WEBVTT

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This building holds in trust the
records of a nation. It is the United

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States National Archives in Washington
DC.

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Here are preserved the documents most
cherished by Americans: the Declaration

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of Independence, the Constitution, and the
Bill of Rights. As they enter the stately

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exhibition hall they see before them the
bronze and marble shrine which was

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especially built to display the three
great charters that spell out the

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liberties enjoyed by all Americans. On
the walls at either side of the shrine

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are two colorful murals. One shows Thomas
Jefferson submitting the Declaration of

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Independence to John Hancock in the
Continental Congress. The other shows

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James Madison of Virginia delivering the
completed Constitution to George

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Washington, president of the
Constitutional Convention.

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Someone says. \"Luther Martin who was he?\"
and they have no idea... how do you answer

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that? Well you could answer it first by
saying you do mean Martin Luther the

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founder of Lutheranism? But the serious
answer of course is Luther Martin is a

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revolutionary patriot, he is a lawyer in
Maryland, he is the Attorney General of

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Maryland for almost all of his adult
life, he\'s a delegate to the

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Constitutional Convention, he walks out
of the convention because he doesn\'t

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like the way things are going. \"I would
not trust a government organized upon

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the reported plan for all the slaves of
the Carolinas or the horses and oxen of

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Massachusetts!\" He was part of a small
minority of contenders in 1787-88 who

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really did not like the Constitution at
all! Martin I think does not deserve his

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obscurity. I think he\'s the most
fascinating of figures in early American

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politics. He spoke at great length,
often with considerable vehemence and

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passion, against the Constitution. I find
him particularly interesting because he

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espouses what was then the traditional
view of federalism.

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He has very interesting arguments about
the Declaration of Independence and the

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consequences for who can make what
decisions. When you look at the US

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Constitution as it was created in 1787,
there are no individual rights in that

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document. It\'s a relationship between the
states and the federal government - to a

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certain degree, to a certain degree a
very small degree - but basically it\'s the

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structure of the federal government
itself. If you really value your freedoms

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such as freedom of religion and gun
rights and freedom of speech and no

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cruel and unusual punishment, the people
to thank for that are not the men who

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wrote the constitution, the people to
thank for that are the men who hated the

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Constitution! Nobody in 1776 even
imagined a government as strong as the

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federal government that emerges ten
years later. It\'s not in their wildest

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dreams. Luther Martin thought the whole
of the idea of radically changing the

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government was a mistake. He said it
would be much smarter to fix what was

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broken and to give new powers sparingly,
and only to the extent that they were

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necessary. Because it was always easier
to give power than to take it back.

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♪♪Luther Martin went to town expecting a revision.♪

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♪Imagine his surprise when they destroyed the current system.♪♪

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Thirteen former colonies are going to begin to
organize themselves under something

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called the Articles of Confederation and
Perpetual Union. There is also a war that

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will have to be fought, and it does
turn out to be a long and bitter

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struggle. We see in the years after the
war a new set of challenges; a government

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under the Articles of Confederation that
is unable to organize the states for

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their common defense, has a difficult
time collecting revenue. The future looked

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very dark to me. True the colonies had
formed a federation, but they had given

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it no direct power. It couldn\'t collect
taxes.

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It had no authority to combine the
fighting strength of the individual

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colonies into one United Army. No power
to issue a uniform currency. The United

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States under the Articles of
Confederation has been described I think

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properly as an alliance. You know in the
same way that United States now is part

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of NATO but we don\'t think of England
and France and other countries that are in

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the in NATO as part of the States...
They\'re just our allies, and so Virginia

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and Pennsylvania were more like allies
than than like being part of the country,

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and people wanted it that way.
They had rebelled against an empire, the

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last thing they wanted to do when they
initially rebelled was create a new

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empire. You see, there were 13 separate
individual colonies.

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They all had their individual customs
and loyalties...

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But like NATO it was a very successful
alliance, and it defeated the most

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powerful empire the world had ever known -
Great Britain. ...and when war came they

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fought together and won their
independence.

