On the Ratification of the Constitution

hi everyone and welcome back to homeless history so now the Constitution has been written and adopted by Congress and now it's left to the individual states to ratify it which simply means to place themselves under its governing authority and as you can imagine this process wasn't all puppies and rainbows in fact it was more like a WWF fight with chair bashing and sweaty fists so let's do it it's time to kick it old school [Music] so when it comes to the ratification of the Constitution who was fighting and what were they fighting about well let me introduce you to the two warring parties they were known as the Federalists and the anti-federalists in order for you to understand the difference between these two factions I want to tell you a story that Thomas Jefferson told over and over and over again in his Diaries and to anyone who would listen he told this story so many times that had obviously left a very significant impression on him one night never mind exactly which one Thomas Jefferson hosted a dinner party at his home called Monticello and seated at the table is Jefferson John Adams and Alexander Hamilton and after they got done talking about matters of State Hamilton's eyes wandered around the room and they fixed upon three portraits that were hanging over Jefferson's head and he asked Jefferson who those three men were and jefferson responded Isaac Newton Francis Bacon and John Locke and Jefferson goes on to impress upon Hamilton with all of his rhetorical abilities that these three men who championed clear rational thought and personal liberty were the three greatest men who ever lived and Hamilton went silent for a moment and considered this and then he said now the greatest man who ever lived was Julius Caesar now that little incident freaked Thomas Jefferson out so much that he was telling this story with astonishment even into the 1820s and you may be thinking I don't understand why that story is so astonishing well here's why because that story perfectly illustrates the opposing spirits of these two men and their opposing visions of American greatness you see Jefferson wanted the governmental power in the hands of the people who were blessed by God with liberty that is unless you were black or a woman or didn't own any property but other than that everybody now if you'll recall Julius Caesar was the Roman dictator who destroyed the Roman Republic and made himself Emperor now it's a pretty clear consensus among historians that Hamilton didn't actually want an emperor for America nowhere in any of his writings does Hamilton ever say that he wanted such a thing in fact he fought in the American Revolution precisely to throw an emperor off but there's no doubt that Hamilton believed that the effective government was the strong and vigorous government so what most historians think was that Hamilton just knew how to push Jefferson's buttons and he was just trying to get a rise out of him so all that to say Jefferson and his ideas embodied the anti-federalists Hamilton and his ideas embodied the Federalists so the Federalists wanted a strong central national government they wanted this guy running the country the anti-federalists on the other hand wanted strong state governments but a weak central government they wanted this guy running the country now you can probably already guess that the anti-federalists did not like this new constitution precisely because it concentrated more power into the hands of the central government they looked at the Articles of Confederation and said that was a problem and so they argued hard against the ratification of the new constitution at least as it stood in its current form but the Federalists were a pretty solid group of folks you had George Washington Alexander Hamilton Benjamin Franklin and others but the anti-federalists were no slouches either in addition to Jefferson they had Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams but at the end of the day the fight over the ratification of the Constitution is going to go to the Federalists because they were better organized they were wealthier they were better educated and they controlled most of America's newspapers so what did the Federalists do to turn the tide of public opinion to their cause long story short a few of the more prominent members of the Federalist John J Alexander Hamilton and James Madison post a series of anonymous essays in the newspapers which explained the principles and the practicality of the new Constitution now later these were collected and published as the Federalist Papers and they remain perhaps one of the greatest documents of political theory ever published and as it turns out these men and their essays were persuasive enough to get the states to ratify the Constitution but the anti-federalists did not lose out completely in fact many of them refused to ratify the Constitution unless it had a bill of rights attached to it and this bill of rights was critical to them because it assured them that the federal government could not encroach on the rights of its citizens so James Madison the author of the Constitution agreed and wrote the first 10 amendments which is our Bill of Rights and ladies and gentlemen we got ourselves a constitution in America now as I mentioned in another lecture this new constitution made provision for an executive branch and there was no doubt who is going to be the first President of the United States George Washington he was elected by a unanimous Electoral College the