 Good evening. In celebration of the United States Constitution and in tribute to James Madison's leadership in its creation and ratification, it is truly an honor to be able to co-host tonight's program with the National Archives. Good evening. I'm Roy Young, and I'm the president and CEO of James Madison's Montpelier. At Montpelier, we strive to inspire our visitors through Madison's greatest legacies, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Constitution, like the rest of America, is a work in progress, subject to amendment, interpretation, and reinterpretation. Every generation faces circumstances the founding fathers could not have possibly predicted, and we have to turn to the Constitution again and again for guidance. It has become clear over the course of American history that knowledge of the founding documents is crucial to improving our nation and addressing the needs of each new generation. The revolutionary ideas embodied in this Constitution are still just as important today as they were over 200 years ago. Thank you once again from Montpelier for the opportunity to co-host this important event. Greetings from the National Archives. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to today's virtual author lecture with Akhil Reed Amar, author of The Words That Made Us. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about two upcoming programs you can view on our YouTube channel. On Thursday, May 6th, that noon, we'll hear from former New York Times White House correspondent Robert M. Smith, whose new book, Suppressed, reveals how some stories made it to print while others are ignored. And on Monday, May 10th at 5 p.m., Bob Drury and Tom Clavin will tell us the true story saga of Daniel Boone and the Conquest of the Frontier, the subject of their new book, Blood and Treasure. Our partner in bringing you today's discussion is James M. Madison's Montpelier, the historic home of our fourth president. It's through Madison's notes that we know what occurred behind the closed doors of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Madison was also the last surviving member of that convention, dying in 1836. That span of 50 years, plus the preceding three decades, are the years covered in Akhil Reed Amar's new book on the origins and development of the U.S. Constitution. Decades of debate over the nature of government preceded the ratification of our Constitution, and such debate continued into the first half of the federal period. New constitutional questions arose and efforts to arrive at decisions marked these early decades of our nation's existence. America's constitutional conversation continues, and through Professor Amar's new work, we can come to a better understanding of its origins. Akhil Reed Amar is a Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law. He's the author of several books, including The Constitution Today, America's Unwritten Constitution, and America's Constitution. His work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by the Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 40 cases. He regularly testifies before Congress and is a recipient of the American Bar Foundation's Outstanding Scholar Award. He's written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. Now that's here from Akhil Reed Amar, thank you for joining us today. It's such an honor to be with you all this evening. It's a very special day for me because today is the publication day of this book that I've been working on for most of my life. It's all about the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence that preceded it, and the Bill of Rights that followed it. It tells the story of America from 1760 to 1840. I'm with you today from historic Montpelier, James Madison's Montpelier, in affiliation with the National Archives. It's an especially meaningful moment for me because my parents weren't lucky enough to be born in the United States the way I was. They came over as immigrants. I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and when I was 10 years old, they took me to the National Archives, and I saw the parchment copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights as you can see them yourselves when the museum reopens in its historic rotunda. I was 10 years old, and then and there I decided that I wanted to study these documents to learn more about America, why we Americans have been so blessed uniquely in the history of the world. And the product of my labors is actually the book that I want to share with you today. And I'm going to be reading several sections of the book all about these three historic documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. So it's a little ironic, I suppose, that I'm here at James Madison's Montpelier because the story that I'm going to tell you about these three texts is one that decenters to some extent the contributions of James Madison and emphasizes actually George Washington as the more significant and founder, but most important of all focuses on we the people of the United States as the real authors and founders of these great charters of liberty. So let's first talk about the Declaration of Independence. Who really wrote the Declaration? Let's consider several possible answers. A. Congress did. This is a good answer. The document technically came from Congress and Congress did significantly edit the committee draft, especially by admitting some idiosyncratic things that Jefferson had written about moral culpability for colonial slavery. This answer has the added advantage of being a democratic answer. The final text was effectively crowdsourced by several dozen impressive statesmen who had in turn been selected by an even broader democratic base back in their home colonies. B. The five-man drafting committee did. This is also a good answer. It has the virtue of showcasing Benjamin Franklin, not just because he himself was on the committee, but also because the committee was the embodiment of his snake, the join or die cartoon, the very famous one that most of us remember. Uniting as it did, New England, John Adams from Massachusetts and Roger Sherman from Connecticut, and New York, Robert Livingston on the namesake of a Stamp Act congressman, Pennsylvania, Franklin himself, and Virginia