe was constantly at war with each other and these petty states were fighting And fighting and how did how did it come to pass the United States didn't just dissolve into multiple small states? Yeah, you're ironic in a sense since he's writing post-Civil War But a civil war that was won by the Norris and the Constitution amended and so it was really seen as a continuity rather than a break You know from his point of view But so so should we talk a little about why we wrote this book and what we want to contribute to Fisk here Yeah, yeah, I think It started at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the study of George Washington in 2014 I was only a participant At that time I hadn't been brought in as a we as an editor of a volume yet That was your brainchild with Brian Murphy if I'm correct, right? Yeah, there's a lot of us who've been talking about it and Brian was critical there He was critical for the critical period. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, please why don't we pull up the slide? That I provided there's two slides we could just pull those up on the screen and share them I'll tell you a little tale. So this is the reading room of the Washington Library George Washington's own presidential library at Mount Vernon And it was brand new in 2013 And and in it you see a lot of libraries have these busts this collection of worthies and our word these they are obviously at Mount Vernon Where our mission is to teach about the legacies of George Washington in his own library here You have busts going around you got Franklin Hamilton and then the first four Presidents United States George Washington John Adams Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and if you go to the next slide you can see them a little bit better To be advanced this line one. Yeah, so these are the busts before they were installed in the library itself You can get a close-up look and One of the things is I was the first director of that library when it opened up And so I was confronted with these gentlemen all the time I'd go into the reading room and they'd be staring at me Glowering at me if you look at their expressions here You know, I know that Chris tries to emulate this look of Madison When he's teaching classes you kind of look like that Madison there Chris you could do your hair like that You look like Eddie Momster, I think I don't know if your students know who that is but they can Google them Anyway, so but what's interesting about these busts for month for the conversation about the critical period And it does speak to I think one of the themes we push through the volume is that these guys are all depicted as they looked in 1785 So George Washington they write in the middle there the reason that is it was sort of San Ippodes There's a famous bust of Washington done by Jean-Antoine Donn great French sculptor who came all the way across the Atlantic To take the likeness of George Washington who at that point was one of the most famous men in the Eurocentric world And that bus was always considered by his family to be the finest likeness of the man. And so our sculptor at Mount Vernon Studio ice in Brooklyn did these same person that did the Constitution Center of anybody seen that collection of busts there But they started with Washington and then said well, why don't we make these other founders? And we were gonna put in the library will make them how they would have looked in 1785 So all of these founders we think of is sort of timeless and sort of out of time in a way You know Jefferson and Franklin they're depicted as they looked in 1785 as as good as you could do And so the question came to my mind. Well, okay What does this mean that we have busts of the founders sort of before the Constitution? but after the war for independence and it is in that moment, you know, and just like us These guys if they were in a room together, which they never were all together in 1785 But if they were, you know, they would have no idea what was coming Two years down the road one year down the road five years down the road and just like us today We have no idea what's gonna happen in two years or five years or ten years And and certainly that comes even more to the fore as people who live through and are living through a pandemic And so that that I think is one of the spirit of the idea of Taking a look at Fisk again in this book is we asked authors to really try to forget That the Constitution happens in 1789 and look at the years after independence In its own right, but also kind of take attention to what are what are some continuities from pre Revolutionary colonial America. So what are some of the things that were happening in the 1760s that are continuing in the 1780s? and then also sort of take that long view as a way to get away from The judgment that we put on it that Fisk himself puts on the moment of the 1780s because Fisk is of course everything's leading up to the Constitution that's that's the thing that saves the country And that becomes kind of a political football. We could take the slide away now Pearl doesn't it become a bit of a a fight, you know, progressive historians or Fisk minded historians You know use the 78s to argue about the nature of America in a fundamental way Yeah, they do and in and then we kind of lose through that right the 1780s For instance would like a beardy and our neo progressive approach to the 1780s me So Fisk made it about the heroic action of the founders to save the country From anarchy which results in the Constitution, which thank you national archives for protecting the original Constitution everybody should be encouraged to go there in addition all your credit law kind of work But so that's the Fisk view that it's sort of the founders are these heroic figures The Constitution is the result of their heroic action saves the country from a European outcome What would the critique of that from the