first and only time in US history that has ever happened and of course everything Washington did established a new precedent and one very significant precedent that he said was to establish a presidential cabinet of advisers Thomas Jefferson was the Secretary of State Alexander Hamilton was the secretary of the Treasury and Henry Knox was the Secretary of War now Henry Knox was a great guy and all but he's not that significant for our purposes for our purposes we're more concerned with Jefferson and Hamilton now we've already established that these two did not think alike brilliant as they both were and we find that in their opposition to political parties spring up the first in American history Hamilton and those who are sympathetic with his vision of America became the Federalists Jefferson and those who were sympathetic with his view of America became the Democratic Republicans now there were a couple of events during Washington's presidency one foreign one domestic that really aggravated Hamilton and Jefferson's natural opposition on the domestic front it was Hamilton's financial policies that really frosted Jefferson's muffin especially the establishment of the Bank of the United States now all of this is really complex but all you really need to know for our purposes is that Jefferson thought that a National Bank would favor the interest of the elite over against the interest of its poorest citizens the farmers furthermore Jefferson argued that there was no provision in the Constitution for a National Bank and therefore to establish it violated the Constitution Hamilton on the other hand pointed out that the Constitution said that Congress shall have power to make laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution its laws and since it was in the Constitution that the federal government was to collect taxes and regulate interstate commerce a bank in Hamilton's mind was Necessary and Proper and I'll save you the suspense on this one Hamilton won out and he got his bank okay that was the domestic event that laid bare the division between these two parties now let's talk about a foreign event that did the same thing namely the French Revolution now in another lecture mentioned that the American Declaration of Independence and the war for independence inspired the French Revolution but when the French got into their revolution things went much differently which is a nice way of saying that when the French wanted to throw off their king they stuck him in a guillotine cut his head off and established a republic through a bloody revolution now this is where it gets complicated because if you'll recall it was French assistance that proved vital for our victory in the American Revolution and so we made a pact with the French that if they ever sought their own independence we would be there to help and now was the time now just to be clear France never formally called on America to honor this pact but there was a fierce debate in the presidential cabinet about whether they ought to or not so Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans argued that America owed its freedom to France and that we ought to fight for freedom wherever the cause emerged on the other hand Hamilton and the Federalists were arguing that it would be foolish to get embroiled in another war so close to the American Revolution when the new government is still trying to find its own legs to stand on and Washington was eventually won over by Hamilton's arguments and so he issued the neutrality proclamation and kept us out of the war now after two terms of such bitter infighting and political scheming Washington was exhausted and longed to return home to his beloved Mount Vernon and so he did what no one expected him to do he resigned the presidency after two terms and so he published one of the most beautiful presidential farewell addresses in American history which happened to be written by Alexander Hamilton himself in the farewell address Washington warned against factious arguing and political parties at which point Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton looked at each other and performed America's first awkward turtle Washington also warned against entangling foreign alliances and said let America be neutral at all costs until it grows up into its big boy bridges and I want to end this lecture by reading to you one of the most moving passages from this farewell address though in reviewing the incidence of my administration I am unconscious of intentional error I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors whatever they may be I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence and that after 45 years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion as I myself must soon be to the mansions of rest all right we'll leave it there and I will see you next time and I'm proud to be an American

Channel: Heimler's History

Views: 26,822

Keywords: History, U.S. History, American history, Federalists, Anti-federalists, Democratic Republicans, George Washington, Washington's Farewell Address, Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton, James Madison, Constitution, Mount Vernon, French Revolution, Bank of the United States, Necessary and Proper Clause, Elastic Clause, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Neutrality Proclamation, Julius Caesar, Thomas Jefferson, Articles of Confederation, Steve Heimler, Heimler's History

Id: oiT2-yweWZQ

Length: 9min 47sec (587 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 15 2017