Loading summary
Transcript59 lines
- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator
Tired of your car insurance rate going up? Even with a clean driving record, you're not alone. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side by side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease. Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Switch with confidence. Download the Jerry app or visit Jerry AI Libsyn today. That's J E R R Y AI Libsyn what would you do if your online store converted 36% more shoppers? You could take 36% more vacation.
- [00:42]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Another pina colada? Yes, please.
- [00:43]
Commercial Narrator
Open a new retail location with 36% more square feet.
- [00:47]
Podcast Host
Fantastic.
- [00:48]
Commercial Narrator
Hire 36% more help.
- [00:50]
Grocery Store Announcer
You're hired and you're hired.
- [00:51]
Commercial Narrator
Shopify has the world's best converting checkout up to 36% better than other e commerce platforms. What you do with those extra sal is up to you. Switch to Shopify today@shopify.com setup and get a $1 trial.
- [01:03]
Podcast Host
Shopify.com setup this is history as it happens. It's August 1786, and there's a disturbance in western Massachusetts led by Revolutionary War veteran named Daniel Sh. A decade after declaring independence from Great Britain, rebel blood was spilled in the state where revolutionary fervor had overwhelmed royal authorities in the mid-1770s. According to Mount Vernon.org by December 1786, the conflict between eastern Massachusetts creditors and western rural farmers escalated. The Massachusetts governor mobilized a force of 1,200 militiamen to counter Shays. That army was led by former Continental army general Benjamin Lincoln and funded by private merchants. Lincoln's forces anticipated the rebels would storm the federal armory, and they were waiting when Shays approached with approximately 1,500 men on January 25, 1787, the army fired warning shots followed by artillery fire, killing four of the insurgents and wounding 20. The rebel force quickly faltered and scattered into the countryside. Once Shays rebellion had been quelled. The article says George Washington wrote to his friend Henry Knox on the prospect of the happy termination of this insurrection. I sincerely congratulate you, hoping that good may result from the cloud of evils which threaten not only the hemisphere of Massachusetts, but by spreading its baneful influence, the tranquility of the Union. Wow, we haven't gotten to the Constitutional Convention in the American story, and already George Washington is seeing signs of what could tear the republic apart. And we're going to learn what Shays rebellion of violent insurrection was all about in this episode, along with other topics, the latest installment in my series, marking America 250. So is it possible to celebrate this space special American birthday while also embracing the complexities and messiness of our national origin story? Can we recognize that unity, even or especially in times of emergency, is an illusion that conflict often has shaped the American past and present, even violent conflict? Writing for the National Constitution Center, Lindsay Chervinsky and Julie Silverbrook say the decade between 1776 and 1787 was defined by a period of bold and intentional nation and national identity building. In that time, they say, the United States declared independence, crafted its first national government, won a war to make its independence a reality, threw out the first national government when it failed, and forged a new federal government to lead the nation. We stand, they say, at a similar inflection point. The coming decade, from the Nation's semiquincentennial in 2026 to the Constitution's anniversary in 2037, offers a parallel opportunity to reimagine and reinvigorate our American civic culture. Now I'll share a link to this article in the show Notes for this episode. Historian Lindsey Chervinsky is the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. Lindsay, welcome back.
- [04:28]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Thank you so much for having me back.
- [04:30]
Podcast Host
The year is flying by. We are less than two months away from the big day, July 4, 250 years. But you're saying that this observance should really be about a civic renaissance over the next decade.
- [04:46]
Lindsay Chervinsky
My goal for this year is that, you know, it's great to have a celebration. It's great to kind of reflect on the American history and think through that. But that doesn't actually produce much. And so instead, what if we see this as the start of 10 years of anniversaries? Really 11 if we're going to get to the anniversary of the Constitutional Convention, what if we saw that as a 10 year period to explore how we could make the nation a little bit more perfect? Because those 10 years in the 1770s and 1780s were all about exploration and innovation and reform. And if they didn't work, trying something else. And I think maybe that should be our motivating charge for the next decade.
