The Great American Story: The New Nation

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Great American Story – The New Nation

Podcast: The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast
Hosts: Jeremiah Regan, Juan Davalos
Special Lecturer: Dr. Wilfred McClay
Episode Air Date: April 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the tumultuous years of the American Founding—transitioning from independence from Britain to the struggle of forming a new government, resulting in the creation of the U.S. Constitution. Dr. Wilfred McClay, author of Land of Hope, provides an in-depth narrative of the challenges, setbacks, philosophies, and personalities that shaped this era, particularly 1776–1789. The focus is on the meaning and effect of the Revolution, the limitations of the Articles of Confederation, and the intellectual and practical triumph of the Constitution.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. From Declaration to Nation-Building

• Developing the Theme:

  • The episode explores the difference between proclaiming independence and establishing a working nation.
  • “Declaring independence was the easy part…getting beyond a few scattered minor military triumphs and defeating the mightiest military power in the world, that was another matter.” – Dr. McClay [02:46]

• Unity and Dissent:

  • The colonies were far from united; Dr. McClay cites the traditional view: “There were [a] third of Americans who were for, third who were against, and third who didn’t know what they thought.” [03:38]

• Articles of Confederation:

  • The first American government was designed for wartime necessity, lacking executive power and national cohesiveness.
  • “It was a war constitution…The Articles…got us through the war, but for a more solid and lasting foundation, our founders recognized that they needed a more solid and lasting institution. And that’s where we get the Constitution.” – Jeremiah Regan [01:39]

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2. Military Struggles and the Morale of Nationhood

• Disadvantages and Hopes (04:12–05:50):

  • America entered the conflict with serious disadvantages—not least, being a patchwork of loosely connected colonies.
  • Their main advantage: they needed only to outlast the British and gain crucial foreign alliances.

• The Unifying Figure of George Washington (06:05–07:47):

  • Washington’s charisma, selflessness, and character modeled after classical virtues played a crucial role.
  • “I can express in two words: George Washington.” – Dr. McClay [06:05]
  • “Washington…had been deeply influenced by a play by Joseph Addison about the life of Cato...he loved it so much...he had it performed again and again for his own troops.” [07:53]

• Winter Hardships and Moral Fortitude (08:20–13:02):

  • The army’s numbers and morale dwindled after setbacks, but Thomas Paine’s writing and Washington’s resilience sustained them.
  • Famous Quote:

    “These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” – Thomas Paine, read by Dr. McClay [10:14]

• Turning Points – Trenton, Princeton, and Saratoga (11:11–13:10):

  • Washington’s surprise assault at Trenton and victory at Princeton revived hope.
  • Saratoga’s victory persuaded France to ally with America, changing the character of the war.

• Valley Forge and French Aid (14:06–15:20):

  • Winter 1777-78 at Valley Forge was devastating.
  • “More than 2,500 soldiers died by the end of February 1778. Another 1,000 had deserted. Another 7,000 were too ill for duty. Faith in Washington’s leadership was hanging by a slender thread.” – Dr. McClay [14:37]

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3. The Revolution as Civil War—and Its Breadth

• Internal Division (16:48–17:31):

  • The war resembled a civil war, splitting families and regions between Loyalists and Patriots.
  • “The revolution was not just an elite event...it affected all levels.” [17:41]
  • “One of the most effective weapons…was the boycott of British goods. This was something that had to take place among Americans of all social classes and all means.” [17:57]

• African American Soldiers (18:09):

  • 5,000 African Americans fought in the Revolution, raising questions about the era’s promises of liberty.

    “Didn’t these groups also deserve some share of the triumph?” – Dr. McClay [18:09]

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4. The Articles of Confederation: Promise and Failure

• Nature of the Union (20:14–23:08):

  • The Articles established a “league of friendship,” prioritizing state sovereignty over national unity.
  • “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power…not by this confederation expressly delegated.” – Dr. McClay quoting Article II [22:16]
  • No executive, judicial, or taxing power at the national level.

• Deficiencies and Challenges (24:44–26:18):

  • Inability to respond to foreign pressure: British troops remained in the West; Spain controlled the Mississippi.
  • Post-war economic struggles, devalued currency, farm foreclosures—a crisis typified by Shays’ Rebellion (1786).

