[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was like saltine cracker cereal. You love that though. You go on about it. Because I think, yeah, I like it. I want to try it. It's got the sweet and salty thing going on. It's weird. Like this old lady that used to babysit me, used to make it for me. I don't think my, so it wasn't from my parents or anything, but I'd make it at home as I got older.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Buy a fucking box of saltines as cheap as they are, cause they're cheap as hell. And then you crumble them all up in a cereal bowl. Put sugar all over the top. Good amount.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right up until it's about like you see the milk just coming through that layer. Right. The top there. Put it in the microwave for, uh, I don't know, 30 seconds. Microwave it. So you get, you get pockets of, of warm and cold and sweet and salty in this big milky mush.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I haven't had it in a long time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Delicious. It was just pure fat. It was just there to enhance the sauce and then someone would eat it afterward. Then the whole family, all my whole family would fight over it afterward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And let's face it, when you're eating chicken, you know, like a drumstick or something, once you're past the skin, it's pretty boring. It's just chicken. That skin's delish.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it kills all the hole like where you shake your head. Yeaah. From the alcohol. She'll drink it. It's gone. She'll drink it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, that's a little weird. You can't buy pickle juice, you have to buy the pickles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically she likes the pickles too. They should just sell pickle juice to be honest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just selling pickle juice. I'm so surprised they don't, because a lot of bars are asked for pickle backs, so they have to have the pickles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm looking at you guys, I would think you would know because it's a-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I, when I was in the Marine Corps and I'd drive back, um, from Jacksonville here, which is about an hour drive, there was a gas station halfway in the middle of nowhere. And I've seen it other places, but, um, I would get a hot, a couple hot dogs every now and then from there. And they always at the counter had hoop cheese.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was made locally, like it's always made locally and it's always like wrapped in saran wrap. Room temperature, just sitting on the counter. Room temperature on the counter. Yeah. Hoop cheese was very common and you could still find it at these kind of like, I bet pit stop has hoop cheese. I guarantee it does. On 421.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like, uh, yeah, provolone, swiss, uh, mozzarella, very, the flavor is almost not even there in some cases. It's like, I feel like provolone is, it's not even there. No, provolone's there. You don't know cheese.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's go cheesing. We should go cheese tasting. Go cheesing. That's a great podcast. One of my friends, uh, a couple years ago for his birthday party, he's, he's a, he really is a cheese whore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's mushy and crunchy, warm and cold, sweet and salty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Water. Have you ever had, uhm, cashew? Because they have cashew milk as well. Cashew milk ice cream?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In my top five for sure, uh, I brought it up before, but, um, dream catchers that are hung, uh, in cars. Makes no sense to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That way they don't come true? I don't know. I'm not sure that works. Crazy, but uh, Indian ritual. And this might, uhm, I don't wanna offend anybody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're not overweight. It doesn't bother me. They have a job and their job is done best if they are in shape and there's no requirements. It bothers the shit out of me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And nobody cares. The department doesn't care. It doesn't make sense to me. These are taxpayer paid positions and they're not the best they could be at their job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you don't improve or reach a certain weight by a certain amount of time, you will get kicked out of the Marine Corps. And you have to eat shrimp poop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We all, in my battalion, there was a guy who created a tick. What do you mean? A rock. To get out? Yep. And it took him a long time, but he got out. Interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They have the worst reputation in the world as far as the police department, don't they? They're all fat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're down. We're down. We're in a public area. A very, very busy area with a huge convention going on. You think that they would be. You think there would be foot patrol just in that area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's good shit right there. I like that stuff. You see that video where the elephant, uh, younger elephant thinks a guy's drowning in the river?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it looks like it is. And the guy, he's got control. He's going downstream, but the elephant breaks away from the rest of the bigger elephants and beeline to this guy who's start swimming towards shore, but it looks like it's coming to rescue him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is the, uh, website. So either it was going to play or it was actually trying to save him. Either way, smile.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I grew up in a skim milk house. I didn't know the difference. And then I had a, one of a sleepover in like fourth grade or something at one of my buddy's house and they were a 2% house and I was like, whoa, whoa.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't, I can't wait to try then. Because I could be a-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very good. Oh boy, I think we're in trouble now. Did you get her killed? Uh, I don't know. Where is she?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know two couples that have met on eHarmony. They have lasting relationships now. So maybe it doesn't work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let me, let me address this. Because I agree with that. This is the only survival game I've liked so far. I didn't like DayZ, I didn't like Rust. Minecraft Survival. But Minecraft has a creative thing to it. Right. Like a building kind of thing to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Rust doesn't have that? I've heard it's gotten better but when I played it, there wasn't much building to be done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I did not like looking for beans in uh, DayZ. But this game to me is like a collection of all the games that I like. It's Minecraft, but it looks like a grown up game. You can build just like you can a Minecraft, but it looks prettier. And you can put motors and thrusters and make things you built move. That's the best part.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One more thing. Had Thicc not just run off to the ship, we probably would have spent ten more minutes preparing, and then we would have went, and then we would have got there. That's true. That's how it would have played out. Or false. Alright, so we all hate you Thicc. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a good thing NibsGaming wasn't out during that war. Cause he would have gotten pro tips from me and used them for bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got time for a commenting on comments song. No it's not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Zombies ate my neighbors. Ooh! I'm down for that. I changed mine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I know, a lot of people want me to keep going, but if we're jumping back into animation, I'm just not gonna have time to do the Fallout stuff. So, Fallout's done, uh, and I kinda feel like I entered at a good spot. There's 13 episodes, there's a playlist now, so if you wanna binge watch it, eh, go for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A world peace, I tell you what. Yeah. Sacrificial. But you want a monument or something, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also stuff that I've contributed to the channel. Did he talk about any of your videos? None, not one. Wow. What a dick shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my shoes right now, they're like OP, they were probably $15 in Walmart. I thought you just had socks on. I go for the really cheap for the most part. I bought shoes online once, Reeboks, they were used, that's how cheap I am, they were used, but they look


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It doesn't surprise me at all about you. They looked brand new, and I'm not a snob like that. I don't care. So it's like, they said they wore them twice, and I'm like, okay, they wore them twice. It was like $25. For three months apiece. So you came in under $100. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when I got them, they were supposed to, I'm a size 12. They were so tight. It was, and it said size 12, but I can't wear them because they're too tight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there you go. Great shirts. So uhm, so the shoe thing, I don't think it's that bad, cause they look brand new.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Women in Asia are more attracted to the smaller the feet they are so they'll actually take their toes and they'll bend them over and then they'll wrap like cloth around it and keep it so that your toes...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We do? Yeah, in our audience. Oh, in our audience. Oh, right, right. But there was one little scientific thing that I found interesting that I learned today. What do you think freezes faster, hot water or cold water? Well, I'm gonna guess hot water. Hot water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I found that interesting. All right. The whole science fucking thing just tanked. Let's talk about something else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It might have you in there a little longer. That must have been interesting, the whole military thing. It was interesting. I'll give it that. All the-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sandyland, the one where the parents are against the kids. Oh, kids versus parents. I guess, okay, there you go, kids versus parents. We ask the kids adult questions and the kids ask us kids questions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think the game is easier than Minecraft. Because there's actually, well I never played Minecraft on console, but on PC you just have to remember everything or search it. But in here it tells you the formulas or the recipe for each thing you have to build. And there's a color system. It's actually easier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's it. On Imperium, when you save your game and then it has a button that says back up, that button should say thick proof. You wanna thick proof this? Yes, please.