- [05:27]
Podcast Host
You said something in your article that I never really thought of before, restoring civics as a class, just like math or science. Now I don't know what civics education is like across this huge country of our with thousands and thousands of school districts who may teach it differently. There's no national curriculum. Right. But you know before we get to the decade of civics and the actual decade of 1776 to 1787 that we're going to talk about here, are Americans ready to celebrate?
- [05:57]
Lindsay Chervinsky
No, I don't think that they're in much of a celebratory mood, but sometimes that's the best opportunity to have a moment for reflection. Celebration, you know, if you think about this is sort of a, an interesting parallel, but bear with me. If you think about a celebration of life like a funeral, the point is not to forget the sadness or to forget that things didn't go the way you wanted them to go, but rather to try and reflect on the positive memories, to, to focus on the long term good of someone's life and the impact they led. And so in some ways, I think we could approach the fourth of July that way, which is, yes, the nation maybe isn't where we want it to be. There's a lot to be disappointed about, but that doesn't mean that we can't also reflect on what good has happened and what we would like that long term impact to be.
- [06:42]
Podcast Host
Yeah, I just want to emphasize you're nonpartisan. Mount Vernon is nonpartisan. My podcast is nonpartisan. We're talking generally here. I do feel there's a lot of disappointment, maybe on both sides of the political divide our country right now, but not just disappointment or despondency or even despair. I think there's a lot of confusion or just a sense of, I don't want to say, being lost. What are we as a country right now? This question was alive and was important in 1776, which was the beginning, not the end of the story or the victory at Yorktown was the beginning of a story, not just the end of a chapter. The victory in the war. I think today a lot of Americans are wondering, you know, what is the US Role in the world? Are we a declining power? Should we remain a hegemon? What is our relationship with each other internally? Do immigrants have a place in our country? And if so, what is it the
- [07:35]
Lindsay Chervinsky
idea of those questions of who are we? What are we? Who belongs? Who doesn't belong? What I find incredibly comforting about history is that we've actually squabbled over those questions since I would actually say 1775, when some people chose to join the Continental army and Washington arrived at Cambridge and had to pull together this force before the Declaration had even been issued. And so his general orders on July 4, 1775, said, we are the United Forces of North America, because there wasn't a United states yet. And it is important that we set aside our sectional differences and come together as a united force. So he was already thinking about that in 1775. So given that we didn't have a firm answer at the moment of creation, it's not surprising we also don't have a firm answer today. I think that's okay. A republic that is based on an idea, which ours is, is a singular thing in the world, in the community of global nations. Most other nations have an ethnic or religious or racial shared background that can serve as glue. And so without that, our task is really hard. And what we're trying to do is really messy. I don't think we should be down on ourselves that it's messy or hard. I think we should embrace that challenge because good things are often difficult and worth fighting for.
- [08:55]
Podcast Host
Yeah. The notion that anyone could be an American can be both unifying and divisive, because the most recent arrivals will then want to, as they say, close the door behind them and not let anyone else in. Is it the role of history or the historian's role to offer a rendering of the past that is unifying? Part of the problem is here, I sense, is that we're supposed to celebrate 250 years. And I certainly going to mark the occasion. I'm happy about it. But at the same time, the history of the United States is one of conflict within the revolutionary cohort.
- [09:30]
Lindsay Chervinsky
It's a good question. And no, I mean, I don't think it's a historian's job or history's job to offer us a unifying vision, because that actually isn't history. History was not unified in the living of it or in the creation of it. And it's certainly not unified in the telling of it. You know, what I hope for people to take away from this concept of a civic renaissance or a civic decade is I think the founding legacy is actually a unifying one because it is not pushing one vision of America, it is not pushing one story of America, but rather it is saying it is the job of each generation to determine what the nation needs and to try and pursue that, to pick up the mantle of trying to make the nation a little bit more perfect. So I think that we can have a unifying call to action. But history is never going to be unifying unless you are intentionally leaving things out.
