David McCullough: The Storm Before the Constitution

mr. milks thank you very much oriane thank you for including me in this gathering and ladies and gentlemen thank you all for being with us hi I believe fervently in the work the con source is doing I believe fervently and the wonderful progress we're making with a publication of the founding fathers papers due in large part to the Pew foundation and I plot also the wonderful work of Gilbert Lehrman Institute and their representatives of those worthy organizations here tonight to to my great pleasure I I've had a very busy summer when of a new book comes out and publisher believes in it they send you off on the father's tour roller coaster ride and my wife and I have covered some 12 cities we've spoken in all kinds of gatherings and sign books and all kinds of huge bookstores and seen a lot of our fellow Americans in a summer of much discontent and heat and floods and fires and and it's been very reassuring and I feel frequently that what we are bombarded with on television while often accurate in effect this cumulative effect is very much misleading because the big news is always not nearly always bad news and there's a great deal of very good news country people care about education people care passionately about education people care about books about the written word and this was brought home wonderfully just this past weekend when we went to a little town in Maine called Searsport which is along the coast it doesn't have any importance in the history of our country or Maine much to speak of there's little bookstore there called left bank books run by a wonderful woman they Marcia Kaplan it's tiny you could put three of left bank books shops on this stage and there it is surviving against all the odds against all the trends against all predictions about what's happening to the printed page and because my new book the greater journey is set in Paris and about Paris I thought I must go to left bank books and sure enough we got there and I'd been there before but they decorated the shop with scenes from Paris and was very picturesque and very appropriate I felt and at one point when there was a lull and the signing ceremonies I asked the people there this is Kaplan and others how did you get the name for this bookstore she said well there was a bank and it left so they picked up where the bank left off and so far they're doing very well now what struck me so about that place is that was the quality of the selections they were offering they only had so much space so they could only offer books that they felt really matter books that they felt were worthy of a reader's attention and that of course is a big part of Education what do we read what do we take to heart what do we take heart from I have devoted my working life to writing the history of our country and I have evolved feelings about the meaning of history and the importance of history as time has progressed and I and I care a lot about the lessons of history and the lessons of history of course our manifold and I care about what do we get from history well I think history is a source of strength I think history is an antidote to the hubris of the present the idea that we know everything that we are the most terrific people ever to walk the earth the idea that we have the most worthy projects or we have suffered the most inconveniences or or terrifying moments and so forth history I think is an age of navigation in troubled times turbulent times and I think it's the source of great inspiration and it's endlessly interesting because it's human it's about people which we are reminded of specifically in the first lines of the two most important documents in our whole way of life not just our government when in the course of human events that's the operative word human that we the people and that is of the utmost importance to understand many of the greatest accomplishments in our story as a people have come out of the darkest most difficult troubled times the most worrisome times the most contentious of times including the constitution of our country most people don't understand that they think we fought the Revolutionary War we won the war we wrote the Constitution that we were on our way it didn't happen like that and it wouldn't have happened the way it happened had it been a different atmosphere at the moment the summer of 1787 was a troubled turbulent time we were in big trouble financially individually as human beings as citizens and and as States and as a country we had a huge debt to France incapable of paying the government was incapable of raising the money to run itself the government under the Articles of Confederation individual people were in debt there was a crop failure through much of the country there was an uprising in western Massachusetts Shay's rebellion I know you all read about Shay's rebellion in school Shay's rebellion was real and it sent a tremor through the whole country worried we're on the brink of something really serious and we were so fifty-five men met in Philadelphia in the same room where the Declaration of Independence was hatched and signed same room and again as with the Declaration of Independence in secret they shut the windows so no one could listen at the windows put sentries at the windows so no one could listen in the heat of a Philadelphia summer imagine enduring that because they wanted no political grandstanding they wanted no version of eighteenth-century soundbites coming out of those windows they didn't want sound byte brains at work in there they wanted hard conscientious clear thinking by people devoted to accomplish something worthy that will stand the test of time hard hard work they were surprisingly young over half for under 40 Benjamin Franklin was the wise old man he was President George Washington was the president of the convention sat at the head of the room did not say a great deal but his sheer presence was of the utmost importance his gravitas brilliant people James Madison Alexander Hamilton James Wilson and they did it they created yes the bicameral legislature yes the executive office yes the Supreme Court they created the national government the Constitution is about the national government and they created a document which has stood the test of time yes it has been amended yes his bill of rights is of the essence but the Bill of Rights by the way has never been amended it was a crowning achievement not crown of gold not crown of gold and jewels a crown of words on paper words matter words count we have words to live by words to Rhian reinstate our faith in what we're about no other Constitution like it ever before it was an American original