    “George Washington wrote to James Madison, said, 'We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion.'” – Dr. McClay [25:55]

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5. The Constitutional Convention: Vision and Compromise

• Framing a New Government (26:33–29:11):

  • The 1787 Philadelphia Convention set out beyond merely fixing defects, seeking a durable, just government.
  • “Madison was the polar opposite, in some ways, of Washington…a deep philosopher and also a shrewd tactician in politics…he said America would decide forever the fate of republican government.” [27:34; 27:54]
  • Delegates were both ambitious and humble, conscious of their historic role (John Adams: “the greatest lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live.”) [28:12]

• Philosophy of Government (29:11–30:30):

  • Republican principles: distributed power, avoidance of concentration, balance between federal and state.
  • Recognition of flawed human nature:

    “We have perhaps had too good an opinion of human nature.” – George Washington, per Dr. McClay [29:03]

• Design and Debates (31:03–34:49):

  • The Constitution’s innovation: bicameral legislature to balance population-based and state-based representation (“Virginia Plan” and “New Jersey Plan”).
  • Compromise benefited the nation by blending the strengths of both approaches.
  • “This is good sausage that came out of the convention.” – Dr. McClay [34:44]

• Profound Realism About Human Nature (34:50–35:47):

  • Built to channel rather than suppress conflict—like an engine harnessing explosive power.
  • “It’s designed to work with the grain of human nature rather than against it.” [35:43]
  • Not purely peaceable, but stable through managed contention.

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6. The Constitution as a Living Identity

• Continuity and Success (36:05–37:33):

  • Constitution Day (September 17) is pivotal but under-recognized—America is exceptional for being governed over 230 years by one constitution.
  • “Our Constitution is not just the software that we happen to be using at the moment to be replaced by other software. It is intrinsic to our identity.” [36:52–37:15]
  • Contrasts with, for instance, France, where national identity is independent from government structure.

• Enduring Legacy and Closing Reflection (37:33–38:14):

  • The Constitution is more practical than poetic, “a functional document,” but beautiful in its adaptability and longevity.
  • “It has been successful. It has survived. That’s the main test of success.” [37:58]
  • Next lecture: the ongoing need to repair and improve even such a remarkable achievement.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• George Washington’s Leadership:

  “He received the position and accepted it on the condition that he received no pay for it. That was the kind of guy George Washington was.” – Dr. McClay [07:09]

• Paine’s Famous Line:

  “These are the times that try men's souls.” – Thomas Paine [10:14]

• On the Articles’ Weakness:

  “The deficiencies of the Articles were clear. And in short order, Alexander Hamilton…managed to gather a convention…” – Dr. McClay [25:55]

• On Compromise:

  “The results of this structure, I think, were arguably better than the sausage making process. That this is good sausage that came out of the convention.” – Dr. McClay [34:44]

• On the Nature of Conflict:

  “It’s designed to work with the grain of human nature rather than against it.” – Dr. McClay [35:43]

• On Constitutional Identity:

  “It is intrinsic to our identity...our Constitution is, with the minute exception of the few years under the article, the only form of national government we’ve lived under.” – Dr. McClay [37:15; 37:26]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:19 — Overview of the era between Declaration and Constitution
• 03:01 — The challenge of forging national unity and real independence
• 06:05 — George Washington’s central unifying role
• 10:12 — Thomas Paine’s “These are the times that try men’s souls”
• 11:11 — Victories at Trenton and Princeton
• 12:59 — Turning point: Saratoga and France’s entry into the war
• 14:06 — Valley Forge’s suffering and transformation
• 17:41 — Revolution as more than an elite event; its social breadth
• 20:14 — Introduction to the Articles of Confederation
• 25:55 — Shays’ Rebellion and the push for a new constitution
• 27:34 — Contrasting leadership of Madison and Washington
• 29:03 — Caution regarding “too good an opinion of human nature”
• 31:29 — Debates over structure and representation at the Constitutional Convention
• 34:44 — Sausage-making metaphor for the Constitution
• 35:43 — Conflict as an engine, not a flaw of republican government
• 36:52 — The Constitution as intrinsic to American identity

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Tone and Language

The episode maintains a narrative, story-driven tone, mixing scholarly insight with vividly told anecdotes and memorable historical detail. Dr. McClay outlines dramatic moments in the war, emphasizes the personalities of the Founders, and discusses deep philosophical questions of government:

“…the best Constitution, instead of ignoring these things or trying to wish them away, will try to channel them…” [35:16]

“It has been successful. It has survived. That’s the main test of success…” [37:58]

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Conclusion

This episode is a rich, engaging overview of the Revolution’s aftermath and the creation of the Constitution, emphasizing how Americans reframed their government out of both necessity and visionary ambition. It highlights the mix of failure, struggle, heroism, and invention that defined the birth of the New Nation, setting the stage for both the country’s future successes and its ongoing need for self-evaluation and reform.