- [10:23]
Podcast Host
Sure. I mean, that would act as propaganda then. Yet at the same time, the revolution was aimed at achieving something that most of them agreed upon, that would be getting rid of Great Britain, establishing a new republic. I Guess what I'm trying to get at here? And I know I'm floating in the realm of abstraction. Lindsay, America, like any country, is held together by certain things. Maybe a social compact or are institutions agreed upon norms such as the peaceful transfer of power.
- [10:49]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Absolutely. And I think you're right to point out that there are concepts that need to be unifying concepts. So, you know, the rule of law applying to all men, the peaceful transfer of power, and the civil control of the military are bedrock things of what the American republic is. And if you take them away, we are a different nation. So on those hills, I am willing to die, but. And I think all American should be willing to die for those hills. But beyond that, it starts to get tricky. And I guess my message is that that's okay.
- [11:20]
Podcast Host
So let's leap back now to 1776 or the early years of the Revolution. The Revolution started the year before that. Significant conflicts within the rebel camp. I think when people revisit this subject, they'll be surprised at how much I forgot. For instance, I mean, not that they were disagreeing over the goal. They wanted to get rid of the British monarchy, but how to do it? States being unwilling or incapable of supplying the Continental army. Just to cite one example, what do you see as the most important conflicts within the rebel camp?
- [11:51]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Well, very early on, there were conflicts over when to declare independence. So, you know, John Dickinson is a great example of this. He had been an early and ardent rebel. He had written a lot of the critical pieces of information and writing and communications in the imperial crisis leading up to the revolution. But he thought that declaring independence in 1770 was too early. So that was a really important division early on, once the Declaration was issued and independence was declared, then the main conflict was over whether basically this is a local revolution or whether it is a national revolution. Everyone understood that they had to kind of be together, but how you would go about fighting that. And so this brings up the. How you supply an army. A lot of the local states had a real limit on their resources, on their money, on their funds, on their men, on their ammunition. And they wanted to preserve that for local defense, for their militias. In the event that the British invaded their state, they didn't want to send it to the army. And so there was this conflict almost like a preview of federalism to come between whether you have a national force or whether you have state forces.
- [13:00]
Podcast Host
The Articles of Confederation, they take effect in 1781. Right. So before that, the Continental Congress, it had no power to tax, to raise revenue, to field an army, is that right?
- [13:13]
Lindsay Chervinsky
That's right. And the Articles of Confederation didn't really give them much power either. It was a continuation of the existing system, which was basically to make requests of the states. They had no way to enforce those requisitions. And so for most of the war, the army got by either through state donations or through. Through private individuals like Robert Morris, staking his fortune to help pay for the army towards the end of the war.
- [13:39]
Podcast Host
One of the fascinating aspects of the American Revolution is how it filtered down through almost all aspects of society, all levels of society. So we're talking about the national issue, when to become a nation. But for individuals, it meant different things to different people. Right. Women enslaved, even children. Even the family structure came into play. Right?
- [13:58]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Absolutely. You know, there were a large number of black Americans who fought in the Continental Army. I think that part of the story is sometimes not told. Some were free already, but most were enslaved. And so they were fighting not only for the nation's freedom, but for their own personal freedom, because it was guaranteed for their fighting. That is a very different motivation than say, an officer who perhaps is more financially stable and had his own ideological reasons for fighting the war. And then there's everything in between. You're going to have perhaps the lowest infantry soldier, didn't have any other economic opportunities. And it was a stable job that hopefully would offer pay and food and housing. So it was an economic choice for a lot of women. And for people who had been in positions of lack of political power, the revolution introduced ideas that you could create new form forms of societal organization. And indeed, in places like New Jersey, for a short period of time, women of property had the right to vote, which was ultimately taken back in the early 1800s. But there was a short window there where, you know, you're expanding suffrage, and of course you're going to expand it to women of property.
- [15:14]
Podcast Host
These smaller stories that don't get as much attention are really fascinating. I think you could have both.
