 First Wednesdays is sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council and by the Kellogg Hubbard Library with video production supported by Orca Media. We're producing farmers tonight with Sarah Coffey, John Bartholomew, and John Halecki. And it is with great pleasure and joy tonight that we welcome you to the people's house. We are here tonight, enabled completely by our superb Iran Miss Building, our Sergeant-at-Arms and Herb Crew, our Capitol Police, our splendid State Curator and his team who have, we've had a day of celebrating their work. And this is the culmination of that. I would urge you to look online at our schedule for Farmers Night. We have a, if we do say so ourselves, we have a terrific lineup and I encourage you all to come every Wednesday night except for town meeting week at 7.30. And next week we have a wonderful tradition of having an incredibly talented legislature. And this is next week we have one of our own elder statesman, Hale Elder, who is performing with his super high energy bluegrass group. And I encourage you to come back and book a wedding with Hale. And so 7.30 here in the house. And then we have all sorts of great things after that. So I encourage you to take a peek at the schedule. And so without further ado, to introduce tonight's proceedings, I give you our own of the state, the State Curator, David Cheese. Thank you for coming tonight. This is a really special day and night. We had a party this afternoon downstairs in the lobby to celebrate the installation of a brand new exhibition here at the State House. Women in the State House. Women have very much been a part of this building and its predecessor. Clarina Howard Nichols addressed the legislature for the first time in 1852 at this very podium in the previous State House. And she was talking about something outrageous at that time. Women suffered years ago. The 19th Amendment to the Constitution took care of that. And we have devoted ourselves to documenting the story of women in this building from Clarina Howard Nichols' time to the current time. And you'll see it in the East staircase as you exit the State House. Be sure to take a good look at that story. It is a story of empowerment. It began with her back in the 19th century, but it has had many characters. So tonight we saw the ghosts of the State House. Women such as Edna Beard, the very first to take her seat in this chamber as soon as women had the right to vote, they sent Edna Beard here. And today 40% of our legislature are women. Important ways. For example, all four committee chairs that control the appropriations and the taxation are controlled by women. They're invested in their hands at this point. I think it's safe to say. And that's the story we celebrate downstairs. It's also the story that we celebrate tonight. With the help of our partners, the Friends of the Vermont State House, let's give them a round of applause. We've had a lot of partnerships with the Vermont Humanities Council. They put this program together tonight, and here to talk about it briefly is Tess Taylor, Director of Programs. Organizers of farmers are hosting the Vermont Humanities with our partners, the Friends of the Vermont State House, and the Call of Hover Library here in Montpelier for this evening's event. This honoring the 19th Amendment through word and song has been a real labor of love for quite a while. It's always a pleasure and honor to be here in the People's House surrounding by lawmakers, citizens, neighbors, and friends. So friends, let me talk about the people who helped make this possible. Our state-wide underwriter is the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the Vermont Department of Libraries. Our Montpelier series underwriter is the period they'll work and download on. Our library partner is the Call of Hover Library, and the underwriter of this talk is the Cabot Cooperative, and there will be cheese afterwards. This program is a collaboration, a first, and a world premiere. The collaboration between Megmont, Constitution Scholar, and Mealy Bruce, composer, and also Constitution Scholar, and singers comprised of your neighbors, your legislators, and friends of Mealy from all sorts of places, Massachusetts, Connecticut, all here to lend their voices to this beautiful music. The first that's happening here is this is the first time that Mealy's compositions, setting the bill of rights to music, will have been performed in the state capital. And then the world premiere refers to the fact that you will be the first audience to hear Mealy's brand new composition, the 19th Amendment, some here, some anywhere. So I'd like to present our presenters' bios, and then I'll turn the program over to Megmont. So Mealy Bruce is a professor of music in American Studies at Wesleyan University. He is a composer, conductor, pianist, and scholar of American music. His largest work is entitled Convergence, commissioned by the American Composer's Forum as part of its continental harmony project. It premiered June 18, 2000 as part of the New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Bruce's opera, Hansel and Gretel, commissioned by Connecticut Opera, received its first performances as a chamber award for children in 1997. Megmont has been writing about the Constitution since she was a columnist for the Gretel World Reformer in the 1990s. She earned her first PhD in political