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United in war, could they remain united
in peace? If you compare it to

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governments, the Articles of
Confederation was incredibly weak, but if

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you compare it to other alliances like
today\'s NATO or the Alliance that

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defeated the Nazis in World War II, it
was a pretty effective alliance that

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succeeded. Some men want the central
government to control the states but

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most of the citizens want the states to
retain their sovereignty and exercise

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real power. There are strong arguments on
both sides. There were all kinds of

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problems at the national level then you
can\'t dismiss those. I mean we were being

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humiliated internationally. We were being
treated as a kind of rogue state that

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was about to fall apart and they were
giving us no respect. The British didn\'t

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send a minister. The states put up
barriers against each other pushing

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their boundary lines into each other\'s
land, acting like unfriendly neighbors.

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They demand money to let merchandize
cross their borders and money has a

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different value in every state it isn\'t
worth much anywhere, for war has brought

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inflation. Having each state work as its
own individual power would lend itself

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to outside invasion, because the invader
would pick the weakest link to invade

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the geographical landmass. The Pirates
are seizing our sailors and enslaving

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them and we can\'t respond. We\'re trying to
do a navigation system and Massachusetts

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passes its own navigation acts and
Connecticut is complaining because their

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goods are being taxed at by Massachusetts...I mean it\'s
just a crazy, crazy world. And I think

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that kind of pressure built up to the
point where everybody says, \"well we got

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to do something.\" Some people began
talking about a central government for

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all the states, but on this idea the
majority didn\'t agree.

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They were proud of their sovereignty and
to each a central government still

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meant tyranny. Outrageous dictatorship.
People were afraid of losing their

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identity as individuals in a super state.

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They also feared the cost of such a
scheme.

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The states send delegates to a convention in Philadelphia where

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their independence was declared eleven years before.

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Ah...people are concerned that this new government might not last much longer.

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In the midst of this crisis we\'re gonna see calls for reform folks, and eventually...

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James Madison in Virginia,
Alexander Hamilton in New York, are gonna do

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a lot to bring 55 delegates from 12 of
the 13 new states here to Philadelphia.

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They\'re going to meet in this room
throughout the summer of 1787 - from late

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May until mid-September of that year.

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From nearly
every colony delegates had come. From the

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commercial north and the agricultural
south, from the ship towns of the east

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and the farm towns of the West.
The ideological homogeneity of the

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convention was actually remarkable.
We hear a lot about the diverse voices

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represented. There were not diverse
voices represented, and the men who ought

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to have been the leaders of this kind of
libertarian decentralized party just did

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not come to Philadelphia. Patrick Henry
in Virginia refused to come he said \"I

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smelt a rat.\" Richard Henry Lee begged off
for reasons of health. Sam Adams stayed

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back in Massachusetts brewing honey wheat ale I suppose. Thomas Jefferson was in

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France.
William Findley... he\'s from western

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Pennsylvania and the the Pittsburgh
area, and the Pennsylvania legislature

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says \"do you want to go to this
convention that\'s being held in

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Philadelphia?\" and he says \"will you pay my
way?\" He says to the legislators they say

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\"no\" he says, \"well I can\'t afford that!\" As a
consequence the seven members from

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Pennsylvania are all residents of
Philadelphia. Most of the men who\'d come

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to Philadelphia to write the
constitution in the spring of 1787

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agreed on the big picture, and the big
picture was that the United States had

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become too democratic. Those 13
individual states had gotten too

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democratic and we need to take some of
the powers away from those overly

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democratic state legislatures and put
them in the hands of a federal

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government that would be much harder for
ordinary Americans to influence. These

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men of power, coming together in a city
of power, to create a document of power

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that would be one for the ages. And I
think they might not have known that

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completely when they gathered together
that hot summer in secret - and tried to

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keep it a secret as long as they could.
The convention was called for this sole

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and express purpose of revising the
Articles of Confederation.

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And so you have people like Yates and
Lansing of New York, who viewed this

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essentially as a coup, you know? I mean
the Articles of Confederation required

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unanimous vote: All thirteen states in
order to revise and amend the

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Articles. Well, Rhode Island didn\'t even
show up...