- [15:19]
Mint Mobile Spokesperson
Right.
- [15:19]
Podcast Host
We could talk about the Battle of Bunker Hill and all this other stuff, Valley Forge. But also pay attention to these other items. I know you screen the Ken Burns documentary at Mount Vernon. Something I found fascinating about that is how it explored the role of women, also known as half the population.
- [15:37]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Yeah, women were involved in really every single element of the war. So they were hired as nurses for the Continental Army. Poor women often followed their husbands and did laundry for the unit. They cooked for the unit. So they were very much involved in the military part of the story. Elite women in Cities raised funds and purchased linen and sewed shirts for soldiers that didn't have clothes. So they supplied the army. They held down the fort at home. So for a soldier who was fighting, if he felt that his home was going to be lost or his family wasn't going to be taken care of, he was going to desert. And so women were essential to making sure that homes continued such that men could be gone and fight. And then there are of course, people who were inspirational, like Mercy Otis Warren, who wrote pamphlets to stir up the patriot cause. So every part of the revolutionary experience, including the Loyalist experience, was also an experience shared by women.
- [16:34]
Podcast Host
So to my earlier point about how Americans today feel, and justifiably so, that the bonds of our republic are being torn, of course we're doing this to ourselves over social media. I just want to share something from Gordon Wood's massive book here, Empire of Liberty. Lindsey. I promise only to read a paragraph or two, not all 790 pages here on the podcast. But Wood says for nearly all Americans, becoming Republican was the deeply felt meaning of their revolution. They knew that by overthrowing monarchy and adopting Republican governments in 76, they had done more than eliminate a king and institute an elective system of government. Republicanism gave a moral, even utopian significance to their revolution that had made their separation from Great Britain much more than a simple colonial rebellion. They were keenly aware that becoming members of 13 republics, they'd undertaken a bold and perhaps world shattering experiment in self government at the moment of independence. That was how they thought of themselves, as 13 separate republics. So my question to you here is, when the war does come to a close, 1781, Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris, 1783, how strong was American nationalism? I mean, to what extent did colonial governments or just ordinary people believe they were now part of a nation with a shared sense of mission? Or did they still feel themselves as provincials?
- [18:03]
Lindsay Chervinsky
So I think it depended on who we're talking about. The army had a very early and strongly defined sense of nationalism because the they were fighting across the nation. So many of the soldiers were seeing states and places they had never been to before. They were building bonds with people who were from different regions and different backgrounds. And a shared suffering or even a shared victory does tend to blur the differences of 13 republics or 13 different cultures. And so it's I think, no surprise that when you see, if you look at the people who made up, for example, the Constitutional Convention or early governments in the Federal Republic, in terms of 1789 onward, they are heavily Dominated by people who served in the military or in the militia in some way. I think there are others, maybe that served in the diplomatic corps and some that served in Congress that did also develop that sense of nationalism. And then there are some that didn't. So you can look at John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. I think John Adams would have said that he was an American first. In a massive Massachusetts site. Massachusetts. I don't ever know what the version of that is. Second. And Jefferson was the reverse. He said he was a Virginian first. That was, I think, a reflection of how they saw the Union and the importance of union and perhaps their experience during the war.
- [19:21]
Podcast Host
Well, it makes sense that something like this would be nascent at the time. Nationalism, that's something that develops over time, and it's fueled by the development of origin stories. And we're still debating our origin stories now of what kind of nation we were. What did the revolution mean? They were at each other's throats in the 1790s about that. I think we discussed that on this show when we were discussing your most recent book about John Adams, the sense of Nationalism. And then there's also the creating a government. Right. Institutions. There really was no national government. The Articles of Confederation. It seems it was almost necessary to have to go through some type of failure like that to convince everybody that something stronger was necessary.
