Think about how often today politicians and other political contestants blithely claim the mantle of the Founding Fathers in support of their own position, almost as if "The Founders" were of one mind about everything. In fact, as ou reading in Volkomer this week well shows, the framers often disagreed, and the system of "checks and balances" that they wove into the Constitution was as much a means of fairly managing and embracing, even encouraging, disagreement, as it was anything. Now, watch the below video. The nineteenth-century quotes in it were all actually uttered or written by the two political camps--Thomas Jefferson's and John Adams's--in the presidential-election contest of 1800. After you have watched the video, give here your summary analysis of it. Also, compare the tenor of American politics that it reveals with politics today and the contours of the original framework of the U.S. Constitution and founding. https://youtu.be/Y_zTN4BXvYI Week 2: Searching the Writings of Key U.S. Founders 1 1 unread reply. 1 1 reply. Wouldn't it be nice if you could search instantly through nearly 200,000 letters to and from the key founders of the United States, to try to understand in historical context their perspectives-their original intent--in framing the Constitution, and in launching the government of the United States? A website, maintained by the National Archives (Links to an external site.) allows you to do so. Click on the below image to be taken there directly. If you spend time combing through this vast trove of material written to and by the leading Founders of the U.S., you are certain to find interesting insights into their lives, their world, and their politics. You will also, I want to suggest, likely be humbled, and hopefully intrigued, as you discover that just as understanding our time, our world and our politics today can be difficult and time-consuming, the same is true of the early Founders of the U.S.. and of their political motivations, intentions, and meanings. Consider with me, a single observation that you may find in Founders Online: this careful 1826 explanation of how to interpret the Constitution of the United States by James Madison, whose influence in crafting that document was second to none: I cannot but highly approve the industry with which you have searched; for a key to the sense of the Constitution, where alone the true one can be found; in the proceedings of the Convention, the contemporary expositions, and above all in the ratifying Conventions of the States. If the instrument be interpreted by criticisms which lose sight of the intention of the parties to it, in the fascinating pursuit of objects of public advantage or conveniency, the purest motives can be no security against innovations materially changing the features of the Government. --James Madison to Andrew Stevenson, 25 March 1826 (Links to an external site.) Here Madison argues that the Constitution must be interpreted according to the original intent of those who created and authorized it, according to "the intention of the parties to it," but knowing that intent, he insists, is often a challenging feat of historical research. To find it one must look to three primary sources: 1) First, Madison says, we must attend to "the proceedings of the Convention," by which Madison meant the debates of the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, which met in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, in this room, where eleven years earlier, in 1776, the Continental Congress had approved the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Above: interior of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the Constitution of the United States was debated and drafted in 1787. Click on the embedded image, select the full screen option, and pan around 360 degrees to see the whole of the room. Those proceedings were more fully recorded by Madison himself than by any other attendee at the Convention, yet Madison was reluctant to publish his notes on the Convention, knowing that even they were incomplete, and liable to be misunderstood, among other problems, and so he delayed releasing them, and the world saw those notes only after his death. What they saw when they were released was a substantial volume requiring real care and attention to interpret fairly, for a host of reasons, including the fact that Madison had revised them (Links to an external site.) in the half century that elapsed between the constitutional convention and his death, reflecting changes in his own understanding of what occurred at the Convention and what it all meant. Here are Madison's notes in tabular form, with links by day of the 1787 convention. Click on a couple of these and you will see both their usefulness and some of the attendant interpretive challenges if one want to try to use them to get to get into the minds of the Constitution's framers. Week Monday 1 May 14 (Links to an external site.) Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday May 25 (Links to an external site.) 2 3 May 28 (Links to an external site.) May 29 (Links to an external site.) May 30 (Links to an external site.) May 31 (Links to an external site.) June 1 (Links to an external site.) June 2 (Links to an external site.) 4 June 4 (Links to an external site.) June 6 (Links to an external site.) June 7 (Links to an external site.) June 8 (Links to an external site.) June 9 (Links to an external site.) June 5 (Links to an external site.) 5 June 11 (Links to an external site.) June June 12 (Links 13 (Links to to an external an external site.) site.) June 14 (Links to an external site.) June 15 (Links to an external site.) June 16 (Links to an external site.) 6 June 18 (Links to an external site.) June June 19 (Links 20 (Links to to an external an external site.) site.) June 21 (Links to an external site.) June 22 (Links to an external site.) June 23 (Links to an external site.) 7 June 25 (Links to an external site.) June June 26 (Links 27 (Links to to an external an external site.) site.) June 28 (Links to an external site.) June 29 (Links to an external site.) June 30 (Links to an external site.) 8 July 2 (Links to an external site.) July 5 (Links to an external site.) July 6 (Links to an external site.) July 7 (Links to an external site.) 9 July 9 (Links to an external site.) July 12 (Links to an external site.) July 13 (Links to an external site.) July 14 (Links to an external site.) July 10 (Links to an external site.) July 11 (Links to an external site.) 10 July 16 (Links to an external site.) July 17 (Links to an external site.) July 18 (Links to an external site.) July 19 (Links to an external site.) July 20 (Links to an external site.) July 21 (Links to an external site.) 11 July 23 (Links to an external site.) July 24 (Links to an external site.) July 25 (Links to an external site.) July 26 (Links to an external site.) 12 August 6 (Links to an external site.) August 7 (Links to an external site.) August 8 (Links to an external site.) August 9 (Links to an external site.) August 10 (Links to an external site.) August 11 (Links to an external site.) 13 August 13 (Links to an external site.) August 14 (Links to an external site.) August 15 (Links to an external site.) August 16 (Links to an external site.) August 17 (Links to an external site.) August 18 (Links to an external site.) 14 August 20 (Links to an external site.) August 21 (Links to an external site.) August 22 (Links to an external site.) August 23 (Links to an external site.) August 24 (Links to an external site.) August 25 (Links to an external site.) 15 August 27 (Links to an external site.) August 28 (Links to an external site.) August 29 (Links to an external site.) August 30 (Links to an external site.) August 31 (Links to an external site.) Sept 1 (Links to an external site.) 16 Sept 3 (Links to an external site.) Sept 4 (Links to an external site.) Sept 5 (Links to an external site.) Sept 6 (Links to an external site.) Sept 7 (Links to an external site.) Sept 8 (Links to an external site.) 17 Sept 10 (Links to an external site.) Sept11 (Links to an external site.) Sept 12 (Links to an external site.) Sept 13 (Links to an external site.) Sept 14 (Links to an external site.) Sept 15 (Links to an external site.) 18 Sept 17 (Links to an external site.) ...And here is a scroll-able rendition of the notes in book form: 2) A second source to which Madison says that we must look in interpreting the constitution's original intent is to "the contemporary expositions" of the Constitution. By this, he likely had in mind such sources as the Constitution's original opponents' take on that document, known collectively as The Anti-Federalist Papers (Links to an external site.), as well as essays by the Constitution's original supporters, including Madison, The Federalist Papers (Links to an external site.). 3) "Above all," declared Madison in his 1826 letter to Stevenson, more or less repeating a point he had made to Congress in 1796 (Links to an external site.), if we mean to understand the Constitution, we must comprehend the dueling interpretations of the Constitution that existed in the thirteen original "ratifying Conventions of the States," which involved a far-flung cast of several thousand, debaters, and saw even people on the same side of the debate over whether to approve, or "ratify" the Constitution, taking inconsistent positions on what the Constitution's various provisions meant, a complexity evident in the massive record of those debates that was compiled in the nineteenth century, by Jonathan Elliot. (Links to an external site.) The upshot of Madison's letter to Stevenson was that it is vital to understand the Constitution in its context historically, but that that is not a job for slackers, but, rather for real students of the Constitution and its history--students such as you who are taking the time in this course to search diligently and responsibly for true understanding. Founders online, can help you in your efforts to do so, not only in this course, but going forward. Now, take a moment to run a few searches of your own on Founders Online (Links to an external site.), and share, in this discussions thread, an interesting tidbit or two from the Founding generation's world that you there uncover. Did anything of what you discovered--even in a couple of quick, offhand searches just to "test drive" the database--surprise you? How could even occasionally using this database of the Founders' papers help you to better understand the political world in which the U.S. and its Constitution was born? The Founders Think about how often today politicians and other political contestants blithely claim the mantle of the Founding Fathers in support of their own position, almost as if "The Founders" were of one mind about everything. In fact, as ou reading in Volkomer this week well shows, the framers often disagreed, and the system of "checks and balances" that they wove into the Constitution was as much a means of fairly managing and embracing, even encouraging, disagreement, as it was anything. Now, watch the below video. The nineteenth-century quotes in it were all actually uttered or written by the two political camps--Thomas Jefferson's and John Adams's--in the presidential-election contest of 1800. After you have watched the video, give here your summary analysis of it. Also, compare the tenor of American politics that it reveals with politics today and the contours of the original framework of the U.S. Constitution and founding. https://youtu.be/Y_zTN4BXvYI
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