In an online program hosted earlier this year, bestselling historian Lynne Cheney discusses her new book, The Virginia Dynasty, a vivid account of the intersecting lives and accomplishments of the first four U.S. presidents from Virginia—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Cheney explores how these friends and rivals led in winning independence, drafting the U.S. Constitution, and building a working republic. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.
FULL PODCAST
Or, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
PARTICIPANTS
Lynne Cheney is the author and coauthor of 12 books, including six bestsellers about American history for children. Her most recent book is The Virginia Dynasty: Four Presidents and the Creation of the American Nation. She served as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1993. Cheney is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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.
This episode was engineered by the David Stotz and Greg Scheckler and produced by Jackie McDermott, Tanaya Tauber, John Guerra, and Lana Ulrich.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
- Lynne Cheney, The Virginia Dynasty
This episode was produced by Jackie McDermott, Tanaya Tauber, John Guerra, and Lana Ulrich. It was engineered by Kevin Kilbourne.
Stay Connected and Learn More
Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected].
Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.
Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.
Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.
To watch National Constitution Center Town Halls live, check out our schedule of upcoming programs. Register through Zoom to ask your constitutional questions in the Q&A or watch live on YouTube.
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.
Jackie McDermott: [00:00:00] Welcome to Live at the National Constitution Center. I'm Jackie McDermott, the show's producer. Earlier this year, historian and bestselling author, Lynee Cheney, and joined NCC president Jeffrey Rosen to discuss her book, "the Virginia Dynasty," about the interconnected lives and accomplishments of the first four U.S. pResidents from Virginia, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Here's Jeff to get the conversation started.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:00:29] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the National Constitution Center and to tonight's program of America's Town Hall. I am Jeffrey Rosen and the president of this wonderful institution, which is the only institution in America, chartered by Congress to disseminate information about the U.S. Constitution on a nonpartisan basis. And now it is my great pleasure to introduce our guest speaker. Lynne Cheney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She joined us recently to discuss her superb book, "James Madison: a Life Reconsidered," which was a New York times bestseller. She has been chair of the national endowment for the humanities and is the author and co-author of 12 other books, including in addition to the Madison book, "We, the people, the story of the constitution." she's here tonight to discuss "the Virginia dynasty: four presidents and the creation of the American Nation." Lynne Cheney, it's wonderful to welcome you back to the National Constitution Center.
Lynne Cheney: [00:01:34] It's a pleasure to be back. I look forward to you, to good questions from you and your audience.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:01:40] Well, we always have wonderful questions from our great audience. Well, There's so much to discuss in your wonderful new book, but the natural place to start is at the constitutional convention, because this is the Constitution Center. And what's so fascinating about your very powerful narrative, is that the four founders you discuss George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, all took different positions at the constitutional convention. But before we do that, I think I'll just ask you to start at the beginning and to read the first paragraph from your prologue, so that you can set the stage.
Lynne Cheney: [00:02:14] Good. I'd love to do that. You know, when you're a writer and you're writing a book, you spend a lot of time on the preface because you know that a lot of people might stop there, reviewers and so on. But it's also the first chance you have to talk to a reader.
So it begins. Put the spike of a drawing compass into a map of Virginia at Ferry Farm, George Washington's boy hood home, extend the other leg of the compass, so that it reaches out 60 miles, and draw a circle. Within it, not only Washington, but also Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe were born, grew to manhood and made their homes. From this small expanse of land on the North American continent, came four of the nation's first five presidents, a dynasty whose members led in securing independence, creating the Constitution and building the Republic. One of them doubled the size of the United States. Another extended its border to the Pacific ocean. Sometimes they worked as a band of brothers, but not always. They quibbled, they quarreled and they fought. Were political parties, a bane or a boon? What were the limits of descent? How should a Republic prepare for war?
So, I wanted to begin by talking about their amazing achievements. And in the book, I try from time to time to address the issue of how their near-ness, how their being in a geographical place together, helped influence the greatness and the achievements that we remember them for.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:04:04] Wonderful. It's such an engaging way to draw all of us in and that image of them, all being born within 60 miles of each other. It helps us concretize them and makes us eager to learn more. So, you noted three major achievements: securing independence, creating the Constitution and building the Republic. Let's start with creating the Constitution and let's take each of your founders in turn. In your very first description of George Washington in the next paragraph, it's clear that it wasn't necessarily politically incorrect to talk about Justice Ginsburg's sense of style, because you note Washington's.
