This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Lincoln County, Kentucky.
This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Lincoln County, Kentucky, United States. The locations of National Register properties and districts for which the latitude and longitude coordinates are included below, may be seen in a map.[1]
There are 22 properties and districts listed on the National Register in the county.
- This National Park Service list is complete through NPS recent listings posted November 29, 2019.[2]
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Transcription
>> Debra Wall: Good evening. >> Good evening. >> Debra Wall: No one ever does that. That's great. I'm the Deputy Archivist of the United States, Debra Wall. Welcome to the National Archives to those of you here in the McGowan Theater and also to those of you joining on our YouTube Channel. Tonight's panel discussion, "Why the Bill of Rights Was Made," is the first public program related to our new exhibit, "Amending America." This exhibit opens to the public tomorrow, upstairs in our O'Brien Gallery, and it will run through September 4, 2017. With the exhibit we begin marking the Bill of Rights 225th Anniversary with activities across the nation including a traveling exhibit, educational outreach, and public programs like this one tonight. When I first heard of the exhibit, I was shocked to learn that there had been more than 11,000 proposed amendments to the Constitution, some narrowly missed ratifications, some came nowhere close. And whether a long shot or a sure thing, the proposed amendments demonstrate our government in action as prescribed by the Constitution. Before we move on to tonight's program I'd like to tell you about two other programs coming to the theater soon. Tomorrow at noon, Mary Sarah BIlder will talk about her book "Madison's Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention" which shows how digital technologies and traditional textual analysis have revealed that James Madison revised his notes on the 1787 Constitutional Convention to a far greater extent than previously recognized. And on Tuesday, March 22, at noon, National Archives staffer and historian Mitchell Yockelson discuss his new book, "Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing's Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I." He tells how General Pershing's exemplary leadership led to the unlikliest of victories. We're proud of Mitch for this work. If you want to know more about upcoming events and all of our public programs, please consult our Calendar of Events. Copies are available in the library -- I'm sorry, in the lobby. I guess the library -- along with a signup sheet to be included on our mailing list, e-mail, or regular mail. And another way to get more involved in the National Archives is to become a member of the National Archives Foundation. If that's something you're interested in, we have more information about that in the lobby as well or you can go to archivesfoundation.org. On to tonight's presentation. Tonight's program is presented in partnership with The Constitutional Sources Project. It's my pleasure to introduce our moderator. John Milewski is the Director of Digital Programming and Executive Producer and Managing Editor of Wilson On Demand for The Wilson Center for Scholars. Previously he served as Executive Producer, Moderator, and Managing Editor of "Close-up" on C-SPAN. Please join me in welcoming John and the panel to the stage. >> [Applause] >> John Milewski: Thank you. >> [Applause] >> John Milewski: Thanks. Hi, everybody. Good evening. Thanks for joining us. You have received information on your way in. And my guess also is if you're here, you know who these panelists are because that's part of the draw. Correct? But let me tell you where they are sitting from your left to right. On the left is Jack Rakove, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian from Stanford University. Sitting next to Jack, we always like a backup Pulitzer Prize-winner, so Joseph Ellis is also a Pulitzer Prize-winner and historian from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The rose between our thorns, Mary Sarah BIlder, a professor at Boston College Law School and author of "Madison's Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention." And she'll be back here on this stage tomorrow to talk about her book. And Kenneth Bowling, co-editor of the George Washington University: First Federal Congress Project. Unlike delegates to the Constitutional convention who are dying to get out of that overheated hall, you're going to be begging to stay once you start hearing from this panel. So please join me in welcoming them once again. Also a shout-out to those of you joining us via YouTube and C-SPAN. Let's try something here. If you have a tri-corner hat, this is the time to bring it out. We're going to do a little time travel. What I'm going to ask you to do is sort of take us back in time through the mists of time and paint a picture very briefly, and we'll go to each of you, of what the country was like at this moment. Before we start digging specifically into the Constitution or the bill of rights, if you could help us get a feel for what this young country was, right, what the atmosphere was like. People talk about how partisan this town is. Anything like that that could add some color or texture or context to what we are going to be talking about. Can we begin in the order of introduction with you, Joseph? >> Jack Rakove: I suppose we would have to think about our favorite thing. So I say, ok, we want to situate the United States in the mid 1780's, so independence from Great Britain has just been won. There's the somewhat fragile national government, which was often described as imbecilic in nature, a number of new governments at the state level which were struggling to deal with the burden of the public debt. There is potentially explosive movement of population looking to go westward as soon as the war ends and even before Americans start moving north across the Ohio River, creating a great deal of mischief with the native people's resident there. There's a whole set of questions about the nature of American commerce with the old world, whether farmers moving west across the Appalachians would be able to send their produce down river, down the Ohio, down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico and reach the markets they want to reach in the West Indies because the Spanish have closed the navigation of the Mississippi to American ships. So on the eve of when the Constitution was written, there's a number of very open-ended political questions about the nature of Republican government and masking or overriding whatever, a lot of ferment and turmoil within society itself. >> John Milewski: Jack, thank you. Joseph? >> Joseph Ellis: Moving the needle along like 1789, what we now call the Bill of Rights is created. The Constitution has just been ratified and no one is really clear what it means. >> John Milewski: Unlike today where we're crystal clear. >> [Laughter] >> Joseph Ellis: So we're in a transitional moment between the confederation and the Constitution between a confederation and alleged nation. I think the only thing that people can all agree on is whatever else the American Revolution means, Washington is the symbol of it. That's it. And that the institutions we think of as permanent are just being created -- that means the Executive Branch and the Judicial Branch as well -- so that it's an in between moment in American history of some significance. And people living in that moment are usually confused. Like now. >> [Laughter] >> John Milewski: Thank you. Mary? >> Mary Sarah Bilder: Hard to trail two Pulitzer Prize winners. What else could I say? I guess I would just add that it's a moment that looks very different than the one we live in today. So political power isn't held by someone like me. I mean, held by you guys, my left and right. Women obviously don't participate. I think it's a country that's beginning to struggle very explicitly with the question of slavery, the states in the north like Massachusetts and Vermont are abolishing slavery. The southern states are moving to embrace slavery ever sort of stronger. And it's a moment where people are very aware that how they decide on that issue really will tilt the fate of the nation. >> Kenneth Bowling: I'm going to follow up on something that Joe said and say a few things about George Washington that I don't think people realize. Washington had a real vision of what the United States would become, and he tried to implement that to the best of his ability despite a Congress that wouldn't put up with his ideas. He supported federal money for education, for the arts, for the sciences. I think by the time he was elected president he had already become an abolitionist and he definitely believed in a multi-racial society, unlike many of the founders who believed in sending the slaves, former slaves, back to Africa. Washington did not see that as a possibility and he also wanted to embrace the Native-Americans, the Indians, as part of American culture. >> John Milewski: Thank you. Now that we're back in time we'll dig into this notion of the Bill of Rights. The first question I want to ask is about why it didn't make the first cut. There were people who wanted it in there. The Constitution itself, three people who refused to sign, as a result, led by George Mason. Was it just that the delegates had had enough, they needed to get out of there or they didn't think it was necessary? What are the main primary reasons it didn't make the first cut? >> Joseph Ellis: It's always impossible to explain why something did not happen. It's like Sherlock Holmes, the dog that did not bark or something. They gave lots of reasons in the ratification process. Madison said, well, we don't really need the Bill of Rights. This is not a monarchy, it's a republic. We don't face the same pressure to protect ourselves from tyranny in that regard. Also, the right specified our enumerated rights, needn't