Speaker 1: Our guest now is Jeffrey Rosen.
Speaker 2: The book which just came out about a week or
Speaker 2: so ago, The Pursuit of Liberty, How Hamilton versus Jefferson
Speaker 2: ignited the lasting battle.
Speaker 1: Over power in America.
Speaker 2: And in his book he traces this over different time periods,
Speaker 2: a couple of decades, each of these things, and how
Speaker 2: people's viewpoint and our viewpoint of government has shifted between
Speaker 2: these two polls.
Speaker 1: I guess in terms.
Speaker 2: Of looking at how power should be structured here in
Speaker 2: the United States, between Hamilton and Jefferson. But you have
Speaker 2: an interesting anecdote about Hamilton and Jefferson and what happened,
Speaker 2: what Jefferson did after Hamilton died.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: It's so moving that Hamilton and Jefferson's battles define our
Speaker 3: early debates and in fact all debates ever since about
Speaker 3: national power versus states rights, or a strong executive versus
Speaker 3: a strong judiciary, or liberal versus strict construction of the Constitution,
Speaker 3: and their battles over the Bank of the United States
Speaker 3: and the Aliens Edition Acts lead to the formation of
Speaker 3: America's first political parties. But despite all of those clashes,
Speaker 3: at the end of his life after Hamilton dies in
Speaker 3: the duel, because they're both united in believing that Aaron
Speaker 3: Burr is a traitor who's trying to raise an insurrection
Speaker 3: in Spanish Louisiana and set himself up as a dictator.
Speaker 3: After they both united against Burr, Jefferson places a bust
Speaker 3: of Hamilton across from his own in the central entrance
Speaker 3: hall of Monticello. You can see it there today if
Speaker 3: you go there. And he passed it. Jefferson would say,
Speaker 3: opposed in life as in death, and he viewed Hamilton
Speaker 3: not as a hated enemy to be destroyed, but a
Speaker 3: respected adversary to be engaged with. And that spirit of
Speaker 3: civil dialogue and learning how to listen to the other
Speaker 3: side disagreeing without being disagreeable, is one that we've vigently
Speaker 3: got to get back today.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, we do talk about that almost every day.
Speaker 2: So what has happened with that? Let's start with the introduction, say,
Speaker 2: the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar, quote unquote,
Speaker 2: and the dinner party that defined America. Tell us a
Speaker 2: little about what that is about. What's that dinner party about?
Speaker 3: It's amazing how relevant it is to our current debates.
Speaker 3: So this is a dinner party in the room where
Speaker 3: it happened, not the one where they moved the capital
Speaker 3: from New York to Washington, d C. In exchange for
Speaker 3: assuming the national death. The one in the Hamilton musical.
Speaker 3: This is a year later and Washington's away. The whole
Speaker 3: cabinet has gathered. At some point, Hamilton says to Jefferson,
Speaker 3: who are those three guys on the wall? And Jefferson says,
Speaker 3: those are my three portraits of the three greatest men
Speaker 3: in history, John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. And
Speaker 3: Hamilton pauses for a long time and then he blurts
Speaker 3: out the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.
Speaker 3: And Vince's jeff He works in his diary that Hamilton
Speaker 3: is for a monarchy bottomed on corruption, and he proceeds
Speaker 3: to found the Democratic Republican Party in order to resist
Speaker 3: the alleged dictatorial ambitions of Hamilton and the Federalists. And
Speaker 3: Jefferson's convinced from his studies of history that all elective
Speaker 3: monarchies and with popular leaders like Caesar converting themselves into
Speaker 3: hereditary despots. And that's why Jefferson wants a one year
Speaker 3: termlament for the president. When he gets a copy of
Speaker 3: the Constitution, he writes to Madison that a future president
Speaker 3: might refuse to leave office, so we need a one
Speaker 3: year termlament. Now, the anecdote is so interesting because, as
Speaker 3: Ron Cherno, the great Hamilton historian, notes, when Hamilton praised
Speaker 3: Julius Caesar, he must have been joking. He insisted throughout
Speaker 3: his career that the greatest threat to America was an
Speaker 3: authoritarian demagogue like Caesar, who could overthrow popular elections and
Speaker 3: consolidate power in his own hands. Hamilton's solution, amazingly, is
Speaker 3: a life term for the president. Basically, if the presidents
Speaker 3: are like Hight, he says, he won't be tempted to
Speaker 3: extend his term, and that's too much at the Constitutional Convention.
Speaker 3: But amazingly, James Madison and gouvernor Morris at some point
Speaker 3: support a version of a life term, so Hamilton wasn't
Speaker 3: totally off on his own. Nevertheless, you know, the Constitution
Speaker 3: chooses no term limits, and then Jefferson establishes the tradition
Speaker 3: of stepping down after two terms. Washington, of course, famously
Speaker 3: gave up the office like Cincinnati, returning to his farm. Yes,
Speaker 3: but it was Jefferson who, by reaffirming that tradition establishes it.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've just been looking into it in
Speaker 3: light of the recent question about whether or not President
Speaker 3: Trump can run for a third term. That Jefferson tradition
Speaker 3: holds until Grant, who actually does want to run for
Speaker 3: a third term, but Congress subjects and he kind of
Speaker 3: pushes back. The first president who's nominated and runs for
Speaker 3: a third term, of course, is Theodore Roosevelt on the
Speaker 3: third party ticket. He promised not to run again, and
Speaker 3: then he breaks that promise, and then Franklin Roosevelt and
Speaker 3: NFDR is such a great example of the kind of
Speaker 3: Julius Caesar because he's attacked throughout his term as a
Speaker 3: would be Caesar, and he dresses up in nineteen thirty
Speaker 3: four like Caesar. He has a Caesar themed birthday party,
Speaker 3: and Eleanor dresses like a Roman matron, and he in
Speaker 3: the middle. But it's in the middle of World War two.
Speaker 3: So he arranges to be drafted by the Democratic Convention.
Speaker 3: He runs for a third term, and then he wins
Speaker 3: a fourth. He dies after eighty two days after his election.
Speaker 3: Is the fourth term, and then Republicans in Congress just think,
Speaker 3: we this cannot happen again a president who keeps running.
Speaker 3: So in nineteen forty seven, Congress, which has been retaken
Speaker 3: by the Republicans, proposes the twenty second Amendment, which says
Speaker 3: you can't be elected to the office of president more
Speaker 3: than twice. It's ratified in nineteen fifty one, and ever
Speaker 3: since then, that's pretty well stuck. I mean sometimes Ronald
Speaker 3: Reagan wanted to repeal the twenty second Amendment after he
Speaker 3: left office, but there haven't been any real efforts to
Speaker 3: do it. It's relatively popular, and that brings it to
Speaker 3: our current debates. The President Trump had noted that his
Speaker 3: staff had discussed this potential loophole where you could run
Speaker 3: as a vice president, be elected, and then the elected
Speaker 3: president could resign and you could succeed that way. President
Speaker 3: Trump called that probably too cute, and I saw that
Speaker 3: just this morning. He seemed to acknowledge that the amendment
Speaker 3: clearly forbids a third term. He'd say, I'd say, if
Speaker 3: you read that, it's pretty clear I'm not allowed to run.
Speaker 3: But the debate is so interesting because it goes back
Speaker 3: to Hamilton and Jefferson to that dinner party that defined America.
Speaker 3: And the point is that all of the Framers are
Speaker 3: very concerned about presidents extending their power through dictatorial means.
Speaker 3: All the ancient republics of Greece and Rome had fallen
Speaker 3: because the virtue of the citizens hadn't led citizens to
Speaker 3: protect liberty and had made them succumb to these demagogic leaders.