Transcript

[Jeremiah Regan]

Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast. I'm Jeremiah Regan.

[Juan Davalos]

And I'm Juan Davalos. We are back with the Great American Story, A Land of Hope lecture number four, the New Nation.

[Jeremiah Regan]

What a fun lecture to have in the year of our 250th anniversary. This is a story of how we declared independence, which is one thing that separates us from Britain, to forming the Constitution, which is establishing the new nation, which is quite another thing.

[Juan Davalos]

And it's one of the most, at least for me, one of the most interesting periods of studying in the Founding, because, like we mentioned in a previous lecture, we tend to forget what happened before the Revolutionary era leading up to the Declaration. But we also tend to forget what happened after, which may be even more difficult.

[Jeremiah Regan]

It kind of goes Lexington Declaration, Yorktown Constitution, and there's a few things that happen in between.

[Juan Davalos]

Yeah, that's right. Forming the Constitution was actually pretty difficult. Between 1776, when the Declaration is signed, and 1789, when the Constitution is ratified, there's a big period of time where Americans are once again trying to learn how they're going to live as a new nation.

[Jeremiah Regan]

Now, they actually had a different constitution.

[Juan Davalos]

That's right, The Articles of Confederation, which they tried for some time to live under those Articles of Confederation, it didn't really have an executive power that had any authority to execute laws. There was no federal government. And they quickly found out that it wasn't working.

[Jeremiah Regan]

Yeah, we shouldn't be too hard on them. It was a war constitution. It was conceived of and ratified during the Revolutionary War, and the war provided a lot of unity that peace did not. So the Articles, to their credit, got us through the war, or at least the men who were operating under the Articles got us through the war. But then, for a more solid and lasting foundation, our founders recognized that they needed a more solid and lasting institution. And that's where we get the Constitution.

[Juan Davalos]

If you'd like to read more about the history of this time period, Maclay's book, the Land of An Invitation to the Great American Story is a great resource to look at actually everything in this course, but specifically on this time period as well. To get a copy of the book, you can go to Hillsdale. Edu Course and click on the Books tab. That's Hillsdale. Edu Course.

[Jeremiah Regan]

Now let's turn to Dr. Maclay in lecture four of the great American Story, A Land of the New Nation.

[Dr. Maclay]

Welcome back. And this is lecture number three, entitled the New Nation.

And we've just declared independence.

But declaring independence was the Easy part. It's not hard to produce even a

beautiful, resonant, ringing declaration of independence.

But making it stick, getting beyond a few scattered minor military triumphs and defeating the mightiest military power in the world, that was another matter. The United States, such as they were, the disunited United States, went into this conflict with huge and fairly obvious disadvantages. To begin with, it was hardly even a country, yet it was not united,

far from fully united in embracing the revolutionary cause.

It's sometimes said there were third of Americans who were for third who were against and third who didn't know what they thought. George Gallup wasn't around to have any

polling data to offer in supplement to that. So we just have to take that

for what it is and acknowledge that this was a country more in aspiration than in actuality. It did not yet have a functioning

form of political organization, did not even have a proper constitution.

Also a disadvantage is there was simply no guarantee that the country would be

able to hold together in the years,

possibly of grueling, punishing war that lay ahead on the very day that independence was declared. Almost a sign

when independence was voted on by the Continental Congress, almost as a sign to the nation.

The British were easily able to land without facing any resistance, a large contingent of troops on Staten island in New

York, at the mouth of New York

harbor, the first installment in what by

August of 1776 would be a siege

force of more than 30,000. They were not impressed by the Americans high flown words. But all was not lost because the

Americans did enjoy certain very real advantages.

For one thing, they had only to play defense. They needed not to win every battle. They needed not to win any battles. So long as they were able to keep the war going long enough to

exhaust the patience and willingness to fight

of the British opponent, they could lose the battles and still win the war. In other words, if they could exhaust their foe. Given the fact that the British were surrounded by old rivals like the French, who were still licking their wounds after the French and Indian war and were spoiling for a chance to get back at the British, it was entirely possible

that the colonies could get a valuable ally and in the end they would to support their cause.