Jefferson. This answer also draws strength from the fact that the committee members gave Jefferson preliminary suggestions, and at least two members reviewed his initial draft before it came before the Congress. C. Jefferson did. This too is a good answer for certain purposes. It's the most common answer given today. It's the answer that Jefferson's partisans gave in the late 1790s and thereafter. It's the answer that Jefferson himself ultimately gave to posterity. The inscription on his gravesite obelisk, pursuant to his strict instructions, described him as, quote, author of the American Declaration of Independence. But the elder Jefferson gave his younger self too much credit. The obelisk answer also emphasized style over substance. Now style is important, and Jefferson could surely write, but substance of course is also important, and much of the declaration substance was hardly unique to Jefferson. So the best answer of all is D. America did. America in effect slowly refined and purified the precious medal of the declaration in an extraordinarily wide and deep conversation between 1763 and 1776. Jefferson was a stylish note taker, not a transcriptionist recording every word verbatim, but a good student summarizing and organizing the key points. As more modest moments, this is indeed how Jefferson described the document and his role. This is a quote from Jefferson. The object of the declaration was not to find out new principles or new arguments never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before, but to place before mankind a common sense of the subject. It was intended to be an expression of the American mind, harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversations and letters or in printed essays. We can now see the declaration with fresh eyes. The document aimed to declare independence from the king and not from parliament because the colonists had long argued they were not properly subject to parliament. The declaration's punchline claims that Americans were absolved of quote, all allegiance to the British crown, unquote. Americans never owed any allegiance to parliament or to the British nation. They were never formally dependent on parliament, even if they were connected to Great Britain through a common monotone. In leading up to this punchline, the document targeted King George, the present king of Great Britain, and itemized his many wrongs. He's done this, he's done that. But its references to parliament as such were dismissive and oblique. Here's what it said, quote, he, that is George, has combined with others, that would be parliament, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his his assent to their pretended acts of legislation. The justification for severing all allegiance to the king was a standard lock-in justification with two pawns. First, George had ruled as a tyrant, who had inflicted on his American subjects, quote, a long train of abuses, a phrase lifted directly from John Locke's 1689 publication Two Treatises of Government. Some of the abuses itemized in the declaration were the kings alone, whereas many others occurred in a conspiracy with parliament. On this view, George had an obligation to forge his British parliament in order to properly protect his American parliaments and subjects, the American assemblies, the colonial assemblies. George on this view had tyrannized by giving his assent to the British parliament rather than vetoing or least scolding parliaments. Acting alone or with others, the king had wronged his American subjects by, among other things, imposing taxation without representation, violating jury trial rights, hoisting a servile judiciary and corrupt bureaucracy upon America, abrogating colonial charters, inflicting standing armies in peacetime without colonial consent, courting troops to over-auss civilians, preventing colonial assemblies from properly meeting, and shutting down American ports. If the declaration was a mass divorce sort, the first prong of the divorce suit was domestic cruelty. The second prong was abandonment. Americans were not leaving George, he had already left them. He was no longer protecting them, he was waging war on them. He had himself thus dissolved the basic social contract which he promised protection to his subjects. When return owed him allegiance, in effect he had abdicated, much as James II had fled the throne in 1688. And then the declaration building to a crashing crescendo identified the master sin encapsulated by all of King George's other misdeeds and that rendered Americans without any choice but to leave. George had not listened to Americans. He had not even heard their petitions. He had failed to respond. He had failed to converse. In every stage of these oppressions, we've petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injuries. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define as tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. So that's just a little bit, a little snippet on the Declaration of Independence whose parchment copy of course very famously is in the National Archives Rotunda. Now a few words on the Constitution whose parchment copy is also in the Great Shrine of the National Archives. And this is a meditation on whether the Constitution is really Madison's Constitution or maybe something slightly different. Many of Madison's darlings died in the summer of 1787. He argued relentlessly for a Senate that like the House would be a portion by population. He lost. He advocated tirelessly for congressional negative that is a veto over state law. He lost again. He wanted the president to be joined with leading judges and wielding the veto power. Here too he lost. He pleaded for broad federal power to tax exports. Yet again he lost. The proposed Constitution that emerged from Philadelphia also contained signature features that Madison had not pondered prior to the convention. For example, Article 2, that's the executive article, created a muscular executive branch centered in one person with vested, send one person independently elected, perpetually re-eligible, invested with sweeping powers. In a letter to Washington a few weeks before the start of the convention, Madison confessed that, although a national executive must also be provided, I've scarcely ventured