more of a kind of a left or progressive approach be Chris? Well, it's it's not heroic that it's self-interested right and that this was about sort of taking away from the Democratic tendencies of 1776 for elites to take power control and To make money right so fueling their own self-interest and so it's sort of like these elite interest groups Controlling and the narrative and then controlling the politics thereafter through the Constitution And which is a continuation of some of the work that it's been done in the early 19th century already So I'm thinking beard is really a continuation of some of the early 19th century particularly The came out of William Lloyd Garrison seeing the Constitution as a corrupt bargain with the slave Right, so then you have beard that brings in this sort of self-interested aspect of The 1780s that leads to the Constitution. So it's not heroic at all And they're questioning the very nature in essence questioning the very nature of a critical period Is this a figment of their image of the founders as we just saw those bus imagination To achieve their own ends And we have for the most part really I mean the literature fought over that What was critical about the critical period and for whom and why right or is it even useful? What I found really I don't know if I could jump in with this really I mean you asked these questions in 2014 like we need to think about the 1780s and its own terms Right and and think about it as a continuities from the 1760s like they're still wrestling with problems of the colonial period Which is really significant, right? So they're there and they're trying to problem-solve. They're not necessarily they don't know What's what's coming in the future? And that's you know on its own is Significant, but then when we sat down to frame the bond Yeah, right like so this was 2014 and then you and I sat down I think in the summer of 2020 To frame this thing and sort of think about what the implications of of what we have here I don't know. It became more relevant to me right like They saw something as critical because of this you know because of Finances for a host of issues that we can get into and we were living through something and we still are that you Perhaps could be considered critical or maybe 50 years from now will be considered critical But we don't know if it will be because it's only critical For what comes after like what's a cop? Well, I mean that's true in part I mean, you know you so for instance if you read one of the blurbs or a book John Brooke We both yeah, the question about critical the decade of the 70 and 80 was for whom and why has been foundational And this book is assembled at the fascinating port of set of essays that we bring the problem for a new generation Living in its own time of crisis Yeah, so there's an assumption by Brooke that we are in our own crisis period that you know And you see it and it was we pointed out in the introduction you see it in opinion polls You know that the percentage of people who think the country is on the wrong track is Massive the percentage of people who distrust the institutions that have governed America from like obviously the Presidency the Congress the Supreme Court, but also the media the universities the Even even the military is that is at a low and so there's a sense of disillusionment There is a sense of crisis in democracy as we hear about all the time from both sides of the political spectrum And so that you know and that may be why you felt viscerally that viscerally that You know that this was more relevant as you entered to and when we look back at this work 2020 Right. And so what is critical mean? Yeah, we can say crisis But it's critical for Fisk and others because it ends with the sort of constitution So and we're living through this moment. So what do we end with? Right is sort of the question that I was I was sitting there. We're looking at this it became super relevant And that's when we started writing it up and right in framing and introduction. Yeah, really made me think differently About the 1780s in a way or maybe Well, yeah, I mean well and we assembled an incredible collection of essays by a bunch of great historians and You know, maybe we should just go through a few of them and talk a little bit about, you know, how they contribute to this question You know what we might have a takeaway as we get toward the end of our conversation, you know for everyone But you know, we kick off the volume with that introduction that frames the historiography like we talked about it frames the moment we're in a moment You know, which in many ways was practically relevant because you had, you know, you had a federal authorities Being ignored by state authorities. They were going their own way You know, we're rejecting advice from the cdc or they were rejecting advice from the white house or The states felt like they were going in alone in some cases. You had localities opposing the states with mandates about masking or distancing or opening restaurants and people Opposing that you had the protest stations in the streets over the murder of george floyd and racial justice You had a explosion therefore of sort of grassroots democratic action And all those all those things happen in the 1780s, right? I mean those are all things we see in in the post independence moment in the united states Right And I and I think what the the volume does really nicely besides take the 1780s on its own terms is Instead of focusing on just problems the problems were always there with this idea of possibilities as well Yeah, and if you take all I mean every one of the essays is all about this There's problems There's but there needs to be problem solving and there was problem solving and they you know conjured these ideas of possibilities So let's let's start with your piece actually as you talk about that because your piece really is about trying to solve