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Hi, I’m John Green,
this is Crash Course U.S. History,
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and today we’re going to talk
about the United States Constitution.
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And, in doing so, we’re going to explore
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how the American style of government
became the envy of the entire world,
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so much so that everyone else copied us.
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What’s that, Stan?
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We’re not gonna talk about other countries
stealing our form of government?
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Because no other countries
stole our form of government?
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That doesn’t seem possible, Stan.
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[Libertage]
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No, Stan, not the Libertage.
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Cue the intro!
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So, today we’re going to learn why the green
areas of not-America didn’t copy us.
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Alright, so as Americans may
dimly remember from history classes,
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the constitutional system
we’ve been living under since 1788,
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the year of the first
Presidential election,
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was not the original American government.
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The first government set up
by the Continental Congress
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was called the Articles of
Confederation and it was,
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in a word: Bad.
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In two words, it was not good.
Which is why it only lasted 10 years.
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The problem with the confederation is
that it wasn’t so much a framework
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for a national government as it
was a “firm league of friendship,”
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which unfortunately only sounds
like a team of Care Bear Superheroes.
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The Articles set up a “government”
that consisted of a one-house
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body of delegates,
with each state having a single vote,
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who, acting collectively,
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could make decisions on certain
issues that affected all the states.
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There was no president and no judiciary.
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You can try to tell me that John Hanson,
the president of the congress
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was the first American president,
but it’s just not true.
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Any decision required
9 of the 13 congressional votes,
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which pretty much guaranteed that
no decisions would ever be made.
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Ahh, super majorities: Always so efficient.
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But besides the 2/3rds requirement,
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the Congress was very limited
in what it could actually do.
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The government could declare war, conduct
foreign affairs and make treaties—
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basically, the stuff you need
to do to go to war with England.
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It could coin money but it couldn’t
collect taxes, that was left to states,
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so if you needed money to, say,
go to war with Britain,
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you had to ask the states politely.
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The articles could be amended,
but that required a unanimous vote,
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so zero amendments were ever passed.
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The government was deliberately weak,
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which followed logically from Americans’
fear of tyrannical governments
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taxing them and quartering soldiers
in their houses and so on.
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But here’s the thing, weak government
is like nonalcoholic beer:
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It’s useless.
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That said, the Articles government
did accomplish a couple things.
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First, it won the war.
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So yay—
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unless you were a slave or a
Native American, in which case,
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you know, probable boo.
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Second, the government developed rules
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for dealing with one of the most persistent
problems facing the new nation:
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Ohio.
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Which was called the northwest,
presumably because it is
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north and west of...Virginia.
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Getting control of the land meant taking
it from the Indians who were living there,
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and the Articles government was empowered
to make treaties, which it did.
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Crash Course World History fans will
remember the Athenians telling the Melians
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that the strong do as they can and
the weak suffer what they must,
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and the Americans definitely went to
the Athenian School of Treaty-Making.
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Through treaties signed at
Fort Stanwix and Fort McIntosh,
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the Indians surrendered land
north of the Ohio River.
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The biggest accomplishment
of the Articles government was
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the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which
set up a process to create
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5 new states between the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
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Two things to know about this:
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First, it acknowledged that American
Indians had a claim to the land
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and that they had to be treated better
if settlers wanted to avoid violence,
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and second, Stan,
can I get the foreshadowing filter?
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Yes, perfect.
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The ordinance outlawed slavery
in all five of the new states.
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Still, the Articles government was a
complete disaster for exactly one reason:
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It could not collect taxes.
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Both the national government and
the individual states had racked up
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massive debt to pay for the war, and their
main source of revenue became tariffs,
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but because Congress couldn’t impose them,
states had to do it individually.
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And this made international
trade a total nightmare,
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a fact worsened by the British being
kinda cranky about us winning the war
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and therefore unwilling to trade with us.
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In 1786 and 1787, the problem got so bad
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in Massachusetts that farmers rose up
and closed the courts
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to prevent them from foreclosing
upon their debt-encumbered farms.
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This was called Shays’s Rebellion,
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after Revolutionary War veteran
and indebted farmer Daniel Shays.
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The uprising was quelled by the state
militia, but for many, this was the sign
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that the Articles government, which
couldn’t deal with the crisis at all,
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had to go.
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But not for everyone.
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Thomas Jefferson, for instance,
was a fan of Shay’s Rebellion.
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“A little rebellion now and then
is a good thing.
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The tree of liberty must be
refreshed from time to time
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with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
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Which is all fine and good, I mean, unless
you’re the bleeding patriots or tyrants.
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But to most elites, Shays’ Rebellion
showed that too much democratic liberty
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among the lower classes could
threaten private property.