as yet to form my own opinion, either of the manner in which it ought to be constituted or of the authorities with which it ought to be closed. In other words, Madison is telling George Washington before the Philadelphia convention he hasn't really thought very much about executive power. Now here's the case for Madison as the father of the Constitution and then I'll give you the case again. Madison was instrumental in precipitating the Federal Constitution Convention, the Philadelphia Constitution Convention, and persuading Washington to emerge from retirement to attend and preside. Madison's home state of Virginia in effect called the convention, and Madison was the chief architect of the Virginia plan that defined the convention's conversational agenda. He prepared for this conclave more carefully than did anyone else. At the convention itself, he was one of a handful of delegates with a perfect attendance record, and he vigorously participated in most of the major debates. He also kept the most extensive notes of the proceedings, a veritable treasure trove for historians. After the convention, he worked tirelessly for ratification. He orchestrated the successful defense of the Constitution in all important Virginia. He also brilliantly collaborated with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay under the pen name Publius to produce 80-plus essays comprehensively analyzing and defending the Constitution, what we call the Febriest Papers for that. Most of Publius' essays first appeared in newspapers beginning in late 1787. The entire package appeared in mid-1788 as a two-volume book, The Federals. These essays were the most impressive and comprehensive analysis of the Constitution available to Americans deciding whether to vote yes or no on the Constitution itself. Centuries later, the Federalist remains the first thing that any thoughtful American who wants to read and understand the Constitution in a historical context should read. After ratification, Madison went on to champion a series of amendments to the Constitution, a bill of rights that improved the Constitution's substance and helped win over initial doubters and opponents. When freedom of speech and of the press enshrined in the First Amendment came under assault in the late 1790s, Madison would sponsor the amendment in 1789, powerfully and successfully championed this fundamental freedom. Freedom is at the very bedrock of a proper system of constitutional conversation. Still later, he served as Secretary of State and for eight years as America's fourth president. One of his biggest, best and earliest set of constitutional ideas about the need for a strong federal oversight of individual states to protect in-state minorities would eventually become a new constitutional cornerstone when the Constitution was reconstructed after the Civil War. Throughout his long career of public service, he was a rare combination, a powerful thinker and a powerful doer. The Constitution was central to much of what he thought about and much of what he did. And you have to remember, I'm here in James Madison's home with Montpil and yourself, so I have to tell you that that's the case for James Madison, and I hope I've said it forth with clarity. But now here's the case against James Madison. Despite all of Madison's constitutional service before, during and after Philadelphia, the stubborn fact remains that the final Philadelphia plan reflected few of his most original and distinctive ideas. Before the convention, John Jay, Henry Knox, and Madison in that order, so Jay first, Knox second, and Madison, had all sent Washington outlined proposing that a new federal constitution broadly resemble tripartite and its free branch and bicameral two houses of the legislature state constitution. This basic structure was not distinctively Madisonian. It was distinctly American. In mid-1783, when Washington had barely heard of Madison, had he yet to correspond with them on any issue of constitutional substance, the general, that is George Washington, had privately told a friendly clergyman that for reasons of national security, Americans needed to quote, call a convention of the people to invest the central government with more power. Similar continental themes appeared prominently in Washington's famous 1783 circular letter to state governors on the occasion of the general's anticipated retirement. And this is again before Madison really has entered the picture. Thus, the Constitution's most notable elements, a bicameral two houses in the legislature and tripartite, legislature, executive judiciary regime authorized by the people, rooted in national defense considerations, conferring more power on central officials and summoning into existence a robust central executive were Washington's darlings before they were Madison's. Nor did Madison's most creative contributions to the Federalist reach or sway large numbers of undecided in the ratification process. In the moment, Hamilton's and Jay's Federalist essays were far more important and influential. Madison may have been one of the Constitution's best friends and guardians, but he was not his father. And I know, given that I'm here and changing Madison's Montpelier, the sun folks that then might be fighting words. But let me actually try to then put forth the all my alternative account. The father of our country has the strongest claim to be the father of its Constitution. Indeed, the two concepts Constitution and country form one system. The Constitution is the country's legal spine. Without the former, that is the Constitution, the latter, that is the country would have an entirely different shape. Here's the case with George Washington. No one else came into the convention with anything like Washington's stature. Common folk across the continent had never heard of James Madison or any other delegate except for Franklin. At best, a typical delegate was known to political elites and perhaps to ordinary voters in his home state, but every American knew of George Washington. At the convention itself, Washington presided by acclamation unanimously and signed the parchment before all others. Uniquely, he got everything he wanted, in part because he wanted fewer things than did some of his more theoretically minded fellow