science at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where she wrote her dissertation on the Spanish Inquisition. For the last 20 years, she has taught political theory and constitutional law at Marble College. Her opinions on due process and sexual misconduct cases have been published in The Washington Post, inside Higher Ed, and cited approvingly on Gretel. She is currently working on a good clash, the art of productive disagreement. I'm going to find my seat with the singers and make some takeover. Thank you very much, Kat. Thank you. Is my mic working okay? I'm having this amazing effect because I'm underneath the chandelier. First of all, I'm a little nervous, but second, there's this acoustic moment. So I feel very live right now. Is it too live for the rest of you? Oh, okay. Um, Amhert requires us to speak carefully, to be able to hear one another well. And that has something to do with the acoustics. I noticed today when I was sitting in the assembly that people who spoke rapidly lost some of their words. And that makes sense in a deliberative body. So there's something about the architecture here, which requires all of us to slow down and to be able to speak in such a way that everyone can hear us. I'm very excited to be here tonight because Pess, I think we spoke on the phone a year ago, and she had heard about the Debating Our Rights series that I've been doing in Bradwell, and I said to her on the phone, there's this guy in Connecticut. I haven't actually met him, but he is, I think, on the exact same wavelength that I am on, which is that the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, all of it belongs to us. And though I love, love, love, love, love lawyers, lawyers do not own the Constitution. Respect enormously all the Supreme Court justices, even the ones whose opinions I may not agree with. I respect their judgment, I respect their intellect, but even they do not own the Constitution. And something that's been happening in this country that is very, very sad, so sad, truly I'd be weeping right now, it's that a key element of our American constitutional system, which was the jury, which taught average citizens legal reasoning, which taught all people how important the law of laws is, hardly exists anymore. So I am just to give you a statistic, maybe some of you know the Seventh Amendment, there will be some quizzes later if I ask you exactly what amendment is at stake, but if you knew the Seventh Amendment, you might know it has something to do with civil juries and how important they are. And I'm just curious, does anybody know what percentage of civil juries in the federal system actually perform their duty? It's zero. Okay, it's under one percent about criminal juries or grand juries, the numbers are pretty sad. We have one person here from the ACLU, probably others. The key element, the word jury, shows up four times in the Constitution and they hardly exist in this country. However, nature abhors a vacuum. I'm seeing this production tonight as something like the jury. Of course, we have a composer. We're going to hear lots of voices. So it's been a very exciting thing for me to be able to be part of a citizen jury, spreading the word about the Constitution. I take this almost like a gospel. We're spreading the word of the Constitution and for everybody to have these words at their hand. Or in their diaphragm, which is what we're going to get tonight. Before we actually get going with the role premiered in 19, I want to just take this opportunity because it's always fascinating to talk to the composer. So Neely, can I ask you just a couple of questions? Sure. I do want to know. Can people hear Neely? Can people hear me now? Yes. Hi Neely. It's great to be here. Yeah, this is such a fun thing. It is. You do this and you wanted all these people to sing. What's the role? Well, I had sent the Bill of Rights to music and then I was asked to set the 19th Amendment to music. I was on the call. People have asked me to set other amendments to music. I've also set the 13th Amendment and I will be, that's one of the three reconstruction amendments that pertains to the slavery, the abolition of slavery, universal amendment and suffrage. And I've sent the process of setting the 14th and 15th. So I think that's going to be it. But who knows? I might, I have this, some wit and by playing up Sumo Suite, set the prohibition amendment back to back to the abolition of prohibition. And what about the preamble? Can I make a request? No, that's already been done. You wouldn't do that. No. Okay. Okay. Just playing the sentence and the preamble. I'm not in competition with that. Okay. And one other question I have is welcome to your mind. Thank you. Can I hear you? My mic is gone. My mic is gone. Sound, please. What? Take the lyrics. Oh, that means I'm going to need to do it for the duration perhaps. The technology. All right. I get it. We can share. So I'm just curious, what is some of your thinking as you're composing it? Because you don't just run through once. All sorts of other things are happening. And I'm curious, what is the musical thinking behind your compositions? This is a dangerous question to ask a composer, but I will be very brief. The Bill of Rights. Oh, yes. Hello, everybody. Hello, everybody. The Bill of Rights. Listen, the Bill of Rights, as you will hear, some of you are familiar with early American music, and