achievement and it was a group effort a combined effort a combined effort people working together Adam there Madison was often given great credit for the Constitution he said no no many hands many heads of the utmost importance is that lesson and we can't be reminded of it enough and particularly right now I I feel very strongly to that one of the lessons of history is that very little consequence is ever accomplished alone I write a book my name's on the book look at the list of people that I acknowledge in my acknowledgments section which every author with any conscience does those are people who really helped who really made the difference we are a combined effort we American people and it's by working together and having a common sense of shared values that holds us fast we need symbols of affirmation human beings need them we need them especially we heard about the symbol of affirmation so beautifully perform just now on the flag was still there the flag a symbol of affirmation through the perilous fight not through happy peaceful time through the perilous fight the capital of the dome on this magnificent acropolis of ours here in Washington built during the Civil War there was great movement to stop construction of it Lincoln said no it must go on because of its importance to the country I think of the Brooklyn Bridge rising up of out of the greed and political corruption the rot swamp of the Gilded Age a magnificent symbol of affirmation still standing still a tribute to what human ingenuity and a sense of architectural splendor can do when combined together by people united you know worthy project and that's exactly what the Constitution is now when something succeeds and it replaces something that has failed it's very common to think that what succeeded is all terrific and admirable and let's move on to another subject and that what failed can go to the dust heap the same summer as the signing of the Constitution what the Congress that was then in session the Congress that was our government passed the Northwest Ordinance Northwest Ordinance is one of the most interesting and important documents in our whole story the Northwest Ordinance set aside a territory for development as States for five states Ohio Illinois Indiana Michigan and Wisconsin five states a territory bigger than all of France think of that and declared among other things there would be no slavery before we even had a constitution and that education would be required would be the would be the duty of the government of the states an amazing accomplishment and oh-oh that they had succeeded in doing that with the Constitution Martin Luther King in a his great speech here on the mall said that the Constitution was a promissory note hadn't done his job so the Articles of Confederation wasn't always a failure the Articles of Confederation as weak as that was got us through eight and a half years of war the longest war in our history except for Vietnam the Revolutionary War the most costly war in our history in lives lost on a per-capita basis except for the Civil War it was no easy proposition ever at the beginning including the summer of 1787 but they did it they succeeded and we are all the beneficiaries and how can we possibly turn our backs on that how can we be so steeped in ingratitude that we don't care that we don't teach our children and our grandchildren about these accomplishments and what they mean that they just didn't fall out of the sky people had to get together and do it in adversity in trouble difficult times we're not doing a very good job of educating our children it's a strange situation we have the greatest universities in the world at the same time our education at the lower levels is failing badly and we are alas raising generations of young Americans who are by and large historically illiterate I know I know I know from experience lecturing teaching on campuses in every part of the country for more than 25 years and it's not the fault of the students and that's why projects like this programs like this are so extremely important not just for the benefit of the students but for the teachers and for the parents and for the grandparents education truly does begin at home these old adages call them clichés are true and we need to be reminded of that now the founding father that I know the most about is John Adams John Adams did not attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia he was serving his country his ambassador to Great Britain Jefferson was not there he was serving as minister to France Adams immediately wrote to say after here getting the news about the Constitution which he was thrilled by that it needed a bill of rights Jefferson said nothing about that for quite some time but eventually saw that too was necessary but Adams is particularly pertinent to this whole subject because he was the author of a very important clause in the constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts which was written eight years before our National Constitution no such clause had ever been written for a constitution he was sure that it would be it would be voted down never had a chance to get into the Constitution turned out they didn't change a word still the law of the state and I want to read to you in closing my remarks what it says because I think it bears directly on why we are here tonight and directly on the job we have to do those of us who are citizens those of us who are teachers those of us were members of Congress we have to do something about the quality of education in our country we've got to learn to to cultivate an attitude in the nation which which will cherish learning the love of learning for the reverence for learning is the essence of what we're about in this society this civilization any nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never will be Thomas Jefferson and now let me read you what the extraordinary John Adams wrote in 1779 the war was still going on wisdom and knowledge as well as virtue diffused generally among the body of the people is utterly necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties and as these depend on the spreading opportunities and advantages of Education in the various parts of the country and among the different orders of the people education will be for everybody it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this Commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences in all public schools of grammar schools to promote opportunities and rewards promotion of agriculture arts sciences Commerce trades Manufacturing's natural history of the country everything no barriers no no categories everything - with countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence public and private charity industry and frugality honesty sincerity good humor there will be good humor it's in the constitution of Massachusetts and all social affections and generous sentiments among the people now it was in all a declaration of Adam's faith in education as the bulwark of the Great Society the old shining faith and the survivals and rights and liberties of the people dependent on the spreading of wisdom and knowledge he wrote he was a farmer's son but then he said to himself earlier in life and he said it to him so all of his long life these wonderful lines from his diary I must judge for myself but how can I judge how can anyone judge unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading reading books learning that's our mission that's the mission of this organization concours and it ought to be a cause we welcome with joy when we go wasn't that wonderful now mr. McCullough I heard once upon a time you say that there are only two ways that we can interact with our founding fathers one through their documents and two by visiting their houses so we have gotten you a book on the houses of the founding fathers and it is signed by several of the members of Congress in attendance tonight if you are a member of Congress and you have not signed it for David McCullough and expressed your wishes to him in this book I invite you to do this afterwards but we would give us to you as an expression of our thanks now if we can get the house lights up he's agreed to take questions and we have two microphones on either side so we would invite anyone who has a question to come up and we will delay the ending of this program for just a bit to entertain your questions thank you very much Roger wicker from Mississippi Lamar Alexander and I believe you when when you say that that we have a generation of Americans who are ignorant of of history and and you came and testified before a Senate committee when I was a member of the house and when Lamar and I introduced legislation for a teacher's academy of very modest steps toward addressing that but convinced me if you will that that there was a time when it was better among the rank-and-file of Americans I mean I look back at the sweatshops and I look back at the history of when we didn't have universal education I look back at the time when members of the Senate were elected by legislatures rather than by the people themselves and and convinced us if you will sir that there was a time when we did it better and perhaps make a suggestion as to how we could get back to that time well there was certainly inequality in education not just cutting across economic status but also regional parts of the country I have looked at the examinations given at high schools in western Missouri at the time when Harry Truman was a student in high school and I don't think there very many seniors in our best universities who could pass those tests I think that's pretty good evidence I have read the pronouncements about the importance of history written by his high school history teacher who was his favorite teacher Truman is the only president of our time who never went to college but he also read more and particularly history and biography than all but a few presidents I also know from my own experience I went to public school in Pittsburgh in nineteen late 1930s early 1940s and we knew more American history when we finished eighth grade than a freshman at Princeton or Dartmouth knows today I don't think there's any question about it I know from experience teaching these being with these young people now they know an awful lot that we never knew that's not the point it's not their intelligence is not their intellectual curiosity it's just they haven't been taught and I think to a large extent this has to do with parents not participating sufficiently we've got to talk to our children about more than just sports and what's on television we've got to take them to historic places historic sites it works like nothing else does and we've got to encourage them to read those books at their stage in life that have moved us excited us that changed our outlook when we were their age and it works it all works and we have got not just to pay our teachers better but we've got to respect their work and and give them the public recognition and appreciation that they deserve they are doing the most important work of anybody in our society and they don't get sufficient ignition for that and I speak again from personal experience I have a son who teaches in public high school I know what they go through and and we need to do a better job of educating them before they assume the responsibility of teaching I am opposed to the idea of majoring in education there's a long answer but I really care about this I oppose the idea of people who are going into teaching majoring in education and not having a subject that they major it because it's very hard to teach something effectively if you don't know it you're deciding to teach mathematics or physics or history and you have no experience in it the greatest teachers that we've all had in our lives the Pitt teachers have changed our lives we've all had them or those who loved what they were teaching they conveyed that enthusiasm and you can't love something you don't know any more than you can love someone you don't know so we should go the State University of Illinois normal still requires their education students to have a major they can major in education but they have to major in math or English literature or whatever it is so I say back to normal that's the way to do it another question and government support government support here in this capital in these debates and in the questions asked for many of the candidates nobody's talking about education hardly at all and yet I assure you I've been talking to audiences for years everywhere in the country every time I talk about why don't we just brought up there's avid interest applause and concern it is nationwide as it should be as it should be we all want our children and grandchildren to have a better advantage a better education a better foundation than we have it's all it runs through the whole story of our country one of my favorite buildings in this in the country is the little carpenters Hall in Philadelphia right down the street from Independence Hall tiny wonderful little building where the first Congress met right upstairs is what a library yes sir I maybe the house should get equal time after that the Senate I want to commend you for doing what very few good historians do and that is writing your history from original sources thank you the we just found it a few