You say, tall and powerfully built. He heightened his presence with elegant dress, even wearing fashionable yellow gloves on special occasions. There was something about what you call Washington's charisma. He was the most charismatic of the dynasty. That was the most important thing about his presence and conduct at the constitutional convention. But tell us about George Washington's role at the constitutional convention.
Lynne Cheney: [00:05:04] Well, for the most part, he didn't say anything and that was typical of Washington. He lent his presence and he didn't make frivolous comments or indeed many comments at all. John Adams once said of him that Washington has the gift of silence. And I think that's a pretty important lesson for all of us in the political world or not, you know, let the situation ripen and develop before you leap in to express your own ideas. So he was that presence. He also gave legitimacy to the constitutional convention. Once Washington said he would show up, then people started saying, okay, well I will too. And it was Madison who played a large hand in persuading him that he should be in Philadelphia in 1787.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:05:57] Fascinating and significant that his mere presence and his willingness to overcome his initial doubts about whether or not to show up were the most important things about his role. Well, the obvious next founder is Madison. He's one of what you call the two intellectuals, and at the convention, we learn from your book that Madison was less completely convinced of the wisdom of the Constitution than some might've imagined.
Lynne Cheney: [00:06:24] You know, he had worked on this for years, years, and years. He began to think about constitutions and nation building while he was still a student at Princeton. So this was a long held interest of his, and he picked up his pace as it began to seem there might be a constitutional convention and sort of made the skeleton outline that would form the basis for the Virginia Plan.
He also, in order to make sure the constitutional convention happened, rode through a snow storm from Philadelphia to New York City, to be sure that the Congress wouldn't somehow derail this. So he was every place all of the time, just a dervish, in terms of getting the constitutional convention underway.
That's a sometimes overlooked aspect of his contribution. Of course he had, as I say, really formed the basis of the Virginia Plan. He also spoke, I think maybe a couple of other delegates spoke more than he, but phew. And he kept the notes that are our best record of the convention. He hammered out compromises.
He. He was a busy, busy person and he applied a strong intellect to his tasks. But, when he finished, he was not sure at all that the Constitution provided for a strong enough central government. And he was in a bit of a funk for several weeks. Finally though, decided that he couldn't let the perfect distract him from the fact that they had done what was possible and then threw himself into getting the Constitution ratified.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:08:12] It's so striking to learn that. And then you described this really important discord between Madison and Thomas Jefferson over ratification. And surprisingly, you revealed Jefferson as an initial opponent of ratification who actually sent an excerpt of a letter he wrote to Madison with his objections to the Constitution. But then, he changed his mind. So tell us that amazing story.
Lynne Cheney: [00:08:38] You know, it's one I didn't realize when I started the book. I've always thought that Jefferson must have been a difficult friend. Because, you know, he would do this one day and the next day have another grand idea that was in maybe the opposite direction. But I think this episode proves that indeed it was difficult to be Jefferson's friend. Madison had been working so hard on the convention and Jefferson did object. Jefferson thought the Bill of Rights should be attached immediately, before ratification. It was a political difficulty for Madison that Jefferson, I don't think realized. If you brought up the amendments before ratification, different states would have different ideas about what the amendments would be and you would end up with another convention. And Madison knew that was a terrible idea. So, he dismissed Jefferson's complaint, but Jefferson decided to interfere in other ways. He wrote letters to people at various ratifying conventions. He, as you say, he sent copies of what he had written to Madison into these other conventions, trying to convince them, particularly in Virginia, to hold off. Do not ratify. And then we'll get to go back and have this meeting of the minds about what the amendment should be.
Madison understood the political peril. Jefferson had no idea of it. Madison never directly challenged Jefferson for what was a breach of faith, surely. You know, he didn't tell Madison he was going into the legislators behind Madison's back and trying to stop their ratification of the Constitution. But Madison did hold off on writing him for several months, and he was very slow to provide him with a copy of the Federalists, though he finally did. Again, Madison was a kind of calm, steady fellow who thought the best thing to do in terms of this conflict was to let it pass. And he was right.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:10:54] It's amazing. So, Jefferson's initial objection was that there was no bill of rights.
Lynne Cheney: [00:10:59] Correct.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:10:59] And he said that Virginia shouldn't succeed until the declaration was added. But then you note that it was reading the Federalists that changed his mind. What was it in the Federalists that changed Jefferson's mind about ratification?
Lynne Cheney: [00:11:13] Well, you know, it's hard to know what was going on in Jefferson's mind. It was so capacious and so able to sustain contradiction. I think in the end he saw which way the wind was blowing and decided that, you know, this thing was going through and he should he should get on board.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:11:31] And the debate in the Virginia ratifying convention was really a microcosm of the debate over the country. And it was close, as you note. It was 89 to 79 in favor of ratification. It could have gone either way. And one of the prominent opponents of ratification in the Virginia ratifying convention was James Monroe. So tell us about him and what were his objections?