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Also people who held government bonds
were nervous, because without tax revenue,
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they were unlikely to get paid back.
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And when rich people feel like
something has to be done,
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something is usually done.
Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.
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The first attempt to do something was a meeting
in Annapolis in 1786 aimed at better regulating
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international trade. Only six states sent
delegates, but they agreed to meet the next
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year in Philadelphia to “revise” the Articles
of Confederation.
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The delegates who met in Philly the next year
had a funny definition of “revision,”
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though. Rather than make tweaks to the articles,
they wrote a new charter of government, the
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Constitution, which is, with some significant
alterations, the same one that Americans live
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under and argue about today.
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Despite what some seem to believe, the 55
men who met in Philadelphia and hammered out
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a new form of government were not gods, but
they were far from ordinary, especially for
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the time.
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Most were wealthy, some very much so. More
than half had college educations, which was
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super rare since .001% of Americans attended
college at the time. About 40% had served
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in the army during the war. But, one thing
they all shared was a desire for a stronger
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national government.
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The delegates agreed on many things – the
government should have executive, legislative
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and judicial branches and should be republican,
with representatives, rather than direct democracy.
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But the devil appeared in the details. Alexander
Hamilton, probably the biggest proponent of
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very strong government, wanted the President
and Senate to serve life terms, for example.
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That idea went nowhere because the overarching
concern of almost all the delegates was to
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create a government that would protect against
both tyranny by the government itself and
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tyranny by the people. They didn’t want
too much government, but they also didn’t
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want too much democracy, which is why our
Presidents are still technically elected not
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directly by regular people but by 538 members
of the electoral college.
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This system is so byzantine and strange that
when American politicians speak of spreading
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democracy through the world, they never actually
advocate for American-style elections.
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Thanks, Thought Bubble.
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Yes, I know, you have
fantastic elections in Canada.
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Yeah, right, okay. All that too.
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I get it, okay?
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It’s U.S. History, Thought Bubble.
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So conflicts between competing
interests arose quickly
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at the Constitutional Convention
in Philadelphia. The first being
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between states with big populations
and those with small populations.
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Large states supported James Madison’s
Virginia Plan, which called for
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a two-house legislature with
representation is both proportional
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to a state’s population.
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And smaller states,
fearing that the big boys would dominate,
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rallied behind the New Jersey plan.
New Jersey…
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This called for a single legislative house
with equal representation for each state,
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as with the Articles of Confederation.
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But, of course, coming from New Jersey,
it had no chance of succeeding,
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and sure enough it didn’t.
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Instead we got the Great Compromise,
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brokered by Connecticut’s Roger Sherman,
which gave us two houses,
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a House of Representatives
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with representation proportional
to each state’s population, and
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a Senate with two members from each state.
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House members, also called Congressmen,
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served two year terms while
Senators served six year terms,
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with 1/3 of them being up for
election in every 2 year cycle.
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The House was designed to be
responsive to the people,
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while the Senate was created
to never pass anything
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and it was so masterfully designed
that it still works to this day.
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However, this solution
created another problem:
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Who should be counted
in terms of representation?
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Slaveholding states wanted slaves
to count toward their population,
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even though of course they could not vote,
because they were property.
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States with few slaves argued that slaves
shouldn’t be counted as people because,
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just to be clear,
none of these dudes were not racist.
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This issue was solved with
the notorious 3/5ths compromise.
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For the purpose of
determining the population,
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the total number of white people plus
3/5ths the population of “other persons”
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– the word “slave” was never used –
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would be the basis for the calculation.
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So…yeah. That’s still in the constitution.
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The constitution also contains
a fugitive slave clause
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requiring any escaped slave
to be returned to their master.
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And this meant that a slave couldn’t
escape slavery by moving to a state
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where slavery was outlawed,
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which meant that on some level some
states couldn’t enforce their own laws.
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Spoiler alert: this becomes problematic.
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But except for the tyranny of slavery,
the framers really hated tyranny.
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To avoid tyranny of the government, the
Constitution embraced two principles:
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Separation of powers and federalism.
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The government was divided
into three branches—
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legislative, executive, and judiciary,
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and the constitution incorporated
checks and balances:
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each branch can check
the power of the others.
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The legislature can make laws,
but the president can veto those laws.
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The judiciary can declare laws void, too,
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but that’s a power they had to grant themselves—
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you won’t find it in the Constitution.
I promise. You can look for it.
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And federalism is the idea that
governmental authority rests both
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in the national and the state governments.
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As an American, I am a citizen both of the
United States and of the state of Indiana.
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And the national government,
the one set up by the constitution,
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is supposed to be limited in scope
to certain enumerated powers.
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Most other powers,
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especially the protection of health,
safety and morals, are left to the states.