delegates. Unlike Madison, who came to the convention with no clear vision of executive power, Washington cared deeply about creating a strong, unitary president to lead the nation domestically and internationally. Of course, he knew that if the president was going to be ratified, he'll be the first president. On key issues of executive structure and authority, he got what he wanted, a presidency far more muscular than any state counterpart, with an independent electoral base, a substantial four-year term of office, unlimited re-eligibility, a powerful pair of veto and pardon pens, broad appointment and removal power, military and diplomatic heft, personal control over executive department heads, and more. Indeed, the federal constitution's single most distinctive feature, its biggest and most obvious break with all 13 state regime, then in place with its breathtakingly strong chief executive by American Revolutionary Standards. This distinctive feature owed more to Washington alone than to all the other delegates combined. Washington also cared passionately about empowering the national government as a whole, so it could win the next war and also win the love and loyalty of ordinary Americans. Here true, his wish came true. Other than that, he didn't sweat the details. Put differently, Washington cared passionately about fixing a geostrategic national security problem that America faced. The copious notes that James Madison and others took can easily mislead. Remember, Madison took the notes that basically give us the most detail of the count of what happened at Philadelphia. But these notes can be misleading. Washington's voice almost never appears. He did not speak because he did not need to. On the biggest issue, the man in the room knew what Washington wanted and they obliged him. Most of the delegates had worn arms in the war. A third were veterans of the constitutional, continental army. And five of them went from each of five distinct states. Remember, there were only 39 people who signed the document, 55 people there at any given time. Five of them were actually, had personally served from five different states, had personally served as his aides to camp in the war. Washington's personal aides to camp. New York's Alexander Hamilton, Pennsylvania's Thomas Mifflin, Maryland's James McHenry, Virginia's Edmund Randolph, and South Carolina's Charles Coachworth Pinkley. On smaller issues, Washington did not engage because it made little sense to put his prestige on the line in this skirmish or that one. He reserved his power for the major battles. Unlike his experience in the Revolutionary War, he won all the big battles at Philadelphia. In the ratification process, Washington's name alone counted for more than all the elegant arguments of Publius and everyone else put together times two. Indeed, his five paragraph explanatory letter to Congress, accompanying the proposed constitution, was reprinted alongside the text of the Constitution and tens of thousands of copies of the document circulated among the citizenry in 1787. The fact that Washington put his name on the Constitution and the hope that he would, when summoned, return to public service to launch the new system as its first president, suffice to persuade many a fenced sitter and skeptic. His unanimous election and reelection to the presidency in America's first two presidential contests attested his unique stature in that era and indeed in all of American constitutional history. And indeed, as America's first president, he succeeds in enabling other, others succeed largely because of him. He's the one, for example, who helps James Madison get through various things in the first Congress. Okay, so that's the case for Washington. What's the case against him? Washington indeed personified the Philadelphia plan. Its virtues were his virtues, but so were its vices. The Constitution's article for fugitive slave laws, for example, bolstered slavery. Far more importantly, the Constitution rewarded slavery in the three fifths laws that govern both house and electoral college apportionment. Now, some accommodation of slavery was necessary to get the Carolinians on board. And without the Carolinas, Virginia Southern flank would be dangerously exposed. But a more farsighted plan would have used time more cleverly. The document gave Congress power to end the international slave trade in 1808, but not slavery itself. South Carolina had insisted on a 20-year window before any ban could operate. But a better document that would have nonetheless fit within the geostrategic imperatives of the moment would have used 18 away or any other date. 1818, 1828, 1858, 1878, whatever to phase out slavery more generally, not just the international slave trade. The Constitution could have specified that after 18 away or any other date, the international slave trade must, not might, but must end. And slavery in the West must end. And the three fifths laws must end in favor of zero fifths and so on. Several states, including the convention's host state of Pennsylvania, had already adopted various time-delayed laws to abolish slavery gradually. That was the best state practice on the established topic, and yet the Constitution didn't follow that best state practice. The Philadelphia Constitution's failure to put slavery on a path of ultimate extinction would ultimately imperil the entire federal constitutional project and lead to the very sort of internecine warfare between Americans brother against brother. The document was actually aims to prevent. Philadelphia Constitution's failures in this regard were Washington's failures, and vice versa. In 1787, Washington had not yet become the man that he would be later in life, man who, in his last will in testament, would provide for the freeing of his own slaves. Had Washington in 1787 been that man, the Constitution might have been different, as might all the rest of American history. More than anyone else in Philadelphia, Washington did have some power personally to bend history, but he bent it only so much. So that's my take on the Constitution. It focuses more on Washington than Madison, with the greatest of respects to Madison's home here at the store on Peelier, which is, of course, the co-sponsor of the National Archives of today's