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you know, back in the war, the Japanese actually tried to bomb the US through balloons. No, I didn't know that. They would attach bombs, not very well. Because, I mean, how are they gonna find a populated area for one? No wonder they lost the fucking war. Most of them got lost in the ocean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had some weird stuff back then. Cat guided missiles, you ever hear that? What? What? Cat guided missiles. No. What? Listen, don't try this at home. They put a cat into a missile thinking if they were to shoot a missile at a ship in the ocean, like off of a jet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The cat would steer towards the... Why? The ship, because they don't like water!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yes, I was bringing up good points for people. I believe it's good to argue good points, you know, just like, this is what I think, this is what they think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so last week saw the official outbreak of war after a decade of political and economic tension. And we ended with the cobbled together American army under General Washington successfully pushing the British, led now by General Howe, out of Boston.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot to get to today, so let's get right into it. Except of course, before we can go forward, we have to go backwards. Because while the British and Americans were stuck manning the siege lines of Boston during the fall and winter of 1775, the ill-fated attempt to capture Canada was launched, and then crashed, and then burned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I have gotten more questions about the Canadians than almost any other subject. Specifically, why didn't they join the rebellion?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The answer is pretty straightforward. Setting aside the smallish fishing and trading settlements in say Newfoundland that were basically just British commercial outposts at this point, what we're really talking about here is Quebec.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the reason Quebec State out of it is two-fold.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First, the vast majority of the population was French Catholic, and if there are two great tastes that do not go great together, it's French Catholics and New England Puritans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Both distrusted the other for all kinds of obvious reasons, and on top of that they had been periodically fighting wars against each other for the last hundred years or so, culminating with the recent French and Indian War. So right off the bat, it's a hard sell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other reason is that after the British took over from the French in 1763, the ministry actually showed some common sense and did not like try to outlaw Catholicism in North America.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, in 1774, as I mentioned a few episodes back, Parliament passed the Quebec Act, which extended the boundaries of the territory, and was very likely an overt attempt by the Ministry to get the Canadians to at least stay neutral in the coming conflict.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the answer to why didn't the Canadians join the rebellion is basically long-standing enmity between French Catholics and New England Puritans, plus the British offering a far better deal, Catholic toleration, etc., than the Continental Congress would ever be able to promise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All that said though, when the Second Continental Congress first got together in May 1775, one of the first things they did was send feelers up to Quebec asking them to join in the fun. And promising not to invade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, no doubt confirming every suspicion the French Canadians had, the Congress then promptly okayed a plan to invade Canada.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Overall command of this northern theater was given to one of the delegates, Philip Shiler, who was a pretty big deal in New York and will eventually marry his daughter to a brilliant young officer named Alexander Hamilton, but poor health is going to keep him out of it for the most part. So let's not worry about him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That leaves us with the men who actually ran the two-pronged invasion, Irish-born General Richard Montgomery, and now Colonel Benedict Arnold.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who, after being passed over for the command by Congress, went behind their backs and convinced Washington to let him launch an independent expedition of his own.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Montgomery proceeded north from Fort Ticonderoga in September 1775 on a methodical march that would take him up to Montreal and then down the St. Lawrence River to the capital, Quebec City.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Arnold, meanwhile, set out from Massachusetts on a ship bound for Maine with about a thousand men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The idea was to land and then quickly march the 180 miles north from the coast to Quebec City


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Except that Arnold was working from a terrible map, and that 180 miles turned out to be 350 miles of grueling wilderness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was not until the middle of November, so we're talking about two months here, that Arnold, and what was left of his company, because about a third had been forced back, were finally able to cross the last river for the final approach on the Canadian capital.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were in, as you can imagine, no shape to attack, so they fell back 20 miles and joined up with Montgomery and about 300 of his men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now though Montgomery had successfully taken all the various forts that had crossed his path, including Montreal, none of it had been easy. And the small army of now about a thousand men camped southwest of Quebec City had no equipment or fortitude to sustain a prolonged siege. That meant they had to attack or go home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On top of that, Montgomery and Arnold faced the same problem Washington was facing down in Boston. Everyone's enlistments were going to expire December 31st.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Montgomery and Arnold decided to go for it, launch a hopefully secret attack, and take the city before the garrison of just under 2,000 British knew what hit them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After an aborted fall start on December 27th, the attack got going finally on December 31st, so literally the last possible day. Into a wicked blizzard, which stunk, yes, but it did help mask their approach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now just to give you a little layout here, Quebec City is built on both sides of a sharp cliff, dividing the city between upper town and lower town.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Upper Town was all but impossible to take, so the plan called for Arnold to lead 600 men against the north end of Lower Town, while Montgomery led 300 against the southern end. You seize Lower Town, you cut off the supply line to Upper Town, and force a surrender.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the British officers in charge of the city's defenses knew their stuff, so when the Americans came at them at dawn on New Year's Eve, they had fortified the exact spots Arnold and Montgomery planned to hit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Arnold managed to break through the first line of defense, but his men were stopped at the second line where Arnold himself was badly wounded in the leg.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Montgomery, meanwhile, was relying on an element of surprise that just did not materialize, and his men were mowed down. He himself was killed almost instantly. The whole plan fell apart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 50 or 60 Americans lay dead, and soon another 400 were captured.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The badly injured Arnold managed to cobble together what men he had left and regroup, hoping that spring and fresh recruits would bring better tidings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It wouldn't, of course. And for all intents and purposes, the opportunity to take Canada was now passed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before we go on though, I should mention that the death of Montgomery presents one of the great what-ifs of the war, because everyone recognized him as one of the most talented officers on either side, and it is tantalizing to think what he might have been able to accomplish had he not died in a blizzard trying to take Quebec in 1775.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With war breaking out all over the continent, the great political question of the day now consumed the rebellious American colonies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is all of this fighting simply about forcing the king and parliament to make concessions, or are we now fighting for independence?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the moment, this was still an open question, although certainly men like John and Sam Adams believed from the beginning that this was about independence, as too did King George III, who saw in America nothing but an enormous conspiracy to steal his colonies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The process of moving that public opinion decisively towards independence started with some recent British provocations, including the intentional destruction of Falmouth, Massachusetts, now Portland, Maine, by gunships in October 1775, and then the destruction of Norfolk, Virginia by gunships on New Year's Day 1776.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] An attack which also saw the governor of Virginia issue a proclamation that any slaves who abandoned their masters and came over to the British side would be set free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which frankly, scared the hell out of planters in Virginia because the governor was more or less inviting their worst nightmare. A slave uprising.