problems Yeah at the local level and we think about You know, there's there's a long tradition obviously of foregrounding the national story in american history So the constitution is a major point obviously But there's a lot of very anachronistic thinking about how that federal government worked in That that the early period as opposed to how it works today Uh, and you of course are focusing particularly on the states and what what they were doing talk a little bit about about your essay Where it came from and what what you're trying to say Yeah, sure. Thanks. Uh, so Nessie's titled such a spirit of innovation that such a spirit of innovation. Yeah American revolution the creation of the states yes And it that quote is from Um, uh, massachusetts is a harvard professor and he's writing to john adams in may 15 1776 and he's sort of hysterical because Um, it seems like everything's going to change in massachusetts itself in the state. They want assemblies. They want town You know new town structures and institutions and etc And so there's this outpouring of innovation in 1776 Um, but it's all rooted in the problems of the colonial past And how to solve the problems of the colonial past particularly the problems of governance Right, so give me one good example of a problem that they're trying to solve and that you see as a broadly Broadly shared problem across different states Um, sure. It's sort of a interconnected problem and it's a lot has a lot to do with the judiciary and the appointment of officials and so the appointment of officials is is um Basically a small cluster of people can have access to that political and legal power Um, and they're living far away from the population at large. They're not really interested in the the day to day activities of governance Um, and this is creating problems is the the population grows in the in the 1760s of well 50s 60s into the 70s as it is the as the states become More geographically expansive as their economies change they can become more complex And so people are looking to governing institutions to help, you know order their lives in something that seems to be changing daily And it just it's it can't happen in the political system of the colonial period So in 76 and in the state constitutions and the tinkering with it in the 1780s They're trying to fix all of those problems So in the SA I focus on new hampshire, virginia and pennsylvania And their attempts to create a state government and really centralized power In the judiciary itself So it doesn't have like a sort of ad hoc disjointed feel to Governance it has state laws. It has uniform practices and procedures clear separation of powers But that's happening in the 1780s and also to make those governments more representative of the population So so when you look at and when you focus on the angle of view of what's happening in the state level How does that change are thinking about? Say the meaning of the american revolution or its radicalism or not radicalism Uh, you know, how does it help us see a picture of people in action differently than if we focus on the national? Sure I think that one we see Like a sort of standard story of a democratic deficit right in the 1760s 70s that is influencing people and mobilizing them to support Um the revolution and independence and new state governments um, but we also see a legitimization crisis or a legitimacy crisis in um the 1760s and 70s these governments are Slowly becoming and then pretty rapidly in the 1770s obsolete, you know, they are viewed as unjust And in archaic and corrupt and so there is a problem of legitimacy In the 1760s That's playing out in the 1770s and they're trying to create new governments to have sort of legitimate sovereign power That people will recognize and one of the things that I point out by looking at the states in the 1780s It helps us understand the critical period a little bit more Because you you can't expect New governments without habits of habits of allegiance and obedience and opinion to just function seamlessly overnight There's there's going to be trial and error. There's going to be problems associated with allegiance and and a host of other issues that they're going to have to work out There's a lot of unintended consequences and what they create in say 1776 in a constitution That will need to be worked out. So one of the things I point out is there is that Um, it might seem like a crisis, but the crisis owes itself to the sheer sort of innovation of the period and change Yeah, and it needed time circumspection Uh to or in circumspection to work out Yeah, that's a really telling point and I think the broader Point you make that's just really compelling is the idea that We see rebellion in this period in the 1780s like just shazes and others Uh, we see these uh these opposition or populist Movements and they're really clamoring for better government for good government. They're not anti-government Movements and protests so uh, which is uh, which is sometimes I think forgotten Now of course in the 1780s, so we wouldn't call these democratic from a 21st century point of view They don't include women as full political participants They tend to exclude people based in some cases on religion in some cases explicitly on race And of course slavery is one of the important Questions of the american revolution is you know, what does it do for slavery? How does it change it? A lot of historians uh Who are critical of the constitution and the compromises that are in play there You know claim that the constitution is itself a pro-slavery document again, kind of mirroring the language of uh, William Lloyd Garrison and some of the absolute absolutist abolitionists in the 1830s as a you know compact with the devil Now, uh, we have an essay in here which takes a little bit of issue with that Framing and do you talk a little about About nickwood's piece and what he's going after in the