WEBVTT

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♪♪Here\'s a tale you ought to know about
the Constitution, and a man who thought it♪

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♪did reverse the Revolution. Luther Martin
lost the fight, forgotten is his glory.♪

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♪Drink some coffee sit up straight
we\'re going to tell his story!♪♪

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The rationalization for slavery
continuing and for the compromise

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to allow slavery to continue is based on
what we\'re still dealing with today;

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which is a nation of disparate
backgrounds and religions and beliefs

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brought together in a way that coalesces
around whiteness. And one way for

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whiteness to actually have a reality to
it is to have blackness, is to have

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people of color, is to have the other. And
so the xenophobia has been a part of the

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beginning of this nation. In fact it was
slaves were referred to as \"Other

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Persons\" in the document. The framers
sneered Martin, \"anxiously sought to avoid

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the admission of expressions which might
be odious in the ears of Americans

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although they were willing to admit into
their system those things which the

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expressions signified.\"

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♪♪ Free.....Free....♪♪

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He didn\'t speak until the convention had
already considered and rejected the New

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Jersey Plan..and on June 19th, before they
dealt with representation, the convention

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decides to report the Virginia Plan.
Now, at this point, Martin starts to argue

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and basically argues for a return to the
New Jersey Plan at most, by saying first

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of all that the states when they
declared their independence from Great

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Britain they declared their independence
severally. These states individually then

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came together to form this Confederation,
and the rules of the Confederation have

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to be followed. His arguments were not
unreasonable. Unfortunately, he did not

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present them in the most edifying and
persuasive way. Let\'s take a look at his

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press clippings. William Pierce, who was a
Georgia delegate to the convention who

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said almost nothing in the convention
but he was taking notes the whole time -

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just as James Madison was taking notes.
Actually Pierce said that Madison

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dressed in black during the entire
convention - in what I am reasonably sure

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was not an homage to Johnny Cash, but
anyway - Pierce said of Martin quote

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\"This gentleman possesses a good deal of
information but he has a very bad

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delivery and it\'s so extremely prolix
that he never speaks about tiring the

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patience of all who hear him.\" end quote.

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He is \"uncouth\" which I suspect means he uses

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lots of language that you don\'t use in
polite company. One of his friends says

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his clothing as a mixture of fine
wool and run-down clothing that\'s never

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seen a brush - because you don\'t go to the
cleaners you brush your wool suit - he

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doesn\'t. Martin was you know he had a
reputation for drunk drinking heavily.

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Martin is often glimpsed through a shot
glass darkly.

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He is a drunk.

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His villainy has extended in the
popular literature even through to

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this day. There\'s very popular children\'s
book called \"Shhh, We\'re Writing the Constitution\" by

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Jean Fritz. Her Martin quote is \"...a tall
mussed-up looking man who loved the sound

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of his own voice so much that once he
started talking he couldn\'t bear to stop.\"

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If you read about Luther Martin he is
irascible, he is argumentative, he is

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sarcastic, he is nasty.

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Never left anything
unsaid. Although, he\'s acknowledged to

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be learned; so he\'s not a fool.
William Appleman Williams the great

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historian from Atlantic, Iowa once said
\"Let us think about the people who lost.\"

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You know, we have a really bad habit in
this country of flushing the people who

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lost down the memory hole and Martin was
one of the original people who lost.

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Well Madison is pretty clear that he\'s
he\'s put off by the length of his

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harangues. James Madison kept the most
complete set of notes on the convention.

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They were published four years after his
death, and they were an absolute

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stenographic marvel. And the one time
when he simply gives up is in a two-day

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speech by Luther Martin in which Madison
he just writes in his notes something to

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the effect of and he went on and on
etcetera as he always does for the next

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day. There\'s no doubt that he does not
like Martin or the anti-federalist

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position which he considers to be the
thing that\'s caused the problems that

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that the Constitution is designed to to
resolve. But what did he say? He advocates

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modest revisions to the Articles. Luther
Martin thought the whole of the idea of

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radically changing the government was a
mistake, that

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that the Confederation was what the
convention was supposed to be working on,

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that it had violated its its its orders,
and essentially there were no amendments

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that could fix what he thought was
broken. What was broken was that what the

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convention proposed was a substantive
government based on the authority of the

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people. Martin thought it should be a
government of states.