worry about them. He also said once you start listing rights, you might leave some out and then you'll be sorry. Those are all arguments he made as a defender of the document that had passed. As we are going to see, he's going to change his mind fairly quickly. Jack knows this more than I do but I go with they were tired and wanted to go home. >> Jack Rakove: It works up to a point but there's a deeper set of explanations which is we can't think anachronistically about what a bill of rights was supposed to do unless we realized that the very idea of the functions of the Bill of Rights was meant to fulfill was, itself, evolving. You go back to 1776 when Americans start writing constitutions at the state level, eight of those constitutions have bills of rights attached to them. But you have to use the word attach somewhat carefully. In only two cases were bills of rights -- first in Pennsylvania 1776 and then Massachusetts in 1780 -- were bills of rights actually incorporated into the body of the text of the Constitution. And the other states, they are thought of primarily as a set of principles. The fact is, a set of guidelines that both officials in government, perhaps citizens out of doors, should respect and try to adhere to. But they weren't fully regarded as legally enforceable commands. They were not yet understood in the way that we now understand today. The first eight amendments reinforced by Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. So a big part of the story I think really pivots on the idea that one has to understand that, A, the nature of the written constitution, what does it mean have a written constitution as supreme law, that's a dynamic concept, something that was not fully articulated in 1776; and, B, the role that a bill of rights would play in some process of constitutional formation, that also had to be worked out as well. The way I would characterize this is I think in 1776, primarily -- some people go further but primarily the idea of having a bill of rights was understood as the kind of statement of general principle that should accompany a transition between regimes, from a colonial regime to a Republican regime. The idea, though, that -- what we think of naturally if it's incorporated in the Bill of Rights, we have some basis to litigate. And there's institutions out there, public interests, law groups and so on which would be happy to carry our cause forward. That idea was not available, or certainly not available in its full-blown modern form, at the time these were adopted. So the one question arose towards the very end. Both were kind of mavericks. They are kind of oddball politicians in different respects. They suggested -- Mary may have thought more about exactly how much conversation was spent discussing it. But however much there was, there wasn't that much because many of the framers would have felt this is a kind of ancillary, really unnecessary, function. We don't need to do it. Now, Mason says we can do this in a couple of hours. I think his idea was just copy the Virginia Declaration of Rights. >> [Multi-voice overlap] >> John Milewski: So what you're describing, there was no hostility; it's just we don't need it. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: We so imagine the Bill of Rights, like it's been said, the way we understand it in the 20th Century. If you look at the constitution itself and you think about what were the classic rights that appear in things like the English bills of rights, a lot of them are in the main constitution so we forget those. >> John Milewski: But not the ones we talk about. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: Because we take them for granted. So habeas corpus is in the Constitution itself, the right to a criminal trial in a jury case is in the Constitution itself, the expo facto clause, no title of no ability. And then the fact that you could take office without a religious test, which is incredibly important at a time when that exists in most states. And the Constitution has all of those in the main document. Those were the great -- this has been the year of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, so many of us have been on the Magna Carta circuit which has been interesting, talking about Magna Carta. And if you think about that tradition and what was so important to people at the revolution that mattered, a lot of them were things like right to representation, the legislature can't be pro -- I don't even know how you pronounce that word. So in some ways the Constitution is more robust with respect to rights than we may see from our perspective. >> Joseph Ellis: The way they should have seen it and didn't see it in September 1787, and Madison will come to see this gradually but the ratification process makes clear, that failing to add a bill of rights was perhaps the biggest mistake they made. >> John Milewski: What's the measure of that? Public opinion? >> Joseph Ellis: Once the ratification process starts and the debates begin in 12 of the 13 states, the recommendations they make for amendments, the vast majority of them would have been answered if, in fact, a bill of rights had been added. And if it had been added, it would probably have been inserted into the text of the document, not as a codicil. But they should have seen this. They didn't. I think they were tired. They wanted to go home, as I said, because the way in which a bill of rights was perceived within the ratified conventions was this is a document which declares a zone where the government cannot do things. And given the fear of consolidated government at the national level, which is the central fear of the Anti-Federalist position, the Bill of Rights ameliorates that or if you had a bill of rights, it says, no, no, we're not going to do this, we're not going to do that, we're not going to do that. And that's the political context in 1789. >> John Milewski: So is this when this Federalist, Anti-Federalist, divide becomes clarified during the ratification process? >> Joseph Ellis: If you try to read all of the state-to-dates -- >> Clarify is not the term that I would use. >> Joseph Ellis: It's so complicated. Every state is different. Within states, different sections are different. The most important fact about that, as I read it, is that there is no -- they cannot have a national conversation. The only people that can have a national conversation are the people who contribute to the Federalist Papers. But the vast majority of the people in the state ratifying conventions are talking about things from a state or a local point of view. They cannot think nationally. So what -- we haven't created a nation. We've created a framework for a national government that will serve as an incubator for an emerging nation over the next 20, 30 years. >> John Milewski: Who are the main voices that emerge on both sides of this equation, those who think we need to get back to work and create this bill of rights or these amendments and those who think it's fine as is? Who are the main voices that emerge? >> Kenneth Bowling: I think Madison obviously. We don't need a bill of rights. The state constitutions have bill of rights. We can't specify everything so it's dangerous to specify anything. And then the argument that the federal constitution really can't touch the individual, only the states can touch the individual. So Madison on one side with Hamilton and the Federalists in general who didn't want to admit that there was anything wrong with the constitution at all, although Hamilton did admit -- denying the residents of Washington, D.C. the right to votes with a mistake and tried to get New York to oppose an amendment to change the Constitution regarding that. George Mason, on the other side, the man who, in effect, gave us the Ninth Amendment who said to the Federalists, don't give me this nonsense about just because we're listing some rights doesn't mean we have no more. We're only listing the ones that are historically -- we fought for historically since 1215 or whenever, in the Anglo-American world. You just have an amendment that says the Ninth Amendment. Just because we list certain rights doesn't mean we don't retain all the other rights. For instance, the right to bear arms is a Ninth Amendment right. It's not a Second Amendment right. So I would postulate my friend Madison and my friend Mason, maverick though he might be, as the two main players in this. And some people even try to credit and say that Mason is the father of the Bill of Rights. >> Jack Rakove: I think I would tell a slightly different story. I think the point of emphasis that does help something of a national perspective -- Joe is right to say that, you know, it would be a mistake to exaggerate the extent of having a national audience in an 18th Century culture but there is a dramatic moment that takes place within a few weeks of the German and the Constitutional convention which does help to focus attention on the question. It happens on October 6, 1787 when James Wilson, a rather arrogant Scottish immigrant who had settled in Pennsylvania, made a successful career as a lawyer and politician, gives a public speech. Wilson was the leader of the Pennsylvania Federalists and he was a known member of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Federal Convention. And Wilson begins with the -- makes the kind of classic statement of the argument that if we start -- if we start identifying particular rights, the implication of that very process of identification will be that we've actually granted the national government powers that, in fact, we haven't granted. So, if, for example, you want to have a freedom of religion amendment, you know, the equivalent of the Free Exercise Clause or the Establishment Clause, from Wilson's way of thinking, which has a certain genius to it but is politically quite problematic, the idea of identifying a right might be taken to imply that a power has also been granted. He does this in public. And the Pennsylvania Ratification Convention, it's not the first convention to me but it's really the first one to have any newspaper coverage, which is distinctly slanted in lots of ways toward the Federalists' perspective. But Wilson makes similar arguments that the press picks up on in October, November of 1787. So Wilson kind of gets the Federalists out there in a way that I think he over argues the point, there's a kind of theoretical validity to what he's saying but for a variety of reasons it's not the most persuasive argument, particularly to culture which is rights-oriented and very sensitive. So that creates a kind of focus. So in some ways I disagree -- >> This is the Alexander Hamilton Federalist? He brings up that this could be dangerous. Is that Wilson suggesting this is a danger? >> John Milewski: The danger is if you want to identify rights you want to protect, you might be implying the existence of powers not delegated. It's a product of a 10th Amendment kind of argument in that sense. >> John Milewski: If we bring up anything that Alexander Hamilton wrote or said, we have to do it in rap or hiphop in honor of the current hip-hop show. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: I think this point is incredibly important. One of the sort of great ironies of the fight over ratification is that for the opponents of the Constitution -- and I very much agree with the late Pauline Maier that using the term Federalist is not necessarily useful. But for the people who opposed it in trying to explain all the things they were anxious about they made clear how robust and elastic the Constitution actually was. That was part of the reason that the Constitution ends up being read, I think, in such a sort of unfolding way is that in this enormous moment in a lot of states where people debated things, the people who were trying to think it kept explaining all the different ways that the government might have power. And ironically that sort of stuck. Then they add the amendment. But there is this way that I think this debate is incredibly important in creating some of the rhetorics that we use today about how we interpret the Constitution. >> John Milewski: Speaking of that, right now when you talk about amending the Constitution, there's almost a religious fervor and opposition to it that it's a sacred document that can't be touched. What was the attitude towards a notion of amending right after the ink was dry? >> Joseph Ellis: The original answer to your question is who is the star -- Madison is the star of this story. Ok? To argue that Madison is the father of the Constitution could be controversial, could be argued. Madison is the father of the Bill of Rights. He single-handedly wrote -- he's the one who decided we needed one. He wrote it himself. And the eventual document sent up to the states is a reshuffling of the cards he gave them. So it's really a Madison story. And he's the one who concludes on the basis of the debates that have occurred in the ratification conventions -- this is a speech he gives on June something before the House when he presents the Bill of Rights to them, that we should realize there are a lot people that have concerns about this document, that are good patriots, and we need to reassure them that rights they take seriously have not been violated. And for that very reason I intend to submit to you, I do submit to you -- he makes nine amendments. And what's interesting is when Madison is writing these in the spring of 1789, what he's got in front of him is the roughly 100 to 125 recommended amendments that the various state constitutions had made, six states had made them. So he's clearly attempting to respond to the criticism from the states. That's what this is. I'm listening to you. On the other hand, all of the states that recommended amendments made recommendations that federal requests for taxation can be in some sense voluntary. >> [Laughter] >> Joseph Ellis: You don't really have to pay. There will be different ways to negotiate this. He simply deep sixed that. We're not going to bring that sucker up. Ok? He put one in that wasn't in there, namely no state shall pass law-abiding, freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, trial by jury, which is his attempt to sneak in the notion that the federal government really does have authority over these matters. And in some sense the Supreme Court doesn't get to this position until the 20th Century. What he's doing -- one of the members of Congress -- how do you say his name? Adonis Burke from South Carolina -- he must have been having a metaphoric epiphany on this particular day. He says there's a whirly -- there's a frothy dessert called a whirly blurb or something. He calls what Madison is proposing whirly blurb. Also, it's a tub thrown out to the whale. Meaning, Madison is appeasing the states, those people who are reluctant ratifiers, but he's doing them a minimum; that is, he's given them the minimum amount of what he can. And that is exactly what he is doing. He's providing them with some assurance but not with the level of assurance that the most reluctant ratifiers -- so Madison is addressing public confidence in the document. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: He is also addressing his own election. You have to step back. It's really quite incredible. He runs for the Senate. He loses. He then claimed he didn't really want it after all but then he runs for the House and they redistrict -- >> He's blocked. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: They redistrict it hoping Monroe. And as part of that campaign, the standard story says that he decides he has to say he's for all essential rights. And I don't know how you feel. I think he honestly changed his position. I don't think it's just a fake campaign position. Jefferson had written him arguing that there were advances to rights and advances to moving. And I think Madison, for him, it's both -- the House -- he has to run for re-election two years later. >> John Milewski: And Jefferson shouldn't be left to inference? >> Mary Sarah Bilder: Madison has the classic Federalist arguments. Jefferson says it would be a useful tool for the judiciary. That's one that Madison then absorbs. He says the famous half a list is better than none. Jefferson sort of says -- it's interesting because Jefferson is usually the big theory guy and Madison is usually the pragmatist. And on this Madison is the sort of theory guy, here's all the reasons we don't need one. And Jefferson is like here's some pragmatic ones. And I think Madison importantly comes to the conclusion that the people will believe in rights, even if it doesn't work at the governmental level, that if you have a bill of rights, if you have rights somehow, the people will come to believe them. And then as a working out principle in the system, they will somehow be important. That's the thing he cares a lot about. >> Joseph invoked the tub in the whale phrase and you wrote a worthy article invoking that. >> That's right. You did >> Kenneth Bowling: Swift wrote seamen have a custom when a whale approaches a ship, to toss it a little tub and the whale will amuse itself with the tub and the ship, ship of state, can sail away safely. So what happened here was the states that proposed amendments to the Constitution, over 400 were proposed. Some of them were not formally proposed because the -- formally proposed because the Federalist majority like Maryland and Pennsylvania to accept them. But there were 400 proposed, about 100 ideas. 70% of which or more were structural amendments that Joe was talking about, two-term president, etc. A minority of them were what we call civil rights, civil liberties amendments. About 30%. And when Madison drafted these amendments that he proposed to the First Federal Congress, he basically ignored almost all of the structural amendments. They are going to come up in the debate because the Anti-Federalists in the house are going to bring them up. The debate in the First Congress is not about the content of these amendments. I remember when Leonard Levy, the historian, used to send his graduate students to my office. Each one was supposed to find out what the First Congress said about each of those amendments and they said nothing. The debate was all about where to put them, weave them into the Constitution, put them at the end, or whether we need them at all. The tubs of whale, which many members of the First Congress used as an example, is exactly what Madison's strategy was. Don't harm the Constitution. Just put things there that will get it -- will convince the opposition, the anti-federals in public that this is a good -- that the Constitution is good. He wanted to win over the Anti-Federalist following. He knew there was no hope of winning over the leadership like Patrick Henry. And I would add that we were very unfair to Eldridge Gerry, to use the term gerrymander when Patrick Henry Henrymandered in the First Federal Congress. >> One of the things implicit is Madison is overly afraid, many of the congressman thought, of a Second Amendment -- excuse me, a second convention movement, that both Patrick Henry in Virginia and George Clinton in New York, most especially the Clintonites in New York, were threatening to petition the states and call a second convention to listen to the recommended amendments, which was really a recipe for undoing the Constitution. Ok? Now, Jay, up in New York, and even Hamilton was telling Madison don't worry about this, you're overly concerned about it. But for him, this was -- he was worried about it. And this threatened the Constitution. So part of his motives in writing the -- what becomes the Bill of Rights is to kill the idea of a second convention by undermining what they are standing on. He is saying, quite explicitly -- and this is a famous quote. He doesn't really believe in bills of rights. He doesn't believe the bills of rights serve much of a purpose. Jack's written about this at some level. And his experience in Virginia is what he's based on. He doesn't believe that the Bill of Rights is going to do what everybody in the 20th and 21st Century America now regard