And that might compensate for a great

many of the inherent weaknesses of the American position.

Another advantage, an incalculable advantage that the Americans had, I can express in two words, George Washington. They had the person of George Washington, a man of such fine and admired, widely, universally admired character and military skills, political savvy. He commanded the loyalty of nearly all

Americans, and thus served as a unifying force. When he was made commander in chief of the Revolutionary American forces, He signaled

his willingness to play this role by appearing at the second Continental Congress in Philadelphia wearing his military uniform.

So he was ready to play and from June 1775 on, was commander in chief of the Continental Army.

He received the position and accepted it

on the condition that he received no pay for it. That was the kind of guy George Washington was.

He was charismatic, he was courageous, he was selfless, tireless. He was not a world class intellect like Jefferson, but he was always learning

and had a great deal of practical and prudential wisdom.

He was known for his character, his noble character. He self consciously modeled himself on the great classical Republican leaders, the unselfish, virtuous

and civic minded public figures of classical antiquity. He had been deeply influenced by a

play by Joseph Edison about the life

of Cato that he had seen and

he loved it so much and what it taught, that he had it performed again and again for his own troops.

Because Cato in this drama presented the kind of example that he was himself and that he wanted to his men to know and experience and esteem.

The greatest challenge that Washington would face was simply one of recruiting and holding together a credible army. This was not an easy job. There was a sense of fragility about the whole enterprise, so that the morale and willingness to serve of soldiers waxed and waned depending on circumstances in the field and weather conditions which were very

important in the American Revolution.

In August of 1776, not long after the Declaration, he had 28,000 men under his command. By December, that number had shrunk to 3,000. What had happened was that his troops had been driven from New York, New York City, by British regulars, back and

back and back until they ended up in Pennsylvania.

The army's morale was bad. It was always unstable. It was always hostage to events, to

successive peaks and valleys, and consequent hope and despair, depending on how the war effort was going.

Washington through all this, had to keep a cool head.

He had to not be too influenced either by the giddiness of success or the despondency of failure.

As it turned out, the winter, that winter, 1776-77, was an exceptionally bad winter

and made for a gloomy time of discouragement.

Fortunately for the patriot cause, Tom Paine chose at that time to write yet another contribution to the war effort, a series of pamphlets called the American Crisis, which the most famous lines from that

which some of you may have heard

go like this at the Beginning, he says, these are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the

service of his country, but he that

stands it now deserves the love and

thanks of man and woman. Yes, he conceded that things looked very

bad, but the harder the conflict, the

more glorious the triumph.

Paine put it just the way Washington

would have liked to have been able to.

And George Washington ordered that Paine's words

from the American crisis be read to

his troops who were suffering through this bitter winter. And they had the desired effect of

rousing them to a new burst of fighting spirit.

So twice in the year 1776, Paine

had made a great gift to the colonial cause.

And then on Christmas night of 1776, Washington struck back. He led a force through snow and sleet across the Delaware River.

You've all seen the painting of that which is not exactly historically accurate, but who cares? It's a beautiful painting.

And he surprised at dawn a sleeping

force of Hessians, the hated Hessians, at

Trenton in New Jersey. A week later, his forces had a similar triumph at Princeton. Two small victories bought reason for hope that they could be auguries of good things to come. It appeared the American forces would not

be defeated quickly, as the British had hoped.

And there was further evidence of this coming in the year 1777, which actually

would be crucial for the success of the war effort.

The British had formulated a plan whereby they hoped to cut off New England

from the rest of the colonies and that that would ensure the defeat of the revolutionary cause.

But this, it was a three pronged

assault with three defeats.

And the most crushing of all came at Saratoga, where General Johnny Burgoyne, Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne, who got bogged down in

the woods north of Saratoga with his

wagon train, including 30 carts carrying his personal wardrobe and champagne.

A wonderful little detail that tells you a lot.

And the American forces surrounded him and

defeated him, took his army prisoner.

This victory at Saratoga was important not only in its own right, but for

the signal it sent to the French

that the Americans were sufficiently strong, sufficiently resolute, sufficiently formidable to be worthy of French support.

They weren't going to just leave the French looking humiliated.