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this hardened hearts all over Virginia to the possibility of reconciliation. And so yes, ironically, this attempt to free slaves led directly to the formation of a nation founded on freedom that then turned around and kept all the slaves in bondage. Because like I say, slavery is just the vicious hypocrisy in the middle of all of this. It's unavoidable and plain as day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now since Tom Payne is gonna hang around for a while, I think we'd better sketch him out. Because by a while, I mean that when we move on to the French Revolution, he's going to come along with us. Wind up sitting as a delegate in the National Convention, and then, because Tom Payne can never stop being Tom Payne, sitting in a French prison.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After a life of failure in business and government, he came to the attention of Benjamin Franklin, because whatever else his failings were, it was clear that Payne was curious, intelligent, and above all, passionate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With his life in shambles, he sold all his property to keep out of a debtor's prison, and then separated from his wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Payne elected to start over in America, and was given a letter of introduction from Franklin to help him land a job when he got there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The job he'd landed was as editor of a small Pennsylvania magazine, and he quickly lent his support and his pen to radical politics, drafting Common Sense over the autumn of 1775, and then seeing it published in January 1776.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it did two things better than any other attempt to galvanize public opinion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First, it pushed the debate well past the specific economic or constitutional issues at stake, and cast the struggle in much broader terms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Payne's object of scorn was not this or that tax, but the entire structure of the British monarchy, which was as absurd as it was corrupt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Second, it did so in blunt language that was easily accessible to the general public.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was no erudite treaties on political philosophy. This was a cannon blast fired at point blank range.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It electrified those who read it, and in just three months something like a hundred thousand copies have been printed and sold. This is an impossibly huge number.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So with the arrival of spring 1776, the British now evacuated from Boston and common sense circulating, independent-minded delegates at the Second Continental Congress started pushing their agenda harder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] John Adams recommended that the colony should begin forming new governments, which meant independence in all but name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The remaining moderates, though, still led by Dickinson, attempted to get a bill passed that would officially claim that independence was not the goal. But the report was tabled and never taken back up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then instructions started filtering into the delegates from back home, freeing them to vote for independence, you know, should it come to that. And it was definitely coming to that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ball really started rolling downhill in May, because on May the 4th, Little Rhode Island stepped forward and unilaterally declared independence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which I just love, because as we will see when we get to the Constitution, Rhode Island will be the last to ratify. So first out, last in. That's Rhode Island.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, on May the 10th, Congress formally instructed the colonies to start setting up new state governments. And on May the 15th, the Virginia House of Burgesses instructed their delegates to not just vote for independence, but to move for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the middle of this, Congress then learned that the British Ministry had gone shopping in Europe for mercenaries, turning first to the Russians, and then when the Russians turned them down to the Germans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] John Adams believed that this news was probably the final nail in the coffin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What reconciliation could there be with a king who was prepared to use foreign mercenaries against his own people?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So on June the 7th, a Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee formally moved, quote, that these United States are and of right ought to be free and independent states.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved. John Adams immediately seconded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, many of the delegates wanted to wait until such an alliance was in place before declaring independence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But John Adams argued that it had to be the other way around, first declare independence to prove that we mean business, and then work out an alliance with France or Spain or whoever, not as rebellious colonies, but as a full-fledged nation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The debate on independence ebbed and flowed through June, as the Congress was forced always to deal with its daily minutiae.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in the meantime, a committee of five men was appointed to draft a proposed Declaration of Independence. Named to this committee were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, guy number three, guy number four, and of course, the man who actually wound up drafting the thing, Thomas Jefferson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thomas Jefferson was born in Virginia in 1743, so he's just 33 years old when he sits down to write the Declaration of Independence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His father had died when he was 14, so when Jefferson turned 21 he inherited 5,000 acres and about 40 slaves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he was 16, he went off to the College of William and Mary, where he blazed through the entire curriculum and proved himself to be one of the brightest and most broadly curious minds in North America.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was voraciously interested in everything, although by trade he wound up a lawyer, entering the Virginia bar in 1767.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But also a crushing great load of debt, which got Jefferson started on his lifelong hobby of being monumentally absurdly in debt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the eve of the war, he joined the Virginia House of Burgesses, and then served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, where he gained a reputation as something of a wallflower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was mostly because Jefferson was not the fiery orator that John Adams and Patrick Henry were,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Little knowing that he was about to wind up smack dab at the crucible of American, and dare I say world, history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Since creating the new Virginia Constitution was actually what Jefferson wanted to be doing, he had with him all kinds of notes and letters pertaining to the debate, including copies of the famous Virginia Declaration of Rights, which were adopted in mid-June.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when he was called on to draft the Declaration of Independence, that's what Jefferson had to work from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which examines in pretty exquisite detail not just the role the Virginia Declaration of Rights played in Jefferson's draft, obviously a big one,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But also the 90 or so other declarations of independence that were floating around out there, as the various county committees or town councils adopted resolutions defending their rights.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jefferson, working from notes and memory, had about two weeks to knock out a draft that would lay out the various accumulated grievances that justified independence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jefferson's great accomplishment was writing this up quickly and eloquently. The point was never originality, and no one, certainly not Thomas Jefferson, thought what he was writing would basically become the centerpiece of American civic religion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the draft completed, debate on independence resumed on July the 1st.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now almost everybody was forward at this point, though New York was paralyzed by a lack of instructions from home, and the Delaware delegation was evenly split, and waiting for an absent delegate to show up and break the tie, which he did the next day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That left South Carolina and the John Dickinson-led Pennsylvania delegations as the two states still holding out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But with the Congress now absolutely ready to vote for independence, unanimity became important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] South Carolina finally got on board, and then in a magnanimous display, Dickinson and his allies abstained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] allowing the remaining Pennsylvania delegates to let Pennsylvania stand with the rest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over the next two days, while Jefferson sat in silent agony, the Congress went through his draft line by line, cutting a phrase here, rewording a phrase there. I mean, really, if you're a writer, you can understand just how painful this had to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Especially since Jefferson was famously thin-skinned and hyper-sensitive about criticism.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as it turns out, and again I'm getting this from Pauline Mayer, the editing done by the Congress was excellent. Especially given that this is being done by committee, which oh my god is a terrible way to edit a garage sale announcement, let alone the Declaration of Independence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now either through haste or passion, Jefferson had written stuff that either went too far, or was just flat out not true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like his original draft famously blamed the king for foisting the institution of slavery on unwilling colonists, which uhm, let's just say that's a tough case to make.