specifically the music of William Billings. So the Bill of Rights is based on the musical style of William Billings and early American composers in general. But that seemed to be inappropriate for the 19th Amendment because it was not, that's not an 18th century text. That eventually gets adopted in 1920, as we know. So I thought, well, what would be an appropriate style? Well, some of you know about this, but there's a whole repertory of early 19th century and to mid 19th century pieces called Glee's. What is a Glee, G-L-E-E? It's what a Glee Club sings. And of course, Glee Club's not singing all kinds of things, but historically that's what they sang. A Glee Club is a group that sings Glee's. And this is a part of music, recreational music for men and women to sing together in the 19th century. And there are lots of goals of this kind of music. It's a somewhat different style. It's more of something like the style of heroin music later on in the 19th century. It's a little bit more relaxed. It's not so entrepreneurial as the style of William Billings. But even that is my model for this. And you'll hear, composers just repeat text because two reasons. One is if you repeat the text, you'll actually understand it eventually, which is true. And the other thing is you've got to make a larger piece of music anyway. It takes seconds to read the 19th and then it takes us about four minutes to sing it. Great. Thank you very much. All right. I guess, do I need to try the handheld? Okay. All right. I'm going to go with the handheld, which means I am now both hands are filled with technology and that's pretty much my max. So if anybody gives me another device, I'm calling over sideways. That's just going to have to be how it is. I wanted to get, before we start with the music, just a quick overview of what's going to happen. We're going to begin with the 19th. And then I want to bring in some voices from the past. Because the thing I like best about our Constitution is we may use the same words, but we don't agree on what they mean. We're a cantankerous species. We're a contentious species. And what I want to draw out are some of the arguments around the 19th Amendment. Now you may say, what are the arguments against the 19th Amendment? This is Vermont. We do not hear arguments against the 19th Amendment. Well, I'm hoping by the end of this evening, I will convince you that hearing the full debate is very, very useful. And not just hearing one side of the debate. So that's why I do this historical, let's go back and hear what the debate was all about. Then there will be a quiz. And I will be asking you questions about the Bill of Rights. My guess is we may have some help for you all to know what the Bill of Rights is, but I'm going to put you all on the spot. I am a college professor and I love to grill people. Then we will have a little bit of a discussion about the Bill of Rights and suffrage because voting is not necessarily a right. It doesn't show up in the Bill of Rights. So we'll have a bit of a discussion on the Bill of Rights and women's participation. And then we may find out how women change our understanding of the Bill of Rights, particularly the Ninth Amendment. Then I will ask you more questions. I will hope for a bit of a deliberation, a bit of a debate, and then we will end with the 19th Amendment. Again, we're going to begin at the end with this beautiful four-minute piece. So let us begin with the music to make sure that no state abridges the right to vote on a count. This is fantastic. A hundred years ago this happened, go team what we should be hearing, which is from state July 1848. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as we might say in the trade, but she had some very impressive claims that she wanted to make to try and start a new revolution. I think Elizabeth Cady Stanton is in the house. Does she have a mic? It's this idea of coverture that when you married, all of your property went to be husband. So if you were unwed, it was usually your father who was in charge. Your property became the property of your husband. What else did you have to say? In the formation by which she had no voice. It has some other people supporting her. Let's see. This denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of women and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the meaning and repudiation of one half of the moral and intellectual power of the government, of the world. Frederick Douglass, because about you, 19th century, stood each other as having tremendous capacities. It's like every single one of you has a light inside. And if we can't exercise certain powers, that light is dimmed about the franchise. It is opening up for women this capacity to be intellectual, to be moral. And the entire country is going to get and brighter. This is an old term. We don't talk about civic humanism anymore. But that's exactly what this idea is. So thank you, Frederick Douglass, for aligning us of our history of civic humanism. I think I know who wants to speak here. Four mother of my partner, who's why we have this name, been voting. And that's her response. Now you might think, oh my goodness, she had false consciousness. She had internalized the patriarchy. There must be something wrong with her. Who would she, Lucretia Mott, say this? Well, maybe it's because she had internalized this notion that if women were to get