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so constitutionally there\'s NO
WAY that the convention\'s handiwork

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should have been enacted... and they\'re
doing it in secret, because the first

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rule that the convention adopts is that
what happens in Philadelphia stays in

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Philadelphia, you know? I mean there are
armed sentries

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at the door. No word could get, out you
know, you couldn\'t leak anything to the

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press, you couldn\'t send letters. And so
Luther Martin arrives a couple weeks

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later in June after this the secrecy
rule had been adopted and he says you

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know, \"I had no idea that all the wisdom
of of America was concentrated in this

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room.\" It was a committee designed to
create a document. The document could

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then be debated, and there\'s no problem,
there\'s no gag rule over debating the

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document and God knows Luther Martin
debates the document endlessly. Some

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thought this convention was a waste of
time and others were unconcerned, still

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it was the subject of much discussion.
Madison says later we could never have

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done what we did if it had been open to
the press. I mean, and that\'s that\'s

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probably true. You can\'t imagine them
getting away with it today. Today in

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today\'s debates they get fixed
into a position and they find it very

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very difficult to move from that
position because somebody\'s going to

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call them on it. But, if you\'re in a
situation where the press is not there,

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they can go back and forth and there was
a lot of changing of minds and I think

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that was very, very helpful.

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They soon realized that their job was
not to patch up what we had but to

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create a new union: the United States of
America, with a central government. There

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were no rules to go by. Nothing seemed to
fit. They had to find something that just

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suited their own needs, and they had to
overcome all the ill-will brought about

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by years of living as separate nations.

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Some delegates want to work out a basic
law for the land as conceived by the

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English philosopher Locke, but others
object. They fear the law will become

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coercive and they have just finished a
war against coercion. Feelings are strong

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and tempers are hot. As as soon as the
delegates arrive,

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James Madison - whose brainchild in many
ways the Constitution was - arrives with

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something called the Virginia Plan, which
Edmund Randolph - who is a sort of

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dithering frontman from Virginia, later
an Attorney General of the United States -

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he introduces the Virginia Plan and it
calls essentially for throwing the

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Articles of Confederation out the window!
The first proposal in the Convention was

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the nationalist Virginia plan. The
convention went through it twice for two

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weeks. Then, some of the framers are taken aback by this radical proposed change.

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How radical? Proportional representation
in a bicameral legislature - the Articles

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had state equality - a full structure of
government and a comprehensive statement

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of powers. It was so comprehensive it was
virtually a general grant; there was no

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enumeration. The vote for the Virginia
plan is a vote for a new principle of

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government. People were prepared for this
this convention in Philadelphia to add

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some powers to the Confederation. What
they weren\'t prepared for was the

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scrapping of the Confederation, and
that\'s because I think Madison and

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others had another agenda, which was to
take advantage of this opportunity

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to revise the Articles and create this
very, very different kind of government. I

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would rather Confederate with any single
state than to submit to the Virginia

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Plan. But we are already Confederated, and
no power on earth can dissolve it but by

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the consent of the contracting powers. Is
the old Confederation dissolved because

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some of the states want
a new Confederation? Two parts of it

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that Madison wanted desperately: one
was his negative over all state laws. He

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had the model of the English
Constitution in mind, and the Empire

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actually. He thought that the King ideally
if he behaved himself that was an ideal

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system: the King had the right to veto
all the state or the colonial laws, and

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he wanted that power for this federal
government for the Congress. And if that

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had stayed in it\'d just be impossible.
The Congress would be looking at every

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50 states - the laws of 50 states, having
to okay them? I mean, they\'d be doing

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nothing else. You think of Madison as
a sharp guy, but how did he think this was

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going to work? I think he thought it
would work the way it did with the

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colonies. But didn\'t he imagine that the
states would increase in numbers and

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that all these laws - bills - they would be
bills - they wouldn\'t be laws until they

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were passed by the Congress. How he
conceived of this is beyond me, but he

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did. And he thought - he writes to
Jefferson, \"I lost my veto, my negative

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and therefore it\'s gonna be a failure.\"
The small states turned it down. The

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other was proportional representation in
both houses. That is to say that both

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houses would be like the House of
Representatives. The Senate would have

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been smaller, but it still would have
been proportional to population. That\'s

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what he wanted desperately - those
two things - and he losses on both. That\'s

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why he doesn\'t see - especially the
proportional representation as a

00:17:33.620 --> 00:17:38.270
compromise - he sees that as a major
defeat mid-July. And if you think about

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the United States today and the
absurdity of Wyoming or Idaho having, or

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Vermont having the same number of
Senators as California is ludicrous. I