as the essence of the Bill of Rights. >> Kenneth Bowling: I don't want to give Jefferson too much credit. Most of those letters Madison got after he introduced the Bill of Rights, the so-called Bill of Rights. But the one thing in that letter, Jefferson's letter, that's so important -- and you mentioned it -- Jefferson said just wait until they get into the hands of the judiciary. And it took until the 20th Century. But I would like to comment very briefly on actually how radical these proposals were. Madison included stuff that he got from the state conventions but he also put in his own language the amendments that he proposed included the right to safety, the right of revolution, and the individual right to bear arms which, of course, many of the states had also proposed. And the committee took -- just tossed out completely the preamble that he wrote about safety and the right of revolution. And they know what they to the Second Amendment, with his individual rights to bear arms. They rewrote it. The point was people were taking guns and closed down courts -- in Massachusetts, the last year and a half, we've got to put the brakes on this. So all the radical aspects of those amendments that Madison proposed I think were pretty much -- >> Joseph Ellis: The second amendments become very controversial in the 21st Century. I have a different reading on this than you do. I think the Second Amendment was a response to four states that were requesting a guarantee against the standing Army and that the language of the Second Amendment, as he wrote it, was -- begins with the assumption that defense will be in the hands of the militia. >> Kenneth Bowling: Not as he wrote it. >> Joseph Ellis: It is. >> Kenneth Bowling: As he wrote it, it was the absolute individual right. >> Jack Rakove: That's wrong. >> Joseph Ellis: You're wrong on this. In my and jack, I think, view, the right to bear arms is a derivative right deriving from the service in militia not a natural right -- there's nobody worried about having your right to bear arms denied because nobody's -- it's not something that's happened to anybody. So in my view, the Heller decision of 2008 is about as unconstitutional as any decision I've ever seen and absolutely preposterous. >> John Milewski: Jack, did you want to weigh in on this? >> Jack Rakove: Of all the things I've done in a career, getting up near 45 years or whatever, there's nothing I'm prouder of having done than having written a brief in DC v. Heller. There was a story of which -- the principle author of that brief. To echo what Joe was saying, you're just dead wrong on this. Madison's original language is about the militia. There's a very limited discussion, an extremely limited discussion, of an individual right to bear arms. It's usually tied to the so-called decent of the Pennsylvania minority, the Pennsylvania Anti-Federalist convention. There's a little bit of noise from New Hampshire on this point. But overwhelming bulk of the conversation, discussion, on the right to bear arms in 1787, 1788, 1789 was exclusively tied to the militia question-- whether we should call it Anti-Federalist or not, I don't care about the name. But it emanates from the idea that because Congress in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 16 has the authority to kind of override the states in terms of organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, some zealous Anti-Federalist and also some southerners were worried about the future of the militia in terms of slave rebellion stake out the position that it may be that the militia's institution of self-defense is somehow eroded or deprived of its benefits. The key point is Justice Scalia, if you read through his opinion -- I hope he's gone on to a place of fitting rest, wherever it may be but Scalia's abuse of historical evidence in the majority opinion in DC v. Heller is so scandalous, it's so disgraceful, it's so meanly worded like so many of his opinions that nobody should take that seriously. And the fact that Justice Breyer, the McDonald case, the incorporation case, a couple of years later said I think correctly the historical record needs to be reconsidered. Scalia was dead wrong about this matter. But the idea -- it's perfectly fine to say as individuals we have a right -- a common law right of self-defense, subject to the police power regulation of local and provincial government. >> But the idea of personal self-defense was entrenched in the Second Amendment is deeply problematic. But -- and this is a major qualification. When you get to the 14th Amendment, which is written in the context of reconstruction, the question of whether there should be an individual right of self-defense at that point looks much more legitimate. Why? Because African Americans are being slaughtered in large numbers, in various parts of still unreconstructed south. So the story is more complicated. Some aspects are not so complicated. At this point I really am an absolutist, take it or leave it. But if you think about it historically, to think about the difference between the late 18th and the 19th Century understanding, tells us a great deal about how America was more and more of a gun culture in which the individual right to pack -- carry a piece -- over time can become more important. >> John Milewski: Mary, I want to ask you another question about Madison as author and editor. You made the point that he was looking at all of these other amendments that the states proposed. So he whittles it down to, is it 19, for the final proposal that goes to the Congress? Is it 19? >> Nine. >> John Milewski: The House to 17? >> To 17. >> John Milewski: And then I think the Senate is 12? And then two. >> Two are dropped in the ratification process. >> John Milewski: So talk to us about this process of Madison, who had his ear. Was he doing this in isolation or were there people influencing what initial amendments made the cut? What was the process? >> Mary Sarah Bilder: I think to pick up on this discussion, I think one really interesting thing is that the way we think about the rights have so much to do with the fact that the original first and second right fall out. So if you think about -- put Madison aside. Madison wanted them incorporated into the Constitution, interwoven. He was thinking of revising the Constitution, amending the Constitution internally. I think there's an incredibly important thing because our notion of the Constitution whether we think of the Constitution, is that crinkly document that was written in 1787. But in some ways Madison was thinking of amending the Constitution in a much more active way and Madison -- when he gave his great speech on June 8, he had all of his -- he explained where they were all going to go. And some of them were going in Article 1, Section 9, some in Article 1, Section 10. In all sorts of ways it would have made the convention moment much less important because you couldn't have seen -- there would have been no moment where the document looked like what it looked like. >> But it was a problem because they had signed the document that was no longer going to be the document that was the official constitution. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: So Roger Sherman stands up and says this is a terrible idea because the Constitution ought to be sacred. And it's really in that moment in 1789 that you begin to get this notion that something particularly special happened that summer in Philadelphia. So there's enormous contingency in our understanding of the Constitution just based on that decision. And then there's enormous contingency in the fact that they sent 12 amendments out. Our First Amendment is Amendment 3. I don't know if the First Amendment would be as important if it was the Third Amendment. It just doesn't quite have the same pizzazz. The First Amendment must be the most important because it's the first. That's completely historical contingency that the first two amendments, which are probably the first two because Madison in his original list, they were supposed to go into Article I, they fall out. They never get sufficient numbers of adoptions. So the First Amendment becomes the First Amendment by complete random chance. I think they were only -- I looked this up recently. I think Kentucky voted for the amendment, one of the first two amendments. But then by that point Kentucky had actually added itself to the list. So they were perpetually one state short. We would have had the Bill of Rights that would have had 11. It wouldn't have looked like the Bill of Rights because one of the first two amendments would have dealt with Congress. >> We would have gotten used to that. People weren't paying that much attention to the Bill of Rights. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: Nobody paid attention to it. >> Joseph Ellis: One of the things implicit that you're saying, all of us are saying, to think of the Bill of Rights as America's Magna Carta is a 20th Century idea. By the way, as long as you look at the Magna Carta, once you start looking at the Magna Carta, it's really not the Magna Carta either. So this notion that there's this codification of semi-sacred rights and principles created in this one moment that seems, you know, tongues of fire, gleaming glances at the eternal, no. That never happens. And that's not what happened in 1789 either. Madison was making a deal to ensure the ratification process would be completed successfully. North Carolina, Rhode Island still hadn't ratified when this is all going on. And then Jefferson, who I normally don't make strong arguments in favor of, cared much more about the Bill of Rights than he did about the Constitution. He thought the Constitutions come and go every 20 years. The Bill of Rights -- Jefferson cared a lot more about what government could not do than what government could do. And he tended to think platonically. And the notion that he and Madison are going to be probably the premiere political team in the first 50 years of American history, they really thought differently. They are absolute opposites in the way they think about, in this particular case, the Bill of Rights. >> The overarching theme of amending the Constitution. I want to get back to the question I asked about at what point -- you began to touch on this. At what point does this become this almost sacred document that sort of the original intent arguments about this can't be touched, there's danger in that, versus a work in progress. As you described, Jefferson thought we would rewrite it every 20 years. Is there a point in history that you could identify or is it a more gradual change? When do we really start to hit this point where we seem to be at least much of --many of us today, where it's just -- >> Jack Rakove: There's not a magic moment when the idea of amending is off the table. I'm sure congressmen continue to propose numerous amendments. There's interest in electing the Electoral College, for example, in the mid-1820's. But like a lot things that goes nowhere. I think the key part of this argument -- there's a wonderful book about the 13th Amendment "Final Freedom," which is actually the real basis for the Lincoln movie. It's nothing that Doris Kearns Goodwin provided. It was the academic advisor was really Michael's book that provided the substance of what goes on in that movie. So the argument is certainly by the time you got to the 1840's, 1850's, the idea of amending the Constitution has become a very problematic idea because the framers and founders have acquired this great order around them. So the curious set of political circumstances that made the Constitutional amendment, it wasn't clear at the beginning that the best way to get rid of slavery was via constitutional amendment. There's a kind of complicated political story about how that happened. But the consequence of that story was to revive the idea that the amendment process itself was something that Americans could go back to using. And, of course, out of this comes the 14th and the 15th Amendments and the whole idea that legal scholars now endorse, which is worth arguing about, whether or not reconstruction constituted a second founding or a kind of quasi second founding. A lot of that does pivot on the idea the Constitution can be amended and amended for radical purposes. >> John Milewski: Speaking of the Constitution as quasi religious document, I want to ask you -- because you're working a book on the establishment of religion. Is that correct? >> Jack Rakove: Free exercise. >> John Milewski: Ok. What can you tell us -- >> Jack Rakove: I'd like to pick up on something that Joe said earlier. I think Joe repeats it. I think what is a fairly common perception among Americans, what it is that rights do. And the idea is rights exempt us from the authority of government. With all respect to Joe, I would disagree with that. Most rights do not exempt us from the authority of government. Most of the rights we possess in the first eight amendments of the Constitution. And we'll leave the second out of this because I said enough about that one already, maybe even too much. It sets up -- most rights actually set up standards to government -- that government has to conform to when it deals with us; you know, unreasonable search and seizure. What's reasonable? What is due compensation for the exercise amendment -- of eminent domain or whatever? In my way of thinking, because I am writing a book on this, that's what makes the religion clause, the Free Exercise Clause so exceptional. Because the Free Exercise Clause says in language that would historically radical in the 18th Century that here is a realm of behavior where the individual is sovereign. Here is a realm where government will no longer act at all. What you believe is a matter of conscience and relates to men and women alike, male and female, he created them both. So it does span the gender gap. I think in that sense -- the title is "Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience: The Radical Significance of the Free Exercise of Religion." The point I'm trying to make is of all the rights we possess, the one that places the greatest emphasis on our individual, moral autonomy is freedom of conscience. >> I agree with that. >> Jack Rakove: Other rights, they certainly create -- numbers formed by nations to give us notions of privacy and the other language, but otherwise presuppose the government is going to act when it acts, it has to conform to some set of fixed standards if we'll be respectful to liberty, due process, and so on. Maybe I'm pushing this too far but there is a significant difference there. >> John Milewski: Point of order. In a moment, we'll come to your questions. So there are microphones positioned at both staircases. Be careful as you make your way there. If you'd like to begin lining up now, we'll come to your questions in just a moment. Go ahead, Mary. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: Not to go back to the Second Amendment, but it's interesting when you read the First Congress and everyone discussing things about that, the issue that we care about, they don't care about. And the issue they are obsessed with is what to do about Quakers who by means of religious conscience, to your exact point, won't bear arms, won't join the militia. And this is the issue that you've -- page after page, they are worrying about. And Madison's original draft in his June 8 speech that the clause is that sort of what becomes the Second Amendment that explicit language about those who are religiously scrupulous of bearing arms don't have to. So it's a very interesting -- >> Which underlines Jack and my point that that's the real concern. It has to do with serving in the militia not as a natural right. >> Jack Rakove: It's tied to what becomes the Second Amendment and not the first. I'm sure many of you know the enormous amount of discussion in the jurisprudence religious clause about what kinds of exemption do we have against the regulatory authority in the state. But in the 18th Century context, the exemption for the Quakers would not have been perceived as a First Amendment issue. It would have been perceived as a Second Amendment issue tied directly to, again, the issue of the militia. >> John Milewski: I'm feeling a storytelling impulse to ask one more question before the gentleman at the microphone. I know that gentleman at the microphone. So you'll indulge me, Bruce. Thank you. I don't want to skip over ratification. Maybe each of you could tell us about the ratification of the Bill of Rights and what are the key things that we need to know about that, whether it's about how contentious it was or wasn't or were there key compromises or things that made it possible for certain states to get in line? What are the things you think are important to highlight about ratification? >> Jack Rakove: Out of sequence? >> John Milewski: Any way. In reverse order? Sure. >> Kenneth Bowling: It just wasn't important. >> Jack Rakove: I agree! And then we'll talk about it. >> Kenneth Bowling: States were concerned -- >> Jack Rakove: Overruled. >> Kenneth Bowling: About the federal government increasing its power. The fight over what constitution meant what the elastic clause meant. The ratification of the Bill of Rights no longer an issue in the states. Ratification -- >> Joseph Ellis: Boring. Boring. >> John Milewski: Ok. Anybody else? Mary and Jack. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: In the 20th Century, some states like the state that I'm from now, Massachusetts, realized that they hadn't actually ratified all of the amendments. They picked and chose. So I think in the 1930's, it gets embarrassing of they go back and they sort of -- they ratify the ones they didn't ratify just to clean it all up real nice. >> Kenneth Bowling: They didn't ratify any of them. One House did, the other House didn't. And the federal government told them in 1939 that they hadn't ratified and analyzed -- >> [Laughter] >> [Multi-voice overlap] >> Jack Rakove: I would state in a different form, I do think -- Madison was not an enthusiast for the Bill of Rights. He refers to it as the nauseous project of amendments. He didn't mean nauseous to himself. He meant to his colleagues. He felt the amendment that Joe mentioned earlier, the one that would have addressed the states and not the powers of Congress, he described that as the most valuable one in the whole list and that ties in with this whole theory that the real danger of rights to arise not at the national level of politics but within the states. So there's a number of complications. What I think is most important is, I think Madison, first and foremost, had what was a truly brilliant theory about the ratification of the Constitution. He understands for powerful conceptual reason that to make the Constitution supreme fundamental law it has to be submitted to some overt expression of sovereignty. So that's why we have the state ratification conventions. But he and other Federalists also insisted when the state Ratification Convention act -- they can really say only one two of words. They can say yes or no to the whole document. If they weren't proposing amendments until the cows came home, they would be fine. But they couldn't make approval contingent upon the adoption of amendments. But when he moves, for reasons Mary knows, when he moves to anticipate that by late 1788, I think at that point he had a more political understanding. I think he felt there were a lot of well-meaning but misguided Anti-Federalists out there. Madison did not think a bill of rights was really necessary; it's ok; it won't do any harm; you want to be careful how it's drafted. But politically I think what he wanted most was to say if we want to kind of seal this whole process of approval -- see, Americans -- I think we don't really understand what a great process the adoption of the Constitution was. I don't mean because wildly enthusiastic about every clause in the Constitution but if you think about how the Europeans mangled their constitutional treaty of 2003, the awkward process, the Americans -- there's no precedent for what the