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And that means

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state equality and if there\'s going to
be a change it has to be unanimous

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consent. Moreover he said, the people have
nothing to do with this - they gave their

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power to the legislature. This would be
pure federalism: it\'s the state

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legislatures that have the authority
directly from the people, and the

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Constitution they\'re working from
required unanimous consent. That was

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Luther Martin\'s position. I object to Mr.
Randolph\'s plan, I say the Confederation

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does not have the power to discuss and
propose it. New York would never have concurred

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in sending deputies to the convention
if she had supposed it were to discuss a

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national government! He had a fear of
empire, but I think what Empire

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represented to him were the negatives of
a monarchy and the spread of a monarchy.

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Because how do you control a nation? You
have to control it through a fist, a firm

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hand, and that\'s been done as we\'ve seen
in the Soviet Union and in other places,

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where you have these different
backgrounds and religions and cultures

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all one geographical space that you
want to claim as your nation and usually

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it is through crackdown on individual
rights.

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Martin is consistently an advocate of
Federal on this traditional

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understanding of state equality. He\'s in
the minority in the convention on this,

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and his own state ratified 63 to 11 - it
was a seventh state to ratify - he\'s in

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the minority in Maryland, and I would say
apropos you know the theme of Luther

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Martin and the anti-federalists where he
is on the spectrum of anti-federalist

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thought: he\'s to the extreme. He thought
that the federal convention should have done

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what it was authorized to do, and that is
to propose amendments to the Articles of

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Confederation. He said it would be much
smarter to

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fix what was broken, and to give new
powers sparingly, and only to the extent

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that they were necessary, because it was
always easier to give power than to take

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it back.

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Martin also defends small Republics. A
national Empire of the sort he saw in

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the Virginia Plan would fail and
deservedly so. On the second day of

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Martin\'s a two-day discourse he also
delivers a lovely line: \"Happiness is

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preferable to the splendors of a
national government.\" Happiness.

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Martin is speaking on behalf of American
modesty; of small and local things rather

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than what the the neoconservatives and
imperialists of our day call \"national

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greatness.\"

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♪♪Luther Martin went to town, expecting a revision, imagine his surprise when they♪

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♪destroyed the current system.♪

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♪National systems are too big, we don\'t want an empire, we were sent here to revise his speech it was on fire!♪

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♪Luther Martin went to town, Luther Martin tried hard, anti-federalists could not stop creation of an empire!♪♪

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They were for a conception of federalism
that granted only those powers to the

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general government which were deemed
absolutely necessary, mainly for security.

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So they were small government men. It\'s
really hard to summarize the arguments

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and Anti-federalists because they are
such a diverse lot. I don\'t use the word

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Anti-federalist unless it appears in a
quotation or unless the people so

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designated freely accepted the word. I
think that the people who are so

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categorized; that is as opponents of
the Constitution are often

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mischaracterized. I mean for Luther
Martin, yes it works, he did indeed oppose

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the Constitution - but most of those who
criticized the Constitution and were

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against ratifying it in the form that
the convention proposed only wanted

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amendments. The poor Anti-federalists
never had a shot at it. The Federalists

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quite shrewdly - they really should be
called Nationalists - they quite shrewdly

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take the term Federalist for themselves.
Now they who advocate the system pretend

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to call themselves Federalists! In
convention the distinction was quite the

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reverse. Those who opposed the system were there considered and styled

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the federal party those who advocated it the anti-federal. That\'s part of the problem

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these people come down to us with the
prefix anti attached to their name so we

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think, \"well okay they were there just
against something.\" The arguments that

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were made by the Anti-federalists in 1787
were basically we\'re trusting you that

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we\'ll have protections against a federal
government that has

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so much power and we\'re giving this
power away and you\'re telling us that

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we\'re gonna get it back in some form. And
one of the arguments they made it\'s like

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once we give this power away we\'re not
getting it back and in the end the

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federal government can usurp the power
of the state. I think they are as the

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historian Cecilia Kenyon put it in the
1950s \"men of little faith.\" They are

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are narrow-minded state politicians. They
are afraid of everything, and they want

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to keep power in their own local little
hands. History has been very unkind

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to critics of the Constitution because
they are characterized as

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across-the-board opponents of the
Constitution and often the description

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of Federalists seems to be accepted by
historians: that is the Constitution

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self-styled friends or Federalists often
characterized their opponents as

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self-serving individuals who were often
state office holders worried for their

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jobs or people who had something to gain
by the failure of the Constitution. This

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was needless to say ungenerous and is
also historically inaccurate. There were

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some Anti-federalists who were wealthy
elites themselves and they just had a

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few issues with with Constitution such
as the lack of a Bill of Rights, but

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there were also way at the other end of
the spectrum other Anti-federalists who

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opposed a constitution for making an
undemocratic country even less

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democratic. The anti-federalists are
certainly Founding Fathers.