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mean it is the single most undemocratic
thing in the western world, and Madison

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understands this fully. Madison and the
other nationalists - Wilson and the

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Virginia delegation caucus and - \"should we walk out?\" That\'s the question. If they

00:18:10.909 --> 00:18:15.880
walk out - if Virginia walks out - that\'s
the end. More than any other

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commitment James Madison
wanted to block equal state suffrage. Now

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this obsession was in part personal: he
hated the Virginia legislature. And so

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for Madison, proportional representation
promised freedom from his state - from the

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Virginia political powers he despised.
But what he fundamentally could not see,

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was that for everyone else at the
convention Virginians were all first

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Virginians.

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♪♪ \"Carry me back to old Virginny...\"♪♪

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They had an alternative you know. It\'s
not like the choice was the Constitution

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or some sort of chaos. The New Jersey
delegation: Brearly and Paterson proposed

00:19:15.240 --> 00:19:21.499
what they called a truly federal plan,
that was also consistent with the

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authorization, which was that this
convention meet for the sole and express

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purpose of revising the Articles. While
those Virginia resolves were the subject

00:19:31.590 --> 00:19:37.860
of discussion a number of members who
disapproved them were preparing another

00:19:37.860 --> 00:19:45.929
system more conducive to the happiness
and welfare of the states. The New Jersey

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plan would absolutely have been a much
less radical change. It would have solved

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the real problems that had led to the
convention - if you ignore the real reason

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they were there which was to make the
country less democratic - the reasons they

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said they were there was we need to get
a federal impost. We need to give the

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power of taxing the people to the
federal government, and you know a strong

00:20:10.470 --> 00:20:14.309
case can be made for that. I think
everybody in the country just about thought

00:20:14.309 --> 00:20:18.269
that was a good idea, and they could have
done that if they had only adopted the

00:20:18.269 --> 00:20:22.769
New Jersey plan. They came back with
their own plan it was for an equal

00:20:22.769 --> 00:20:27.119
number of representatives from each
state. This would give the smaller states

00:20:27.119 --> 00:20:33.590
an advantage. The big states didn\'t think
too much of that. A deadlock followed.

00:20:33.590 --> 00:20:38.360
We tend to think of the battle over the
New Jersey Plan being a battle between

00:20:38.360 --> 00:20:44.900
big states and small states - and it was
that - but the reality is also that the

00:20:44.900 --> 00:20:51.560
New Jersey Plan would have left intact
the states as the main centers of power.

00:20:51.560 --> 00:20:56.150
That Congress would have been able to
levy taxes and do a few other things, but

00:20:56.150 --> 00:21:01.490
the Congress would remain a congress in
the old sense of the term - as in Congress

00:21:01.490 --> 00:21:07.490
of Vienna or an Indian Congress where
you come together infrequently to do a

00:21:07.490 --> 00:21:12.500
few things. It wouldn\'t have become the
consolidated power that the Constitution

00:21:12.500 --> 00:21:18.440
created. There\'s real problems
with democracy - and and that was the

00:21:18.440 --> 00:21:22.520
Constitution and the federal court
system are ways of taming it, mitigating

00:21:22.520 --> 00:21:28.540
it, without repudiating it. They don\'t go
to monarchy. They don\'t go to

00:21:28.540 --> 00:21:35.440
authoritarian government, but they are
curbing populism. And I think Martin

00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:39.650
guesses that; he knows that\'s
what\'s happening and he\'s opposed to

00:21:39.650 --> 00:21:45.650
that. For Martin, as far as he\'s concerned
something like the New Jersey plan is

00:21:45.650 --> 00:21:50.810
the right one: a unicameral legislature. I
have never heard of a confederacy having

00:21:50.810 --> 00:21:56.420
two legislative branches. Even this
celebrated Mr. Adams, who talks so much

00:21:56.420 --> 00:22:04.310
of checks and balances does not suppose
it necessary in a Confederacy. You had

00:22:04.310 --> 00:22:10.850
this one moment where you had a group of
men who were really eager to strengthen

00:22:10.850 --> 00:22:16.670
the national government. So you have a
guy like Alexander Hamilton who on June

00:22:16.670 --> 00:22:22.850
18th delivers this six-hour speech you
know? I mean it just must have been

00:22:22.850 --> 00:22:28.430
stupefying. And Hamilton in the speech
calls for the extinguishing of state

00:22:28.430 --> 00:22:32.990
governments. He advocates this quasi
monarchical system in which you\'re

00:22:32.990 --> 00:22:39.380
gonna have the President serve for life!
Senators could also serve for life!