Americans did. How do you ratify a national constitution, through a course of popular discussion? Nobody really saw it. They did it in 10 months unequivocally. I think Madison saw the adoption of the Bill of Rights as an important postscript. Postscript is too weak a term. There's a bunch of people out there that still have reservations about the Constitution. We want to assuage and conciliate them. So we'll give them some amendments. They will be safe amendments, not deal with the structure of the government. But I think it was kind of, you know, not the tub to the whale but something to put in the way that would help -- mix my metaphors terribly here. It would have to close the deal in a really -- >> John Milewski: Quick thought, Ken? And then -- >> Kenneth Bowling: Madison never called the Bill of Rights or amendments a nauseous project. >> Jack Rakove: It's in the letter. >> Kenneth Bowling: I know. The letters are -- Francis Hopkins called the nauseous project about all the different states with their conflicting amendments. So he was just appealing to Hopkins. >> John Milewski: This is why the ink never dries in your history books. Joe? >> Joseph Ellis: No. We need to go to questions. >> John Milewski: Ok. Ask your questions. Introduce yourselves. Then also unlike me, I'm sorry I modeled badly, ask a focus question if and when possible. Yes, sir? >> Bruce Guthrie: Bruce Guthrie. I should say first off that it took me a little while to realize the bill of meant list of. I kept thinking some other type of bill. I was a little confused. The freedom of religion -- most of the discussion that we had over religion back then seemed to be different types of protestant faith. We mentioned Quakers. We mentioned whatever. But as a country, my impression of early America is we were virulently anti-Jewish, fairly anti-Catholic. I have no idea what we thought of Muslims. When they discussed freedom of religion, did they explicitly include all religions or were they mostly thinking of Protestants? >> Jack Rakove: There are two answers there. First off, the question is who is the they always needs to be qualified. The point is -- so I think the two points you want to make is that it's important for us to understand that American ideas about religious freedom have a deeply radical protestant point of origin. It's deeply embedded in the culture of colonial life. Jews and Catholics -- to say Americans were deeply antiCatholic and deeply anti-Jewish, I think that's a problematic statement. Because there's so few of them. There's some thousands of Catholics and some hundreds, maybe a couple thousand, Jews. They had to be able to worship on their own. Catholics don't worry about parading the host in public streets. They are happy they could have a place they can practice peacefully. I think that's the first big point to be made here. Jefferson and Madison -- suddenly it's following John Locke, and Locke was a major influence on these guys, were open to the idea that there should be -- I don't want to say polytheistic but the United States should be open to people of other religious beliefs. Madison says as much in his memorial against religious assessments -- not his first aim about religious freedom but kind of the authoritative text drafted in the mid-1780's in opposition to Patrick Henry's bill for general assessment to support teachers of the Christian religion. Madison says explicitly if we have two -- if we put two sectarians on our policy, we'll discourage people who deserve to hear the message of Christ preached to them. That may be a bit of ingenuity on his part. I'm not sure Madison was still a Christian at that point. It's one of the great mysteries about Madison. How do you date and depth and extent of his religious belief? But at least he opened up that possibility. >> Joseph Ellis: I think what Jack said is the ultimate point. If you look at -- if you did the demographic, geographic survey of American public opinion or popular opinion in 1789, something impossible to do, it would be predominantly Christian. And with Anglicanism dominating in Virginia and some form of Presbyterian, all of that. But what they do in Virginia with the principle of religious toleration or religious freedom and in the First Amendment is a radical idea. It is still the single most important part of the Bill of Rights. It translates perfectly. Religion is a personal thing. The state cannot interfere with that process. That -- and Washington goes to a synagogue in Newport as part of his first trip to New England and gives a speech insisting that, yes, this does include Jewish people in case you were wondering about that. It really is a statement that is so modern in its implications that it's difficult to understand how it came to be at that moment. But it's the one that translates today more directly without having to go through elaborate contextualizations more than any other. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: I think this is such an important point because the Constitution itself said there was no religious test for office. It's not even in the amendment. >> Article V. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: They all said at the time there was no disagreement about that. >> Trump's going to have a problem with that. >> [Laughter] >> Mary Sarah Bilder: It's in the main constitution at a time when the state, many of the state constitutions, had experience with tests for religious office. So it's an incredibly sort of radical moment in the actual constitution. >> John Milewski: Yes, sir. Hi. >> Yes. Michael. I'm a member of the board of the John Jay institute. Excellent program. Thank you so much. I was assuming we would hear a little bit about the New York ratification process because there was a fellow, unusual first name, I think last name Smith, who was the head of the Anti-Federalists. What's his first name? >> [Inaudible] >> Thank you. And I thought between himself and Hamilton there was perhaps an informal deal that there would be a bill of rights and that was part of the reason we got ratification in New York. I'd like some clarification on that. >> Jack Rakove: Well, Smith is a modern Anti-Federalist. Federalists have decided majority in the New York Convention -- excuse me, Anti-Federal -- the Federalists were kind of waiting around to figure out what they were going to do. And in the end Smith carries a group of moderate Anti-Federalists with him. I think New York ratifies 30-27. >> Joseph Ellis: The only reason they ratify is because it's already a done deal. Nine states ratified. And Hamilton kept -- they really just -- Jay and Hamilton delay the debate in New York until ratification has happened in Virginia. It so happens New Hampshire precedes Virginia to be the ninth state. So the debate in New York doesn't make any difference. I hate to tell you that. >> [Laughter] >> Joseph Ellis: I do think Jay is a more important guy. I discovered Jay in the most recent book I wrote. He's a more significant figure in American history than I ever imagined before. So your job is safe. >> [Laughter] >> Thank you. >> Jack Rakove: Smith and Madison have somewhat similar positions. I think Mary alluded to this earlier. On the merit of the Bill of Rights. It goes back to what I was trying to say at the very beginning. Why do you want to have a bill of rights? We think of it as something you can litigate out. That's not the 18th Century notion. Madison, as Mary indicated, says the way a bill of rights will work best is if you and I as individuals, in effect, inculcate its sentiments. If we understand that these rights are important and if we make pursuing those rights part of our identity as citizens, then that will mitigate what you might call are fascist impulses. Smith does something similar. Smith was also the federal farmer, the one known as -- most historians now agree Smith was the well-known anti-Federalist writer and Federalist farmer. His argument of how the Bill of Rights will work, again, it's not about litigating it out. The idea is the people of need a bill of rights as a collective entity. So they will know when government is overstepping its bounds. If you have the Bill of Rights, eventually a set of standards -- of standards against which you can judge the proper acts of government. That's also an educational argument. Madison's argument is more individualistic. Smith's is more collective quality. But they are both functioning in a sense of educative terms. >> John Milewski: Thank you. Yes, ma'am? >> Hi. Jacqueline. I teach at Catholic Theory and Law. Lots of James Madison Thomas Jefferson there for me. I have a question on the Ninth Amendment, namely there seemed to be now two different positions on stage: one that Madison is getting from Jefferson that the Bill of Rights is important in order to eventually instruct the way the judiciary is going to run and then there's the point you just made, sir, about it being more individual exercise. But, of course, the Ninth Amendment ends up fairly useless. There's nothing the Supreme Court can do with it. What is the historical understanding of why the Ninth Amendment should be there as Madison would see it? And maybe someone has an idea of how it develops over time because every time I brought it up in com law in graduate school it was, no, it doesn't matter anymore. When did it matter? Why is it there? >> Mary Sarah Bilder: Madison thinks it's the most important amendment. He thinks -- he says that this is the one that you really need. Because otherwise people will think these are the only rights that people have. He's very concerned about it. Why it gets read out of the Constitution -- why the judiciary over time reads all sorts of the Constitution out, you could write a book. Like parts of the Constitution that don't mean anything. When I studied for the bar, the bar people were like the privileges of the Immunities Clause is never the answer. [Inaudible] What do you mean there's never an answer? Everybody says it's never the answer. They throw the question out. So it's a really interesting question why -- somewhat