The French immediately extended diplomatic recognition to the United States and concluded a commercial agreement and a treaty of alliance. And this included the access to the

resources of the French navy, which was

something in the United States, had no

navy to speak of.

The British had then, as later, the

most outstanding navy in the world.

So the French navy, being on the revolutionary side, could Help a great deal in obviating some of the British advantages at sea.

It would turn out to be very important indeed.

But there was a great obstacle before

all of that could come to pass,

and that was the winter of 1777-78, which was even worse than its preceding winter.

And it was really a time of

testing, a low point for Washington's army,

which was encamped at valley Forge. This is the famous winter at Valley Forge, 18 miles outside of Philadelphia.

Hunger, exhaustion, exposure, disease combined to batter

away at Washington's army and leaving it of very nearly a fragment, a helpless fragment of itself.

More than 2,500 soldiers died by the

end of February 1778.

Another 1,000 had deserted. Another 7,000 were too ill for duty.

Faith in Washington's leadership was hanging by a slender thread.

But with some help from a German

general, von steuben, A leading figure in

the prussian army, he got the army back in fighting shape, drilling it, subjecting it to an intense regiment. And by May, he had them refashioned

into a reasonable army.

Washington was strong enough to go after

the withdrawing British forces across new Jersey.

Eventually, the French army played a leading

role in bringing the war to. To a successful conclusion.

General Cornwallis of the British army had been storming through the south successfully, but he became entrapped at the peninsula at yorktown, virginia, by approaching troops on land and by the French navy at sea. It was a pincers movement.

It left him trapped, with no choice but to surrender his large army on October 19th.

He did just that. And it said, we don't know for

sure, but it's too good a story

not to tell you. It said that the forces marching out. As the forces marched out, the British

band struck up a familiar English ballad.

The world turned upside down, and I won't go through the words of that

which are in the book land of hope.

But it felt like the world turning upside down. The underdog Americans, who it seemed in no way were in a position to

muscle their way through to victory, had somehow managed to succeed despite great odds,

despite great hardship, and much of it

owed to the phenomenal leadership of George Washington.

One thing we sometimes forget is that the revolutionary war was in many ways

like a civil war.

You remember that division of the country

into thirds that I described before?

Well, there were many cases in which the war pitted family members against family members, Loyalists against patriots, splitting towns and regions and social classes, and, as I said, families against one another. Loyalty to the crown, after all, was a powerful and in some ways admirable

feature of those who resisted the revolution. And of course many of them ended up leaving the country and moving to Canada and elsewhere.

Historians debate all this and have debated it forever. But I think it's important to realize that the revolution was not just an

elite event, a sort of changing of the chairs for the elite classes. So the homegrown elite took the place

of a foreign elite, that it affected all levels. One of the most effective weapons in

the revolution was the boycott of British goods. This was something that had to take place among Americans of all social classes and all means.

There were 5,000 African Americans who fought in the revolution. Didn't these groups also deserve some share of the triumph?

Doesn't the freeing up of energy brought about by a change of regime have something to say to them as well?

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[Dr. Maclay]

The challenge ahead for those who were thinking about statecraft, about what kind of

union this new union would be, were also immense.

How could you keep the Republican character, the self ruling character of smaller forms of government, while having the unity that a nation really needs to be effective in the world? Many philosophers said you couldn't have a republic unless it was small in size. So how could a nation, how could a nation state that spanned at least

the eastern seaboard, not yet the full

continent managed to finesse that? Anyway, in the wake of 1776, most of the energy and interest in Constitution making centered upon the states because everybody agreed pretty much that states would continue

to be the principal locus of power.

And the Articles of Confederation, which are, were what passed for a national constitution. It wasn't even formally adopted, ratified by

the States until 1781, so it didn't

last all that long, although the Continental

Congress more or less pretended as if it was in effect, even when it wasn't.

What was the Articles of Confederation?

What did it look like and what

might have been wrong with it from

the standpoint that it needed to be revised into a constitution, proper constitution?

Well, it described itself as a league of friendship rather than a national union. And the primacy of the states was made explicit in Article 2, which said as follows. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this confederation expressly

delegated to the United States in Congress assembled. All of that wording is interesting, but it's very clear that the primacy of

the states, the autonomy of the states,

the sovereignty of the states, the word

sovereignty is used, is going to be protected. Each state, irrespective of its size, had

a single vote in Congress.