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you read American scripture, you will also find an edited copy of the original draft, so you can see exactly what changes were made and why. The final draft is better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you want to hear it in all of its eventually tedious glory, I recorded the Declaration of Independence as a standalone supplemental. Try not to fall asleep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meanwhile, back on the military front, Washington had led the Continental Army south to what he believed would be the key strategic point of the war, New York City.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the General got a copy of the Declaration of Independence, he assembled his army on July the 9th and had it read aloud, hoping it would give the men that extra burst of patriotism and purpose that would see them through the coming wave of British troops. That was the plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, George Washington and his army are about to endure a rotten six months.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now Washington was at least right in guessing British intentions, and the Howe brothers did indeed select New York City as their point of return.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bringing with them just over 30,000 soldiers, including 8,000 Hessians. A catch-all label for mercenaries of German origin who would wind up particularly hated and feared as the war goes on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Washington and his officers suppose that Howe's plan was to take New York and then either launch himself back into New England, or head up the Hudson to link up with an anticipated invasion force from Canada.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Howe and his forces landed on Staten Island, a little southwest of New York City proper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the key strategic point would be the northwest corner of Long Island.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] AKA Brooklyn Heights, which overlooked New York City and had been fortified by the Americans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To take the city, Howe would have to first drive Washington's forces off the heights.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Never one to rush into things. Howe sat around on Staten Island for a good seven weeks before he finally made a move.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On August the 22nd, he dispatched 15,000 troops to Long Island under Henry Clinton and Lord Charles Cornwallis, who will prove to be one of the most formidable of the British generals, even though he is known to history as the guy who surrendered at Yorktown.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the approach to Brooklyn Heights was screened by steep hills, through which there were four possible passes. The Americans were of course guarding these closely. Well, three of them, anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because Jamaica Pass, the pass furthest from the British landing site on the far American left, was officially guarded by five men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sure you can guess which pass Clinton decided to waltz through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now as the British are landing, Washington is doing nothing to reinforce his men on Long Island, because he's afraid that this is all a faint to draw him out of the city.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fortunately, for those of us who venerate Washington like a minor deity, his war record is definitely spotty. And this is one of those not-so-great moments, because it was no feint, this was the attack, and he was letting it unfold unopposed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the evening of August 26th, the British and their Hessian partner set out on a night march.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Diversionary attacks and shelling on the three other passes covered Henry Clinton's silent march through Jamaica Pass. And just like that, behind the American forward lines.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Between the shelling and Clinton's men coming up from behind, the American left had collapsed by 9am.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The right held out bravely, but it too soon broke apart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Belatedly, Washington sent over reinforcements, but by now it was too late for them to do any good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A nasty nor'easter, sent I suppose by God, kept the British at bay the whole next day, during the course of which Washington's War Council convinced him that defending the heights was now folly. So on the night of August the 29th,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two regiments of Massachusetts militiamen, who also happen to be expert semen,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ran a convoy of boats and managed with the help of some timely fog, probably also sent by God, to withdraw 9500 men, without the British suspecting a thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because if there was one thing Washington turned out to be the master of, it was the flawless retreat. And I'm not being snarky about that, George Washington could extract an army from hell before the devil knew he was gone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No doubt surprised by this flawless retreat, Howe declined to press the advantage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But inside New York City, Washington was dealing with an utterly demoralized army, now sick, under-provisioned, and deserting at will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He started preparing a new defense when he got instructions from Congress telling him that New York City was not a hill he had to die for. So the War Council immediately switched to planning an evacuation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two weeks later, HAL finally got moving and put in a landing east of the city, so the American army fled north up the west side of Manhattan Island to Harlem Heights, leaving behind crucial provisions and artillery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But after the Americans took the heights, an advanced British guard bungled into what became the Battle of Harlem Heights and were driven off, giving the Americans a much needed morale boost.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After that, everyone sat tight for a month to plan their next moves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, interestingly, just before the Battle of Harlem Heights, a three-man delegation from the Second Continental Congress, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and a third guy,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The resulting sit down was scrupulously polite, but a total failure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Howe said, correctly, that he had no authority over such matters. So the delegation left after a few hours, and the war continued.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In mid-October, Howe moved by boat up to a spot due east of Harlem that would allow him to hopefully trap the Americans on Manhattan Island.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Washington ran north again, this time off the island up to White Plains, where a continental supply depot was located.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Contact was finally made on October the 28th, with General Clinton again leading a column up towards the American left, with the Hessians approaching the American right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A sharp battle ensued that saw the Americans manage to halt the advance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the line standing still, the Hessian artillery then scattered the militiamen manning the American right, but reinforcements swooped in just in time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the next push was too much. The Hessians charged in and broke the right flank, forcing the Americans into a fighting retreat,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And though the militias on the right had obviously failed, it is worth pointing out that the Delaware militia on the left actually held firm enough to cover the retreat of the rest of the army. So, Delaware militia, good work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Battle of White Plains was another British victory, but it also cost them another couple hundred wounded and killed, and Washington once again proved his ability to hold together a beaten army and retreat in good order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two days later, Howe was prepared to restart the fight, but heavy rains got in his way, and Washington was able to lead his men north and out of immediate reach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Howe decided that further pursuit was a waste of time, and he elected instead to turn around and head down to the mouth of the Hudson River.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where two American forts allegedly guarded the entrance to this all-important waterway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the big questions for Washington through early November hinged on the main fort, which had been named after him, Fort Washington, and which sat on the east bank of the Hudson River.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The British quickly proved that the forts probably weren't even worth it, when they sailed a few test ships up to Hudson to see if the artillery could stop them, on which they couldn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As to whether the fort could be defended, Washington elected to defer to the man he had left in charge of the garrison, Nathaniel Green.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of Washington's favorite officers, who will become really important when the war moves south, but for now, is in the early let's make a bunch of mistakes phase of his career. Green decided the fort could be defended.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he was carried away by Green's enthusiasm, and despite his misgivings, headed back north to his own army. Of course, letting Green stay was a huge mistake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The day after Washington left, the British moved into position, and the day after that they attacked and completely enveloped the fort.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The surrender of Fort Washington was the biggest blow in a string of recent blows.