them, those things would happen. And this is what one magazine suggested for breach of promise. Because we all know what would happen if ladies, 19th century ladies, were able to vote, were able to sit on curies, were able to be judges. They would bring in the scoundrel, the rascal, who promised marriage and then ran off with the girl next door. In the minds of people as they're thinking about this, you let women take over. And it's going to be a soap opera. We can all count on it. But was that what Lucretia Mott had in mind? She says, we have to consider voting carefully. Instead of seeking to enlighten the public mind, you vote. You're prior to this, the suffrage is going to do anything. Men have the right to part in politics, state of government. And if we think 1848, Lucretia Mott and other abolitionists wanted things to change. They wanted to end the slave power. Many of them did not feed sugar, they did not work hard. And so this idea that life in politics is new will work better as well. It was corrupt. It was not just Lucretia Mott. We see who that is, but maybe you've heard of William Boyd Garrison. Constitution, I'm a constitution man. I love the fact that we have rule of law. I love the constitution in all its imperfections. But William Boyd Garrison said, Constitution is an agreement with hell. Constitution, don't tell me about voting. Don't tell me about trying to change things through the system. It will not work. It is too corrupt. As useful as your fingernail would be something superficial. It wasn't going to actually address the issue about how bad the system was. In 1848, when Lucretia Mott said, I don't really care about this voting. People are just going to go to polls and they're going to vote in warriors. Constitution, there is this clause. It was known as the Puget of Slave Clause, which is that if any slave got out of the slave states into free states that wherever they landed they need to be returned to their masters. It was a property understanding. The slave states thought that was not rigorous enough because people were not actually enforcing it. They passed the Puget of Slave Law. It's a powder keg and from there, not surprisingly, we go to Civil War. But I'm wanting to hold this out here. Before we get to the suffrage, there's a lot at stake. It's not just a simple matter. Why there was an argument about suffrage and about them and suffrage that was beyond perhaps the issue of voting itself. It was much bigger. I said there might be a quiz and I'm just curious which in the Bill of Rights actually gives anybody a right to vote. Is there anything in the Bill of Rights that gives anybody a right to vote? You know what amendment that is? Somebody's saying no. There is none. And somebody who's away, and you also not know if there's anything in the Bill of Rights about voting, it's amendment right. So we have something about voting in the 15th Amendment but nothing in the Bill of Rights in the programs for any sort of medical emergency or are we okay? Yeah, keep going knowing that people are doing what they need to do over there to take care of somebody who has some needs. So I think now may be a good time because I'm going to have lots more questions about things that maybe women could do that had nothing to do with voting. But before I will be with this question, is there anything that women had to vote that might show up in the Bill of Rights? It's a citizen. Even if they weren't voters. Speech. Excellent. Okay, so I'm going to turn it now back to the Coral. The first five amendments at this point. There will be two, the first half of the Bill of Rights. The second and third amendments are short and they will be summed as a single composition. So there will be four pieces of music. The first amendment, the second and third, the fourth and fifth. In terms of your marriage return to your seat, you're going for that traction today. But do you see any impact here in the Bill of Rights? Sorry, everybody, I got a little distracted and glad that we're going to be worked out. Before we go to our primer on the Bill of Rights, I wanted to just raise some other issues about the suffrage. And that is that the only way that any group of people in the United States have gotten the suffrage reliably is because they fought in a war. There was a big question, are people going to trust? And I don't know if you can make out that scene. There's two pictures there, side by side. It's Lady Liberty who's trying to decide who should vote. On the left are Confederate soldiers who are sitting at her knees just come in from the war. On the right is, and I'm sorry that the light isn't better here, but if you could make out that is in wounded black soldiers. So there's a question. Who shall I trust? These men issue to how people were going to give the vote to African-Americans. And it was because they had suffered greatly in the Civil War that it became impossible to argue against giving them the vote. At the exact same time, again I apologize that the lighting is a little hard to see these pictures, but that's from around the time after the Civil War, there are all these women who have taken care of soldiers who've changed their wounds, who've helped out with creating uniforms for them. So the question was, can't we trust these women? There was a big effort at that moment for giving franchise to African-Americans and also to women. It's a time