Lynne Cheney: [00:11:55] It's hard to know about Monroe. I guess it's hard to know about how any human being makes decisions. But Monroe had been left off the list to attend the constitutional convention and he blamed Madison. He blamed Edmund Randolph. And I think he was just in sort of a, a bit of a bad mood at the convention. And he probably didn't decide not to support ratification just because of his mood, but it probably helped things along. He resented not having been part of the earlier effort, the convention itself, and now began to lodge powerful arguments against ratification.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:12:39] It sounds in your account as if some of it was personal. You write that he exuded hostility toward George Washington wrote a long essay at the time of the convention, the ratifying convention, to show how Washington the statesman had orchestrated his grand career to add brilliancy to his character and secure his success. His resignation was calculated and so forth. Where did that conflict come from? They had some contact during the war, and to what degree was this personal?
Lynne Cheney: [00:13:07] For one thing, Monroe was a hero at the battle of Trenton and received very little recognition for it. And I think that ate away at him. He was also, because he was wounded, taken out of command. He didn't have a force to command in the field and that, that also ate away at him. And he began to blame Washington for many things. He also blamed Washington for having destroyed the career of a man named Charles Lee, who was Monroe's friend. And one of the few people who in the early days was very complimentary of Monroe. And Charles Lee was a pain in the neck. He challenged Washington to a court martial and it was a challenge that Washington picked up. But this ended up playing a part in the enmity of Monroe in Washington as well. And then this is something I didn't know. And it was partly because the Monroe papers had not been published in a comprehensive form, though they are now almost all in that form. That Monroe was the master of the unsent letter, the unsent memo. And he wrote these scathing essays, usually directed toward Washington, and really scathing, calling Washington a would be King and someone who would lead the country in a dire and awful direction and a man who was very self-centered and who did a lot of things simply to enhance his image.
So, Monroe wrote this long memo and then didn't mail it. And he did that several times. He also criticized the president publicly, but the unsent memos are definitely worth looking at.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:14:55] The unsent memo is a virtue that we should all recommend in this instant communication age. How much did personal relations, both affinities and emntities, as much as philosophy, shape the relationship between these four remarkable men. Did they fall in and out or were their relationship relatively stable over time?
Lynne Cheney: [00:15:16] No. It changed from time to time and for good reason. There was a British politician who said sir, to someone who addressed him, sir, when the situation changes, I change my mind. What do you do? And it's a very good question, I think helps explain a lot of what seemed like inconsistencies in the four members of the dynasty. One of the changes, one of the things that changed, or at least one of the things that was revealed, was that Washington had a very different image for the country, very different aspirations for it, than the other three did. Washington. He was a man of the 18th century. You know, he died in 1799. And had outdated ideas or at least ideas that the others thought were outdated. And one of them was this, that people ought to elect the president.
The country is based on the people. They should elect the president and go away as soon as they had done that and leave him alone to governing. Now, this seemed insane to Madison and to Jefferson. And they immediately began to think of ways to work in an organized opposition. Out of this came political parties. And out of it also came a great schism between Washington and the other three. And it didn't end, even after Washington's death. People, members of the dynasty, expressed their discontent with the direction in which he had been headed.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:16:57] Your account of the rise of political parties is so powerful. And you have some pathbreaking and original research about the election of 1800, which I'd love you to share, and tell us about the role of that election in creating the rise of the two parties.
Lynne Cheney: [00:17:17] Well, it began with the fact that the Constitution allowed a sort of, I don't know, blanket vote. You could pick from a whole field of candidates and whoever got the most votes would be the nominee for president. Whoever got the second, most would be the nominee for vice-president. And this didn't work out very well.
Jefferson and Aaron Burr were running on the same, or they meant to be running on the same, ticket, Jefferson for president and Burr for vice-president. However, when it, when the votes were counted, Jefferson had the most votes and Burr had the second most. And poor John Adams, the incumbent president, was out of the game.
The contest then began with Federalists maneuvering, both Jefferson and Burr were Republican. Federalists were maneuvering to see how they could get the best deal out of a bad situation. And there was a lot of law grueling, I guess you used to call it, a lot of conversations in corridors, trying to keep the Federalists on the one hand from voting for Burr and making him president, and on the other hand, trying to get them to vote for Burr and get a little revenge. The Federalists wouldn't have that much power, but they would have had their revenge. So, that was sort of the beginning of this story.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:18:48] And then to continue it, you, you learned that there was a delegate called James Baird, and if he didn't believe that the Maryland Republican Samuel Smith was Jefferson's agent, he wouldn't have gone through with this deal that had political consequences, and it might not have thrown the election to Jefferson and the House.