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Many of them are signers and the
Declaration of Independence. Many of them

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are involved in the revolution itself.
Samuel Chase, was a signer of the

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Declaration of Independence, he opposes
the Constitution then becomes a justice

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in the Supreme Court. James Monroe future president is an

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Anti-Federalist. So there are some people
who oppose the Constitution on Bill of

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Rights issues on slavery issues perhaps
on some structural issues that are worth

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thinking about. But the ones who rant on
and on about how the president is going

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to be the king or we\'re gonna have a
military dictatorship; I think those

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people are simply grasping at straws.
Luther Martin thought that the

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Constitution would - not immediately but
in time - essentially efface the

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importance of state governments and
local governments. Power - political power

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but also economic power - would be sort of
sucked into the federal city. And

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Martin was was very, was full of
predictions and most of those have

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turned out to be correct. That the
District of Columbia would turn out to

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be this isolated place behind \"the
beltway\" and that the government

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would soon usurp tremendous powers that
nobody anticipated. That the National

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Army would grow up and the militia would
it would be nationalized so easily.

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♪♪ We don\'t have, no pay, have no payday here.♪

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♪We don\'t have, no pay, have no payday here.♪♪

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Basically, all the delegates wanted the
same thing: one nation with a strong

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central government. Now they realized that
in order to create this they would have

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to make concessions and compromises on
the controversial issues.

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Not everybody is happy with all the compromises they have made.

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Slavery is certainly one of those issues that they are going to debate here,

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and it will divide them just as it divides the rest of the country for decades to come.

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Some of these men are slave owners, others that profit by the trade. Although some are also opposed to it,

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ultimately they leave the decision about
slavery for later generations.

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On the very first day of

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substantive debate, when Edmund Randolph
the governor of Virginia introduces

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what\'s known as the Virginia Plan - the
Virginia Plan says representation should

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be based on population - and immediately,
somebody suggests that they put the word

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\"free\" in front of \"population\" and that
leads to a debate. And they decide not to

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debate that any further that day. They
debate how you count slaves for

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representation over and over and over
again. There are long debates over

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slavery, there are vitriolic debates,
there are nasty debates over slavery.

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When the textbooks talk about the
Constitutional Convention they do tend

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to focus on all of the disagreements and
then the compromises that resolve those

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disagreements and they tend to celebrate
those compromises. When a broad table is

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to be and the edges of the planks do not fit

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the artist takes a little from both and
makes a good joint. Here both sides must

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part with some of their demands in order
that they may join.

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Part of me says well that\'s a good idea
let\'s teach kids to get along and not be

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fighting on the playground and all that.
But you know some of those compromises

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are really ugly compromises - like the
compromise that continued the slave

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trade for another 20 years and also
allowed the southerners to go up into

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the north and force the local
authorities to help them recover their

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slaves when they ran away - that\'s a compromise in the less pleasant sense of

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the word compromise. What I find
fascinating about the Fugitive Slave

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Clause in the US Constitution is that
most people don\'t know that there is a

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Fugitive Slave Clause in the US
Constitution. And that the same clause

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that speaks to the extradition of
suspects from one state into another

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state in one paragraph - the next
paragraph speaks to the extradition of

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human beings who have escaped slavery
from one state to another state - so the

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compromise within the US Constitution in
1787 was that the slaveholders who were

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in the room did not want to see their
property diminished. There would be the

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ending of the slave trade in 1808 but
slavery itself would continue as a

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business because they had invested so
much in it. What the framers could do and

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did do, was to limit slave importation to
20 years - and to use circumlocution so

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that the Constitution does not include
the word \"slave\" or \"slavery.\"

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What they couldn\'t do - and they\'ve been criticized for this and I think unfairly -

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is to have eliminated slavery - then there\'s no Union - no Union?

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Well you know what does that do? That doesn\'t help.