book? Yeah, sure. Uh, so Nicholas nickwood's essay is is excellent. It's it's called abolitionist congress and the atlantic slave trade before and after ratification and so Again, there's that through line of the 1780s into the constitution But I like it it's sort of before and after that ratification and we can see a great deal of continuity and what strikes me with in in wood's essay is that Abolitionist that he's writing about In the 1780s and into the 1790s and even later But particularly in the 1780s saw a real problem with getting any anti-slavery bills or agendas passed in the states because of the articles of confederation and they and and they With the constitution when there's sort of a proposed constitution an idea of a new constitution to alter the articles confederation Actually latched on to that and saw possibilities And what's really significant they still saw possibilities though limited even after the ratification So they're they're still in the debates in 1790 and especially in 1794 Right, so they don't instantly see The constitution and the end of their ability to effect change and I thought that that was a really significant way to look at it He did all this through the slave trade Yeah, it's you can criticize the constitution and obviously the country that that emerges in the 19th century particularly the expansionist You know pro-slavery nation of like the 1840s Yeah, that is an inevitable in the in the 1790s from the perspective of Of which argument on this and and recognizing that things like the fugitive slave laws that are passed in the 1790s are really Continuations of what have been going on under the articles But what's innovative is actually the laws that are limiting the slave trade that have limited slavery That it gives a forum and a possibility of of the limitation Of that trade so it is you know, it's complex like the revolution itself in which there's advances in freedom and there's also Possibilities for back treading as well. So what does that mean? I mean, how does that help us think about? You know the story of Continuity of slavery or abolitionism in American history. How would you for instance teach it differently? Or with nuance Well, I think I think we can see One you don't want to say that this is like pure optimism and I think would Is really is really good at showing that yeah, there's there's optimism there, but it's it's extreme. It's limited and practical right But what you can also do is say that the constitution is is not something that's sort of Um set in stone that slavery will exist and will continue to exist that there is still possibilities there for change Um, yeah, it's immediately reinterpreted. It's reinterpreted constantly, right? It isn't like all of a sudden the character of American democracy is defined in 1789 Yeah, that that speaks also to you know, this question of the the promises of the democratic Spirit of 76. I mean those promises aren't shut off because the constitution is ratified They just they take shape in different ways the practicalities emerge in different ways I mean the jeffersonian rise of that movement is going to happen later in the 1790s You know, it's right, you know, and I think that that part of progressive versus fiskian Fight over the meaning of the critical period We're really in this book. You're really seeing it as Well turning down the volume right on On the meaning of one specific moment the passage of one law that you know that this is an ongoing Characterization of dealing with problems and how they're dealt with Yeah, and I think you can also I mean if you're teaching like a survey course, right? um You can see how The constitution is a solution to some problems and that's something that comes up in all of these essays Is a solution to some problems. It has intended and unintended consequences It doesn't solve anything or not not anything but everything and then you can also therefore chart if you're in a survey You know, what happens next Right. There's not there's not an inevitability after that. There's still a sort of optimism But there's still problems that they're faced in 1760 that they're facing in 1830 1840 Yeah, I think that's that's one of the I think that's one of the things that comes out of the volume Is that this is an era of practical efforts by a lot of different types of people to reshape redefine the political possibilities Of the revolution in their moment But they're also dealing with you know movements and tendencies that are beyond their immediate grasp and control and so I think we we need to approach With humility Our own moment as well. I mean, you know, if this is a crisis We're in You know in 2022 united states We we might need to be a little more humble about knowing exactly what's right and wrong Uh as we as we find as we find we disagree on a lot of a lot of issues in this country One of the it's kind of reminds me one of the things I wanted to talk about is that one of the problems of the 1780s was the sort of lack of a national character national identity right And for some people that was a that was a problem But that also posed in solving them possibilities and I think your assay speaks to that really nicely About uh, George washington's mount Vernon during the critical period. So can you sort of speak to that? Yeah, thanks Mount Vernon in the critical period. Yeah, well, I mean as you know, I've been interested in the problem of national identity in the 18th century context for a long time and You know, there's this old old assay now when people talk about nationalism benedict Anderson had written about imagine communities and he's really talking about You know the the kind of magic of national belonging is that you can imagine yourself to share Something with people that you'll never meet, you know with millions of people And and Anderson makes an argument about how print culture in the emergence of widespread print culture in