talk. So now, I've talked about two or the three iconic documents in the rotunda that I first saw as a 10-year-old boy that so inspired me to want to write what has just been published today. A book about these and other iconic American texts. The book is a love letter to America, really, about what it is that we have in common, the words that made us. So I've told you a bit about the Declaration of Independence, which comes more from America than Thomas Jefferson. I've told you a bit about the Constitution, which comes more from America. Or if I have to pick one person, George Washington and James Madison, what about the Bill of Rights, that third iconic parchment in the rotunda? If America more than Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and if America more than James Madison wrote the Constitution, then did America more than Madison write the Bill of Rights? Yes. The Bill of Rights was not Madison's brainchild, nor was it even Washington's original. So both men eventually came to see the light. Madison, Washington, and almost all the other Philadelphia signers had squarely rejected George Mason's proposal to include a Bill of Rights in their plan. This was an enormous political blunder. Americans everywhere had grown to esteem state bills of rights, which had emerged organically from a fertile national conversation at the dawn of the Revolution. These state bills of rights were emblematic features of pre-1787 state constitutions, ranking high among the best and most popular state practices. When the Philadelphia delegates unveiled their proposed constitution after a long summer of secrecy, the absence of a proper Bill of Rights quickly became one of the anti-Federalist two best talking points. The other large and incisive anti-Federalist complaint was that the House of Representatives was far too small, too small to begin with and not guaranteed to grow quickly. A written Bill of Rights as an integral part of a written constitution was thus America's baby, born in 1776 and baptized in 1788. In that baptismal year, the Philadelphia plan had squeaked through several states only thanks to a ratification process which various Federalists had smartly swibbled and signaled a willingness to consider reasonable amendments. I called this process, yes, but. People who were skeptical of the constitution then, yes, will ratify it, but we want an expected Bill of Rights. And the Federalists in this ratification process in effect said, okay, we get it, we hear you. Then in early 1789, Madison himself won election to Congress only by promising his constituents in open letters, two of which probably appeared in local newspapers that he would champion a Bill of Rights. Had he broken this promise in the first Congress, his constituents might not have been forgiven. In all of this, we see once again at work the spirit of America more than the singular genius of James Madison. So now I'm just going to tell you a little bit about the substance of the Bill of Rights. And then we're going to have, this is all a book all about America's constitutional conversation. We're going to have a conversation. I'm really interested to get your comments and your cheeks and questions. So now just a little bit about what this Bill of Rights was substantive. A quick survey of the substance of these amendments confirms their American authorship and paternity. Most of the provisions affirming rights of expression, religion, privacy, property and procedure had previously appeared in embryo in state constitutions and or in the amendment ideas voiced by popularly elected state ratification conventions in 1788. Yes, but yes, we're going to ratify the constitutions, but we expect some rights just as we see in state constitutions. As in 1787, when the delegates in Philadelphia had drafted the constitution by sorting, suggesting, considering and compiling best state practices among existing state constitutions. So now in 1789, Congressman in New York sifted more than originated because my view of what happened in Philadelphia isn't James Madison just coming up with ideas on his own. He and others are looking to what states are doing, looking at what are state best practices and modeling a federal constitution on what America is already doing in the best states, constitution by constitution. Remember, their state constitutions are already in place. The locution that appeared more than any other in the first 10 amendments will be called the Bill of Rights was the phrase the people. And that's not surprising because it's coming, of course, this Bill of Rights from the people. So it's a nice example of a phenomenon in which the process by which a legal idea springs to life often influences the substantive shape of the resulting ideas. Since the Bill of Rights is coming from the people, it's going to unsurprisingly mention the people again and again and again. The Bill of Rights, in effect, was conceived in the 1788 ratification process by the American people themselves. The preambles vaunted we the people. In that process, special conventions of the people had unsurprisingly echoed state constitutions with popular roots, especially the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780 but also precursor state constitutions that it aimed in 1776 to mobilize popular support for revolutionary new state governments. In the federal Bill of Rights, the first amendment explicitly affirmed a right of the people to assemble, much as the people, indeed, had assembled in state conventions to put various amendment ideas into circulation. The 9th and 10th amendments spoke of rights retained and reserved to the people, including, paradigmatically, the right of the people to alter governments by adding new amendments like the 9th and 10th amendments themselves. The 2nd amendment celebrated a right of the people to participate in civic militia, representative of the citizenry. And the 4th amendment, obliquely hinted at the role that citizen juries representing the people would play in protecting certain seizure rights. So the phrase that appears in more of the Bill of Rights than any other, the 1st amendment, the 2nd amendment, the 4th, the 9th and the 10th, the people, is coming from the preambles. People, the people, the people, the people, the people, because