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And there\'s this this big debate at the convention about what to do with the

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slave trade, and the South Carolinians essentially say if

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you don\'t give us a protection we\'re not
going to be able to support the

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Constitution. So after a three-day debate
over the slave trade - four southern

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states including Maryland, team up with
first Connecticut, and then later

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Massachusetts and New Hampshire - there
are three successive votes - to allow the

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slave trade to continue for at least
twenty years until 1808. Now why do the

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New England states go along with it not
because they\'re involved in a slave

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trade as some people think us in fact
it\'s illegal under state law in all of

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those states to be involved in the slave
trade it\'s because they want the

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convention to also allow Congress to
regulate commerce by a simple majority.

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And so the the compromise is that the
Commerce Clause will pass and the Slave

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Trade Clause will pass. And the nation
they envisioned required money, required

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labor, and required what that labor
created, and so they decided to go

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against what they knew at the time was
the better judgment of true freedmen and

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true believers in God. And they decided
that they would put their greed before

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all else - this is a commerce equation
that works. We know if we work people for

00:21:31.800 --> 00:21:37.560
free, on land we obtain for free, we make
a profit free and clear.

00:21:37.560 --> 00:21:44.940
It was not inevitable. To be sure the
Constitution would not have abolished

00:21:44.940 --> 00:21:51.060
slavery, but I believe that the multiple
protections for slavery were not

00:21:51.060 --> 00:21:56.280
foreordained. Madison was so obsessed with winning proportional representation in

00:21:56.280 --> 00:22:00.540
both branches in Congress that he was
willing to sacrifice the future of

00:22:00.540 --> 00:22:06.720
nearly 3/4 of a million people held as
property - about 20% of the population of

00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:09.870
the United States. In the debate
over how to choose the President James

00:22:09.870 --> 00:22:14.190
Madison says, the fittest thing - that is
the most appropriate thing - would be for

00:22:14.190 --> 00:22:17.850
the people to elect the President and
then he says but if that happens \"our

00:22:17.850 --> 00:22:21.900
Negroes won\'t count.\" Of course what he
means by our Negroes won\'t count is the

00:22:21.900 --> 00:22:26.429
slaves aren\'t going to vote. Virginia is
the largest state in the country by

00:22:26.429 --> 00:22:31.049
population but 40 percent of the
population are slaves, and so if you

00:22:31.049 --> 00:22:36.600
can\'t fold the slaves into the election
of the president, Virginia won\'t get to

00:22:36.600 --> 00:22:41.610
elect its presidents. So you get the
Electoral College, which is made up by

00:22:41.610 --> 00:22:45.870
giving electors based on the number of
Representatives in Congress you have; and

00:22:45.870 --> 00:22:49.980
the number of Representatives in Congress is based on the Three-Fifths Clause. And so

00:22:49.980 --> 00:22:55.020
when you get to say the crucial
presidential election of 1800: Jefferson

00:22:55.020 --> 00:22:59.549
is elected president because of the
electors created by the Three-Fifths

00:22:59.549 --> 00:23:04.460
Clause. If there had been no slaves
counted for purposes of representation,

00:23:04.460 --> 00:23:10.289
Jefferson would not have been elected
president in 1800. And it\'s clear, it\'s

00:23:10.289 --> 00:23:14.880
open, Madison says it, people say it all
the time.

00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:18.210
Had he accepted state

00:23:18.210 --> 00:23:23.909
representation in the Senate at the
outset in early June, the political

00:23:23.909 --> 00:23:27.799
dynamic which produced the Three-Fifths
Clause might never have occurred - and

00:23:27.799 --> 00:23:32.340
without the Three-Fifths Clause and the
rise of the southern slave power in

00:23:32.340 --> 00:23:38.399
national politics - our entire national
history would be different. And the

00:23:38.399 --> 00:23:44.730
rationalization for slavery
continuing - and for the compromise

00:23:44.730 --> 00:23:49.860
to allow slavery to continue - is based on
what we\'re still dealing with today:

00:23:49.860 --> 00:23:55.289
which is a nation of disparate
backgrounds and and religions and

00:23:55.289 --> 00:24:00.630
beliefs brought together in a way that
coalesces around

00:24:00.630 --> 00:24:08.070
\"whiteness.\" And one way for whiteness to
actually have a reality to it is to have

00:24:08.070 --> 00:24:13.590
\"blackness\" - is to have people of color, is
to have the \"other.\" And so the xenophobia

00:24:13.590 --> 00:24:19.049
has been a part of the beginning of this
nation. In fact it was said slaves were

00:24:19.049 --> 00:24:23.169
referred to as \"other persons\" in the document. \"The framers..\" sneered Martin \"anxiously...