similar to why we end up with our history where we don't amend the Constitution as much, why the Ninth Amendment maybe isn't as robust as I think people at the time might have imagined it. There's a wonderful -- people have referred to 400 amendments. There's a wonderful -- Edward -- I don't know how to pronounce his name. He did a lot of wonderful work early on on the Bill of Rights. He had a list of all the rights that were listed. He had 75 rights which only a few end up in the Bill of Rights. But if you look at all the state constitutions. So the world had more rights at one time. Maybe if someone has a notion of why that vision vanishes. >> Jack Rakove: It's a serious question. Go back to what I said at the very beginning. If you start to think about a right not as a statement of a general principle that people ought to follow but as the legally specific commands, some institutional government shall do, you understand how is it that a right stated as such becomes part of the Constitutional text and therefore becomes part of the supreme fundamental law. Then it really does matter which rights are included and which are not and it also matters -- the question of enumeration matters. What happens to unenumerated rights? Are they ether and it's hard to bring them down? But the question of how do you textualize a right for which in some ways the Second Amendment has become the most absurd example. To think about what does it mean to have a right is not an easy subject. It's philosophically and legally a very complicated matter. But if you wanted to put into a written constitution, particularly the kinds that Americans like, at least at the national level, short and sweet and fairly elegant, the question of how do you frame the text is a serious question. >> John Milewski: Thank you for being a gentleman and deferring to the other mic. Your turn. >> Thank you very much to the National Archives and all of you for putting us intellectually entertaining discussion. My name is John. My question is to what your opinions are on talking about the origin of the phrase toward a more perfect union-- and its significance of the [Inaudible]. Thank you. >> Joseph Ellis: Could you say the last part again? >> I talk too fast sometimes. I was trying to -- towards more perfect union the origin that fights historically this discussion and its significance in the rule towards future elasticity of these documents. >> Joseph Ellis: [Indiscernible] wrote those words in August of 1787. He was referring to the fact that they were replacing a less perfect union, namely the confederation. And I don't think he had -- although Morris was one of the most outspoken critics of slavery in the debates in Philadelphia but I don't think he had anything like an understanding that you're talking about in terms of expanding definition of the people. After all -- jack, give me some numbers here but we the people -- >> Jack Rakove: Come up with your own numbers. >> [Laughter] >> Joseph Ellis: All right. All right. In 1789, when it was ratified, how many people were citizens that fit we the people? We the people -- well, you had to be a male. You had to have property. And you had to be white. Right? And the total population is three million? Three million. >> Jack Rakove: This begs the question of how you define citizen. Because the concept of citizenship could be linked to having a whole array of -- >> Joseph Ellis: The right to vote. Ok. Right to vote. >> Jack Rakove: For political purpose or to -- >> Joseph Ellis: Yeah, yeah, right to vote. You got to figure it's like 200,000. That's it. Now when we say we the people, we mean like 320 million. And we intend that to mean everybody. What am I trying to say here? I think one of the problems we have in the 21st Century is to -- that there are certain segments of we the people that no longer share the values of other people. >> John Milewski: Ken? >> Kenneth Bowling: Something about elasticity and this whole thing about whether the Constitution is a living document or a static document. This Constitution that was replaced, the Articles of Confederation was a static document. It was put together by that band of brothers in 1776 and 1777. >> Joseph Ellis: I like that, band of brothers. >> Kenneth Bowling: We're going to all grieve forever and if there's a need for an amendment, we'll have to have it be unanimous. So to amend articles it had to be unanimous. It was also something I believe the second article -- all powers not expressly delegated are reserved to the states. Does that sound familiar? 10th Amendment, missing one word, expressly. So the Articles of Confederation, very rigid, static document. So the amendment process, that gave us what we call the Bill of Rights, was designed to be difficult but to provide the elasticity that was needed. Similarly, and one of the most important things, the Constitution does not say how many people will sit on the Supreme Court, how many Supreme Court justices it will be. And that allows -- >> Jack Rakove: Don't tell the Republicans that. >> Kenneth Bowling: The legislature to change the sides court when it gets too liberal or too conservative. It's been as high as 13 I think. >> 10. >> Kenneth Bowling: 10. And as low as five when it started. >> John Milewski: Yes, sir. Hi. >> Mary Sarah Bilder: Six when it started. >> Eddie Becker: My name is Eddie Becker. I was interested -- in having read through some of the papers at that time in the 1780's, it seemed as if Washington and his people were really uncertain about the future of the United States. There were people who were rebelling against the central government, the context of that having to do with paying back the debts from the American Revolution and people were being taxed heavily. And there was groups all over the country who were rising up and putting basically -- basically having these assemblies and being repressed by another group who were trying to collect the money, connected in with the banks. So in Massachusetts and Maine, what's now Maine, Shays Rebellion in 1787, went to close down the courts and were put down in a very heavy-handed way. Assemblies were prevented. People were thrown in jail without trial. Guns were confiscated. And people were put in jail. Then John Hancock -- so from that comes a pushback and John Hancock comes in as governor of Massachusetts. And from my understanding it was said, you know, this idea of the Bill of Rights wasn't such a bad idea. So my question is -- because based on how you've reconstructed this, without this context of this great ferment that was going on and this uncertainty of the future -- I guess there's not the evidence enough for you to be able to incorporate any of that history in your recollection of how things -- based on what I've heard -- >> John Milewski: Let's find out. >> Eddie Becker: It just seems as if it's sort of like this idea of the founding fathers sort of having this gift from the heavens. >> Joseph Ellis: No, no, no. >> Eddie Becker: Thank you. >> Joseph Ellis: No. You should read some more. The irony is that Shays Rebellion is perceived by most of the elites in Massachusetts and the rest of the country as the first sign of anarchy and that it is because of that fear that the movement for a convention in Philadelphia begins to have a level of credibility that it didn't have before. So the ironic implications of Shays Rebellion is to create precisely the kind of consolidated federal government that in some ways they are opposed to. But believe me, historians have not been remiss in trying to connect the events you describe with the convention and the document and the Bill of Rights itself. There's a lot to be said about that. >> Jack Rakove: The way to think about this is -- it's a rights-based statement but not in the conventional way we think about the Bill of Rights. What it says is the people have a right to maintain a Republican form of government and if that right is threatened by some kind of domestic uprising -- Madison has speculations about the different ways in which an uprising can take place. People have a right to be governed by Republican government and if that's called into question because some kind of coup or whatever or the wrong kind of popular protest is afoot, then the national government should be restored. It's a bit like the night -- there's one or two cases, Luther v. Board and Rhode Island is probably the only notable case on the subject. So there's a tempting vessel into which nothing has ever been poured. >> John Milewski: To you first. These are the last two questions, by the way. We're almost out of time. >> Rebeca: I'm Rebecca. I was a summer intern at the National Archives and now a volunteer. I'm a history Ph.D. student at American and a former student of Professor Ellis. I was interested -- >> [Laughter] >> Rebecca: I was interested in your discussion of the First Amendment, the Free Exercise Clause and, well, the Free Exercise Clause to keep the government out of people's individual religions. And I was wondering to what extent the founders, especially Jefferson and Madison, wanted to keep people's religion out of the government. Or are they the same thing? >> Jack Rakove: It's a more complicated question. Madison's -- I mean Jefferson -- I'm sure Joe -- the line Jefferson was a virtual Pollyanna. Jefferson had this high hope, as he says I think in the notes -- the future will all be Unitarian. And that doesn't mean Unitarians of the term today. It means, well, we won't be Trinitarians, we won't believe in the trinity. So Jefferson hopes Americans will be much more rational in their religious beliefs and he's deeply depressed in his later years because the second great awakening pushes the culture in another direction. Madison I think was much more philosophical. Madison says people said when we move towards disestablishment that all hell would break loose but that it would lead to, you know, would lead to disorder, turmoil, and collapse of morals. That hasn't happened. The churches have never been better than they've been since the different states have moved towards