Lynne Cheney: [00:19:05] You know, it's a story of special interest to those of us who live in a single representative states, that in the circumstance, wherein in the election is tied, if it then proceeds ahead to go to the Congress as the Constitution imagines and ordains, if it does that, the states vote each, one by one. In other words, Wyoming, that has three electoral votes, will have one vote in deciding the tie. And so will New York. So will Pennsylvania, who have many, many more votes, but in this case are forced into having a single vote to determine the outcome of the election. It was a traumatic scene. There were people sick.,Who were carried on litters to the House so that they could cast their votes. There were nearly three dozen votes before it was over sequentially, trying to break this tie. It was very difficult. And as I say, there was some, I don't know, conversations behind the door, the idea of being to say, okay, the Federalists will hold off from voting, if Jefferson will make certain concessions. Some people say he did make concessions, for example, to strengthen the Navy. Other people say he didn't, that he turned down please to keep Federalists in office. The proof of the pudding is that he didn't do those things, but the tale has been told many times that that he did. And he might've, he might have put out certain hints, but in the end he didn't act on them.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:20:48] It's an amazing story. And it's amazing that the country survived an electrical crisis that required a constitutional amendment to remedy. Does the fact that we survive that crisis and the efforts at court curbing that followed it, where the outgoing Federalists basically reduced the size of the Supreme court by attrition to try to deny the Jeffersonians, the ability to have a seat, so the fact that we survived that make you optimistic or pessimistic about our current vexations? And what can we learn from that election about our current vexations?
Lynne Cheney: [00:21:22] It's always hard, isn't it, to take a lesson directly from the past and say, okay, this, this shows that we should go in X direction or Y direction, but maybe there are hints. Maybe there are some lessons. You know, the tie was so angst, caused so much angst, and people were so worried about it. And there were rumors, some partly true, that people in the various States were arming themselves. And if the debate did not end in a vote that went in the direction that they perceived best, they were going to March on Washington. So it was not just an intellectual battle. It did take us to the very core of the country. And the fact that it did and that we came through is indeed a hopeful one. So many of the debates and conflicts that we talk about and that I cover in the book, so many of them have a familiar ring today.
Washington had to deal with armed insurrection, for example. And he did it in a very strong way. He sent, he called up 13,000 militia from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area and had them converge on an area in Pennsylvania, where 6,000 farmers were really mad about the excise tax on whiskey and many had armed themselves. So Washington didn't go in timidly. He sent 13,000 militiamen to that spot and the demonstrators, the insurgents, more or less melted away. So the problems are often the same.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:23:05] Maybe it's hard to generalize, but what was it that got us through that crisis, Washington and the armed insurrection, or the election of 1800? Was it the character of the individuals or was it chance or something else?
Lynne Cheney: [00:23:18] Well, the character of the individual certainly counted. There are so many times when you see an intervention, you know, an event happening that that changes the course, that it, you know, it makes you wonder if there wasn't some sort of mild support from up above for the Americans who were struggling on their way.
I think it was generally a feeling. It built on what Washington said about this being a grand experiment, and we should try to keep it. That what we were doing was noble and good. And that if everyone couldn't restrain himself from making threats and getting a musket, then at least there would be enough people who would to move the country out of the crisis and move it forward.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:24:10] That notion of everyone restraining themselves was so crucial to the founders' notion that we had to be guided by reason rather than passion, if the Republic were to survive. And you begin the book by saying that what drew these four men together was establishing a nation built on what Washington called "the researches of the human mind after social happiness." what did he mean by the researchers of the human mind after social happiness?
Lynne Cheney: [00:24:39] Washington was self-educated, but this particular idea came out of his acquaintance with, his learning about, the enlightenment, the Scottish enlightenment in particular. Which suggested that It was possible by using reason to improve the lives of people. That it was possible by studying how men made decisions and how they had built governments in the past, it was possible to find a way to build better governments that would bring a measure of happiness to people. I have long have waited to discussing exactly what happiness meant to them. Because to me, it just has such a perfect aura in the way that we think about happiness, contented life, a life where you're where your needs are met sufficiently, a good life.