- [20:03]
Lindsay Chervinsky
What we see after the Declaration of Independence, and it's not surprising, is many of the state governments were a reaction to declaring independence. So they went very radical, and they went very far to the extreme in that they had no executive. It was unicameral legislative system, almost no executive power, no centralized power. And very quickly, many of the. The states realized that was a mistake. It was too far to that direction, and they started to kind of tick backwards towards a center position. But nationally, you needed that same experience, too. You needed to have the experience of not having an executive, not having any concentrated central power, not having the quote, unquote, what they called energy to actually get things done or to enforce things like taxation. And so I do think you're right that you almost never need the failed system to have the correct system. Where we get really lucky is that most republics don't get that second chance. Usually when you have a failed government, that's it. And so the opportunity to write another Constitution, to have a new form of government was a real privilege and one that the founders very much did not take lightly.
- [21:10]
Podcast Host
Seems to me that the new country would have collapsed had the Articles of Confederation stayed in effect for much longer.
- [21:17]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Yeah, they would have for a number of reasons. The government had no money, so it had no money to pay its debts, to raise an army for national defense or even just border defense. They had no money to pay for government officials. The people would have stopped showing up. But also the divisions between the different regions of the nation were so strong in terms of cultural and economic interests that without some sort of centralized force over them for forcing unified action, they would have split apart and we probably would have seen like a Balkanization of the United States such that you would have had a couple of little confederacies of states that did have shared interests.
- [21:56]
Podcast Host
Tap subscribe now in the show Notes for ad free listening, early access and all of our bonus content or go to history as it happens.com to sign up.
- [22:09]
Mint Mobile Spokesperson
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com
- [22:27]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee full terms@mintmobile.com SA
- [22:40]
Grocery Store Announcer
Family Essentials at Safeway and Albertsons this week at Safeway and Albertsons enjoy eight piece double breaded famous chicken fried or baked dark meat featuring four legs and four thighs for just $5.99 each. Member price available in the deli and sweet red cherries are $2.97 per pound limit 6 pounds. Member price with digital coupon plus 24 ounce selected varieties of fresh cut fruit bowls are $5 each. Visit Save Safeway or albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save
- [23:11]
Podcast Host
on the subject of embracing complexity, understanding that the history of this country is one of conflict as well as unity, right? If we're going to celebrate our birthday this year, you can view this decade through the lens of George Washington's life. He was there for it all. Winning the war, winning the peace, becoming the first president. Nationalism was important to him, right? What did he say about or what did he say to Americans about the importance of seeing themselves as citizens of a nation, not just a locality?
- [23:40]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Oh, it was essential to him and I think it was probably the defining force of his adult life. He early and often during the war tried to cultivate this Sense of shared experience and nationalism among his troops. He was constantly urging the states and Congress to see themselves as one entity, not as 13, and to act in the national interest instead of their own self interest. His letter to the states before he returned his commission in 1783 urged reform to try and bring together more of a national government. Of course he participated in the Constitutional Convention, and without his participation, it would have been a failure, Established the presidency and really saw himself as the leader of a nation, not as the leader of a state or a party. I think there are two additional statements that he made that are essential to understanding this component. The first was when it was possible that Southern states might think about seceding from the Union. He said if forced to choose, he would side with the United States and not Virginia. And that is a powerful statement for someone who loved their plantation in Virginia. The second is the Farewell Address. I think his warnings about. About unity are often misunderstood. He wasn't necessarily saying there shouldn't be political organizing or that we shouldn't have alliances with foreign nations, but rather we couldn't allow any connection, whether it be political or diplomatic, to undermine our sense of who we were as Americans, that each state needed the other, and that the American people had to see themselves as Americans first.
- [25:17]
Podcast Host
So about the Articles of Confederation, they lasted six years. I believe that of the 13 states, each state got one vote and it had to be unanimous, right to get everything done. So that obviously was unworkable. So the Constitutional Convention, 1787. Do you agree with historians such as. I'll name two that have been on my show a bunch. Sean Wilentz, James Oakes. The Constitution is best viewed as a contested document. It was an incomplete document too, on a number of issues. But I think the notion of the Constitution as a contested document is no more evident than in the area of slavery, where Shawn and Jim argue that the Constitutional Convention in the document itself does not establish slavery as a federal institution. No property in man.