disestablishment. I think Madison's big hope was that essentially you turn a bunch of Protestants loose with the Bible and no one's there to tell them which interpretation is authoritative, they'll find lots and lots of things to disagree about. On the whole, that's not a bad argument. In light of our current politics it's worth asking: Why is it therefore that the abortion issue has become a real basis for unification among religious groups across a broad theological spectrum so that evangelical Christians, truly Orthodox Catholics and Orthodox Jews, you know, who think would have nothing in common except their deep religiosity is a right of this one point? So to Madison, the general theory is -- Madison sees diversity of religious belief as the model of why having diverse interests will be really productive of promoting liberty. But the religion question sometimes becomes too explosive or some issues arise that [Inaudible]. >> John Milewski: Yes, sir? >> Juan Goldstrom: Juan Goldstrom. I'd like to get more information or find out if there was any discussion on who would be excluded from the Bill of Rights. Like we know that slaves, women -- and how did they reconcile that? >> Mary Sarah Bilder: I just say I think one interesting way to think about the rights that Madison suggests is which ones does he not put in. So I've always thought it's interesting if you think of things that were in constitutions he was familiar with that don't end up. And both Massachusetts and Virginia had a clause -- in Massachusetts the free and equal clause and in Virginia something like that. I can't quite remember. And in Massachusetts -- the Virginians actually fight about it because they're worried if they put free and equal in their constitution, how does that work with slavery. And they decide like no one will take it seriously so it's sort of not a problem. And in Massachusetts, the free and equal clause is used in the 1780's to abolish slavery in a very famous case. So what's interesting in that regard is there is no language like that that Madison proposes. He hasn't proposed anything that's expansive. And I personally believe -- I don't know about you guys, but I believe the Just Compensation Clause and the Fifth Amendment is there primarily as a stopback; that if the government gets around to abolishing slavery, white owners would have to be compensated for the losses, which is what the British basically do. So in some ways the amendments are narrow. And that's why, as Jack says, you need the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, these later amendments, to open that part of the Constitution up. And I think this is in part because Madison was not the anti-slavery person that he sometimes is misunderstood as. He never freed anybody in who he held enslaved and was not, in my opinion, that good on this issue at all. >> John Milewski: Ok. We are just about out of time. About a minute for each of you. I'm going to circle back to the overarching, theme of our gathering tonight, why the Bill of Rights was made. Just a final thought on the big picture. We've dug deep on some of these questions. You've made a lot of points but I'm wondering if at any point there's something you wanted to say or think there was important in answering that question that we haven't touched on yet. We have about a minute for each of you. Jack? >> Jack Rakove: Well, I think if you think of the long-term sweep of American constitutional history, in the end it's less important to know why the Bill of Rights was made because the development of legal enforcement or the Bill of Rights was strongly attenuated until after the First World War. So for historians, the interesting story is how first in the realm of free speech and freedom of religion in the late teens and 1920's and 1930's, why you get the beginnings of the basis for the incorporation doctrine for the First Amendment. And, of course, how that escalates as it did so radically under The Warren Court, particularly the criminal justice revolution. So I think the best way to frame this is to say there is this interesting political story about the origins of the first 10 amendments but the real fruition is essentially a 20th Century story that we're still arguing about because rights talks have become so central to our jurisprudence. >> John Milewski: Thanks. Joseph? >> Joseph Ellis: The Bill of Rights is the creation of particular historical moment for reasons that don't have any transcendent value. We know that the Bill of Rights is going to have transcendent value, however. It seems to me that the Bill of Rights represents an attempt to distill wisdom about political wisdom about the last 30 years of American experience and that that experience was itself, looking back to the glorious revolution and its English Civil War. So that -- arguing against the original intent of people on the court who think that there was this moment when they had these piercing insights into the eternal truths, tongues of fire appeared over their heads, no. They are synthesizing the rights and the values of their moment in time. There's a joke -- I think I saw it in "The New Yorker." There was a case before the Supreme Court that Scalia was asking questions of this one guy. It had to do with the internet. The guy didn't understand what the question was. Alito said: Oh, Justice Scalia wants to know what Madison thinks of video games. >> [Laughter] >> Joseph Ellis: So we transformed it -- in our moment, we're going to discover different kinds of meanings in them. But for their moment, they did about as well as any group of human beings in modern history has ever done in creating this document and this Bill of Rights. They are not saints. They are not canonized, anything. It's unbelievable what they achieved. >> John Milewski: Thank you. Mary? >> Mary Sarah Bilder: I think one of the things that's amazing is that even though you can explain there are 12 and they weren't done, all of these things, nonetheless we live in a culture where you can go everywhere in our culture and find bills of rights. So I have a whole collection of these, like the Burger King Bill of Rights, the Hospital Bill of Rights. What I love about them is everybody puts the lettering squiggly and the paper is yellow. So there is this cultural way in which this moment and the Bill of Rights coming out of this moment is such an important part of our, certainly American, cultural tradition of the rights. >> John Milewski: And Ken? >> Kenneth Bowling: I think it's important to realize that the iconic status of the federal Bill of Rights is something that came out of the new deal, the Sesqi- Centennial Commission on ratification of the Constitution, and was an absolute direct response to the rise of Nazi Germany. If you read F.D.R.'s address on the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, December 15, 1941, one week after Pearl Harbor, the address is all about Nazi Germany, one line about Japan, and not very much about the Bill of Rights except as an example of what Nazi Germany isn't. >> John Milewski: Thank you. A couple of thoughts for you. One, thank you for joining us tonight. Thanks for your attention, for your questions, for your time. I hope you enjoyed it and you will come back to future National Archives events. My final thought is helping me thank this amazing panel. If you want to talk Constitution, you don't do much better than this. So please join me in thanking this panel. >> [Applause] >> John Milewski: Thank you and good night.
Contents: Counties in Kentucky
- Adair
- Allen
- Anderson
- Ballard
- Barren
- Bath
- Bell
- Boone
- Bourbon
- Boyd
- Boyle
- Bracken
- Breckinridge
- Breathitt
- Bullitt
- Butler
- Caldwell
- Calloway
- Campbell
- Carlisle
- Carroll
- Carter
- Casey
- Christian
- Clark
- Clay
- Clinton
- Crittenden
- Cumberland
- Daviess
- Edmonson
- Elliott
- Estill
- Fayette
- Fleming
- Floyd
- Franklin
- Fulton
- Gallatin
- Garrard
- Grant
- Graves
- Grayson
- Green
- Greenup
- Hancock
- Hardin
- Harlan
- Harrison
- Hart
- Henderson
- Henry
- Hickman
- Hopkins
- Jackson
- Jefferson
- Jessamine
- Johnson
- Kenton
- Knott
- Knox
- LaRue
- Laurel
- Lawrence
- Lee
- Leslie
- Letcher
- Lewis
- Lincoln
- Livingston
- Logan
- Lyon
- Madison
- Magoffin
- Marion
- Marshall
- Martin
- Mason
- McCracken
- McCreary
- McLean
- Meade
- Menifee
- Mercer
- Metcalfe
- Monroe
- Montgomery
- Morgan
- Muhlenberg
- Nelson
- Nicholas
- Ohio
- Oldham
- Owen
- Owsley
- Pendleton
- Perry
- Pike
- Powell
- Pulaski
- Robertson
- Rockcastle
- Rowan
- Russell
- Scott
- Shelby
- Simpson
- Spencer
- Taylor
- Todd
- Trigg
- Trimble
- Union
- Warren
- Washington
- Wayne
- Webster
- Whitley
- Wolfe
- Woodford
Current listings
See also
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to National Register of Historic Places in Lincoln County, Kentucky. |
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Kentucky
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Kentucky
References
- ^ The latitude and longitude information provided in this table was derived originally from the National Register Information System, which has been found to be fairly accurate for about 99% of listings. Some locations in this table may have been corrected to current GPS standards.
- ^ "National Register of Historic Places: Weekly List Actions". National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved on November 29, 2019.
- ^ Numbers represent an ordering by significant words. Various colorings, defined here, differentiate National Historic Landmarks and historic districts from other NRHP buildings, structures, sites or objects.
- ^ The eight-digit number below each date is the number assigned to each location in the National Register Information System database, which can be viewed by clicking the number.
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Municipalities and communities of Lincoln County, Kentucky, United States | ||
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| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county | |
This page was last edited on 17 November 2019, at 14:07