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 2800 Americans captured, along with all their guns and supplies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] General Green got away, and though this is not the last mistake he's going to make, he will redeem himself in the Southern Campaigns, and emerge as one of the great heroes of the war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Back up north, Washington struggled to prevent the total collapse of the war effort right then and there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At this point, he had personally led about 2,000 men across the Hudson River, leaving another 5,500 on the east side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This force was under the command of a guy we're gonna talk about next week, the irascible veteran of various European wars and recent immigrant to America, General Charles Lee, who could not believe that he was taking orders from some incompetent colonial hack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After picking up another thousand troops or so, Washington struggled south into New Jersey, and after the fall of Fort Washington, was soon being pursued by Lord Cornwallis and four thousand British and Hessians.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the next few weeks, Cornwallis was almost literally one step behind the Americans, arriving, for example, in New York just as the American rearguard was pulling out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But General Washington was a sneaky fox, and he managed to cross the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, and then round up every boat for 50 miles in either direction, leaving the pursuing British with no way to cross.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After a week of hunting for a way across the Delaware, Howe gave it up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Winter was descending, and winter is no time for a civilized Englishman to be fighting a war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He assigned the Hessians to man the Delaware River frontier, and told the rest of his troops to settle into winter quarters, mostly in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wrote home to the ministry that all was well and one more good season of campaigning should finish off this rebellion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And really, given how the last six months had gone, this was not an unrealistic assessment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But next week, George Washington will salvage the dignity of the American cause and give it something to cheer about when he defeats a bunch of hungover Germans at Trenton the day after Christmas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's god entitle them,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having indirect object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whereby the legislative powers incapable of annihilation have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has endeavored to prevent the population of the states for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of land.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For depriving us in many cases to the benefits of trial by jury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For transporting us beyond the seas to be tried for pretended offenses.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For abolishing the free system of English laws in the neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war on us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns and destroyed the lives of our people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death. Desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren or to fall themselves by their hands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has excited domestic insurrections among us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nor have we been wanting inattentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our immigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They too have been death to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must therefore acquiesce to the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war. In peace, friends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, due in the name and by authority of the good people of these colonies,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that as free and independent states. They have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And for the support of this declaration, with a firm resilience on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Amendment 2, a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb. Nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Amendment 6 In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favour, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This week's episode is brought to you by Harry's Razors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you go to the drug store to pick up some razors. First, you have to find the guy who can open the case. Then you have to wait around while he finds the keys to the case. And then when the case finally gets open, your reward is paying 25 bucks for four blades and some shaving cream.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You leave muttering obscenities about the waste of time and money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Such was the last straw for Andy, one of the co-founders of Harry's Razors, who was convinced that there had to be a better way, and there was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Focused on providing guys a great shaving experience for a fraction of the price of the competition, Harry's Razors offers high quality blades engineered in their very own German factory.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Order online, it gets shipped to your home. It's simple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've got my own kit working for me as we speak, the blades are sharp, the razor design is clean, which I like, and the cream is exactly what I need it to be. No cuts, no irritation, it's great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And plus, I don't have to wait around for the guy with the keys just to pay way too much for it all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So stop overpaying for a good shave and go to Harrys.com, use the promo code REVOLUTIONS, save $5 off your first purchase.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Today marks the end of our run through the American Revolution, a revolution that wound up taking more than 25 years to work through, from the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 to the sitting of the first Congress of the United States in 1789.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It had started as a simple protest against an unpopular tax, had somehow ballooned into a full-scale war for independence, and then resulted in the founding of a new American republic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Today, that new American Republic will vote on whether to adopt a new constitution to replace the existing Articles of Confederation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a vote that would expose the deep divide within the revolutionary generation about what the point of the revolution had even been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We left off last time with the call for a convention to amend the Articles of Confederation. This call was officially endorsed by the Congress of the Confederation on February 21, 1787, and so the convention was set to meet in Philadelphia in May.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the intervening months, state legislatures began selecting delegates. Not surprisingly, the men most willing to pack up and head to Philadelphia for the summer tended to be men already predisposed to greatly enhancing the power of the national government.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those who didn't care one way or the other obviously had no motivation to take part, while those who actively opposed the project tended to boycott the convention, as did for example Patrick Henry, who refused to serve as a member of Virginia's delegation because he smelt a rat in Philadelphia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, for those opposed to amending the articles, their absence simply packed the convention with men totally in favor of wholesale revisions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the convention approached though, there was genuine fear among the delegates that their recommendations would not be taken seriously. So, it was essential to secure the presence of the two men who would lend instant credibility and gravitas to the proceedings. The first was Benjamin Franklin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Recently returned from half a lifetime in Europe, Franklin was breaking down physically, and had the convention been held anywhere but Philadelphia he could not have attended.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was, and he believed in the cause, so he lent his fame and prestige to the project.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the real key was of course George Washington. It took a bit of prodding, since Washington had just spent a whole war dreaming of retirement, but he did believe deeply in the goal of a strong national government, and was always susceptible to the romance of setting aside personal interest in doing your public duty. And so he agreed to lead Virginia's delegation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His presence guarantee that the convention could not just be dismissed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But 18th century travel being what it was, almost no one was there on time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But one guy who was there on time, who had gotten there early in fact, was James Madison of Virginia. Who it has taken us the entire series to get to, but who is probably my favorite of the so-called founding fathers. Probably because I studied political theory in school, and political theory was the water within which James Madison swam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] James Madison was born in 1751, so he was a little too young to be a major player in the run-up to the War of Independence. And then, standing at just 5 foot 4 inches and weighing no more than 100 pounds, he was just too small to be a soldier, which is why it has taken us the entire series to get to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the other leading Virginians, Madison inherited a lot of land and a lot of slaves, but when it came time for the young man to pick a college, he did not follow his aristocratic brethren to the College of William and Mary, instead headed up to the College of New Jersey, which is now Princeton University.