00:22:39.380 --> 00:22:43.430
He even imagined that it would be all the
states would be subordinate to the

00:22:43.430 --> 00:22:46.980
National government,
and perhaps even the big states could be

00:22:46.980 --> 00:22:52.800
divided into smaller districts. Now look -
this was a little crazy - but it was

00:22:52.800 --> 00:22:57.150
exactly what a lot of the critics of
the Constitution feared. They said that

00:22:57.150 --> 00:23:01.850
the Constitution allowed the creation of
a consolidated government\' that is a

00:23:01.850 --> 00:23:07.710
highly centralized national government
in which the states would be destroyed

00:23:07.710 --> 00:23:12.560
or would become maybe administrative
units of the national government. I

00:23:12.560 --> 00:23:18.090
confess that this plan and that from
Virginia are very remote from the idea

00:23:18.090 --> 00:23:23.880
of the people. Perhaps the New Jersey
Plan is nearest their expectation. But

00:23:23.880 --> 00:23:29.250
the people are gradually ripening in
their opinions of government. They begin

00:23:29.250 --> 00:23:33.560
to be tired of an excess of democracy.

00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:42.340
Someone like Martin was just you know -
his jaw dropped when he heard this.

00:23:49.620 --> 00:23:55.500
♪♪ Confounding fathers, they fought against, the Constitution.

00:23:56.600 --> 00:24:00.920
♪We just got started now we need some time, to let our freedom ring.♪

00:24:05.100 --> 00:24:07.540
♪Free......

00:24:12.820 --> 00:24:13.460
♪Free....

00:24:19.940 --> 00:24:25.920
♪Washington and Jefferson, they owned slaves.♪

00:24:28.120 --> 00:24:33.440
♪Confederate soldiers, they were very brave.♪

00:24:35.840 --> 00:24:40.300
♪The lynchmob is coming, you better run and hide.♪

00:24:43.900 --> 00:24:47.420
♪The skeletons in the closet are still alive (repeat)♪

00:25:07.040 --> 00:25:12.332
♪The founding slaves, fought in a war,♪

00:25:15.820 --> 00:25:23.820
to make the white man free...♪♪

00:25:25.040 --> 00:25:30.740
Next time on Confounding Father...

00:25:32.010 --> 00:25:37.090
I object to Mr. Randolph\'s plan, I say the
Confederation does not have the power to

00:25:37.090 --> 00:25:38.575
discuss and propose it.

00:25:38.575 --> 00:25:42.190
His arguments were
not unreasonable unfortunately he did

00:25:42.190 --> 00:25:48.040
not present them in the most edifying
and persuasive way. If you read about

00:25:48.040 --> 00:25:52.179
Luther Martin
he is irascible, he is argumentative, he

00:25:52.179 --> 00:25:58.559
is sarcastic, he is nasty.
On the second day of Martin\'s

00:25:58.559 --> 00:26:04.870
two-day discourse he also delivers a
lovely line: \"Happiness is preferable to

00:26:04.870 --> 00:26:08.700
the splendors of a national government.\"
Happiness.

00:26:08.700 --> 00:26:16.660
Martin is speaking on behalf of American
modesty; of small and local things rather

00:26:16.660 --> 00:26:21.070
than what the the neoconservatives and
imperialists of our day called \"national

00:26:21.070 --> 00:26:27.040
greatness.\" And the nation they envisioned
required money, required labor, and

00:26:27.040 --> 00:26:35.230
required what that labor created, and so
they decided to go against what they

00:26:35.230 --> 00:26:43.000
knew at the time was the better judgment
of true freedmen, and true believers in

00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:47.860
God, and they decided that they would put
their greed before all else. This is a

00:26:47.860 --> 00:26:53.860
commerce equation that works. We know if
we work people for free, on land we

00:26:53.860 --> 00:26:59.040
obtain for free, we make a profit free
and clear.

00:27:09.040 --> 00:27:10.680
END