Akhil Reed Amar and David Blight of Yale University and Annette Gordon-Reed, president of the Organization of American Historians and Harvard professor, join National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen for a sweeping conversation about the Constitution and the debates that have shaped America—from the founding era to today. They’ll examine transformative moments in American history and landmark Supreme Court decisions.
This program is presented in partnership with the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute and the Organization of American Historians.
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Akhil Reed Amar is the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law at both Yale College and Yale Law School. He is the host of the America's Constitution podcast and has been cited by U.S. Supreme Court justices across the ideological spectrum in over 40 cases. A leading scholar of constitutional law and history, he is the author of numerous landmark works, including his most recent book, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760–1840.
David Blight is Sterling Professor of American History at Yale University. He is Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, and a frequent public historian and lecturer. His work has won numerous honors, including the Bancroft Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for his acclaimed biography Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.
Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. She is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello and has received numerous honors including the National Book Award, MacArthur Fellowship, and National Humanities Medal. Gordon-Reed is the author of the recent book On Juneteenth and currently serves as president of the Organization of American Historians.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Excerpt from Interview: Akhil Reed Amar explains that the Civil War and Reconstruction reflect a fundamental national debate about the meaning of the Declaration of Independence and that Lincoln’s view, which saw the Declaration as the moral foundation of the Constitution affirming equality for all, ultimately shaped the Reconstruction Amendments.
Akhil Reed Amar: Well, we should go back to how the Civil War begins. And it's a debate about what America means and these two great texts and their relation. Declaration of Independence, Annette says, can be read in a state sovereignty way. The states are free and independent states, even of each other. It's a mere confederation, a league of treaty. I actually think that's the better reading of the thing. But the Constitution creates an indivisibility that the Declaration in how we move from a treaty to the law of the land, full stop. But we're in Philadelphia. Just a few blocks from here is Independence Hall. And two great texts emerge. What's the relationship between the two? The Declaration, the Constitution. So on his way on a train to Washington, President-elect Lincoln, stops here. You mentioned this. And it's actually Washington's birthday, which there were only two national holidays at the time, 4th of July and Washington's birthday. They don't have Thanksgiving as a national holiday yet. Christmas isn't a national holiday. We're way far away from Juneteenth. We're talking about what should be the holiday. Lincoln should be... Actually, he didn't know he was supposed to give a speech. He just comes here in Philadelphia and it's Washington's birthday.
And so we should be talking about Washington. But no, he can't do any... He has to talk about the Declaration. 'Cause for him, the Declaration is the foundation for the Constitution. So it's really interesting. That's just impromptu. And he does this again and again and again. And you see, they think... You know, they might say, "Well, God ordained the deaths of Adams and Jefferson on the 50th anniversary. It's divine providence." So now there's this debate between the states rights interpretation of the Declaration and that all men are created equal, meaning whites and blacks. And when did they fight? On the first week of July, 1863. And God gives the victory, many people think, you see at both Gettysburg and Vicksburg. It's July 2nd to 4th, both places gives the victory to the Union. And Lincoln gives his first inaugural address, actually from the White House commenting on this, commenting on the deaths of Adams and Jefferson on July 4th. Okay, so they think they are debating the meaning of the Founding. And we can see it even in their names. Jefferson Davis on one hand, you mentioned the Confederate vice president who gives a thing called the Cornerstone speech and is saying, oh, it's all about slavery is our cornerstone.
So there's this big, big debate about what all men are created equal really means. Does it mean White as well as Black? Is it just about state sovereignty... Free and equal states? So we need to understand all of that before we get to 1876, because what happens in between is there's a war about the meaning of the Declaration in the Constitution. I'm on Lincoln's side. I hope you are too. And we have three amendments that codify Lincoln's party's understanding of the Declaration. Traveling through these state constitutions in places like Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, and we're going to get rid of slavery. That's the 13th Amendment. And the first sentence of the 14th Amendment says everyone born under the flag is born a citizen, is born an equal citizen. We're all born equal. We're all created equal. This is the Lincolnian interpretation of Jefferson. And you have an interactive Constitution, the National Constitution website on the Constitution.
Excerpt from Interview: Annette Gordon-Reed reflects on how the 1826 deaths of Jefferson and Adams shaped discussions around the Declaration as a powerful human-rights symbol and tool for abolitions like David Walker to combat the hypocrisy of slavery.
Annette Gordon-Reed: Well, it gained a huge amount of stature because they happened to die on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was something that meant a great deal to people who were looking to have changes in American society. Sort of the beginning of an abolitionist movement. People are beginning to think about the institution of slavery after the Missouri crisis and so forth. Certainly people in the African American community had always taken the Declaration as an ideal that should be lived up to, that they were not living up to. So there was a great... There was a moment to, to point out the hypocrisy of saying the words all men are created equal when there was a slave system.
David Walker, one of the great near misses of history. David Walker's appeal a couple of years after this, a little bit after this, takes Jefferson to task for not living up to the ideals of the Declaration. Praising the Declaration as a human rights document, that's not how... It really started out, as a diplomatic document to basically tell that you're leaving Great Britain and starting your own country. But it came to be seen as a statement about human rights. And so the people who were really going to start agitating about the institution of slavery were looking to it to say, to sort of... You know, to make people see that this was a basis for making a change in American society.
Excerpt from Interview: David Blight discusses how Frederick Douglass powerfully invoked the principles of the Declaration in his “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech to expose the hypocrisy of slavery while still holding out hope for national redemption.
David Blight: While Douglass loved the Declaration of Independence in its principles and creeds, he was not as fond as some of the practices that it had been put to. And of course, in his most famous speech, the “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Douglass, in a brilliant work of oratory, uses the hypocrisy... I mean, this is a classic move, but he uses the hypocrisy about the four first principles, the creeds of the Declaration, as his theme. But he weaves it first through a great respect for the Founders. I mean, that whole speech opens by honoring the Founders. He calls the Declaration the “ringbolt” of American liberty. The ringbolt. And then about a third of the way through, it's as though he brings down a hammer on the lectern and says, "Pardon me, why have you invited me here to speak on your Fourth of July?" And then he uses the word your over and over and over and over again, dozens and dozens of times. It's your Declaration, it's your country, it's your creeds.
And then, in the end, nevertheless lets the audience back up. After some masterpieces of rhetoric, he lets the audience back up. It's like he hands out towels and lets them wipe off after the hailstorm, he's just rained on them. And he said, "But don't be too concerned. Your country is young, he says. "It's still malleable. It's still susceptible to change if you abide by these creeds." Douglass many times paid great honor to Jefferson for the principles of the Declaration, not unlike Lincoln did. Lincoln was always saying the Declaration was his... He called it his political Bible. Douglass... I don't know that Douglass ever put it quite that way, but he could have. So the Declaration, because of the creeds, was so important, and not just to Douglass. Abolitionists generally pointed to the creeds of the Declaration and made utmost use of them. Of course, so did pro slavery writers for opposite reasons.
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