00:24:23.169 --> 00:24:26.620
sought to avoid the admission of
expressions which might be odious in the

00:24:26.620 --> 00:24:30.460
ears of Americans, although they were
willing to admit into their system those

00:24:30.460 --> 00:24:35.379
things which the expressions signified.\" I
think many of these people were living

00:24:35.379 --> 00:24:40.529
with the illusion that slavery was on
its last legs - it\'s gonna die naturally.

00:24:40.529 --> 00:24:45.490
Now they couldn\'t been more wrong; there\'s no doubt of that. Slavery was actually

00:24:45.490 --> 00:24:49.629
growing in numbers despite the
manumissions despite the abolition of

00:24:49.629 --> 00:24:53.129
slavery in the north -
which where it was not insignificant -

00:24:53.129 --> 00:24:58.059
slavery there are more slaves at the end
of the Revolutionary Era by 1790 than

00:24:58.059 --> 00:25:03.159
there were before the Revolution before
1760. So slavery is growing, but they

00:25:03.159 --> 00:25:08.889
don\'t know that they don\'t realize how
fast it\'s grown. The main business of

00:25:08.889 --> 00:25:14.799
the upper South was not
growing tobacco anymore; it\'s the it\'s

00:25:14.799 --> 00:25:19.570
the growing of slaves - they\'re selling
slaves to the Mississippi and Alabama. By

00:25:19.570 --> 00:25:24.340
1820 that is what the upper South is
doing. Well Martin brought the matter up

00:25:24.340 --> 00:25:29.379
in in mid-August. Martin warned, the
continuance of slavery quote \"ought to be

00:25:29.379 --> 00:25:33.549
considered as justly exposing us to the
displeasure and vengeance of him who was

00:25:33.549 --> 00:25:38.440
we equally Lord of all and who views
with equal I the poor African slave in

00:25:38.440 --> 00:25:43.240
his American master.\" He called slavery
\"inconsistent with the principles of the

00:25:43.240 --> 00:25:48.220
Revolution and dishonourable to the
American character.\" Now it is true that

00:25:48.220 --> 00:25:52.929
Martin owned six slaves at the time, but
you know who among us does not traffic

00:25:52.929 --> 00:25:58.179
in petty hypocrisies? He was immediately
shouted down by people like James

00:25:58.179 --> 00:26:03.129
Madison and Roger Sherman you know all
the all the deities you know the folks

00:26:03.129 --> 00:26:08.350
who people the history books today as as
the heroes. What I like about this is

00:26:08.350 --> 00:26:16.090
that it prompts a statement from
Rutledge - I think it\'s John Rutledge of

00:26:16.090 --> 00:26:22.299
of South Carolina - who says in reply
\"religion and humanity had nothing to do

00:26:22.299 --> 00:26:28.090
with this question interest alone as the
governing principle with nations.\" Martin

00:26:28.090 --> 00:26:34.120
saying what he did, prompts Rutledge to say what he said and..Rutledge,

00:26:34.120 --> 00:26:38.830
he could have said, \"well blacks aren\'t
they don\'t have rights when we say all

00:26:38.830 --> 00:26:43.360
men are created equal of course we don\'t
mean blacks.\" No. He said \"religion and

00:26:43.360 --> 00:26:47.169
humanity have nothing to do with this.\" He
said bracket the Declaration of

00:26:47.169 --> 00:26:52.179
Independence we\'re talking government. By
implication he understands all men are

00:26:52.179 --> 00:26:57.100
created equal to be you know what I
think clearly was understood.

00:26:57.100 --> 00:27:01.929
These debates are very open. Slavery is
everywhere. On the very last day of the

00:27:01.929 --> 00:27:07.659
convention, Elbridge Gerry of
Massachusetts says I will not sign this

00:27:07.659 --> 00:27:13.929
constitution because of the Three-Fifths
Clause, and George Mason of Virginia who

00:27:13.929 --> 00:27:19.510
owns a couple hundred slaves but who
opposes importing more from Africa,

00:27:19.510 --> 00:27:24.080
Mason says I will not sign this because of the clause allowing the African slave trade.