And for the passage of the most important measures, currency, tariff, military, diplomatic affairs, either unanimous vote or super majority was required. And the national government was not to be given any coercive tools, courts, executive power, power of taxation, none of that that would allow it to act independently

and force the individual states to do its bidding.

I think it's not hard to see why this was not going to work, but it's also important to understand why the revolutionary generation overwhelmingly favored it at first. For one thing, the war was still

going on during much of the time that the Articles were the law of

the land, and no one wanted to repeat the same governmental horrors as they saw it that they had fled from. So I think this preoccupation with centralized

power and the dangers of centralized power

probably blinded the framers of the Articles to a larger range of issues that they would have to face once they

became a free and independent nation.

There are some positive things about the Articles that if we had time to

talk about, I would mention the biggest one being the Northwest Ordinance, a really fantastic piece of legislation that set the

pattern for westward expansion of the country. But for the most part, it served the interests of the nation poorly. Britain refused to withdraw its forces from several military posts in the west, and the government of the United States could do nothing about it in the Southwest. The Spanish refused to yield Their control over the Mississippi river, the commercial lifeline of the country. These were a thumb in the eye

of the impotent American government.

Moreover, the British were having a lot of success undermining the American economy, which

was a wreck in the wake of the revolutionary war. They

restricted American imports abroad and they

flooded the country with cheap British goods that would undersell American manufacturers.

So commodity prices went way down, which hurt farmers and debtors, led to foreclosures on farms. In many cases, farmers who had gone

off to fight in the revolution were paid in devalued money and came back to find that they were losing their

farms to bankers who had never left

their homes in Boston. This is a tinderbox just waiting to explode.

There were conflicts all over the place regarding these foreclosures. The most notable one, perhaps was in Massachusetts.

In western Massachusetts, a veteran named Daniel

Shays led a march on Springfield to take over the Springfield arsenal and shut down the state supreme court. Stop the foreclosures. This got the attention of the nation's leaders. George Washington wrote to James Madison, said, we are fast verging to anarchy and confusion. The deficiencies of the articles were clear. And in short order, Alexander Hamilton, who

had been Washington's aide during the revolutionary

war, managed to gather a convention of

deputies for the purpose of devising a

plan for supplying such defects as may

be discovered to exist in the articles.

Well, they had a lot more in mind than that.

At least Hamilton did.

And four months after the convention began,

on September 17th of 1787, they came forth with an entirely new constitution for the United States. States. This was the constitutional convention.

I can't say enough good things about

the high intellectual caliber of the 55 men who were there.

And they were young. The average age was 42.

There were a few older people, Washington, Benjamin Franklin. But a bulk of the work was

done by people in their 40s and 50s and even 30s. James Madison was 36 years old, and

we think of him as the architect of the constitution.

Madison was the polar opposite, in some ways, of Washington. Washington was a big, strapping man. Madison was tiny.

They called him little Jemmy, but he was a very shrewd man, A deep

philosopher and also a shrewd tactician in politics.

A very rare combination.

And he thought the issue of the constitution was all important. He said America would decide forever the

fate of republican government.

And these weighty words did reflect the

framers remarkable combination of ambition and humility.

They were excited by the possibilities that

lay before them and determined to lay hold of them.

John Adams said they were living in a time which the greatest lawgivers of

antiquity would have wished to live. And they had a chance to contrive the wisest and happiest government that human wisdom can contrive.

So they were emboldened to expand their

mission beyond merely fixing the defects of the Articles, and instead to devise something far better, something, knew something, reflecting the best thinking that they could bring to bear on this task.

They understood politics as the art of the possible. And the best constitution would be one

that was built with what's sometimes called the crooked timber of humanity in mind,

one that heeds the warning that Washington

expressed in one of his letters that we have perhaps had too good an opinion of human nature.

So the document that emerges out of

the debates in Philadelphia would attempt to reflect that sobered, chastened view of human nature.

There were a number of things that everyone there agreed about.

They agreed that the form of government

should be republican in character, not monarchical. They agreed that power, to the extent possible, because power corrupted, should not be concentrated in any one person, any one office, but should be divided and distributed as widely as possible. They favored a federal system in which

power was formally distributed to states, localities, the national government, in ways that didn't localize or concentrate the power in any one level of government.

But this was hard to do.

It was easy to do on paper,

but hard to do in practice. To combine the cohesiveness of local, smaller scale governments with the greater resources and power of a national government. This was going to be very hard

to strike a balance and make it stick.