early modern european other places allows Individuals to imagine themselves, you know, you know, because you know you grow up in a world where you You know your family and your members of the same town or village You don't travel anywhere But you can imagine yourself as part of this as part of our community and and that literature has evolved over the years But what is interesting about the american revolution, of course is that uh, it is a national independence movement That's bought by a bunch of colonies that aren't a nation. They're not a national people They're not defining themselves as a national people before they're declaring their independence And even in their declaration, they're really talking about these united colonies are And ought to be free and independent states. They're not saying We the people of the united of america are, you know, aggrieved and and moving now There's lots of rhetoric in there that sort of proto nationalism or whatever and so the question then becomes, you know, many historians say well, there is no nation America's not a nation and that has to develop over, you know, the next 200 years and some people would still say We struggle defining, you know, the essence But the reality is in the post independence period In the united states, uh, there was a birth of a national consciousness and it was being driven But really by small groups of people and sensibilities in the elite Particularly but also widely held and deeply held And and what america did have was they had a hero It had this hero who had uh had been at the head of the army And that was george washington and one of the great things washington did of course that we all should be thankful for Is he resigned his commission at the end of the war and went into retirement as he called it Um to mount verna. And so not only did we have a hero We had a hero that was emulating the ancient virtues of sincernatus this great roman You know senator who had saved the republic and then retired to his plow And that was sort of the context the cultural context by which This first generation of independent americans imagined who they were What was distinctive about americans? Well, one one thing that was distinctive was that we had this ancient hero reborn And then he lived in a place called mount verna So mount verna all of a sudden becomes a famous place where you can you can see this person and And so they asked they really just explores What that meant in the 1780s and when I when I come across Believing after the research, I mean it's it's a house for instance The only private house in north america that's featured in an almanac The directions of how you get from here to here. It's it's everywhere in the newspapers There's poems written about it. There's people visiting there and you got to remember chris Which I know, you know, but there is no real capital of the united states in the 1780s there You know, there's trinton and there's philadelphia and there's new york and there's various places That the congress meets but there's really no stable capital building. There's no stable sense of what is the national city um And so mount verna takes on this this place of what I use I talk about george washington's court And it's a you know a place of of influence where you have People writing histories and writing poetry and innovators and engineers and others and so It's a way to kind of understand how national influence and identity worked at a time when there was there was no national Monuments there was no national city. There was no unified commerce But there were these stories you could tell in this place you could see And I think the takeaway that I came to come with is that the circle around george washington Who were he was corresponding with and he was a part of I mean, they are obviously the original federalists That's kind of well known. That means the original people who believed That the articles confederation were inadequate to secure the long-term independence of of the nation um You know, and I see them really as a center of opposition for the articles, you know It's sort of like in in english politics where the uh, where you know in the 18th century where the Prince of wales and his court were opposition to the formal tort of the king It's kind of like that. I mean you you have really a circle of people I argue that they're the ones who coined the term anti-federalists And I also argue that they're the ones who originally defined Uh, this period as a critical period that they're the ones who who fisk is quoting basically I mean, they're the the original fiskians. They're proto-fisks Um, you know, they're saying that, you know, this is a crisis that everything's going to hell and um, And they define an alternative But they have that pessimism that's essential obviously when you're when you're defining something as a crisis But they also have this optimism that they can shape, you know, they can change it and shape it and make it happen and so, um anyway, it's uh It is an effort to to describe this particular place at that moment and I appreciate your kind words about it Um, it's so it's the probably the most fiskian of our essays Well, no, I mean if you I don't know if I don't know if that's true either Because we have a bunch of different perspectives In here, so I'm thinking, um, we have two essays Um in this book so we have seven all together plus a really nice conclusion And an introduction, um, we have two essays in there that are on commerce and finance And and and you know in the grand scheme of things, they're very different in what they argue I mean, they're looking at two different things. So we have dale norwood's um essay the constitutional crisis crisis of Of commercial crisis, right and um He has and he starts off really nicely with these two ships In the in the piece in this essay, uh, which I really like in the juxtaposition of these two you have one