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I don't know how much of a role that kind of cross-colonial experience played in his eventual emergence as a strong proponent of national government, but it did certainly give him a unique perspective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He spent the war years serving in the Virginia House of Delegates where he came under the sway of Thomas Jefferson, forging the political alliance that would define the first few decades of American history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I ever get around to writing that history of the political parties I'm always talking about, just know that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison will dominate the early episodes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] During his off hours, Madison read voraciously, from the ancient Greeks to Enlightenment philosophers like Locke and Hobbes, and of course another favorite of mine Montesquieu, whose theories about separated powers struck a deep chord with Madison as he developed a thoroughgoing critique of the Articles of Confederation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was a prime mover in the push to amend the articles, so when it came time to finally get down to business in May 1787, he couldn't wait to get to Philadelphia with his briefcase full of ideas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's basically the kid so eager to take the test that he gets to school like six hours early and is then drumming his fingers impatiently waiting for the other knuckleheads to show up so he can blow them all out of the water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The rest of the knuckleheads started showing up by the end of May, and no, of course they're not knuckleheads. This is widely seen as one of the more impressive assemblies of leaders in American history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Washington and Franklin were there, of course, but also Alexander Hamilton of New York and a powerhouse Pennsylvania delegation that included Robert Morris, the financier of the revolution who deserves a supplemental, Governor Morris, no relation, and then James Wilson, who along with Madison would come to dominate the proceedings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also present was John Dickinson, now representing Delaware, and who frankly I'd kinda like to write a book about at this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Virginia delegation included Peyton Randolph and George Mason, who were both early radicals and deeply committed patriots who will also wind up opposing the Finnish Constitution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I could go on like this, but seriously, every state seemed to be sending its best men, every state that is but Rhode Island, who refused to send any delegates to this ridiculous farce of a convention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nodding approvingly from across the Atlantic, Thomas Jefferson called the delegates nothing less than an assembly of demigods.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or if you want to be less rapturous about it, you could call them a bunch of rich white guys looking to make sure the little people didn't get ahold of the levers of power.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Franklin nominated Washington to be president, and deliberations got underway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now unfortunately for historians, as the delegates started taking the floor, it was quickly agreed that the only way this was going to work was if their debates were kept secret. So detailed records of who said what when just don't exist, and we have to rely on informal vote counts and diary entries and a few scribbled summaries to get us through it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was probably not such a bad thing, especially since one of the other things they agreed to right off the bat was that they were going to ignore whatever limited mandate they had to amend the Articles of Confederation and probably just rewrite the whole thing from scratch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was some brief protest to this, but as I said, the kind of guys who were willing to serve as delegates were also the kind of guys predisposed towards overhauling the Articles. So the decision to press on with a whole new Constitution meant very little opposition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And because Madison had gotten there first, and already had a pretty detailed outline for a new constitution in hand, the convention voted on May the 29th to take his work, dubbed the Virginia Plan, as their starting point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A few alternative plans popped up along the way, including a proposal by Charles Pickney of South Carolina and a proposal by Alexander Hamilton, and then the New Jersey, or small state, plan that we'll talk about in a minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But through it all, the Virginia Plan was the plan that everyone agreed to work with, and it contained most of the defining features of the Constitution's final draft. The bicameral legislature, the independent executive, the independent judiciary, all based on Montesquieu's theories of separated power.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which Montesquieu had developed after reading our old old friend Polybius' Analysis of the Roman Republic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the first major innovation contained in Madison's Virginia Plan was the separation of the legislative branch into two houses.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is where, for example, Shay's Rebellion helps frame the debate. No one thought it was a good idea to just let the people run amok. I mean, they'll come in one day and just vote to abolish debt and contracts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Plus, they had the example of the Pennsylvania state government meeting right down the street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pennsylvania had wound up drafting one of the most democratic constitutions in American history, with an all-powerful unicameral legislature.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To men like Madison and Hamilton, this was like completely crazy and led to wild swings in policy every time one of the bitter Pennsylvania political factions was able to outvote its rivals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yea, some kind of upper house was needed, a more deliberative body made up of the better sorts. Let's call it a Senate, like the old Stoic Romans used to have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The next major overhaul was to the executive branch. Now aside from talk in some circles that George Washington ought to be crowned king, it was kind of taken for granted that the executive would be some kind of elected official serving some kind of fixed term.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in Madison's plan, the executive would not be some mere executor of the legislature's demand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lack of a strong executive was seen as one of the great failings of the Articles of Confederation. So the office would instead be independent and invested with unique powers of its own that would allow it to check the scourge of a tyrannical legislature, just as the unique powers invested in the legislature would allow it to check the scourge of a tyrannical executive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How the president, as the executive was soon dubbed, would be elected and for how long he would serve would all soon be points of contention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And obviously that everyone knew the first president would be George Washington helped quell any fears of immediate tyranny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Finally there was the matter of the courts. Now, the appointment of judges turned out to be an area Madison thought executives traditionally wielded too much power.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is one of those things they had fought about during the English Revolution, whether the king would have the power to remove judges at his pleasure,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] or whether there had to be a legitimate case for dismissal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If a king or governor or president has unlimited power of appointment, well then the courts are just gonna do whatever the king or governor or president wants, and that's no good at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the Virginia plan placed judicial appointments in the hands of Congress.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this, of course, wound up simply handing the tools of tyranny to the fickle mob, rather than some power-hungry tyrant, which was in many ways scarier to our small, our Republican delegates. Which is how we wound up with the compromise system whereby the President nominates judges and the Senate confirms them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the delegates walked through the Virginia plan, the first major point of contention was over the issue of congressional representation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being a good Virginian, Madison had devised a system of proportional representation based on population size.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was of course a deal breaker for the smaller states like Delaware, New Jersey, and Connecticut, who could see their interests counting for very little in the United States of Virginia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, an alternate proposal was introduced by William Patterson of New Jersey, hence it being dubbed the New Jersey Plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This plan was in its essence exactly what the convention was supposed to have been about. It was drawn up as a list of amendments to the Articles of Confederation that would maintain the supremely powerful single House of Congress and preserve the rule of one state, one vote.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While granting the national government more power to tax and regulate trade and enforce compliance with its laws.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In terms of overall form, the New Jersey plan went nowhere. But that issue of is Congress an assembly of the states or an assembly of the people was not going to go away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After a few weeks of fruitless debates, the question was referred to a committee where the famous Connecticut Compromise was hashed out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was called the Connecticut Compromise because it was hashed out by Roger Sherman of Connecticut, who gets a special shoutout for being the only guy to sign the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and in a couple months, the Constitution of the United States. So good work, Roger Sherman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sherman's deal was that the legislature would have the two houses prescribed by Madison. The lower house, the House of Representatives, would be based on population.