it's that preamble process we, the people, do ordain and establish this constitution is actually driving the need to add these amendments. They didn't come from Madison's mind, Philadelphia, or even from Washington's. They goofed on that. Rainy as they were, impressive as they were, these smart guys in the closed room, missed something, the constitution is crowdsourced. Ordinary people get involved. The first thing they notice is they say, dudes, you forgot the rights. And yes, but we'll vote yes, we'll ratify, but we want to see some rights. So it's America more than even James Madison. It's a real father, as it were, of the Bill of Rights. So I'm just going to end now with a little discussion of the importance, not just of the people in the Bill of Rights, but one other important idea. The Bill of Rights came from the people and spoke of the people. So too, it had bubbled up from a great constitutional conversation and much of its substance reinforced various aspects of the right of constitutional conversation itself. What were those conversations? In each of the states, there was a special convention called to decide whether to vote yes or no on the Constitution. And they talked about it at length, they deliberated, they conversed, people persuaded each other, they listened to each other. What a concept. Maybe we can do the same today. So that's actually where the Bill of Rights came from. People conversing with each other, listening to each other. Now, not all of the Bill of Rights provisions were all about constitutional conversation. There was nothing particular conversational, say, about the Fifth Amendment's right to receive just compensation when private property was taken for governmental use or the Eighth Amendment's right to be free from excessive fines. But many other provisions of the Bill of Rights were indeed all about constitutional conversation. The First Amendment affirmed core conversational rights of speech, press, petition, and assembly. The Fourth Amendment's letter and spirit offered special safeguards against searches aimed at papers as distinct from other items. The right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects. So papers were especially protected. Now, personal papers surely fell into this category, but so did political newspapers and the like, which had been the object of infamous dragnet searches in Britain in particular in the 1760s. Multiple provisions protecting juries aimed to preserve these institutions as special arenas of citizen conversation and deliberation. For example, grand juries had inherent authority to issue public reports and presentments, condemning mischievous government officials and other miscrints. Much like speeches on the floor of Congress, the words issuing from grand juries would be entirely free from the threat of libel suits. Civil and criminal trial juries were thus themselves important sites of citizen conversation with special speech spots. And these institutions, in turn, and at times protected conversational rights of publishers, very famously, for example, in the 1730s, involved in a New York seditious libel case involving the anti-government printer, now famous John Peter Zenger. The criminal jury in that case had refused to convict the printer, thus striking a blow for free expression. Grand juries had also, at times, famously shielded printers by refusing to approve seditious libel indictments. The most celebrated recent examples of those involved actually Governor Thomas Hutchinson, America's most famous loyalist up in Boston in the early 1770s, who had tried to use seditious libel law to suppress criticism of his administration, only to be met with grand jury defiance. So speech, press, petition assembly are about conversations. There were juries in various ways. Even the second, papers protected by the Fourth Amendment were about newspapers and constitutional discourse. Even the Second Amendment had a conversational angle. Militia, like juries, were venues of Republican engagement among presumptively equal citizens. Whereas unthinking, unblinking army soldiers who might indeed not even be citizens, they might be aliens or what have you, were expected to simply follow orders from on high, citizen militiamen elected their leaders, who were typically local politicians. Any militia officer who abused his authority would likely pay a political price when the fighting was over. Whereas typical professional soldiers might serve in the army for life, temporary amateur militiamen came from civil society and would soon return to civil society. The conversational norms of Republican equality in civil society were occurred within a militia more so than in an army. In celebrating the role of militia, the Second Amendment was thus celebrating a conversational social structure. Okay, so this book, which really has been inspired in the 50 years since I first visited the National Archives as a little boy, it's all about these iconic texts, especially the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. I started a little earlier in 1760. I go all the way to 1840. And it's a book about the words that made us, the words that made the US, that made the words that we have in common as Americans, whether we're Jew or Gentile, black or white, gay or straight, Republican or Democrat, this is what we have in common, my fellow Americans. And the subtitle of the book is America's Constitutional Conversation. And in that spirit, we're going to end our Zoom session this evening with a conversation about the Constitution and about anything that I've said thus far. So I'm getting my first prompt. What was Alexander Hamilton's, hold on, let me open it up again. What was Alexander Hamilton's contribution to the creation of the Constitution? Oh, I'm so glad you asked that question. Hang on just one second, let me take a sip. So one of my favorite chapters in the book, there's a chapter called Washington, but one of my favorite chapters is a chapter called Hamilton. The book is dedicated to five people. Let me read you the dedication, and then I'll tell you why I'm so enamored of Hamilton. And some of the catees of the book, I haven't told them, the book is dedicated to them, so this may come as a surprise, and I hope it'll be a pleasant surprise. This book is