the empress of china Which is setting sail in february 4th The empress of china is a ship for our audience. Yep. Yeah, clear and it's setting sail and uh, in february 1784 for china to trade with china and it is Yeah, the first Really extraordinary Yep, sorry and I've celebrated with a 12 gun salute and poems and you know and all these people going out to see it And on the same day You have this other ship the edward which is sailing to england with the um treaty of paris to finalize it all and it's there's no Pump and parade. There's there's no celebration of this and one of the things that um, the the dale points out is The reason for that is the treaty is Some people are questioning the efficacy of the treaty because it doesn't have stipulations for commercial regulation Yeah, and so that's going to really hamper The the new country's ability to trade in europe and the west indies, which is the bread and butter that was their economy Exactly. So and and the way he shows us is that well for those interested in international commerce And americans financial future And sovereign authority through that Um, it is a crisis Right, it is a crisis alone of sort of that's right for fiskian sense Yeah, but yeah, it's a problem that needs to be solved and the constitution helps resolve because you create a A national power that can negotiate treaties and you know, it's not an immediate turnaround, but but yeah Oh Yeah, and I think that the other essay, uh, you know, we deals from finance is Hannah's and a father's work Really innovative thinking about the the problem of the money And uh, and the balance of payments and how you uh, how you sustain your war effort and your your new states that are up to all this these things, uh, and really, uh, rejecting A formulation of the fisk formulation, which robin morris is this heroic figure And then these paper money enthusiasts in the states of these evil, you know, immoral dangerous, uh radicals and also sort of, uh, rejecting the idea that the paper money enthusiasts are You know are the heroes of the working man as well, you know, and you know, and really looking at the practical Ways that they are trying to solve these problems Of finance in economies that are underdeveloped and and in the midst of All kinds of challenges Well, yeah, and what I really like about it is and if you're thinking about it from a teaching perspective Or we just want a new perspective on finance after the after the revolutionary war. I mean, there is a financial problem after the war and One of the things fisk argues in the critical period is that, you know Morris is heroic because he's creating something from nothing like look what he's done to fund the war And this is the title of her of her essay something from nothing question mark Is it really and then you have the paper money people That fisk says are ludicrous And because they're creating something from nothing And and and you know and then from that point in the historiography people have latched on to either of those To fit the particular narrative of what the 1780s is is it critical or not? And who's it fault and etc And so what she does a really great job That is is showing that neither of those things are something from nothing We need to take a step back and take away the sort of like the rhetoric used even at the time against either of those two They both were rooted in tangible things and and in a tangible past Right and so money is bad paper money is backed by land and taxes And then on the other side of that morris's is backed on account books and on international connections and on ways that merchants Had tried to fix the finances of the colonial period into the revolutionary era So it's just it's a it's a really fantastic essay that explains a complex problem In a really easily digestible way Well, I I do think as we are in an age of high inflation right now relative to what's been going on the last Years, uh, it's also even more relevant than it was when we wrote the introduction. Uh, that's true. Yes Uh, because that that's the kind of uh, one of the contexts in which the stories have judged Both morris and the states In these paper money emissions relative to hyperinflation caused by all sorts of currency issues in the War and then also, you know, how you're dealing with economies that are That have supply chain problems. I mean supply chain problems, but yet you need to have circulating medium need to have a value That people can agree on and uh, you know, without all the sophisticated thinking we have today, uh, You see these early americans muddling through and really trying to solve problems Uh in ways that are quite Using what they know and as she called their stable maintenance projects. I think that that's a good way to look Yeah, and I think that uh, we we could round out the discussion before we talk a little about your hands, uh, consideration um, with kevin butterfield's piece in which Again, this is definitely a lesson we should learn from this is a piece about Uh, people very worried about the creation of the society the cincinatic Which was that honorary group that still exists today, of course The society cincinatics a hereditary group of the officers Of the continental army who came together at a time in new york when You know, they basically have been unpaid For years and there was no bill passed through congress to protect them And there were all kinds of concerns of what would happen to them When the treaty arrived because you don't need an army once you're at peace and they were going to be demobilized and so The idea of henry nox and some other officers is that they could create this fraternal organization Which you know keep these bonds of friendship together that have been forged in war and sacrifice as they went back to their various states And they created quite an elaborate association with the constitution and all sorts of rules And to create the