Speaker 3: And that's why, though we've debated exactly how to impose
Speaker 3: term limits, I think Harry Truman put it best when
Speaker 3: he in nineteen fifty said he I think he said,
Speaker 3: I know I could be elected and continue to break
Speaker 3: the old president, but it shouldn't be done. The president
Speaker 3: should continue to be limited by custom, based on the
Speaker 3: honor of the man in the office. And I think
Speaker 3: that's a great way.
Speaker 1: I agree. And you know that's what is so dangerous
Speaker 1: by it.
Speaker 2: You know that dinner of course, certainly, at least in
Speaker 2: Jefferson's estimation, you had Hamilton crossing the rubicon, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's it. You know, this guy was a lifetime president.
Speaker 2: He thinks Julius Caesar was it. But you know, it's
Speaker 2: something that has really bothered me when people talk about
Speaker 2: this guy being the drugs are I think is William Bennett,
Speaker 2: and he.
Speaker 1: Accepted that term, and it's.
Speaker 2: Like, well, you know, Zar is Caesar, right, it's the
Speaker 2: same thing, and we see this over and over again.
Speaker 1: We got a czar for this and a zar for that.
Speaker 2: So we have this trend towards a kind of authoritarian dictatorship, leader,
Speaker 2: strong man, whatever you want to call it. I think
Speaker 2: it's a very dangerous trend. And the thing that concerned
Speaker 2: me is I said earlier in the program, you know,
Speaker 2: if we don't understand the history, if we don't understand
Speaker 2: the constitution and how we got there, you know, we're
Speaker 2: still having these same arguments.
Speaker 1: As you point out.
Speaker 2: This whole purpose of your book is the point out
Speaker 2: how this has gone back and forth, and we have
Speaker 2: these two polls that were drawn to and we don't
Speaker 2: understand history. We don't really see human nature and how
Speaker 2: human nature is continually going back to these types of
Speaker 2: things over and over again, so we don't have a
Speaker 2: context for it. But I think that's what's really important
Speaker 2: about your book and about studying history and looking at
Speaker 2: these different philosophies that are there towards government. I think
Speaker 2: it's very important. Now so we have That was the
Speaker 2: introduction to your book, and then you're talking about how
Speaker 2: the will of the majority should always prevail Thomas Jefferson's
Speaker 2: declaration those one of the things that Steve Bannon was saying.
Speaker 2: He said, well, the will of the people is the kindstitution.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, no, I believe that the Constitution
Speaker 2: is a written document, and I think it is very
Speaker 2: important to have an established standard that is out there
Speaker 2: that is external to the people. I think you have
Speaker 2: to have some kind of an external standard so that
Speaker 2: you don't wind up with a dictator, or so that
Speaker 2: you know that you've got a dictator if they ignore
Speaker 2: that standard that's there. As someone who is working with
Speaker 2: the constitutional issues all the time with your organization, what
Speaker 2: do you think about that?
Speaker 3: Well, you're absolutely right that that's a central debate that
Speaker 3: goes back to the founding, the balance between democracy and
Speaker 3: rule by elites. How can we empower majorities while resisting
Speaker 3: the mob And that's the central reason the Constitutional Convention
Speaker 3: was called. Hamilton and Madison and the other federalist who
Speaker 3: are afraid of SHA's rebellion in western Massachusetts where debtors
Speaker 3: are mobbing the courthouses and the federal Armory. And Hamilton says,
Speaker 3: imagine that SHA's rebellion had been led by a caesar
Speaker 3: or a cattle line, he would have begun a demagogue
Speaker 3: and turned tyrant. So so much of the Constitution is
Speaker 3: designed to slow down deliberation, to prevent mobs from formalizing,
Speaker 3: to put on checks on direct democracy. At the same time,
Speaker 3: the will of the people must ultimately prevail. And that's
Speaker 3: why Jefferson's great vision was that the will of the
Speaker 3: majority should always ultimately prevail. He wanted to, believe it
Speaker 3: or not, a constitutional convention every nineteen years, so that
Speaker 3: the people could decide whether they still supported it. Hamilton
Speaker 3: was a disastrous idea because it would, you know, as
Speaker 3: a miracle the first convention had succeeded. But that balance
Speaker 3: between democracy and rule Biolits is central. Fdr is really
Speaker 3: amazing here. And you're so right about the importance, the
Speaker 3: urgent importance of studying history. I was so struck by
Speaker 3: how presidents throughout history have actually invoked the Hamilton and
Speaker 3: Jefferson debate to structure our understanding history. I was inspired
Speaker 3: to write the book when I saw that John Quincy
Speaker 3: Adams trace the entire development of America's political parties back
Speaker 3: to the initial debate between Hamilton and Jefferson about democracy
Speaker 3: versus aristocracy, which is the question we're talking about now,
Speaker 3: And that kind of Hamilton and Jefferson go up and
Speaker 3: down throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, and Lincoln says
Speaker 3: that he's a Jeffersonian even as he's extending the powers
Speaker 3: of Congress dramatically. During the Civil War, Theodore Roosevelt leads
Speaker 3: a Hamiltonian revival when a historian called Herbert Crowley calls
Speaker 3: on him to deploy Hamiltonian means for Jeffersonian ends. In
Speaker 3: other words, the Hamiltonians strong federal power for the Jeffersonian
Speaker 3: ends of democracy in curbing the corporations. But the most
Speaker 3: amazing turn, Hamilton stock crashes. After the stock market crash
Speaker 3: in nineteen twenty nine. No one likes Hamilton. Franklin Roosevelt
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty two reinvents the Democratic Party as the
Speaker 3: party of Jeffersonian democracy rather than limited government, and he
Speaker 3: makes Jefferson the patron saint of the New Deal. Now,
Speaker 3: this takes incredible hunts. Franklin Roosevelt's expanding government more than
Speaker 3: any other president in history. But he puts Jefferson on
Speaker 3: the nickel, and he builds the Jefferson Memorial, and he
Speaker 3: reinvents himself as the patron saint of Jeffersonian democracy. So
Speaker 3: this just shows how protean, how malleable Hamilton and Jefferson are.
Speaker 3: Both sides are often invoking them, you know, for both purposes.
Speaker 3: But then to close this part of the story, Ronald
Speaker 3: Reagan said that he left the Democratic Party in nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty because it had abandoned the principles of Jefferson and
Speaker 3: limited government, and he proposed to reinvent the Republican Party
Speaker 3: as the libertarian Jefferson rather than the Jefferson who hated
Speaker 3: the banks and the patron sainted a New Deal. And
Speaker 3: that really does bring us to today, where as you suggested,
Speaker 3: the sides are so scrambled, and in some sense both
Speaker 3: sides will still invoke both folks. President Trump said that
Speaker 3: he was running for office in twenty twenty because Democrats
Speaker 3: wanted to take down statues of Thomas Jefferson, and he
Speaker 3: was defending the founding ideals. Although he's certainly using executive
Speaker 3: power in ways that Jefferson would have questioned, whereas Joe
Speaker 3: Biden and the Democrats, you know, everyone's a Hamiltonian after
Speaker 3: the musical and President Obama, yeah, exactly at the White
Speaker 3: House and stuff. But they're hardly fans of Hamilton's fiscal
Speaker 3: responsibility or his principles of you know, of capitalism in
Speaker 3: the free market. So we're very much as always debating
Speaker 3: the legacy of these men. But that basic tension you
Speaker 3: just identified between democracy and rule by elites is central
Speaker 3: American history.
Speaker 2: And of course Jefferson was really well loved by the people.