- [26:04]
Lindsay Chervinsky
I do agree that it is a contested document. I see the Constitution as a series of compromises in which they were compromising over various different pieces and putting them together in a way that tried to maximize the chances of ratification. And so that meant that a lot of things, they left out a lot of things. They were very vague in the language. There were a lot of silences by design as a way to try and secure ratification. And of course, slavery is the most obvious example. South Carolina and Georgia and some of the other Southern states threatened to leave if the new Constitution addressed or barred slavery. And the question is not so much whether or not they meant it, but whether or not the other delegates thought that they did. And they did. They believed that this project would fail if they addressed the subject, and so they didn't. They expected there would be future amendment. They, of course, lived up to that. They passed the Bill of Rights in the first year that people were in office. They closed loopholes when they saw them. The 12th Amendment closed a loophole on how we elect presidents. And they thought that future generations would be able to come up with more creative solutions than they could envision or would be able to address problems that they could not predict. And so that is, I think, an essential part of our understanding of the controversy Constitution.
- [27:17]
Podcast Host
That same year that those brilliant men met in Philadelphia to scrap the Articles and come up with a better document. A fellow by the name of Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary War veteran. He fought at Bunker Hill. He leads an insurrection. An insurrection. We're not even at 1789 yet. This was in western Massachusetts briefly. What was Shays Rebellion? Why is this important to incorporate into this story of the. The civic decade?
- [27:46]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Yes, absolutely. So Shays Rebellion was the rebellion in western Massachusetts over tax policy. Massachusetts, like all states, had a number of debts from the Revolution, and there was a lot of disagreement between the states about how to collect those taxes. And Massachusetts passed an intense law that required people to pay their taxes in hard specie, or, you know, like actual coins. And a lot of farmers in the west did not have that because they borrowed on the future value of their crops and their land and then paid off that debt once they sold their crops. And so they were looking for some form of redress for this taxation policy. Other states, like Rhode island, permitted payment of taxes in paper money, which quickly inflated and became largely worthless. So in terms of economic policy, the Massachusetts policy was a good one, although it was incredibly unfair to these western regions. And in order to prevent the state from seizing their farms because of these unpaid debts, this rebellion basically shut down the judicial system in western Massachusetts. Why this event is so important is because Massachusetts asked for help from Congress, from the Confederation Congress, to send the army to send money to crush this rebellion. And the Confederation Congress basically had to say, we can't. We don't have any money to pay troops, and we can't raise forces. So a number of Bostonian merchants raised funds to basically set up a private army. Henry Knox was instrumental in organizing this. That army went and crushed the rebellion. But it was the death knell to the Confederation Congress because it demonstrated how ineffective it was at protecting safety at the most base level. Now, interestingly, in the upcoming elections, right after Shays rebellion, Massachusetts did pass updated tax policy that was a little bit more lenient. So the state representatives did respond to these concerns, but only after crushing the rebellion.
- [29:46]
Podcast Host
You know, this is a very prickly sensitive issue, not just in the United States, in many countries, but especially in our country, because we are a democracy with civil liberties. The right amount of force the government needs to use at certain times to maintain law and order. There's no easy way to come down on that one way or the other. There was the Whiskey Rebellion that took place in 1791, all the way to 1794. That was a violent tax protest that again tested the early institutions of the United States. Would you say that was handled well by. Well, I guess that would have been the Washington administration.
- [30:23]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Yeah, I think it was handled quite well because the initial protests were peaceful for the first couple of years, and the administration permitted peaceful, peaceful protest. It was only when the protest turned violent that they then first sent a peace delegation to try and come up with a peaceful solution. And when that failed, then sent the militia. But here's why I think it's successful. They rounded up a ton of people. They arrested a ton of people. Most of the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. Those that were convicted were ultimately pardoned by Washington once they swore an allegiance to the Constitution and admitted one wrongdoing. So as long as they said they were wrong and said that the nation had the right to pass taxes and enforce it, then Washington let them off. And I think that was a very effective carrot and stick mechanism.