Jefferson, I also think like the phrase pursuit of happiness. Because he was a poet and it scanned so well, you know, pursuit of happiness. And I think it would have spoiled the declaration, the preamble to it, if Jefferson had said, and the pursuit of property. It just, it wouldn't have had the same universal and transcended impact that it does.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:25:58] I'd love to share an amazing experience I had on one of our online classes, recently. I mentioned before we started that the Constitution Center is teaching three times a week to middle and high school and college kids. And I noted one of the high school students asked for book recommendations, and I noted that I was trying to make my way through one of the heroes of the Scottish Enlightenment, who informed the founders' understanding and the pursuit of happiness, Francis Hutchison's essay on the nature and conduct of the passions and affections.
And I said, if anyone who's listening wants to read Hutchison and help me understand how Hutchison balanced reason and passionate, please do that. And just a few days ago, this amazing woman, a 71 year old retiree in Chicago, said she read Hutchison and she thought he distinguished too sharply between reason and passion, because Aristotle from whom he was channeling understood that there were some reasonable and some unreasonable passions that we had to use self restraint to overcome. Just sharing that with gratitude to the person who wrote in and anyone who's listening to us today and is inspired by Lynne Cheney's amazing book and is inspired to read something, to read her book, or to read Hutchinson or anything else and wants to tell us what you thought, that would be great. So we're now... lots of questions and I need to ask one that, of course you confront very directly in the book and that is this: does the fact that these men were slaveholders discredit them, as some say today, and how should we evaluate their holding of chattel slavery with the ideals that they espoused?
Lynne Cheney: [00:27:31] It was a contradiction, a complete contradiction. It can't be reconciled. They knew it couldn't be reconciled. And to a man, they thought that slavery was immoral. Jefferson called it a crime against God, and certainly thought there would be divine retribution for a sin of such size. But they couldn't, they couldn't work their way out of this system into which they'd been born. They couldn't achieve the total emancipation that real justice required. And so they had that on the one hand, but they also found themselves living in a time when people were talking about these amazing ideas, building a new society on principles like justice and equality, building a new society in which the greater understanding of human nature, this is how Washington was thinking, I believe at the time, could help us build better institutions that would lead the people on whom the institution should be based, that would lead the people to the kind of a better life that everyone envisioned.
As it turns out, those ideals, freedom, equality, justice, those ideals became a very powerful weapon, if not the most important weapon, in destroying slavery. You simply couldn't build a society on those ideals without raising the hope for freedom and the understanding that not having equality for everyone was wrong.
Frederick Douglass attributed the Constitution's silence on the issue of slavery to making it it neutral and said, you know, if we just lived up to the words of the preamble, the nation would have slavery abolished. And Lincoln admired Jefferson for having put into the first part of the Declaration of Independence the idea that all men are created equal. The idea that justice was for all. He praised Jefferson, praised him for putting these words at the beginning of our founding document, where they could not be ignored and where they would serve as a warning to anyone who didn't pay attention to them.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:30:00] So important to emphasize, as you do, that both Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were inspired by Jefferson and Madison. We have at the Constitution Center, the flag that flew over Independence Hall in 1862 and Lincoln stood outside and made that famous speech, saying he'd never had an idea politically that didn't stem from the declaration and he'd rather be assassinated on the spot, is what he said, than abandon the principle of the declaration. Amazing.
Lynne Cheney: [00:30:23] Well, that's, I'm not as familiar with that speech as I should be, and I'll look forward to reading more about it and about the flag that is among the wonderful things you've collected to commemorate the Constitution.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:30:38] Is it important for our friends who are watching to distinguish among the four founders in their views about slavery or did they all essentially recognize that it was immoral, but nevertheless, tolerated it to more or less the same degree?
Lynne Cheney: [00:30:53] Jefferson's language of course was the language that has echoed down the generations. He began talking about it in what was his only book, "Notes on the State of Virginia." He expressed some feelings in that book that are painful to read today because they're so racist, but he also condemned slavery. It's a telling point about the time that he was more concerned, that what he said about how awful slavery was and how it needed to be ended forever, he was more concerned about that causing a scandal than he was about anything else he said in Notes. So from a very early time on, he was talking about the horrors of slavery and he gave us, you know, the immortal words that we read on the Jefferson Memorial today.
Madison felt just as strongly. Early in his life, when he was a young man, he dedicated himself to try to find a way to live without slavery. And he got Monroe to do some investments with him, land speculation, really, but they weren't very good businessman. I mean, Washington was the best businessman of all, and their attempt to build themselves a base so that they could lead a life in which they did not hold enslaved people they came to naught. And so Madison was trying as a young man, Monroe trying as a young man. Whom have I left out? Washingto. Washington expressed his views on slavery, as you might expect from a man who didn't say all that much, in in very limited ways, but it was quite clear that he felt that slavery was an unworkable institution and immoral because at the end of his life, he freed his slaves.