The British Empire was already evidence of

that in its own history.

In any event, the Philadelphia Convention would

have to address itself to the same kinds of questions that the British Empire had tried and failed to to answer, of how to reconcile these two divergent

elements and how much power needed to

be given to a national government for it to be effective.

Presumably not any more than the bare minimum of what was absolutely necessary. But how to ascertain that? How would they ensure that this national government, newly empowered, a newly empowered presidency,

would be fully accountable and not become too powerful?

Well, thanks to Madison's copious notes, we know a lot about what went on

at the convention and more than I have time to tell you about. But

it's clear, for one thing, that

the expanded office of the presidency was

partly an easy sell, because everyone knew

that George Washington was available to fill the job and establish precedents that would make the position both effective and deserving of the nation's trust.

But debates erupted over other issues, and particularly the issue of representation. There were really two plans which we called the Virginia plan and the New Jersey plan, which sought to allocate legislative representation either by population or by the states.

That the states were the entities should be the entities represented, and not the individuals comprising those states.

It's a real philosophical issue, and particularly

if you think of the Constitution or the United States of America, consider the name of the nation as being at

bottom a union of sovereign entities.

It makes sense to represent states. We may not be quite as inclined to think that way today, but certainly at the time it made sense.

And of course, representation on population made sense. But those two alternatives carried a lot of weight for contending states. If you were a big state, if you were Virginia, you loved the idea of representation. If you were an itsy bitsy state like Rhode island, the all time itsy

bitsy state of American history, you liked

the idea of representation by states because you were on the same par with Virginia.

And after all, why shouldn't you be, in a sense?

So this was a clash that had interests involved, but it also had a philosophical dimension about the nature of representation,

the nature of the national union.

What the convention did was settle on compromise, have a bicameral legislative body in which one house hewed to the Virginia

plan notion of representation by population, and the other the New Jersey plan's notion of representation by states, with the House

of Representatives and the Senate respectively. It's a kind of compromise that looks like a kind of slicing of the baby in half.

But actually, the more closely you look at it, you realize it's a solution that in some ways was better than either of the other plans would have been by themselves, since it incorporated these

two divergent elements of governance, the solidarity and cohesiveness of small republican entities, but

the conjoined power and unity of an effective nation.

The results of this structure, I think, were arguably better than the sausage making process.

That this is good sausage that came out of the convention.

And behind it all is a very

powerful idea that was in the minds of many of the delegates, and that is that conflict is endemic to human life. You will never eliminate conflict. It's part of human nature, part of the human condition.

And neither is a desire for power

something that we can eliminate and the tendency to abuse it.

Therefore, the best Constitution, instead of ignoring these things or trying to wish them away, will try to channel them, will try to make use of their power just the way that an internal combustion engine channels and makes use of the

power of the explosions in its chambers, in its cylinders, to drive the pistons and thus drive the automobile.

It's designed to work with the grain

of human nature rather than against it.

And for that reason, it's not always

a very peaceable form of government, because

it doesn't try to stamp down conflict.

It tries to make conflict work for the general good.

It's a final few Words about the

Constitution we celebrate Constitution Day, September 17th of every year.

It's not a big deal the way the Fourth of July is.

It probably should be as big a deal as the Fourth of July, because, after all, every nation has something like an Independence Day or a day celebrating the nation's existence. But only one nation in the world can claim to have been governed for

230 years, more than 230 years, by the same constitution. This is really an extraordinary thing. And our Constitution is not just the software that we happen to be using

at the moment to be replaced by other software.

It is intrinsic to our identity in

the way that, let's say, the government

of France,

which has been around for

a while, but there also been other republics, there have been other empires, there have been other forms of government, revolutionary forms of government, all of which have occurred in what was still France. French identity is in some ways separate

from the political institutions that embody it in America. Our Constitution is, with the minute exception

of the few years under the article,

the only form of national government we've lived under. So it's a remarkable document.

It doesn't have the high sounding, high

flying, soaring language of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. It's really a functional document. But the beauty of it is the way in which, through its actions, through

its processes, and through the events by

which it's been tempered, it would express the unfolding demands of history.

It has been successful.

It has survived. That's the main test of success, but

not in every way.

And next time I'll talk about some of the ways the Constitution has been

in need of the repair of its own defects.

Thank you.

[Juan Davalos]

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