dedicated to Lin-Manuel Miranda, Vanessa Nadal, who's been a spouse, Ron Chernam, the biographer of Hamilton, and Kaisir Khan. And of course, T'Niel Kumar Katyal, who introduced me to each of you. Thank you all, jointly and severly, for helping me and so many others see the true meaning of America. So I'm a big admirer of Hamilton. He's born into nothing. He's an immigrant of sorts, but my parents were immigrants the way so many other great Americans in history have been immigrants. He comes, he loves this country with a special passion. He risks his life for the country again and again and again. He leads a bayonet. He's Washington's right hands during the Revolutionary War. He leads a bayonet charge at Yorktown. And remember, I say, Washington's really the father of the Constitution and the country. And it's Hamilton who's his to borrow for his right hand man. And in the Washington Administration, it's Hamilton who again and again conceives of various governmental projects that are going to implement the Constitution vision of national security, common defense, assumption of debt, a certain funded tax system, a national bank, a national military structure, currency structure. These are all things that Hamilton helps conceive of in order to make sure that the Americans will stay independent. That Britain, having lost the Revolutionary War is not going to be able to come back some later point and conquer Americans. So I'm a huge fan of Hamilton. Most of you, because I know this is a very, very distinguished audience, most of you have been taught that the most famous Federalist paper is the Federalist number 10 by James Madison. That's not remotely the case. And again, it's a little awkward that I'm saying that here. Madison's home. No one reads Federalist 10 at all. These are op-eds, these Federalist essays. And if you had a really good argument for why people should ratify the Constitution, you leave it to your 10th op-ed, of course you would. You'd lead with it. The Federalist paper is the ones they're cited and talked about by everyone else. Persuaded people are not Madison's 10. That's his first one. They're Hamilton's, first and foremost. They're the Federalists basically two through eight. They're summarized especially in Federalist eight, which is Alexander Hamilton's key Federalist paper. And in a nutshell, he says we need to create an indivisible union for reasons of national security. We want to have a, because look around the world. Who's free in all the world? Because most people aren't free. The Brits are relatively free, and so are the Swiss. Why? They're self-governing, and most other people aren't. Not the Russians, not China, not India, not Central Europe, not France, which is ruled by an absolutist tyrant. Why is Britain free? And Britain, once they created a union of Scotland and England, they were an island nation, and they didn't need a huge army to defend themselves because they didn't have any land borders. England and Scotland created a perfect union in 1707, and thereafter, England became strong and free. We Americans, says Hamilton most of all, have to create a more perfect union on the, four score years later, in 1787, on the model of England and Scotland, so that we can be free. Because if we have 13 separate nation states, we're going to start fighting amongst ourselves, who controls the West, because there's gold in them and our hills, Britain's going to come in and play us off against each other, divide and conquer, and we won't be free. So that's Hamilton's vision, more than anyone else's. He articulates it in essays long before the Philadelphia Convention essays called The Continentalist. He and Washington are as one on this. Madison kind of gets it. He's not opposed to this vision, but he's got his own ideas in Federalist 10, and they're brilliant ideas. They're worthy of tenure today, but no one pays any attention to them at the time. They're not influential. This is not just my view. It's confirmed by the 29 volume documentary history, the ratification of the Constitution. And now you can look at it yourself and you can see that no one talks about Federalist 10. They're talking about Hamilton's ideas first and foremost. Okay, so I hope that's responsive to your question. It's a great question. Here's the next one. If Washington was behind the powerful executive of the Constitutional Convention, do you think his later actions as president and as fair will address indicate a change in his views afterwards? No, not at all. It's a change in the interpretation of his vision before Philadelphia and at Philadelphia. And I mentioned that I got a chapter entitled Hamilton. It's preceded by a chapter entitled Washington. And in these two chapters, I walk you through you the reader through the Washington Administration first eight years of the Constitution and show that all of Washington's policies, all of his accomplishments are a consolidation and implementation of the vision that he brings to Philadelphia and that he basically gets the Philadelphia delegates to endorse and then gets the American people to ratify in a year of extraordinary conversation and voting in which we, the people of the United States, say, yes, we do to this plan which we understand is going to mean that Washington is our first president. Everyone understands that and Washington is unanimously elected by the first electoral college. Every single elector votes for George Washington. He's unanimously re-elected after people have seen what he's done and what he's done is basically implement Hamilton's vision, Hamilton's his right-hand man and George Washington, again this is a little awkward for me to say today, but James Madison opposes some of these things. He opposes a bank, for example. He's completely incorrect in opposing a bank, in my view. His constitutional arguments are actually somewhere between bad and preposterous. He later changes his mind on this and signs a bank bill into law and he's president without quite admitting that he was ever really wrong than he was. And so, Washington's farewell address is all about national security. Maybe let me read you a passage from it in another iconic document. So let me just read you a little bit from Washington's farewell address because these are the words that