Speaker 2: He's so linked to liberty if you're talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: the libertarian streak of it, but he was linked to
Speaker 2: liberty and the minds of the American people. We got
Speaker 2: towns and counties all across America that are named after Jefferson.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to claim that he is with them on
Speaker 2: their political journey. Of course, the Democrats for the longest
Speaker 2: time had the Jefferson Jackson dinners that they have there.
Speaker 2: And yet you know, they're pushing for a central bank,
Speaker 2: which neither of them liked. And so you know, it's
Speaker 2: kind of interesting to me, like I said, you know,
Speaker 2: we have this increasingly centralized all powerful government like Hamilton
Speaker 2: wanted to have. And yet everybody wants to pretend that
Speaker 2: they're Jefferson at the same time that this veneer of
Speaker 2: Jefferson that's there. Maybe with us Musical Hamilton, they're going
Speaker 2: to change that and finally own what is really there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: by the time you get to the third chapter, you
Speaker 2: talk about the struggle of the bank. Let's talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about that, because both of them are on
Speaker 2: different sides in terms of the bank. The Central Bank
Speaker 2: likes Hamilton. They put him on the ten dollar bill,
Speaker 2: but Jefferson they put him on a short lived two
Speaker 2: dollar bill. But talk a little bit about the struggle
Speaker 2: over the central bank and the national bank.
Speaker 3: It's amazing. This is the central debate in American constitutional history,
Speaker 3: and it resonates for the next hundred years. The question
Speaker 3: is whether Congress can set up a bank. It's the
Speaker 3: centerpiece of Hamilton's financial plan. He wants to assume the
Speaker 3: state debts and create reliable credit. But the problem is
Speaker 3: that Jefferson says it's unconstitutional. So Washington asked for memos
Speaker 3: from Jefferson and Hamilton, and he's become some of the
Speaker 3: most important constitutional memos in American history. Jefferson says that
Speaker 3: it's unconstitutional to create a bank because the Constitution allows
Speaker 3: Congress to create all means necessary and proper for promoting
Speaker 3: its enumerated ends. And although Congress has the power to
Speaker 3: tax and to promote the general welfare, creating a bank
Speaker 3: isn't absolutely or indispensably necessary to promoting the general welfare
Speaker 3: or raising taxes. Hamilton responds, and he pulls on all night,
Speaker 3: or he writes fourteen thousand words, and he said, you
Speaker 3: should interpret the necessary and proper clause liberally rather than strictly.
Speaker 3: And as long as a chosen means is conducive or
Speaker 3: appropriate or use for carrying out an enumerated end, then
Speaker 3: it's consistent with the Constitution. And since it might be
Speaker 3: useful to have a bank because that would promote credit,
Speaker 3: then the bank should be permissible. Washington sides with Hamilton
Speaker 3: rather than Jefferson. Then it goes up to the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court a few years later, and John Marshall, in one
Speaker 3: of the most important Supreme Court opinions ever called McCullough
Speaker 3: versus Maryland, sides with Hamilton over Jefferson. Marshall views himself
Speaker 3: as Hamilton's successor. He's writing Washington's biography. He has next
Speaker 3: to his desk Washington's papers given him by Bushrod Washington,
Speaker 3: who's Washington's nephew, and he reads in washington papers Hamilton's
Speaker 3: memo about the bank. He paraphrases it almost word for
Speaker 3: word in McCulla versus Maryland, and in one of the
Speaker 3: most famous sentences in constitutional history, Marshall says, let the
Speaker 3: end be legitimate. If the means are appropriate, then it's
Speaker 3: consistent with the Constitution, almost a direct paraphrase of Hamilton.
Speaker 3: And then for the next of the one hundred years,
Speaker 3: the constitutionality of the bank is still alive. Andrew Jackson
Speaker 3: resolves to kill the bank. He seizes Martin van Buren's
Speaker 3: hand and says, the bank is trying to kill me,
Speaker 3: but I won't kill it. He lets it expire. James
Speaker 3: Madison eventually, and having initially thought the bank was unconstitutional,
Speaker 3: changes his mind because he thinks the people have come
Speaker 3: to accept it, showing that he has a kind of
Speaker 3: evolving version of the Constitution. And this question of the
Speaker 3: ability of Congress to print paper money is central in
Speaker 3: the Civil War, and Lincoln actually appoints Supreme Court Justices
Speaker 3: to try to uphold his power to print paper money.
Speaker 3: And then I won't take you through the rest of
Speaker 3: American history right now. But when you think about the
Speaker 3: biggest disputes in American constitution constitutional history, including the constitutionality
Speaker 3: of the Missouri Compromise which led to the Civil War,
Speaker 3: the constitutionality of the post restruction reconstruction Civil Rights Act,
Speaker 3: all the way up to the constitutionality of healthcare reform,
Speaker 3: it all goes back to liberal versus strict construction. What's necessary,
Speaker 3: what's conducive, what's appropriate. And just last week or so,
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court is debating the constitutionality of the Voting
Speaker 3: Rights Act, and it all goes back to that same debate.
Speaker 3: So I was really struck how central this is. And
Speaker 3: the main debate in constitutional history is not between originalism
Speaker 3: and non originalism. It's between liberal and strict construction of
Speaker 3: the Constitution.
Speaker 1: Yes, whether or not we take the.
Speaker 2: Tenth Amendment very literally to say, well, if you don't
Speaker 2: have it listed there, you don't have those powers and so,
Speaker 2: but they won't always infer it in terms of the
Speaker 2: supremacy clause or the general Welfare Clause, or the Commerce
Speaker 2: Clause or something like that. Now you know that chapter
Speaker 2: that was You've got dates on many of these things
Speaker 2: as well. That was the debate in seventeen ninety seventeen
Speaker 2: ninety one, and then we move on to the nullification
Speaker 2: debate and whether or not that is the rightful remedy.
Speaker 2: That's you've got that date as seventeen ninety two to
Speaker 2: seventeen eighty. Let's talk a little bit about that, because
Speaker 2: of course nullification comes back in in the eighteen thirties
Speaker 2: and we nearly had a secession, and during the nullification
Speaker 2: crisis and the tariffs of abomination that happened. I've talked
Speaker 2: about that many times because you know, it's kind of
Speaker 2: the situation where they reached a compromise and they were
Speaker 2: able to defuse it without having a full blown secession,
Speaker 2: which happened like thirty years later. And I've looked at
Speaker 2: it kind of from the standpoint of the fourth Turning
Speaker 2: thesis of Strauss and how and how they're looking at
Speaker 2: about every eighty years you have this major restructuring. I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: it just it was like the society wasn't really primed
Speaker 2: for it at that point, but the timing was right.
Speaker 2: Thirty years later, but nullflication was always a big issue.
Speaker 2: Talk a little bit about that back in seventeen ninety
Speaker 2: two to seventeen eighty what was going on with nulflication
Speaker 2: at that point in time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you really well described the debate, and it goes
Speaker 3: right back to Hamilton and Jefferson's debate over the Alien
Speaker 3: and Sedition Acts. So, in seventeen ninety eight, the Federalists,
Speaker 3: led by John Adams, pass this law, and it's the
Speaker 3: greatest assault on free speech in American history. It makes
Speaker 3: it a crime to criticize the Federalist President John Adams,
Speaker 3: but not the Republican Vice President Thomas Jefferson. It's a
Speaker 3: pure political hatchet job, basically. So Jefferson and Madison object
Speaker 3: and they write the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions claiming that
Speaker 3: these laws are unconstitutional. Madison always takes a moderate and
Speaker 3: middle position between Hamilton and Jefferson. Sometimes it's so complicated
Speaker 3: that only he can understands it. And he says, if
Speaker 3: states don't think that a law is constitutional, they can
Speaker 3: interpose an objection. No one knows what this means, except
Speaker 3: maybe like sending a stern letter saying that they don't
Speaker 3: like it. But Jefferson goes further and in the Kentucky Resolution,
Speaker 3: he says, if a state doesn't think that a federal
Speaker 3: law is constitutional, it can nullify or refuse to obey it.