Now he couldn't free Martha's slaves. That's an important distinction to make. She had in her dour the ownership of a number of slaves, 150 or more, and he couldn't sell those because they weren't his to sell. However, he did free the other slaves, and his an amount, I think, smaller than Martha's. He provided for the education of those slaves. He provided for them being able to read and write and for their interning in different professions so they could earn a living. So it was, it was an amazing gesture and one that all too few of his compatriots followed.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:33:38] Is it significant that the four founders you talk about all recognize the compatibility of slavery with morality and natural law? And were there others in Virginia, for example, even in the Virginia delegation who felt differently?
Lynne Cheney: [00:33:53] Yes, no. Especially in upper Virginia , that was a belief that was widespread. Later in the 19th century and particularly in the lower South that went Virginia as well, there developed a group who chose to stand on the floor of the Congress and argue for the virtues of slavery. It's very painful to read the debates, but this was never something that the four men I write about participated in. They always agreed that the system into which they had been born was corrupt and immoral and should be ended.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:34:33] That seems significant as we talk about why these founding ideals inspired Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, and why they're relevant today. What else would you say to school kids? Of course, this is a very vivid debate in this country today about why we should study these founders and be inspired by their ideals, despite the fact that they violated them in practice.
Lynne Cheney: [00:35:00] And, you know, despite the fact that we have taken a long time to make the progress we have, but that the progress in the whole course of human history is quite amazing. The thing I worry about most is the cutting down of the ideals that they built upon. There's a project that comes out of the New York Times and is being worked into the curriculum of our schools, and it begins by saying that our ideals were lies from the beginning. And that's simply not true. Our ideals were, they are, transcendent ideas like liberty and justice, as Jefferson pointed out, can't be taken from any of us. We each possess those internally. And for it to be suggested that we had a corrupt beginning in terms of our ideals really undercuts our national story.
It implies that the whole effort was corrupt from the beginning. And I hope that there are not many children who are led to think this way. I do worry, as I watch demonstrators and protestors, when I see people saying, you know, this country was corrupt from the beginning, because that implies that getting rid of it would be a good idea.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:36:26] And I think you just began to answer that question, but what is your response to those who say the country's corrupt from the beginning? Would you point to the preamble, to the declaration, as expressing the ideals that Americans should do and continue to embrace today?
Lynne Cheney: [00:36:42] Our founding documents, surely, the declaration, the Constitution, bill of rights, those contain the ideals that became the great weapons against slavery that I talked about before. It's just wrong to talk about the ideals on which we were founded being corrupt. Now there was, as I have said, an enormous contradiction between those ideals and the fact that these men were slaveholders. Gordon Wood is a wonderful historian, writes in one of his books that you know, this, this is a real puzzle, a real contradiction. But that he is certainly glad they made the decision they did to start a country based on ideals, to do something such as in the world had never been seen before. And, I find some comfort in that idea as well.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:37:38] Very powerful. Ken Moskovitz asks, regarding slavery, how did the four react or participate in the passage of the Northwest Ordinance, which prevents slavery in the territories?
Lynne Cheney: [00:37:48] Jefferson was the main participant there. He made a proposal that there should be no slavery. Slavery should be forbidden in the Northwest territory. Now his proposal didn't go any place, but after he had gone to Paris, something very similar to it, a model of his proposal, a proposal based on his model, did become law. And it was one indication of Jefferson early on in his life acting against slavery. It was still a time, I think, when people believed that slavery might go away on its own, that Jefferson had another emancipation project too, but there simply wasn't the widespread support for it that he had hoped. And slavery became ever more entrenched in the South as as time went on.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:38:43] Beth Elstein asked why and when did Madison change from being a Federalist to a Republican?
Lynne Cheney: [00:38:49] Well, I'm not sure he ever thought of himself as a Federalist, thouogh I can see why one might be tempted to call him that. They basically just thought of themselves as elite Americans creating a society that would benefit everyone. But when Madison and Jefferson saw what they thought to be Washington's kingly tendencies, they believed that he would drag us backward where we had been before the before the Revolution, and split off at that point. I think before they just thought of themselves as one thing, but then there was the split, and Madison and Jefferson created what became known as, but we should be careful to point out, is not related to the Republican party, the Republican party of today.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:39:39] We have a question which is from JT sham, who says Jefferson once said something like blind adherence to the Constitution jeopardizes its very existence and it's folly, and asked if we could provide the exact quote. And I think of the famous one about the earth belonging to the living and Jefferson's skepticism that one generation should be able to bind in others. And certainly his far greater receptivity to another convention and Madison who thought it would be a disaster because it was a miracle the first one succeeds. Does that quotation ring any bells in whether or what light can you cast on Jefferson views about blind adherence to the Constitution being folly?