society the cincinatic, which is where they would have an order of an eagle They'd have honorary members that have french members. They'd collect monies For the disbursement to widows and orphans theoretically and they might be involved in an advisory capacity As well in this the news of this by october already of 1783 Thanks to birch's essay uh, it is it is exactly The kind of hyperbolic Essay, I mean berks essay would have been clickbait or a cable news channel talking head. It would have been I don't know. Name your name your partisan rag. It was you know, the society is basically destroying the american evolution Right, but butterfield shows us that Maybe that's not the case How real everybody took that I mean how yeah, how worried they were I mean history shows us that wasn't the case Yeah, and then it was important for them to get over the idea that this was going to create an aristocracy So by the time we get to the constitution that sort of threat Had But it also helped the debate about it helped clarify What americans thought they'd create with the revolution. I mean we can't take for granted now Oh the revolution got rid of a monarch. So therefore they're not going to have aristocrats and knights and lords but You know, there's no there's no european republic that didn't have title nobility uh, you know that the idea of uh, no titles Or no entrenched uh hereditary titled powerful church or uh, secular lords Doesn't exist anywhere in any complicated state. I mean that's sort of a fantasy of ancient grace in You know in the 18th century, right? I mean right essentially what is it 1792 that we have the naturalization law where We get rid of titles nobilities 92 right to fight over Well, yeah, I mean that's official there, but this debate is happening Right and like yeah, and this debate over this that exists that he sort of helps people refine This notion of what what what are we what have we created? right, uh, you know and Interesting, of course that it was a lot of hyperblown rhetoric as well Yeah overblown and that and then I think brings us You know as we're 50 minutes in it brings us through a good a good chance to talk about yohan's conclusion So chris and I asked yohan named professor at western, uh, washington university William to to take a look at the essays and write an epilogue and tell us, you know What what people should think and what we can think about it and I thought it was a remarkable Job to bring together these diverse essays in a way that spoke to him What what's your takeaway your elevator takeaway of what uh, what yohan has to say My elevator takeaway is that yohan saw our essays as a way to turn down the volume On this the sort of criticalness of the 1780s, but also of the historiography that has existed and that Instead the essays you walk away with an idea that The the founders however you define those and probably broadly Were tankers they were problem solvers that were trying to Figure out their own time and place and they couldn't solve everything and didn't solve everything And that and one of the great things about yohan's pieces He does a great job with historiography, but beyond that is to see that those problems extend into the 1830s and 1840s and so by De-coupling as it were the constitution from ours The r 1780s, um, you can actually see That continuity a bit better That's yeah. Yeah, that's that's I think that's the historiographical takeaway I think the presences takeaway and is uh is also speaking to this question of our own day and age and the and again, you know Maybe we don't need to uh have such an extreme passionate Fights about everything but rather focus more on the practical turn down the volume On assuming that everything is the end all be all That this one bill is going to solve this crisis or this lack of action is going to destroy this whatever Uh and and and think about you know the the long term Uh think about how to get through the moment. Um together. It's an interesting takeaway that he he puts on there I like the optimism of it for all your more cynical than I am Rizzle only cynic that you are It's very true But but you know, I you know, we of course love each other from binghamton university And in binghamton they have that big rock Sitting out in that field, which is something like, uh, you know, educational liberal arts education or history even is from breath Uh to depth to perspective, right? Remember that written on that big rock? Yeah And I've always said, you know history provides perspective that I think it should provide patients with our our fellow a person Uh our fellow travelers on this on this tiny little globe Flying through the universe Now who's the philosopher? I didn't say I wasn't but uh fescan I you know Yeah, so this is the pretty enjoyable conversation. I hope everybody has a wonderful constitution day Read your constitution with the amendments remembering always that it was written in ratified And it was amended and then it was amended again and it's still being amended and the possibilities are always there to amend it but it is Now one of the longest lasting written constitution Of a functioning government in the world I think our system of government is really, uh Maybe next to great britain, although I think there's been some quite radical changes to their system Are the oldest, uh functioning representatives systems around And uh, and that this is uh, it's George washington called it the last great experiment in human happiness under civil society He meant the latest great experiment But let's hope it wasn't the last Well, I want to thank everybody for coming as well and and joining in with us and listening to us This has been a great experience. Thank you very much to the national archives. Thanks dawg Absolutely lovely to see you chris again and thank you national archives and we'll wrap it up there and say goodbye Goodbye everybody by the book UVA press UVA press