Speaker 3: That's too much for Madison. He thinks that would lead
Speaker 3: to secession, and indeed it does. As the war approaches,
Speaker 3: Southern opponents of federal power invoke Jefferson's Kentucky Resolution for
Speaker 3: the principle that states can refuse to carry out federal
Speaker 3: laws that they disagree with. And it comes to a
Speaker 3: head first, as you said, in the nullification controversy arising
Speaker 3: out of the tariff of Abominations in eighteen twenty eight,
Speaker 3: when South Carolina objects that this northern tariff is going
Speaker 3: to hurt its commerce, and John Calhoun says, who's Andrew
Speaker 3: Jackson's vice president says that South Carolina can refuse to
Speaker 3: carry out the tariff. It's an incredible moment of testing
Speaker 3: for Andrew Jackson. After all, he's a Jeffersonian who generally
Speaker 3: likes limited government. But in this noble decision to favor
Speaker 3: union over secession, Jackson gives a toast. He says, liberty
Speaker 3: and union, they must be preserved, and he insists on
Speaker 3: enforcing federal law and not allow South Carolina to nullify.
Speaker 3: So that is the first great statement of nationalists in
Speaker 3: this period. But nevertheless, Calhoun and the Southern Secession has
Speaker 3: continued to invoke Jefferson, and finally, right before the Civil War,
Speaker 3: they claim that the South can secede from the Union
Speaker 3: because we are a compact of states and federal law
Speaker 3: is not supreme. Once again, Madison disagrees with that. He
Speaker 3: thinks that once states agreed to form the Union, they
Speaker 3: can't unilaterally secede. Abraham Lincoln cites Madison and John Marshall
Speaker 3: and James Wilson, all nationalists, when he denies the South's
Speaker 3: power to secede. And that's one of the precipitents of
Speaker 3: the Civil War, the constitutionality of secession, and it takes
Speaker 3: the Civil War, and the war came, as Lincoln said,
Speaker 3: and all the blood and tragic loss that resulted from
Speaker 3: that to establish the proposition that we the people of
Speaker 3: the United States, are sovereign, that states can't unilaterally secede
Speaker 3: for the Union, and that nullification is on constitutional.
Speaker 2: And of course Jefferson, in terms of as point, I
Speaker 2: want to have frequent constitutional Conventions because he was so
Speaker 2: heavily involved in the idea of self governance and that
Speaker 2: people be able to make that determination. And the nation
Speaker 2: had been born by declaring its independence from Great Britain,
Speaker 2: and so in a sense, you know, as the writer
Speaker 2: of the Declaration of independence, he's looking at this and saying,
Speaker 2: you know, we were born out of secession, and we
Speaker 2: have the right of self determination to determine where we're
Speaker 2: going to be. It's interesting that today, of course, we're
Speaker 2: still seeing echoes of this, especially with what's happening with
Speaker 2: immigration and other issues. And we've had another aspect of
Speaker 2: this it's been added, which of course is the non
Speaker 2: commandeering thing, saying that you can't force a state to
Speaker 2: work along with with the federal government on its agenda
Speaker 2: if the state doesn't agree with it. I think one
Speaker 2: of the things that's kind of been the way that
Speaker 2: they have moved to have a direct confrontation is kind
Speaker 2: of the oblique method of saying, well, we will pay
Speaker 2: you money or will with whole funds depending on whether
Speaker 2: or not you do what we tell you to do
Speaker 2: from the federal government. And so that method of I
Speaker 2: call it bribery or blackmail financially. That has kind of
Speaker 2: kept this issue from coming to a head up to
Speaker 2: this point, and we still see aspects of it. When
Speaker 2: California wants to go their own way on immigration, they
Speaker 2: threaten them with removing funds, just as they do on
Speaker 2: issues about bathrooms and gender and things like that.
Speaker 3: You're so right that the central question of the residual
Speaker 3: power of states rights out of the Tenth Amendment remains
Speaker 3: one of America's central constitutional questions. The constitutionality of secession
Speaker 3: turned on who was sovereign the people of the United
Speaker 3: people of each state. And as you say, there's still
Speaker 3: some states, and now some of them were blue rather
Speaker 3: than red, that are claiming there should be a residual
Speaker 3: right to secede. And more broadly, this question of when
Speaker 3: the federal government can commandeer the states and what the
Speaker 3: residual state sovereignty is remains crucial. Very Goldwater, when he
Speaker 3: began to flment the Conservative Revolution in response to the
Speaker 3: New Deal, said that the Tenth Amendment was central, and
Speaker 3: on the current Supreme Court, many of the justices invoked
Speaker 3: the Tenth Amendment in arguing that the Obama healthcare mandate
Speaker 3: was unconstitutional and that you can't commandeer the states. Justice
Speaker 3: Anthony Kennedy was a big fan of federalism and insisted
Speaker 3: that federal and state power had to be kept within
Speaker 3: their appointed spheres. He said, the founders split the atom
Speaker 3: of sovereignty. It all goes back to that initial Hamilton
Speaker 3: Jefferson debate, and the truth is we're not entirely there's disagreement.
Speaker 3: There's not consensus on the question of whether the nation
Speaker 3: is totally sovereign as Hamilton said, whether the states or
Speaker 3: sovereign as Jefferson said, or whether there's a kind of
Speaker 3: dual sovereignty as Madison said, which I think is the
Speaker 3: best reading of the Constitution, which part where we the
Speaker 3: people are sovereign, but we parcel out some sovereignty to
Speaker 3: the states and the federal government and we've got to
Speaker 3: keep the balance between them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's basically Wady, but it's at the Amendment.
Speaker 2: These powers have been delegated by the people in the States.
Speaker 2: So these debates that this is why your book is
Speaker 2: so important, because the debates that we're faced with on
Speaker 2: all these court and divisive issues that are there, these
Speaker 2: have been debated from the very beginning. Again, between these
Speaker 2: two polls of Jefferson and Hamilton. Your next chapter here
Speaker 2: is eighteen hundred eighteen twenty six, and this is President Jefferson,
Speaker 2: Chief Justice Marshall and Aaron Burr in court.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Well, first I have to say what a villain Aaron
Speaker 3: Burr was. A story has been wishy washy about.
Speaker 2: When it was in North Carolina. We had a descendant
Speaker 2: of his who became a senator.
Speaker 3: It was better than he was. He was charming and
Speaker 3: you know, a rogue, and very pleasant to be to
Speaker 3: have drinks with. But the guy was dead to rights.
Speaker 3: Henry Adams, the historian, found in the archives of the
Speaker 3: British Ambassador, a letter where Aaron Burr offered his service
Speaker 3: to the British in exchange for their supporting his efforts
Speaker 3: to lead a secessionist movement in Spanish Louisiana and set
Speaker 3: himself up as dictator of Mexico. So he may not
Speaker 3: have been technically guilty of treason because, as John Marshall
Speaker 3: said after Jefferson prosecuted him, the Constitution sets a very
Speaker 3: high bar. You need two witnesses and an overt act.
Speaker 3: But there's no question that he was conspiring to secede
Speaker 3: from the Union. Canald, he was totally abound to Darnold,
Speaker 3: and that's what was so. And then that's why Hamilton died.