in the country where one historian said it's when all the blacks were men and all the women were white. There started to be this strange coalition. It was working together really well. We stand in. I think she may still be here. I think she saw an opportunity of a strong heart and blue uniform of the black soldier to walk in by his side. What a great picture of people. Let's trust all those people. Soldiers, it turns out, the door was fairly narrow. Lionel felling to say against Lionel Phillips. Again, an abolitionist. He did not eat sugar. He did not wear cotton as somebody pointed out who was over there. Yes, it's the 15th Amendment. Three letters. S, E, S. Condition of servitude. Section two exactly the same language. The muscle. Section two. They were ready for that to happen. It did not happen. It's the first time, not the 15th, the 14th Amendment which comes right before that is the very first time the word male appears in the U.S. Constitution. A big step forward. It can do. It gives us that really important phrase equal protection under the law. It also says male. So we give and we take. It opens and it closes. Suffrage at this time. Women occupy absolute fear. Frichemont said, I swear in these chambers, it's dirty. Frichemont said, be careful what you ask for, ladies. People have something in common. Because they were understood to either be under this way of their father for why women could not get the vote. It would just magnify the votes of married men. So that was not going to be a good idea. So yes, you give votes and I'll say you vote. So there was this idea that giving women a vote and then not only would they have no power, they'd use their special powers to make sure things go in our way. That was a great vote. This is the key one. And this is still the law of the land. If you read the Bush v. 2000 U.S. Supreme Court of Felons in many states, not this one, there are ways in which a person can lose their right to vote. It is not a natural right. And if you notice that 19th Amendment has now been put to music so beautifully, it says I love rich. The idea is what did it mean for women to vote. Right here, in just a second in 18th should get the vote. We will have pure legislation. Fewer tippling shops this way. This country buy women using some of their other rights laws. And this was an argument for why you wanted women to vote. You would have less behavior. Exactly. She said it in 1866. She said it in 1898. Maybe she was at her wedding for trying to get women's vote. And why, time and again it could not happen. But we understand of how people get the suffrage. It is often somebody else's expense. We can't stand this. Now, we can get back to our bill of rights questions. So women may have not had a vote, but they must have had other rights. My earlier quiz at least at the First Amendment. Are there other rights you think in the bill of rights? Just curious that women had assembly. Exactly. Very important. Which amendment is that from? The third? Or was it the fourth? Or was it the first? No. It's not the term that we use in the United States. We use the word suffragettes because usually suffragette was used in a drive to our way. So put that on your calendar for 2020 and suffragettes not suffragettes. Is a suffragette legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters which open conventions to write women's suffrage into state elections. That's the first against, again, with assembly. Women's suffrage plans in party platforms. If the amendment you want to run to it'll take you through the whole life cycle of being a citizen. The first one is about religion. You get to have the largest questions about life. Then it goes to speech. You get to say them to one another. Even publish them in the press. Assembly to build your political ideas. And then you petition the government for grievances. There's a reason you all just like hit that again and again because you showed us the life cycle of a citizen. They were meaning voting in order to actualize themselves as citizens. But whether they won in 1849 or won in 1888 who cares through the first amendment? Let's just hold that out. The first amendment is an awesome amendment. If you saw the movie Harriet there's Harriet Tubman. And then there's the Nancy Hart militia from Georgia of 1865. That was a militia in the Confederacy. What amendment were these ladies holding on to? And a lot of people would not have been able to say. So, hey, I consider it a step forward that the second amendment is better understood. Okay, this is your trick question for this section of the Bill of Rights quiz. I'm just like this. I could lead over, but I can't do my hair the way she could do her hair. And she told us something very important about the private sphere. Which is men's freedom is women's realm of collective subordination. Which is a total reframe on anybody know? I'll give you a hint. You see what that welcome man said. Actually, I would like the officer to come through the door and he beats the blank or secure it in their home is completely misrepresenting. At least that was the argument that people like Katherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin made. I see ladies, it's not going to work now. But the fourth amendment is something that women had to think about. But because we only heard the first because I'll take a slate of rights the fact that women has totally