- [31:10]
Podcast Host
That's not what happened most recently with the January 6th rioters who were pardoned before they. I shouldn't say all of them, many of them never made amends or atoned publicly for what they did.
- [31:22]
Mint Mobile Spokesperson
Go ahead.
- [31:22]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Yeah, I think this is where Washington's example of the pardon is so important. And John Adams followed this, which is that the president should have an opportunity to extend mercy. No judicial system created by humans is going to be perfect. There's going to be flaws in the system. And sometimes people do deserve second chances, but they have to have lived a life of merit beforehand. So Washington was particularly sympathetic to veterans. And again, they had to have accepted responsibility for their actions. That is such an important piece for all presidents to connect consider with the pardon power because it is such a tremendous power for them to use basically unchecked.
- [31:59]
Podcast Host
And we'll wrap up maybe in a surprising place to some Folks, we're going to leap ahead to 1804. What was the Hartford Convention?
- [32:09]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Well, okay, so the Hartford convention actually happened. Are you talking about the one in the War of 1812? That's 1814.
- [32:15]
Podcast Host
1814. Okay, I got my year wrong there.
- [32:17]
Lindsay Chervinsky
The New England states gathered because the War of 1812 and the Embargo of 1813 were absolutely destroying the New England economy, which frankly largely was. Well, the embargo was destroying the economy because it was cracking down on smuggling and there was a rampant smuggling ring in New England. But there had been some real differences over foreign policy, over how to pursue foreign policy, and real resentment about the fact that as the Louisiana Purchase was brought in and new states were added to the nation, Southern states received received a massively inflated representation in Congress and in the electoral college due to the three fifths clause. And these were things that New England states talked about with real animosity. And so they gathered a convention. And I think the problem was there had been so many previous threats of secession that this got tarred as a secessionist movement. Actually at the convention the recommendations are pretty mild. Their constitutional amendments to require Congress to have a 3 4th North's vote to go on offensive war, to remove the three fist clause, to sort of restore some of the balance between northern and southern states. So the recommendations in some sense, actually some of them are quite smart. But they got branded early on as the secessionist movement because they had affiliated with secessionist people early on.
- [33:36]
Podcast Host
It discredited the Federalists to a large degree. And the reason why I brought that up is because such conflicts, such controversies are strewn throughout the entire story of the United States for the past 250 years. There is healthy conflict and then there's what we're seeing, I think in our society today. No principle just own the other side. Tearing each other apart mindlessly on social media. Which is not healthy and maybe why a lot of people are in no mood to shake hands with their neighbors come July 4th. So my suggestion, maybe we could do this at Mount Vernon on one of those beautiful lawns over there. Have everybody stay off social media, leave their phones at home, sit around. Everyone could read whatever book they want for two, three hours and then they can discuss with each other what they've learned. Books about the American story.
- [34:29]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Okay, I love that. I think it's great. I love it. I mean I think that we would be well served as a nation if we spent less time on our phones and more time consuming long form product. Whether it's an audible book, you can listen if reading's not your jam or actually with the text, but I think we would be in a better place.
- [34:50]
Podcast Host
On the next episode of History As It Happens, return to the history of the modern Middle east and the Nakba of May 1948 and what its erasure means for the Israeli Palestinian conflict today. That is next, as we report History As It Happens and make sure to sign up for my free newsletter. Just go to Substack and search for History As It Happens.
- [35:13]
Libsyn Ads Representative
Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today
- [35:55]
Grocery Store Announcer
save on family Essentials at Safeway and Albertsons this week at Safeway and Albertsons enjoy eight piece double breaded famous chick fried or baked dark meat featuring four legs and four thighs for just $5.99 each. Member price available in the deli and sweet red cherries are $2.97 per pound limit 6 pounds. Member price with digital coupon plus 24 ounce. Selected varieties of fresh cut fruit bowls are $5 each. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.