Speaker 3: Remember Hamilton really distrusts Jefferson, of course, but he thinks
Speaker 3: Jefferson is a patriot, and he thinks Burr is a trader,
Speaker 3: and that's why he calls Burr a trader. And that's
Speaker 3: why Burr challenges him to a duel and he sacrifices
Speaker 3: his life because of his devotion to the Union, and
Speaker 3: Jefferson joins him in this. So after Hamilton dies, Jefferson
Speaker 3: decides to prosecute Burr for treason. And this precipitates the
Speaker 3: huge clash between Jefferson and John Marshall and the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: The John Marshall is a Federalist redoubt. After the Federals
Speaker 3: have lost the election, they appoint all these Federalist justices
Speaker 3: to pack the courts. John Adams smuggled in martialists chief
Speaker 3: Justice during the waning days of his administration, and Marshall
Speaker 3: sets out to defend Hamiltonian values, namely property rights and
Speaker 3: national commerce over states rights and too much democracy. And
Speaker 3: Marshall has these huge classes with Jefferson. The most famous one,
Speaker 3: Marbury versus Madison, involves can he order Jefferson to turn
Speaker 3: over a commission that Adams had made to a judge
Speaker 3: and Marshall doesn't want to issue in order that he
Speaker 3: knows will be defied because it'll expose the court as weak.
Speaker 3: We're having today, is the president going to defy the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court? Marshall dodges the question by saying the court
Speaker 3: has the power to order the subpoena, but he's not
Speaker 3: going to do it now because the act authorizing this
Speaker 3: isid poena to be turned over as unconstitutional. Even to
Speaker 3: state this shows he was such a master of what
Speaker 3: Jefferson called twistifications. He would come up with these where
Speaker 3: he complicated legal compromises.
Speaker 1: That twistification. We need to bring that back. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Jefferson also said Marshall that he's so untrustworthy that if
Speaker 3: you asked me the time of day, I'll say I
Speaker 3: don't know, because I'll twist my words against me. They
Speaker 3: really disliked each other. They were distant cousins, and I
Speaker 3: think Marshall's Jefferson had courted the lady who became Marshall's
Speaker 3: aunt or something like that, so that they have fled
Speaker 3: in the family. But the point is it's a huge clash. Basically,
Speaker 3: the class between Jefferson and John Marshall is the clash
Speaker 3: between Jefferson and Hamilton continued after Hamilton's death because John
Speaker 3: Marshall views himself as Hamilton's successor, and in the end
Speaker 3: in the Burr trial, Marshall does order Jefferson to turn
Speaker 3: over papers related to Burr. This faces Jefferson with a question,
Speaker 3: and he briefly considers not a bank or abiding by
Speaker 3: the decision. He does decide to turn over the papers,
Speaker 3: establishing the president that the president can be subpoenaed. But Jefferson,
Speaker 3: in his response to Marshall, declares that the president has
Speaker 3: an ability to interpret the Constitution differently than the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court and to follow his own conclusions. This is a
Speaker 3: principle that becomes known as departmentalism, where each department can
Speaker 3: reach its own judgment, and carried to its extreme, it
Speaker 3: would allow the president to defy the Supreme Court when
Speaker 3: he disagreed with it. Interestingly, no president has taken that
Speaker 3: radical position and openly defied the Supreme Court. Lincoln briefly
Speaker 3: defied Roger Tawny for two weeks during the Civil War,
Speaker 3: when Tawny ordered him to free a Confederate prisoner and
Speaker 3: said that he'd unconstitutionally suspended habeas corpus. Lincoln didn't do
Speaker 3: that for two weeks. Then he did comply. But Tawny
Speaker 3: was acting as a district court judge, not sitting for
Speaker 3: the whole Supreme Court. So no president has ever openly
Speaker 3: defied the full Supreme Court. But the point of that chapter,
Speaker 3: the clashes between Marshall and Jefferson are that they also
Speaker 3: establish the constitutional battles that were still facing today between
Speaker 3: liberal and strict construction of the Constitution. And remember Marshall's approach,
Speaker 3: which he calls liberal or fair construction, which he gets
Speaker 3: from Hamilton, is always construe federal power fairly, not to
Speaker 3: be unlimited, but broadly consistently with its spirit. And Jefferson,
Speaker 3: as you said, said if the power isn't explicitly enumerated,
Speaker 3: then you shouldn't construe it to be present, and you
Speaker 3: should also carry yourself back to the spirit in which
Speaker 3: the amendment was passed. It's strict construction. And that debate
Speaker 3: is won by Marshall temporarily, but then just to finish
Speaker 3: this part of the story, Marshall is succeeded by Roger
Speaker 3: Tawny and Andrew Jackson wants Roger Tawni to constrict federal
Speaker 3: power and to prevent Congress from chartering a bank, and
Speaker 3: Tawny gets in and he comes up with a more
Speaker 3: Jeffersonian approach on the Supreme Court, and it culminates in
Speaker 3: the debate over the Missouri Compromise, which leads to the
Speaker 3: Civil War.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is.
Speaker 2: It is amazing to see these same strains being pulled
Speaker 2: back and forth as we go through history. I love
Speaker 2: the way your book is set up. It's very interesting,
Speaker 2: of course, with Marbury versus Madison. If I remember correctly,
Speaker 2: Jefferson said, well, that's the end of the Constitution if
Speaker 2: we're going to have the Supreme Court be able to
Speaker 2: decide and have the final say as to whether not
Speaker 2: something is constitutional. I'm kind of paraphrasing him here. Maybe
Speaker 2: you know the quote, but.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely right. And he said that Marshall would would
Speaker 3: make a thing of wax out of the Constitution.
Speaker 1: That he is true.
Speaker 3: It so liberally is to eliminate Paul powers, and that's
Speaker 3: what he wants strict construction to prevent the Marshall from
Speaker 3: turning the Constitution into a thing of wax.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's a great way to put it.
Speaker 2: Today they talk about being a living document, but I
Speaker 2: like the idea of it being a thing of wax.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: And then you have the period from eighteen twenty six
Speaker 2: to eighteen sixty one. You say all honor to Jefferson,
Speaker 2: and so up until the point of the Civil War.
Speaker 2: You know, we have everybody again. Jefferson, who spoke so
Speaker 2: eloquently about liberty, captured everyone's imagination in America, and he
Speaker 2: is the one that everybody wants to be seen as.
Speaker 2: Talk a little bit about that period in history there,
Speaker 2: because there we're going through the nullification crisis and many
Speaker 2: other things.
Speaker 3: Absolutely and culminating in the debate over the constitutionality of
Speaker 3: the Missouri Compromise, which is the central compromise over slavery
Speaker 3: in the early Republic. The basic question is does Congress
Speaker 3: have the power to ban slavery in the newly acquired
Speaker 3: territories and in new States? And Jefferson initially said yes.
Speaker 3: He in seventeen eighty four sponsored a provision called the
Speaker 3: Jefferson Proviso, which would have allowed Congress to ban slavery
Speaker 3: in the territories. But then he becomes president. First of all,
Speaker 3: he doubles the size of the US by buying Louisiana,
Speaker 3: even though he's unconstitutional, but he swallows his doubts because
Speaker 3: he's more interested in the obvious benefits of doubling the
Speaker 3: size of the US. But then he really is afraid
Speaker 3: that the Missouri Compromise is going to lead to civil war,
Speaker 3: so he argues that it's unconstitutional, embracing the same narrow
Speaker 3: construction of the territories clause that he'd rejected in buying Louisiana.