changed how we understand one of them. And we'll wait to see which one that is. basketball basketball basketball basketball soccer basketball basketball basketball CNN MAINT was supposed to be here but because of the weather but thank all all of you. time they are true or sane. What could be a better, we'll hear more about the Tenth Amendment in just a minute, but what could be a better image of the state's rights of women than four different voices saying singing four different things and four different fuel passages. In the score it says if William Billings had written a quadruple few it might sound something like this. In 17 people are reserved to the state's respect of the... ...juries. There was a year and she came home, there was a divorced and then remarried. He was a philanderer. I read all these things in the paper. Quite significantly he wasn't any details, but she's hauled into the pokey. He exempted women from jury duty. The second degree and the jurors were all malation of my 14th Amendment protection. Those decisions. I think we have a justice harrowing in the house, as I've made a decision to justice harrowing. Despite the enlightened emancipation of women from the restrictions and protections of bygone years, in their entry into many parts of community life, formally considered to be reserved to men. Women is still regarded as a center of home and family life. Exactly. Thank you very much Justice Harland. 1961 it was still understood that if a woman was to be called to a jury it would be too disruptive to her home. The 6th Amendment worked for women. They had the vote in the 1920s. Change the Bill of Rights. Here's a picture from the 1970s that shows one sign you can't read it because it's off the screen, but it's vote-baby voting. And the other is voting is people power. The Bill of Rights, particularly the 9th Amendment. Probably one of the more known of the Supreme Court decisions is Roe v. Wade. Thank you. Yes. For control? That's one of his control over the development and expression of one's intellect. Oh, he must have left. It's fine. Not to mention he leaves these things around so he can find them on the wall. The 9th Amendment's reservation of rights to the people is broad enough to encompass whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. Her intention in second wave feminism about privacy. We heard earlier Catherine McKinnon's concern that privacy made women more vulnerable in the home. In 1973 Justice Blackburn said the 9th Amendment, which she by saying so beautifully, that's the one I like to sing to myself before I go to sleep at night. The 9th Amendment is consoling. Well, here we have an understanding of it, of the privacy. It's now not just within a person's home. It's within a person's self. It's ambulatory privacy. Also, perhaps remember that Catherine McKinnon was not so keen on the Roe v. Wade decision. Because she thought it actually made life easier for the Philanderers, the Pernon-Refers. Then the consequences of their Philandering were not as real. So that's what I like about human beings. They never stay in their fixed orders. They find other reasons to disagree with each other within those orders. So, you've been so patient. Thank you so much. So, here's the control over the development and expression of one's intellect, interest, tastes, and personalities. So, here's the, which is very individualistic. Freedom of choice is the basic decisions of one's life, respecting marriage, divorce, procreation, contraception, and the education and upbringing of children. So, here's an argument for within the home domestic issues, but it is also the basic decisions of one's life so that it's not just gender. He wants to expand what the Ninth Amendment can mean. And here's my favorite. Freedom to care for one's health and person. Freedom from bodily restraint or compulsion. Freedom to walk, stroll, or loathe. I want to think about, in relationship to the Tenth Amendment, Justice White. Here I am. In Progressive Vermont, Justice White. Anyway, I appreciate you coming back for this. I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the states. This issue should be left with the people and to the political processes that people have devised to govern their affairs. Right. So, here we have an argument for states' rights who say, with the states, it would not have become so contentious, changing their laws. The Supreme Court comes in, knocks down everything, and certain states get very angry. And that's where we have this building of a religious right against abortions where Canadians had gone with the states, it would not have been so contentious. That's a strange thing to say in 2020. However, this is me always on the right side, if Roe gets overturned, it'll go back to the states. And we'll see what happens. Questions before we get to hear the Nineteenth Amendment again? Did politics ruin living? That was a big question. For a bunch of different reasons. Did they ruin living? No? Okay. Issue. It would say to violence. Yes. Mixed by hearing myths. Mixed myths. Yes. Wherever I am. And here's my final one from Lucretia Mott to Enlightenment. Read. Have them all seen. And have them all. Is it we do politics? Not to, but to enlighten the public mind. It's an old idea. I think we could still use it. So those are things with another, because that's really what we came here to hear. We can supply you with it.