months ago the archives caucus for the purpose of trying to portray to the American people that the best historical knowledge is obtained by looking at the original sources and as we went through I went through at the greater journey and I shared with you that I have the seat that a lie who washburn held before he became the ambassador to France I was absolutely thrilled with the way you move in the franco-prussian war and the characters over 70 years it's it's probably one of the greatest books that I've read in my entire life let me just add one point to that one of the most exciting discoveries of my working life was the discovery of the diary kept by Elihu Washburne a member of Congress from Galena Illinois friend of Abraham Lincoln's whom grant appointed minister to Paris right before the outbreak of the franco-prussian war they didn't know the franco-prussian war was going to happen and we've just discovered within the last four years that I worked on the book that his diary a diary he kept through the entire siege of Paris through the all the horrors of the commune the civil war the god-awful civil war that followed the siege of Paris he kept the diary every single day and that diary has now been found because a copy of it letterpress copy which was the nineteenth century equivalent of carbon paper was in the Library of Congress right here and nobody knew it so it's not just that everything is in the Library of Congress or the National Archives and anybody can go and get it there are all kinds of things in the National Archives in the Library of Congress that even the people at the Library of Congress don't know are there and that's what makes it so exciting and this document is testimony to a that American hero who ought to be known by everybody for what he did his bravery his devotion to his duty at the terrible risk of his life and jeopardy putting his family and everybody else in jeopardy if he'd done nothing but keep the diary he would be somebody we'd want to know about that's what makes this work so exciting it's what makes it so it's about learning it's about curiosity it's about it's being on the detective chase the hunt and the more you look the more you find I've never undertaken a book where we didn't find something no never sometimes big sometimes many small pieces but always something new and and and and the legendary trunk full of letters up in the attic is real it's true happens all the time we don't write letters anymore we don't dare keep Diaries if we're in public life truly it's a terrible loss now Pat don't leave just because I'm getting onto that century you going I'm listening no I finish thank you no I loved what you're saying about the diary I tried to keep a journal since I've been the Senate I sometimes neglectful and I made it North to myself for your speak and I gotta get back in shape David you and I first met when we had the debate over Panama Canal treaty and I would say the others here you just written paths between the Seas I remember people like Howard Baker and others say got to read that by the time the debate started for those of you who weren't here at that time every single senator had on his desk path between the Seas those bit mentally against the treaty those for the treaty and those try to figure out what the hell they're going to do next but that was the Bible I couldn't help but think all due respect to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle it was the first time some of them had really read a lot of history and I really wish we could take a month off a year and just have history seminars like you spoke tonight my family came to Vermont in the 1800s I was the first play he to get a college degree my father because my grandfather died the stone sheds had to leave school at 13 became a South tightest probably read more books a history that destroyed everybody I know and told us we have to read history I wish we could this is not a question but I've heard you lecture so many times that I get excited every time I do I wish we could take time out from the Congress House and Senate both parties just have seminars in history because in our news media and everything else everybody once put it down to a bumper sticker simplistic answer and there are none thank you thank you I'm gonna stop now but I want to conclude with with a story that's from the from the Truman days Truman was about to appoint the General George Marshall to become Secretary of State and at a meeting at the White House one of his political advisors I'm not sure which one it was it doesn't really matter advised him to think twice about it and the president asked why he said well mr. president if you make George Marshall Secretary of State after three or four months people might begin to say that he would make a better president than you are and Harry Truman said he would make a better president than I am but I'm the president of the United States and I want the best possible people in these important positions there's a man who knew who he was who wasn't paid to being upstaged and who made exactly the right decision he had a sense of history very profound sense of history when George Marshall took office the Secretary of State he was asked at a press conference if he'd had a good education at BMI Virginia Military Institute he said no I didn't said why not sir we had no history teaching a seminar at one of our most noted universities the first morning I asked my students 25 of them all honors students all seniors all history majors who was George C Marshall not one of them knew finally one boy said did he maybe have something to do with the Marshall Plan five or six years later I asked the same question for a similar group of students an equally prestigious Institute of higher learning same result not long afterward I asked the same question at a small very good College in the Middle West not quite the same result some of them knew who he was but alas more of them said he must have been the man who invented or started martial law so they not only they not only needed help with their history but with their spelling we have a job to do we have a job to do one third of the people and the recent survey think that the Bill of Rights includes the right to own a pet and these kinds of answers are heartbreaking and so we laugh we have to laugh but it can change you can make it better we should see the problem as an opportunity thank you very much [Applause] you

Channel: ConSource

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Keywords: constitution, constitutional convention, david mccullough

Id: nu5CjQzzCYs

Length: 40min 4sec (2404 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 02 2018