Speaker 3: So it gets up to the Supreme Court and it
Speaker 3: all comes back to that same question liberal versus strict
Speaker 3: construction of the single word territories, and Chief Justice Roger Tawny,
Speaker 3: channeling the late but not the earlier Jefferson says, because
Speaker 3: the Constitution allows you to pass regulations for the federal
Speaker 3: for governing land in the federal territory singular, it only
Speaker 3: covers the territory that was held by the US at
Speaker 3: the time of the founding, not future acquired territories plural.
Speaker 3: It's like, what the meaning of the word is incredibly legalistic.
Speaker 3: And the point here is that you know Jefferson had
Speaker 3: flipped on this question, and it's the central constitutional question
Speaker 3: of the anti Bellum period. The entire Republican Party is
Speaker 3: founded by Lincoln and others in eighteen fifty seven on
Speaker 3: the proposition the Congress does have the power to ban
Speaker 3: slavery in the territories. So Tawny is imposing a contested
Speaker 3: interpretation of the Constitution above the consensus of the Republican
Speaker 3: Party as well as many other pro popular sovereignty democrats,
Speaker 3: and his opinion has the effect of helping to precipitate
Speaker 3: the Civil War. Tawny wrongly thinks that this will end
Speaker 3: the divisions over slavery, but as usual, when the court
Speaker 3: tries to solve the contested question without clear constitutional answers,
Speaker 3: it made things worse. And Lincoln says that he will
Speaker 3: not follow the dread Scott decision except with regard to
Speaker 3: the parties in the case, but otherwise it doesn't view
Speaker 3: it as part of the Constitution, interestingly embracing a kind
Speaker 3: of Jeffersonian view of the president's power to interpret the
Speaker 3: Constitution separately from the Court. That's when Lincoln stands in
Speaker 3: front of Independence Hall in eighteen sixty one and he says,
Speaker 3: I've never had a thought politically that doesn't stem from
Speaker 3: Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. I'd rather be assassinated
Speaker 3: on this spot than abandoned the principles of Jefferson. It's
Speaker 3: incredibly powerful state by the great emancipator. Why is Lincoln
Speaker 3: a Jeffersonian? After all, He's embracing a version of federal
Speaker 3: power that really wants to expand the government in ways
Speaker 3: that are consistent with Hamilton's views. Basically because you know,
Speaker 3: Hamilton's name is Mud and he's viewed as an aristocrat,
Speaker 3: and the Federalist Party is dead and Lincoln mentor Henry Clay,
Speaker 3: the founder of the Whig Party, studied with Thomas Jefferson's
Speaker 3: law tutor, George with and views himself as a Jeffersonian nationalist.
Speaker 3: So that's why. Plus Lincoln wants to win, and everyone
Speaker 3: loves Jefferson, so that's why he embraces Jefferson before the
Speaker 3: Civil War. But the great constitutional achievement of Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 3: is to inscribe into the Constitution the principle of liberty
Speaker 3: for all and by talking about the goals of the
Speaker 3: Declaration and the Constitution in the phrase liberty for all.
Speaker 3: He's inspired by Jefferson, and that's what leads to the
Speaker 3: post Civil War amendments to the Constitution. It's just an
Speaker 3: amazing reminder of how central that old Hamilton Jefferson debate
Speaker 3: was in leading the court to strike down the Missouri
Speaker 3: Compromise and helping to cause the Civil War.
Speaker 2: And as you say in the next chapter, you know
Speaker 2: post Well from eighteen sixty one on, Hamilton is waxing.
Speaker 2: In other words, Hamilton is growing, and it's becoming more
Speaker 2: and more concentrated and centralized. As many people pointed out,
Speaker 2: they would say the United States are before the Civil War,
Speaker 2: but after that they said, the United States is, And
Speaker 2: so we have this tremendous consolidation that happens because of
Speaker 2: the Civil War.
Speaker 1: Speak to that.
Speaker 3: It's so striking, isn't it. Jackson was the first Well,
Speaker 3: James Wilson and Governor Morris, who wrote the Preamble to
Speaker 3: the Constitution, talked about the United States are. Jackson picked
Speaker 3: it up, and then the Civil War establishes that were
Speaker 3: a plural union. I think it's so inspiring that James
Speaker 3: Garfield led a Hamilton revival after the Civil War when
Speaker 3: he read the collected works of Hamilton in the library
Speaker 3: that Hamilton's son James published them, and Halton Garfield read
Speaker 3: them and said, I want to make him the patron
Speaker 3: saint of reconstruction. Then Reconstruction Congress people like John Bingham,
Speaker 3: who's an incredible admirer of John Marshall, site Marshall and
Speaker 3: Hamilton in when they proposed the thirteen, fourteenth, and fifteenth Amendments,
Speaker 3: and the fourteenth Amendment in section five gives Congress the
Speaker 3: power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation, beingham is
Speaker 3: trying to empower Congress in ways that Hamilton would have wanted.
Speaker 3: And the first draft of the fourteenth Amendment says Congress
Speaker 3: shall have all power to make laws necessary and proper
Speaker 3: to enforce equal protection. He's taking that liberal construction of
Speaker 3: that necessary and proper clause, all channeled by Hamilton. These
Speaker 3: guys are such good lawyers, but more importantly, they're great historians.
Speaker 3: They studied history as kids, they were inspired by their heroes,
Speaker 3: and they want to make Hamilton and Marshall central. And
Speaker 3: then the great debates over reconstruction, and it's such a
Speaker 3: tragic period because Congress passes these laws and then there's
Speaker 3: a violent reaction and black civil rights are subverted and
Speaker 3: black people are lynched and murdered. And then the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court goes on to strike down a lot of the
Speaker 3: pillars of reconstruction, including the Civil Rights Act of eighteen
Speaker 3: seventy five, which forbids discrimination in public accommodations, and also
Speaker 3: the ku Klux Klan Act of eighteen seventy seven, which
Speaker 3: allows the punishment of racially motivated violence. And in striking
Speaker 3: those acts down, they invoke Jefferson's strict construction of the
Speaker 3: necessary and Proper clause, and they ignore the fact that
Speaker 3: Hamilton had the opposite view. And Justice Bradley is kind
Speaker 3: of a villain of my book because he really does
Speaker 3: a number on reconstruction and strikes all those acts down.
Speaker 3: And the hero of this part is John Marshall Harlan,
Speaker 3: a great justice named after John Marshall because his father
Speaker 3: admires Marshall so much. Harlan he is the president of
Speaker 3: the Alexander Hamilton Memorial Society, and he writes the only
Speaker 3: dissenting opinions both in the civil rights cases which strike
Speaker 3: down the Civil Rights Act and in Plusy versus Ferguson,
Speaker 3: the infamous case which upholds segregation in railroads, and Harlan
Speaker 3: nobly says the Constitution is color blind and neither knows
Speaker 3: nor tolerates classes among citizens, and he explicitlytes Hamilton's broad
Speaker 3: construction of congressional power. It takes another one hundred years
Speaker 3: for Furbid Marshall to read Harland's opinion allowed before he
Speaker 3: argues Brown versus Board of Education. Today, Justice Neil Gorsich
Speaker 3: has a portrait of Harlan in his chambers, showing that
Speaker 3: Harlan has been embraced by strict constructionist conservatives as well
Speaker 3: as liberals alike. But it all goes back to the
Speaker 3: Hamilton Revival when Bingham wants to make Hamilton rather than Jefferson,
Speaker 3: the patron saint of reconstruction.