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The upper house, the senate, would be based on states. Specifically, two senators per state.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To help seal the deal with Madison, Hamilton, and the other big state advocate, it was stipulated that all revenue bills would originate in the population-based lower house, which is how it still works today, in case you fell asleep during sophomore government class.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With these basic issues worked through, the convention created the Committee of Detail in late July to draw up an official rough draft.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This committee spent the next ten days cobbling together sections of the Virginia Plan, approved language from the deliberations, various parts of state constitutions, and whatever was still viable from the Articles of Confederation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They reported out a preamble and 23 articles on August the 6th that mostly conform to what had been agreed to, with a few rather glaring exceptions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the behest of Southern members, the committee had taken it upon itself to insert clauses that restricted Congress's ability to interfere with slavery and set the bar for approval of tariffs at two-thirds supermajorities in both houses.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Both designed to protect the southern economy from northern meddling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It also tried to ignore the approved language that Congress would have the power to legislate, quote, over all cases of general interest. And instead, it drew up a list of 18 enumerated areas that Congress would be given jurisdiction over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But James Wilson of Pennsylvania killed this by tacking on at the end a 19th clause that said, Oh, and also Congress can pass any laws it deems necessary and proper for the execution of government. In other words, go ahead and ignore that enumerated list.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the committee of detail reported its draft, it was pretty well received, and most of it made its way into the final draft.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the slavery and trade issue stuck out like sore thumbs and led to a whole new round of wrangling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Luckily, the slavery issue also touched on one of the other big points yet to be decided. Because though it had been agreed that the House of Representatives would be rooted in proportional representation, it was not yet agreed how those proportions would be calculated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To paint with a large brush, the southern delegates wanted their slaves counted, the northern delegates did not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This, of course, was the opposite of the positions taken during the debates over the Articles of Confederation, when population size was about to become the basis of determining each state's financial obligation to the national government.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In that case, the North wanted slaves counted, and the South did not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So clearly, everyone was working from a mentality of, you know, make whatever argument gets you the most while costing you the least.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Finally, the two sides agreed to a set of compromises that settled everything neatly and without any troubling moral implications at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In exchange, the North agreed that that number would be calculated by adding up the free population plus three-fifths of all other persons, everyone knowing exactly what all other persons meant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, right there in Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, it explicitly states that an African American is three-fifths of a person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, by the way, it also says that Indians who do not pay taxes are not even people at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeaah, like I say, no troubling moral implications at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With this compromise in place, the delegates decided that that was about all the heat they could stand for the moment. And they wrote in a clause forbidding Congress from taking any action on slavery for 25 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everyone agreed it would be much easier to just kick the can down the road on that one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the summer wound down, so too did the convention, and on August the 31st they created the Committee of Postponed Parts to take up the grab bag of leftover issues. A committee that was intentionally stacked with delegates who had demonstrated a willingness to cut deals and make compromises.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mostly, this was about crafting more precise language about how patents would be handled and the legal process of war making, but this last committee did lower the term of the president from seven to four years, and sanctioned the right to re-election, which was actually a fairly big thing to just slip in at the last minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It also drew up the final language for the electoral college system of presidential elections, which don't even get me started about the electoral college.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything was then handed to the Committee for Style on September the 8th for a final write-up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This committee was run by Madison, Hamilton, and Governor Morris, who actually gets most of the credit for writing the final draft, including the famous preamble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Committee for Style produced its final draft on September the 12th, rearranging the previous 23 articles into seven main articles, each divided into subsections. Which is why lawyers quote the Constitution Article 2, Section 3 the way a preacher quotes the Bible, chapter and verse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Article 1 dealt with the legislative branch, since everyone assumed that that would be the most important branch. I think it would come as quite a shock to the framers to see just how presidential the government of the United States has become.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Article 2 dealt with the executive branch run by a president elected every four years with the power to appoint judges, veto laws, and act as commander in chief of the armed forces.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Article 3 covered the judicial branch, which is actually pretty hilariously underdeveloped in the actual text of the Constitution, with no mention whatsoever of the power of judicial review. That is, the ability to declare laws unconstitutional, which is obviously like what the Supreme Court actually does these days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you stayed awake in sophomore government, you know that that power was simply asserted by Chief Justice John Marshall in the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is something you can needle your friends about. If they ever start going on about how they want strict constructionist judges because a strict constructionist judge would have to admit that the Supreme Court does not have the power to declare laws unconstitutional.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Article 4 covered relations between the federal government and the states, and then between the states themselves. Article 5 covered the amendment process. Article 6 establishes the constitution as the supreme law of the land. And Article 7 lays out the ratification process, which we'll get to in a minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On September 15th, these seven articles were unanimously approved by the 11 states able to vote. Rhode Island never did send anyone, and Alexander Hamilton's two New York colleagues had been among the 13 delegates who quit the convention early, so New York didn't have a vote.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Led to the nice line in Washington's diary that the Constitution was approved by eleven states and Colonel Hamilton.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 39 men wound up signing the constitution, with only three of the remaining delegates refusing to sign.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Payton Randolph and George Mason of Virginia, and Elbridge Gary of Massachusetts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All three of them had their reasons for opposing the draft, but the most important for our purposes was that they did not contain some kind of enumerated Bill of Rights, explicitly drawing the lines that no matter what, the government would not be able to cross.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In hindsight, the omission of the Bill of Rights turned out to be a major unforced error for proponents of ratification, but for whatever reason they had never drawn one up and weren't about to do it now at the last minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A few delegates thought, for example, that George Mason's push to tack one on was just a stall tactic to torpedo the whole project.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they ignored the issue and signed the damn thing on September the 17th, 1787 so they could all go home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the convention ended, Benjamin Franklin offered a final few memorable quotes about what had been achieved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After remarking that the constitution was not perfect, and that every one of them could point to something in particular they didn't like about it, he told his fellow delegates that during their deliberations he had often considered the painting on the back of the president's chair, depicting a sun on the horizon,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Without being able to tell whether it was rising or sitting. But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, of course, there was the likely apocryphal line, uttered as the delegates dispersed. Asked by Elizabeth Powell, who is by the by an utterly fascinating woman, what form of government the convention had created, he said, a republic, madame, if you can keep it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But for the moment, the question was not whether this new model for a national republic would be kept, but whether or not it would be launched in the first place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As I mentioned, the deliberations of the convention had been secret, and though rumors swirled, it was still something of a shock to discover that the states were about to be asked to vote not on a few amendments, but on a whole new system of government.