00:27:24.080 --> 00:27:27.370
In western Virginia where there\'s not a
lot of slavery, one of the

00:27:27.370 --> 00:27:34.480
anti-federalists attacks the slave trade
provision and he says, \"this is a

00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:38.710
wonderful clause for an Algerian
Constitution.\" Of course this is the

00:27:38.710 --> 00:27:43.960
Barbary pirates who are enslaving
American sailors captured in the

00:27:43.960 --> 00:27:48.820
southern Mediterranean. He says
\"it\'s a wonderful clause for an Algerian

00:27:48.820 --> 00:27:54.880
Constitution but not so well suited for
our latitude.\" I think that there were

00:27:54.880 --> 00:28:01.750
those within that room in 1787 who knew
that slavery was wrong. When people say

00:28:01.750 --> 00:28:06.100
that that\'s what everyone was doing;
that\'s not the case. There were always

00:28:06.100 --> 00:28:12.210
people fighting against slavery. Those
people who were slave masters in the

00:28:12.210 --> 00:28:16.659
1787 meeting had an economic
rationalization, a religious

00:28:16.659 --> 00:28:20.710
rationalization, they had a social
rationalization, these people should not

00:28:20.710 --> 00:28:26.190
be in our same sight in society - as they
were Africans serving them food and

00:28:26.190 --> 00:28:31.510
cleaning their houses and nursing their
babies and some of them sleeping with

00:28:31.510 --> 00:28:35.559
them on the side - you know all of this
was taking place. So the rationalization

00:28:35.559 --> 00:28:40.870
that was needed in order to to create a
country has been a rationalization that

00:28:40.870 --> 00:28:44.700
has been
used, going into the Civil War - coming

00:28:44.700 --> 00:28:49.590
out of the Civil War. We have to pull a
nation together. How do we do that? We

00:28:49.590 --> 00:28:54.180
pull the North and South together by
removing the troops and saying that the

00:28:54.180 --> 00:28:58.380
\"other\" - those Native Americans and those
Africans - we\'re coming together as a

00:28:58.380 --> 00:29:03.060
nation of whites and they\'re on the
outside the \"other.\" We see it happen time

00:29:03.060 --> 00:29:05.500
and time again in this nation.

00:29:18.900 --> 00:29:22.660
As long as we keep the foundation of our business system

00:29:22.660 --> 00:29:26.700
strong we shall be able to
maintain and improve the way of life our

00:29:26.700 --> 00:29:30.360
forefathers conceived and established.

00:29:36.520 --> 00:29:44.660
♪♪ Confounding Fathers they fought against,
the Constitution...♪

00:29:45.080 --> 00:29:50.800
♪We just got started now we need some time, to let our freedom ring.♪

00:30:08.800 --> 00:30:14.240
♪Washington and Jefferson, they owned slaves...♪

00:30:15.760 --> 00:30:21.440
♪Confederate soldiers, they were very brave...♪

00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:30.880
♪The lynch mob is coming you better, run and hide.♪

00:30:31.840 --> 00:30:37.920
♪The skeletons in the closet are still alive (repeat)♪

00:30:54.880 --> 00:31:12.800
♪The founding slaves...fought in a war...to make the white, man, free.♪♪

00:31:14.320 --> 00:31:21.120
Next time on Confounding Father.

00:31:21.120 --> 00:31:23.090
That House of Representatives has 65

00:31:23.090 --> 00:31:27.830
representatives in it - the first house -
now, that\'s smaller than most of the

00:31:27.830 --> 00:31:34.400
state legislatures. I mean that\'s
incredible we have Massachusetts had 350

00:31:34.400 --> 00:31:39.020
people. Most of them numbered in the you
know 200 or more, and all of a sudden you

00:31:39.020 --> 00:31:44.390
can have this federal legislature is
going to be 65? I mean, that really

00:31:44.390 --> 00:31:48.590
bothered a lots of people with good
reason. It\'s still a problem because we

00:31:48.590 --> 00:31:52.790
still have a very small legislature.
One of the people advocating those

00:31:52.790 --> 00:31:56.780
smaller districts is if you have big
districts it\'s like an \"invisible fence.\"

00:31:56.780 --> 00:32:01.370
And the result of that is that ordinary
people when you have these huge

00:32:01.370 --> 00:32:07.130
congressional districts they feel
disempowered but there\'s there\'s no

00:32:07.130 --> 00:32:12.230
fence to try to bash down because it\'s
an invisible fence. A large congressional

00:32:12.230 --> 00:32:18.560
district is an invisible fence that that
stymies you but you can\'t see it to tear

00:32:18.560 --> 00:32:23.090
it down. And I think you could take that
analogy through to the whole federal

00:32:23.090 --> 00:32:27.770
government and that it was a way of
taking power away from ordinary farmers

00:32:27.770 --> 00:32:38.539
there wasn\'t explicit.