Speaker 2: Interesting and as we look at reconstruction and the idea
Speaker 2: that we had a standing army that was a part
Speaker 2: of that posse comittatis, which is now back in current
Speaker 2: events because of the actions of Ice and the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: That was a kind of a capstone to reconstruction and
Speaker 2: some of the abuses that were happening with a standing
Speaker 2: army at that point in time. So all these things
Speaker 2: keep coming back, don't.
Speaker 3: They They really do. And to make things even better
Speaker 3: for the Hamilton Jefferson narrative, although not for the country.
Speaker 3: The debate over posse comitantis is part of this long
Speaker 3: standing debate about the president's power to call up the
Speaker 3: militia to enforce federal law, which goes back to the
Speaker 3: Insurrection Act of eighteen oh seven, sponsored by Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 3: It's amazing that Jefferson is the guy who, before the
Speaker 3: Founding says, oh, we should a little rebellion every now
Speaker 3: and then is a good thing, and we should pardon
Speaker 3: those whiskey rebels, and we've got to moisten the blood
Speaker 3: of tyrants with revolution. I mean, he endorses much revolution,
Speaker 3: but then he becomes president and totally switches his tune.
Speaker 3: When Vermont rebels against his hated embargo. Jefferson has this
Speaker 3: disastrous economic policy. We're cutting off all trade with the
Speaker 3: rest of the world. New England.
Speaker 1: That's familiar to but go ahead, let's sorry. I everything goes.
Speaker 3: Back to those days. Well in New England then, as
Speaker 3: now actually rebels and Jefferson writes to Madison, do I
Speaker 3: the power to send out the troops to stop these guys.
Speaker 3: Mediicin's I don't think so. So they pass the Insurrection Act,
Speaker 3: which is the same one that has been invoked throughout
Speaker 3: American history, and President Jackson in votes it to put
Speaker 3: down a rebellion, Lincoln invokes it to put down secession.
Speaker 3: Grant invokes it after the Civil War to try to
Speaker 3: put down some of that mob violence, and it goes
Speaker 3: all the way up today. And the last time it
Speaker 3: was invoked it was during the Civil Rights movement, and
Speaker 3: then George H. W. Bush involved it to put down
Speaker 3: the Rodney King riot. So that was the last time.
Speaker 3: But this question, which is obviously central now both with
Speaker 3: the Puzzi Comitatus Act and also the question ken President
Speaker 3: Trump send guards from one state into another, goes back
Speaker 3: to that initial Hamilton Jefferson debate, and I having read
Speaker 3: the Insurrection Act as it was amended over the years,
Speaker 3: it does seem to give the president pretty broad authority
Speaker 3: to send the troops, even for domestic law enforcement. Although
Speaker 3: Jefferson and Hamilton initially thought that you couldn't federalize the
Speaker 3: troops for domestic law enforcement only to put that insurrection
Speaker 3: or serious external threats, but because Congress has succeeded in
Speaker 3: the expansion of executive authority over the years, the president's
Speaker 3: authority may be unconstrained.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very interesting debate we have there. And then
Speaker 2: we go to the period of the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: You have this title as Hamiltonian means to achieve jefferson
Speaker 2: ends question mark, And so we've got the time of
Speaker 2: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and the new Nationalism. Henry Cabot Lodge,
Speaker 2: Calvin Coolidge talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: I was partly inspired to write this book when I
Speaker 3: read this historian from the progressive era, Herbert Crowley, calling
Speaker 3: on Theodore Roosevelt to deploy Hamiltonian means for Jeffersonian ends.
Speaker 3: Crowley was the founder of the New Republic magazine. As
Speaker 3: it happens, I spent almost two decades there the legal
Speaker 3: affairs at it her a while ago, and I just
Speaker 3: thought that was an interesting phrase, and I was so
Speaker 3: struck that Roosevelt used it and quoted it word for
Speaker 3: word when he said, I am a Hamiltonian with regard
Speaker 3: to my views of federal power, and a Jeffersonian in
Speaker 3: my views about democracy, so obviously the categories were getting scrambled.
Speaker 3: And this is the period when Theodore Roosevelt makes Hamilton
Speaker 3: the hero of the progressive era, and then Coolidge and
Speaker 3: Harding make Hamilton the hero of the Gilded Age. Coolidge
Speaker 3: really admires Hamilton, who he studies at Amorrist College. He
Speaker 3: revers the Founding, in particular the Puritan basis of the Founding,
Speaker 3: and he sees Hamilton as a patron saint both a
Speaker 3: free enterprise and of limited government. It's so striking, and
Speaker 3: there's a huge change in the understanding of executive power
Speaker 3: in the election of nineteen twelve. If you had to
Speaker 3: pick a single moment for the growth of the modern
Speaker 3: imperial presidency would be nineteen twelve, when both Theodore Roosevelt
Speaker 3: and Woodrow Wilson, the Progressive and Democratic candidate, say that
Speaker 3: the president is a steward of the people who should
Speaker 3: directly channel popular will, and William Howard Taff, the old constitutionalist,
Speaker 3: thinks that they're both demagogues and that the founders thought
Speaker 3: that the president should be a chief magistrate who enforces
Speaker 3: the laws of Congress but doesn't communicate directly with the people. Interestingly,
Speaker 3: all three of them are historians who love Hamilton and
Speaker 3: Theodore Roosevelt, isn't it? I thought this was so cool.
Speaker 3: Theodore Roosevelt wrote a biography of Gouvernor Morris, who is
Speaker 3: a big Hamiltonian. He's a great historian as well as
Speaker 3: a great leader. Woodrow Wilson is the only president who
Speaker 3: ever got a PhD in history or in anything, and
Speaker 3: he admires Hamilton, although he also admires Hagel, the German philosopher,
Speaker 3: and criticize the natural law separation of powers basis of
Speaker 3: the Declaration of Independence. And William Howard Taff thinks that
Speaker 3: Hamilton and Marshall are the greatest Americans ever and writes
Speaker 3: a book on presidential power. So, George will once told
Speaker 3: me that you can tell what kind of conservatives some
Speaker 3: one is today based on where they would have stood
Speaker 3: in the election of nineteen twelve. And if you're a
Speaker 3: kind of populist conservative, then you'd love Wilson Roosevelt. And
Speaker 3: if you're a constitutionalist conservative, you'd like William Howard Taft.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would have gone for Caft. I think no
Speaker 1: doubt about it.
Speaker 3: And so I have to just briefly say as it happens.
Speaker 3: I wrote a short biography of William Howard Taft for
Speaker 3: the American President series a while ago. I didn't know
Speaker 3: much about him until I got the assignment, but I
Speaker 3: really came to admire him as our last constitutionalist president.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Wow, he's a great man, not just by his size,
Speaker 2: but he was an outsized character in history as well.
Speaker 2: And so at this point in time, this is also
Speaker 2: when we have a major restructuring of our country with
Speaker 2: the bank with.
Speaker 1: A federal reserve.
Speaker 2: You're talking about these guys being fans of Alexander Hamilton
Speaker 2: when we can certainly see that with a Federal Reserve
Speaker 2: Act that happens at that point in time. And then
Speaker 2: we have nineteen thirty two to sixty eight, so New Dealism,
Speaker 2: FDR and other things. The economic Hamiltonianism has become political.
Speaker 2: Jefferson's Jeffersonians talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Another example of a time when best selling books are changing,
Speaker 3: Hamilton and Jefferson going up and down. Theodore Roosevelt's inspired
Speaker 3: to embrace Hamilton when he reads a best seller by
Speaker 3: a woman called Gertrude Averton, The Conqueror being the true
Speaker 3: and romantic tale of Hamilton it's the Hamilton Musical of
Speaker 3: its day, and it makes Hamilton the star of the moment.