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And not only that, the vote would take place according to rules completely outside the system set up by the Articles for ratifying amendments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As I hinted last time, the requirement of unanimous consent was regarded as unworkable, giving everyone a veto over everyone else, so that nothing would ever get done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the framers wrote into Article 7 that only 9 of 13 states needed to ratify for the Constitution to take effect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, in another calculated bit of stacking the deck in their favor, they prescribed that the process of ratification would run through state conventions, specifically called to decide the issue not, I repeat not, through state legislatures.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was critical, because no one would lose more power if the Constitution was ratified than the state legislatures.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Congress of the Confederation received the signed constitution on September the 20th, and voted a week later to send it to the states for ratification.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But even before this vote was taken, the war over ratification was underway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because though we've mostly been talking about the guys who favored a stronger national government, there was strong opposition in almost every state to the very idea of a stronger national government.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seeing as how defeating centralized tyranny had been the whole point of the revolution, and here we are, not five years removed from the Treaty of Paris, and you want to hand the keys over to some corrupt despot, and yes, we know Washington will be the first president, but for God's sakes, what about the next president? And look, you've got standing armies in here, and what does necessary and proper even mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That sounds like Congress is just going to be able to get their hands into everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Opponents of ratification were a diverse lot, and not at all unified, and they quickly fell prey to a clever bit of political labeling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Proponents of ratification were calling themselves federalists, and they managed to dub their opponent anti-federalists, as if they were simply honoree mules standing in the way of America's rise to power, rather than what it's fair to actually call them, the keepers of the original revolutionary flame.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In terms of ideological rhetoric, the Anti-Federalist can draw a straight line all the way back to 1763.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Federalists, on the other hand, had to somehow prove that that rhetoric had been fine in its time. But we need to survive as an independent nation now, and it's time to get real.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now one of the things I love about the federalist-antifederalist campaigns is that everyone's revolutionary credentials were positively sparkling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anti-federalists like Patrick Henry and George Mason and George Clinton had given everything they had to the Patriot cause and believed deeply the Constitution was a betrayal of the Revolution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just as Hamilton and Madison, Washington and Franklin had given everything they had to the Patriot cause, and believed deeply that the Constitution was the fulfillment of the Revolution, the thing that would guarantee the survival of an American Republic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the battle lines were being drawn, both sides picked up pens and started railing against each other, often using well-known Roman pseudonyms. So the anti-federalists were Brutus and Cato.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they argued that the constitution vested too much power in the central government, that the president would soon enough be a king, that the long fought for sovereignty of the states was being destroyed, that no republic could survive if it tried to encompass so vast an area and so many different people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And above all, they agree that the failure to include a Bill of Rights was an unconscionable omission.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the other side, the Federalists ran with a campaign that played up the support of Washington and Franklin, the existential threat posed by the current disunity of the states, and the fact that the states themselves were not doing a very good job of running things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But of course, the most famous batch of polemics that came out of the ratification campaigns were the Federalist, a set of 85 essays published in New York under the pseudonym Publius after our old, old, old friend Publius Valerius and written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The most famous of these is probably Federalist Number 10, which argued that the National Union was a necessary safeguard against internal factionalism and insurrection, and pretty much demolished the argument that a republic could only survive if it was small in size.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Number 10, written by Madison, argued that in fact the opposite was true, and that the larger the republic, the less likely it was to be hijacked by narrow interest groups.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Other greatest hits include number 51, which is the definitive statement on how the system of checks and balances works, and number 78, written by Hamilton, which is the one that says that judicial review is actually a thing, even if it's not there in the actual text.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now something I didn't know going into this was that at the time the federalist essays were not influential at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were neither widely read, nor timely enough to sway opinion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Today of course, they are fundamental to understanding how the federal government is supposed to work, and are cited regularly in judicial opinions, and act as basically an annotated reference manual to the Constitution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lower counties had suffered mightily under the Articles of Confederation, and without a strong port of their own, had to rely on the whims of New York and Pennsylvania for all trade. Ratification was swift and unanimous.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Surprisingly, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Surprising, because there was strong anti-federalist feeling across the state. Remember, these are the same guys who came up with the radically democratic unicameral legislature.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the Federalists acted quickly and ruthlessly to ratify the Constitution before opposition forces could really organize themselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The state ratifying convention was assembled on November the 20th, and after furious debate seemed to be headed for ratification, when opposition anti-federalists deserted the hall to deny their opponents the necessary quorum to take the vote.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Federalist delegates literally hunted down and dragged a few hiding anti-federalists back into the statehouse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] New Jersey followed a few days later and ratified unanimously, they being in the same basic situation as Delaware.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then Georgia followed with a unanimous vote of its own on January the 2nd, because now that they didn't have the British to protect them from Indian attacks, they needed the federal government. Connecticut then joined them all on January the 9th.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Still reeling from the anarchy of Shay's rebellion, the leaders of Massachusetts who might have been inclined to try to go it alone, wound up fairly evenly divided on the matter when the state convention met on January the 9th.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They spent nearly a month at each other's throats, but it would appear that the decisive break came when Sam Adams and John Hancock were persuaded to vote yes, and bring along the block of voters they controlled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a close thing, but it lent the ratification movement a huge dose of momentum.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But critically, the Massachusetts Convention requested 19 alterations be made.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alterations that amounted to a warning that unless some kind of bill of rights was attached to this thing, the new federal government was going to be in deep trouble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having never sent delegates to the convention, the leaders of Rhode Island left to a public referendum that saw the odious national power grab shot down in a landslide.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This blip aside though, Maryland voted to ratify in April, and then South Carolina in May. South Carolina also strongly urging the adoption of a Bill of Rights. Something all Federalists now took for granted would be one of the first things they took care of when, hopefully, the first Congress took its seat. So that meant that by June 1788, eight of the thirteen states had ratified, one short of the required nine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In that month, three states began deliberations. Virginia, New York, and New Hampshire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If just one of them ratified, the Constitution would take effect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was not lost on anyone that if something along the lines of say, New Hampshire saying yes, but Virginia and New York saying no, then it would be really difficult to proceed. Nine of thirteen states are not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Virginia, the Anti-Federalists were led by the enormously influential Patrick Henry, and lent considerable weight by George Mason and Peyton Randolph, who could say that they had been there when the thing was written and they did not like what it said.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Virginia had every means at its disposal to proceed outside of a national union, and the most of fear from a bunch of small states banding together to dictate terms to mighty Virginia.