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But the constitution also seeks to protect
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against the radicalism that
too much democracy can bring.
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The mostly rich framers worried
that the people,
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many of whom were poor and indebted,
might vote in congress people,
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or God forbid a President, in favor of,
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like, redistribution of property.
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To hedge against this,
senators were elected by the states,
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usually by state legislatures,
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and they were supposed to be, like,
leading citizen types.
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You know, the kind of good
Americans who take bribes
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and have adulterous affairs in airport
bathrooms and patronize prostitutes
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and shoot Alexander Hamilton.
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Anyway,
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the other hedge against too much democracy
is the aforementioned electoral college,
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which many Americans hate because
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it has the potential to elect a president
who did not win the popular vote,
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but that’s kind of the point.
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The electors were supposed to be
prominent, educated men of property
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who were better able to elect a
president than, like, the rabble.
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But, the Constitution of the United
States is a really impressive document,
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especially when you
consider its longevity.
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I mean, as Crash Course World History
fans will remember,
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the nation-state is pretty new
on the historical scene,
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and the United States
established by the constitution,
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is actually one of the oldest ones.
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But the Constitution would be meaningless
if it hadn’t been ratified,
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which it was,
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but not without a fight that helped
clarify America’s political ideology.
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9 out of the 13 states were
required to ratify the Constitution
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in special conventions called
for the purpose.
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In order to convince the
delegates to vote for it,
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three of the framers, Alexander Hamilton,
James Madison and John Jay
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wrote a series of 85 essays that together
are known as the “Federalist Papers.”
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Taken together, they’re a powerful
and ultimately persuasive argument
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for why a strong national government
is necessary and ultimately
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not a threat to people’s liberty.
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Oh, it’s time for the Mystery Document?
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The rules here are simple.
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If I name the author of the Mystery Document,
shock as in surprise.
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If I don’t shock as in...
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Alright, Stan,
let’s see what we’ve got here.
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If circumstances should at any time oblige
the government to form an army of any magnitude
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that army can never be formidable to the liberties
of the people while there is a large body
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of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to
them in discipline and the use of arms, who
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stand ready to defend their own rights and
those of their fellow-citizens. This appears
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to me the only substitute that can be devised
for a standing army, and the best possible
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security against it, if it should exist.
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Federalist papers. Alexander Hamilton.
YES.
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Too easy, Stan,
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although I appreciate the
opportunity for a rant..
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The whole idea of the Second Amendment was
that the people could protect themselves
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from a standing army by
being equally well-armed.
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Which, these days,
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would mean not that citizens should have
the right to buy assault rifles,
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but that they should have the
right to buy, like, unmanned drones.
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And arguably, suitcase nukes.
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And by the way, in the Constitution,
this is not listed as a privilege,
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it is listed as a right.
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And, as a right,
if I can’t afford my own predator drone,
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I guess the government
should buy one for me.
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It’s almost as if Alexander Hamilton
had no way of knowing that weaponry
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would one day advance past the musket.
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P.S. you know how Alexander Hamilton died?
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GUNSHOT. Sorry, I just, I had to.
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I am on a roll.
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So, it would be easy to ignore the people
who opposed the Constitution because,
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you know, they lost.
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But some of the ideas of these
so-called anti-federalists
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were particularly powerful,
and they deserve a bit of attention.
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Anti-federalists, unlike the mostly-
wealthy federalists,
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were usually supported by common people,
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small farmers who weren’t
as involved in commercial activity.
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They saw less need for a
strong national government that
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would foster trade and protect creditors.
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And, the Anti-federalists were
very afraid of a strong government,
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especially one dominated by the wealthy.
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Writers like James Winthrop held that a
large group of united states would be
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like an empire and
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“that no extensive empire can be
governed upon Republican principles.”
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As evidence, he could point to Britain,
or all the way back to Rome.
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Smaller, more local governments,
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are more responsive to the people and
better able to protect their rights.
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To the anti-Federalists,
that meant state governments.
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And while ultimately the Federalists won
out and the Constitution was ratified,
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the issue of how large government
should be did not go away.
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So, the Constitution was
really only a starting point.
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It’s a vague document,
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and the details would be
worked out in the political process.
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And then on the battlefield.
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Thanks for watching.
I’ll see you next week.
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Crash Course is produced and directed
by Stan Muller.
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Our script supervisor
is Meredith Danko.
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The show is written by my high school
history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself.
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Edited by
Stan and Mark Olsen.
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The associate producer
is Danica Johnson.
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And our graphics team
is Thought Cafe.
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If you have questions about today’s video,
or anything about American history,
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good news!
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There are historians in comments,
so ask away.
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Thanks for watching Crash Course
and as we say in my hometown,
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Don’t forget to be awesome.