Speaker 3: But FDR is inspired to resurrect Jefferson after reading a
Speaker 3: book by a guy called Claude Bowers called Jefferson Versus Hamilton,
Speaker 3: The Struggle for Democracy over Aristocracy. And FDR invites Bowers
Speaker 3: to speak to the Democratic Convention of nineteen twenty eight
Speaker 3: and he's a huge success, and then he reinvents himself
Speaker 3: as the second coming of Thomas Jefferson based on his
Speaker 3: reading of this book. FDR is a Hudson Valley aristocrat
Speaker 3: who you'd think his grandfather had actually been an ally
Speaker 3: of Hamilton, but he just identifies with Jefferson, the Democratic
Speaker 3: aristocrat and who he's collecting stamps and tracing his ancestry
Speaker 3: back to the founding and decides to make himself the
Speaker 3: second coming of Thomas Jefferson. But this raises the question
Speaker 3: of the limits on the New Deal administrative state. As
Speaker 3: you said, independent agencies were created during the Progressive era
Speaker 3: by Woodrow Wilson and Louis Brandeis, who's another hero of mine. Actually,
Speaker 3: Brandeis was a great Jeffersonian. He admired Jefferson more than anyone,
Speaker 3: and in constructing agencies like the FED and the Federal
Speaker 3: Trade Commission, he viewed them as a combination of public
Speaker 3: and private control that would prevent too much centralization in
Speaker 3: the federal government. And Brandice upheld the constitutionality of the
Speaker 3: independent agencies in the nineteen thirties in a case called
Speaker 3: Humphrey's Executor that was a unanimous Supreme Court decision. That's
Speaker 3: the central question in the Supreme Court's going to hear
Speaker 3: in a couple of weeks. Are independent agencies constitutional today?
Speaker 3: And lots of folks think are going to overturn that
Speaker 3: Humphy's Executive decision and strike down the agencies on the
Speaker 3: so called unitary executive theory, which says that the president
Speaker 3: can fire anyone he appoints. Who's the patron saint of
Speaker 3: the unitary executive theory? Alexander Hamilton, he came up with
Speaker 3: the idea of it in his Pacificus letters, and Reagan
Speaker 3: administration lawyers invoked it when they first came up with
Speaker 3: the unitary executive theory. And who's the patron saint of
Speaker 3: the constitutionality of the independent agencies? To Thomas Jefferson, who
Speaker 3: brandis invoked in the Humphrey's Executor case. So once again
Speaker 3: I think you got the thesis of the book. Now
Speaker 3: it all goes back to that initial class.
Speaker 2: So interesting, and of course what we've seen as everybody
Speaker 2: wanted to embrace the image and the reputation of Jefferson
Speaker 2: and identify themselves as Jeffersonians. And again I think it
Speaker 2: was because Jefferson was so linked with the idea of liberty,
Speaker 2: you know, as the author of the decreuischem independence and
Speaker 2: all the rest of this stuff. But now lately there's
Speaker 2: been this effort in modern times to link him to slavery,
Speaker 2: and so I think he has his reputation has been tarnished.
Speaker 2: Now we've got Hamilton with his own musical, and we
Speaker 2: have Jefferson who is now decried as someone who had slaves,
Speaker 2: and so there's been a reversal of that. And I
Speaker 2: think that's kind of a key thing for where we
Speaker 2: are right now, because again people would have this veneer
Speaker 2: of Jefferson there, but they were really were consolidating power,
Speaker 2: because that's just the nature of politicians and politics is
Speaker 2: that you would have a consolidation of powers. Act and said,
Speaker 2: but speak a little bit about that and where we are,
Speaker 2: because we're nearly out of time, let's go some closing
Speaker 2: statements here as to where you see us right now
Speaker 2: in terms of this being pulled from one poll to
Speaker 2: the other. Jefferson and Hamilton.
Speaker 3: Well, these are challenging times for the American Republic, as
Speaker 3: we all know, and we are more polar that at
Speaker 3: any time since the Civil War, and there is talk
Speaker 3: once again in the land of secession and Julius Caesar
Speaker 3: and the question of whether the Republic will survive. It's
Speaker 3: so striking that Hamilton and Jefferson embraced the basic principles
Speaker 3: of the American idea as embodied in the Declaration of
Speaker 3: the Constitution, liberty, equality, and government by consent. They disagreed
Speaker 3: about how to apply those values in practice, and they
Speaker 3: had fierce debates over the proper balance between liberty and power,
Speaker 3: with Jefferson thinking every increase in power threatened liberty and
Speaker 3: Hamilton thinking that increases in centralized power could secure liberty.
Speaker 3: The point of the Constitution is not agreement but debate.
Speaker 3: The Constitution is made for people of fundamentally differing points
Speaker 3: of view as justice, Oliver Wendel Holmes said, and disagreement
Speaker 3: is not a bug in the system, it's a feature.
Speaker 3: But the debate has to involve listening to the other side,
Speaker 3: not involved viewing the other side as enemies, owning the
Speaker 3: Libs and owning the Conservatives. We've got to be committed
Speaker 3: to the process of deliberation itself, and that's why the
Speaker 3: Hamilton and Jefferson debate is so inspiring. As long as
Speaker 3: we maintain it, we will keep the republic. And it's
Speaker 3: only when we reject the debate itself that the shooting begins.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I agree with that.
Speaker 2: Yes, when we look at the fact that, as you
Speaker 2: point out, both people on the left and people on
Speaker 2: the right want to shut down the other side since
Speaker 2: of them, punish them, take away licenses, whatever. We have
Speaker 2: to have that debate. And that was one thing on
Speaker 2: which both these two poles agreed. That is the quintessential
Speaker 2: American thing, is that we have to have a debate
Speaker 2: on these different issues. Thank you so much again. The
Speaker 2: book is let me get the title again here, it
Speaker 2: is the Pursuit of Liberty, How Hamilton Versus Jefferson ignited
Speaker 2: The Lasting Battle over Power in America by Jeffrey Rosen,
Speaker 2: CEO of National Constitution Center. And where's the best place
Speaker 2: for people to find this? Do you sell this directly
Speaker 2: or on Amazon?
Speaker 3: The books on Amazon and in bookstories near you.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the best place for people find it. Looks
Speaker 2: like a fascinating book. It's been a fascinating conversation. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much, mister Rosen. Thank you for real great
Speaker 2: insight that you have there. Thank you and everyone have
Speaker 2: a great day today. And thank you Scott Helmer. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much for the tip. I appreciate that and
Speaker 2: we'll talk about that tomorrow again. Scott Heelmer dot com
Speaker 2: dot news an anthem for a divided world. Scott Helmer's
Speaker 2: website there the latest single. But he of course he
Speaker 2: is a recording artist. He said, the latest single speaks
Speaker 2: to it, does yes? Please share that Scott Helmer dot
Speaker 2: com and you can see it his website. He's got
Speaker 2: a new single that is there. Thank you so much, Scott,
Speaker 2: and thank you to all of you. Have a great day.
Speaker 2: The common Man, they created common Core and dumb down
Speaker 2: our children. They created common past track and control us.
Speaker 2: They're Commons project to make sure the commoners own nothing
Speaker 2: and the communist future. They see the common man as simple,
Speaker 2: unsophisticated ordinary. But each of us has worth and dignity
Speaker 2: created in the image of God. That is what we
Speaker 2: have in common. That is what they want to take away.
Speaker 2: Their most powerful weapons are isolation, deception, intimidation. They desire
Speaker 2: to know everything about us, while they hide everything from us.
Speaker 1: It's time to turn that around.
Speaker 2: And expose what they want to hide. Please share the
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