Lynne Cheney: [00:40:22] Well, it sounds as though Jefferson might've said something like that, and meant it in the moment and probably meant for a longer time. But his mind went in so many directions and the particular letter to Madison that you're talking about has become very famous. The idea that the earth belongs to the living and we shouldn't have to pay debts that are older than 19 years. We shouldn't have constitutions that were older than 19 years. He deemed that to be the length of time we should count as a generation. It was one of those fantasies that he had, that Madison pointed out in very kind, but matter of fact ways, he pointed out the flaws in such an idea. And how could you have a new constitution every 19 years? You would throw the country into chaos. So I'm not sure how to answer your question asked, I don't know the exact quote that your questioner is thinking about.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:41:26] We, I've now found a series of quotations from Jefferson on the need for amendments and how the earth belongs to living and so forth. And he said, let us provide in our Constitution for its revision at stated periods. And as you suggested, he said, a majority will be dead at 19 years. And at that point, a new majority should come into place. Was he systematic about how it was supposed to work, were people supposed to exercise the unalienable natural right to alter and abolish government and just start from scratch or how were the new constitutions supposed to arise?
Lynne Cheney: [00:41:57] Well, he was not a detail man. He was a concept man. And among the faults that Madison pointed out to his theory was that generations, even if you want to say they last 19 years, that a single one does, even if you want to say that, they don't all depart the stage at the same time.
It's not as though, after 19 years, everyone who was involved in the beginning, just departs from the political stage. So, it was an unworkable plan. Jefferson himself was being pressed to repay debts at that time. He led a very precarious financial life. And one wonders if his personal didn't enter into it too, as I've said before, it's almost impossible to explain all of the complexity of a single person's decision.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:42:48] At the end of his life, Jefferson was questioning the institution of judicial review based in part of his dislike for his distant cousin, John Marshall, and also talking about the possibility of secession, but William Paul asked squarely, do you think the Virginia forever contemplated a future civil war to be fought over slavery?
Lynne Cheney: [00:43:08] No, I don't. And I think it was Jefferson speaking in his, what Madison called his fully rounded way. Jefferson speaking in that tone, when he suggested that States should have the right to turn down, divorce themselves from a federal decision. Madison was much more temperate, as one would expect, on the topic, but that paper that Jefferson wrote caused the idea of secession to take on a prominence that it never lost.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:43:45] Our Constitution Center friends knew that in law school, I had a debate with my dear teacher and friend Akilah Mar about whether at the time of the convention, there was a consensus that we, the people of the United States as a whole were sovereign, and therefore that secession was unconstitutional, as James Wilson and Lincoln claim, or whether there was a debate and some felt that we, the people of the states were sovereign and therefore secession was at least constitutionally permissible. Do you think it was settled at the time of the founding or was there a debate on that question?
Lynne Cheney: [00:44:17] No, there really wasn't to my knowledge though you and your peer were probably more, well, better read than I in that. It became an issue as the South became more and more concerned that the federal government would abolish slavery. That went so at the heart of the economic system of the South, that the idea of secession became ever more appealing. And as I say, as slavery became more entrenched and people did not see how the South could survive without it, that in itself caused a reaction in the North, which was abolitionist. It was a terrible idea and a terrible trend that we had set ourselves on, but slavery made it inevitable.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:45:09] We shouldn't part without a beat on Monroe, who of course will be less familiar to our viewers than the other founders. You note that Monroe, along with Madison, at the end of his life became a leader in the American Colonization Society, which encouraged emancipation by underwriting the transportation of free people to Liberia. But in addition to the Monroe doctrine, what should we know about James Monroe?
Lynne Cheney: [00:45:34] That he was a good president. He had been, you know, painfully hungry after success for most of his life. But once he had held the many high offices he did, his resume was very impressive. He was secretary of war and secretary of state at the same time, at one point. After going through all of those experiences in high office, he learned how to be a good president. He watched it in action. He wasn't afraid of having people around him who are smarter than he was, John Quincy Adams being a case in point. People say, and with some truth, that John Quincy Adams was in large part responsible for the Monroe doctrine. Quincy Adams never said that himself. He was a good secretary of state, who didn't run around claiming credit for ideas, even if he'd had a large part in creating them. So, Monroe kept a good cabinet around him. It was a stable cabinet. It was a time that sometime's been called the era of peace. This is a time when the United States was at ease and at peace.