made us that made the US and why not hear directly from the great man himself and who drafted that farewell address? Alexander Hamilton did. Four years earlier, Washington had asked Madison to take a crack at a draft and Madison did because Washington was thinking about retiring after four years. He ended up not doing that by the time he finally steps down he and Madison are basically not even talking to each other. In the last years of his life no letters passed between James Madison and George Washington and he converses over and over again the person he converses most with is Alexander Hamilton. And here's his farewell address drafted by Hamilton and I'll just read you a passage or two. So the unity of government which constitutes you one people is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence and the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad of your safety, of your prosperity of that very liberty which you so highly prize. So he says the most important thing of all is the geostrategic union. Every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union as a whole. He says then think of all the inestimable value you derive from a union an exemption from all the wars between themselves which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same government. This is going to help us avoid having an indivisible union the necessity of overgrown military establishments which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty. In this sense your union ought to be considered as the main prop of your liberty. So again and again and again he's basically saying the key idea is a geostrategic union that is the idea of Hamilton's federalist number eight Hamilton's earlier essays in the early 1780's called the continentalist and so Washington's views in the farewell address Washington's policies as present are a perfect implementation of his vision at Philadelphia. The next one do you foresee another question here is do I foresee another constitutional convention? Not right now in part because I think for there to be another constitutional convention there would need to be a very strong consensus to move our country in one direction or in another. I think right now actually we're pretty divided as a people so I don't see that consensus to move strongly one way or another. Remember of course even without a constitutional convention you can have ordinary amendments and we've had many even in my lifetime remember immediately after the Constitution there are ten amendments that are added there are amendments that are added after the Civil War there are amendments that are added in the early 20th century there are amendments that are added in the 1960s what sort of amendments could you imagine today maybe for example an equal rights amendment I think on the grounds of sex equality I think there might be a broad consensus for that why do I say that because it's in so many state constitutions if you want to try to figure out what the amendments of the future of the federal constitution will look like look at what states are doing today states as laboratories of experimentation my claim is the U.S. Constitution it came from preexisting state constitutions and on issue after issue they basically adopted best state practice the big thing that they did is different than states is creating a much more powerful president than any state governor and that was because of George Washington what's my opinion on expanding the Supreme Court I think nine has served us very well if you want to hear more on that my friend Andy Lipka and I have a podcast it's free you can access it on Spotify and Stitcher and Apple iTunes and all sorts of things that I don't really understand very much but if you go to akilamar.com you can access it or just put in America's Constitution America's Constitution our most recent we have we've uploaded about 16 episodes thus far to repeat this is all free the most recent episode is all about why Andy and I think Andy Lipka is the co-host of this podcast it's kind of a car talk for con law nerds and you'll hear my reasons and Andy's reasons for thinking that we should probably stick with nine that would be nice and stable otherwise we'll spiral out of control but there are ways of improving the Supreme Court one idea that we float is 18-year term limits for justices which we think could be done without a constitutional amendment we generate believe it or not 18 different reasons for thinking that this might be a good idea so listen to the podcast and decide for yourself we have interesting guests we had the great Bob Woodward as our guest a few weeks ago we had Nadine Strossen we're going to have Joan Biscoupic and Nina Totenberg and all sorts of fun folks to hear from the great Jeff Rosen President of the National Constitution Center Anil Katyal has agreed to come on board so for more on that check out the podcast so I think we're coming alas to the end of our time I say alas just because I gotta be honest I've been looking forward to this day for the longest time because for 50 years I wanted to share with my fellow citizens my passionate love for this country a country that let my parents come here a country where I was born where my brothers were born and when I saw the National Archives at age 10 I thought a lot about why is it that my life is so much better than the lives of many of my cousins weren't like enough to be born in America and I knew even at age 10 it had something to do with these venerable documents Declaration of Independence Constitution of the Blue Brides I wasn't quite sure what but I have the suspicion that these documents which is to repeat what makes us Americans what makes us us what makes the US truly united Republican and Democrat with these documents and I've finally been able to put into one place my interpretation of this I think I finally figured out at least for myself what makes these documents so special what makes them so important what they're all about so I've been waiting for today's publication day I've been waiting for this for a long time just to share these ideas with you my fellow citizens thank you for this event and for James Madison's Montpelier for also co-sponsoring this event and to all of you my fellow Americans thank you thank you Achille