And there is some truth in that, though people have debunked that idea forever. There was some truth that this was an era of good feelings. So, Monroe in the end, was a good president. He was also amazing. He and Madison, amazingly, were the two who left office happy. Madison particularly, Washington's second term was so awful that he couldn't get back to Mount Vernon fast enough. And Jefferson felt the same. He felt as though he had been insulted , torn about by the media. He of course was a champion of free speech, but toward the end of his life, he wrote to a young man who'd asked him about the press, about newspapers. And I think the young man was not prepared for the answer he got. Jefferson wrote back and said, you know, newspapers might not be as bad as they are, if they would just set aside a section in the newspaper for lies. And I'm sure when the young man got that letter back from former president, he was quite astonished, but Jefferson left office, an unhappy man. Madison and Monroe, much less so.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:48:04] Leaving the office happy and presiding over an era of good feeling is indeed a enviable legacy for both. Fred Sutherland, our great friend of the Constitution Center, asks wasn't the three-fifths compromise and the provision for the elimination of the future importation of slaves also evidence that Madison and Jefferson decided that ignoring slavery was the only way to get the constitution ratified and that slavery would best be eliminated over time?
Lynne Cheney: [00:48:29] The three-fifths compromise which has been a source of so much anger and so much angst. I totally understand why. It was less, how shall I say, astonishing at the time. This was the same ratio that was used to establish a tax assessment. You know, if you counted the whole population that was free, plus three-fifths of the population that was slave, that determined your tax assessment.
So, when it came time to figure out how you apportioned to Congress, the same figure came, came into play. The way that it was expressed does indeed point out their effort to keep the Constitution neutral, to not have the Constitution be a slave document in any way. Instead of saying three-fifths of all enslaved persons, it says three fifths of all other persons. And I have a, I had a wonderful friend named Bob Goldwin, who once wrote, and I thought this was an astonishing way to look at it that the founders, as they participated in writing the Constitution, were preparing for a society better than their own. They didn't want to recreate what they saw as the largest flaw in their society. And so the word slave, slavery, is never mentioned in the Constitution. Neither is the word woman ever mentioned in the Constitution. I think that's a telling, and telling in a sense that I don't think they thought the oppression of women was, and they were correct, was nearly as violent and harsh as slavery was.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:50:26] Justice Ginsburg, of course, used to talk about how the Constitution, she believed the founders hoped that it would become ever more embracive, which was her word to include previously--
Lynne Cheney: [00:50:37] That's nice.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:50:37] --Excluded groups. Concluding thoughts. We several versions of this question, but given the current political divisiveness, James Griffin asks, are we forgetting the enlightened founding ideals, at a point where we will no longer keep the Republic or does studying history make you optimistic that we will transcend our current vexations?
Lynne Cheney: [00:50:59] Well, history gives you hope because we have come through so much in our past. On the other hand, watching the current situation, where the idea that the United States has been a corrupt and criminal from the beginning is ever more widely accepted, and indeed, is becoming part of the curriculum taught in our schools, if the New York Times project goes ahead, as it was originally presented. That idea is just terrifying to me. You know, why would you become a supporter of a country that had been corrupt from the beginning? So that's what terrifies me.
And I just hope that if our schools aren't doing a good enough job of telling those ideas, of making a young people understand those ideas, then parents and grandparents will take on the task. Sometimes you can't depend upon institutions, but you can always depend upon yourself.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:52:03] Very well said. And the National Constitution Center stands by to help those parents and grandparents with our live classes, with our wonderful educational materials, and with this beautiful Interactive Constitution, which brings together liberals and conservatives to debate what unites and divides us about these great founding documents that ultimately continue to constitute the essence of we the people. Lynne Cheney, these conversations are always so meaningful and enlightening. Thank you so much for this one. And I can't wait for your next book so you can come back and discuss it with us very soon.
Lynne Cheney: [00:52:39] Thank you. I can't imagine -- somebody just set off the alarm-- I can't imagine a more delightful way to spend an hour and thank you for letting me talk about my book and my favorite subjects. I really appreciate that.
Jeffrey Rosen: [00:52:55] Thank you so much. Thanks everyone for watching. Have a good night, everybody.
Lynne Cheney: [00:52:59] Good night.
Jackie McDermott: [00:53:02] This episode was produced by me, Jackie McDermott, along with Tanaya Tauber and Lana Ulrich. It was engineered by Greg Sheckler. Please rate, review, and subscribe to live at the National Constitution Center on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and join us back here next week.
On behalf of the National Constitution Center, I'm Jackie McDermott. .
