Revolution 250 Podcast
Revolution 250 Podcast
Rage and the Republic with Jonathan Turley
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Most revolutions end in failure. If they succeed in toppling the bad old regime, they often create a new one that is worse. "Like Saturn," a French journalist observed in the early 1790s, "the Revolution devours its children." Why was the American Revolution different? Legal scholar and political analyst Jonathan Turley explores this question in his new book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution. How did the Americans avoid the horrors other Revolutions? In this conversation we discuss the American Revolution, the history that American revolutionaries carried with them and informed their world, and the role of firebrands like Thomas Paine and Robespierre, and political theorists James Wilson and James Madison.
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Hello, everyone,
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and welcome to the Revolution two fifty
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podcast.
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I'm Bob Allison.
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I am co-chair of Rev two fifty.
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We're a consortium of about seventy five
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organizations in Massachusetts planning
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commemorations of American independence.
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And our guest today is Jonathan Turley.
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And Jonathan Turley's most recent book is
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Rage in the Republic,
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The Unfinished Story of the American
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Revolution.
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He has been called by the Washington Post
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the dean of legal analysts.
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And Judge Posner says that he is,
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Judge Richard Posner says he is the second
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most cited law professor
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in the country,
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as well as the thirty eighth most cited
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public intellectual.
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He is really in addition to being a
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law professor at George Washington
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University,
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he's the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest
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Law,
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where he's been since nineteen ninety
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eight.
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He is a frequent commentator on various
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topics, testes,
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testified before one hundred or so
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congressional committees.
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And he's where it's really great to have
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you here.
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Thank you, Bob.
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It's great to be with you.
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And your book, Rage in the Republic,
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really looks at the American and French
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revolutions and begins actually with a
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classical world that the framers of the
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Constitution,
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it seems like they knew ancient Greece and
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Rome as well as they knew America.
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And what surprised you about delving into
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this period?
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What made you turn to this period?
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Well,
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this is really a book about revolutions
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and how they start.
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They're easier to start than they are to
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end.
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Napoleon once said that a revolution is an
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idea that has found its bayonets.
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The real challenge is,
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once that idea has taken hold,
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is putting away the bayonets.
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And the founders were acutely aware of
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that.
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They were great students of history.
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They did not want an Athenian democracy.
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You know,
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while Athens is often heralded as the
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origins of modern democracy,
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the Athenian democracy was in many
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respects a failure.
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It did not last long.
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It led to tyranny,
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just as the French Revolution led to
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tyranny in the form of Bonaparte.
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And the framers wanted to,
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and the founders wanted to escape the
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pattern of democracies turning into what
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Benjamin Rush called mobocracies or
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democratic despotism.
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And this book looks at why these two
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contemporary revolutions had such a
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different trajectory.
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The American Revolution became the oldest
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and arguably the most successful democracy
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in the world.
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And the French Revolution became the
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terror.
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And it looks at the different elements
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that contributed to those very different
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results.
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It really does.
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And you see this, I mean,
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you have a number of really great stories
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in the book, as each revolution does.
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And one of the most interesting early on
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is the attack on James Wilson's house,
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which becomes the siege of Fort Wilson.
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And Wilson becomes framer of the
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Constitution.
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And he is one of the few of
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these guys who knows Adam Smith.
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He had gone to St.
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Andrews.
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And here he finds his house under attack
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by the mob in Philadelphia.
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Yes.
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And of course, there is no Fort Wilson.
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Fort Wilson was his home.
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And they called it the Battle of Fort
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Wilson because it was indeed a battle.
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Cannon were being rolled into the street.
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Militia was called out.
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People died.
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And Wilson was almost killed.
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And it really reflects how after the
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revolution,
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and this is a bit of a tale
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of two cities,
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Philadelphia was about to go the way of
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Paris.
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And then it stopped.
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And it stopped after the ratification of
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the Constitution.
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The fact is that the Constitution was not
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particularly popular in Pennsylvania.
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It barely was ratified.
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But you go from this horrific scene in
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James Wilson's home to, in a short order,
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relative stability.
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Now, there were later flare-ups,
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as we know.
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But people seem to realize that the
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Madisonian Constitution gave them skin in
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the game,
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that they didn't have to go into the
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streets.
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And James Wilson is a wonderful figure in
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that sense.
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You know,
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I complain in the book that his portrayal
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in what is otherwise a great musical,
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Seventeen Seventy Six, is grossly unfair.
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He's portrayed as a weakling and a bit
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of a dummy.
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He was anything but.
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He was an incredibly courageous and
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principled person.
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Do you think you empathize with him more
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because you also are a law professor?
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You know,
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it's funny because there are some figures
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that are highlighted in the book.
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The most prominent is Thomas Paine.
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But James Wilson does attract a great deal
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of attention in the book.
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And maybe I do identify with him,
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but you certainly cannot help but be
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sympathetic.
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Here's a person who was literally hounded
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into hiding.
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He was actually hid in the attic of
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friends,
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otherwise he would have been killed.
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And you have this great person who never
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lost faith in democracy,
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even as he was hounded from home to
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home.
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Yeah, that's true.
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And he becomes during the debate over
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ratification,
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really a lightning rod for opposition.
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Mr.
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Wilson is because he gives a speech that
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Thomas Jefferson said was good for the
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audience.
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It was intended.
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He thinks a bunch of Philadelphia lawyers,
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but won't do for Americans.
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It's argument of why we don't need a
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Bill of Rights,
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which Thomas Paine is also an interesting
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figure.
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And he keeps saying that
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You wish you could like him,
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but he is a contrarian throughout his
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life.
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You know,
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Bob Payne is probably the single most
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interesting historical figure I've ever
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researched.
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I became obsessed with him for about six
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years and I drove my children crazy.
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And he's just endlessly interesting.
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He is a contrarian.
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You know,
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the quote you gave is actually from one
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of my favorite film noir movies where
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Robert Ryan tells his great femme fatale,
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Joan Fontaine, you know,
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I love you so much.
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I only wish I liked you.
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Yeah.
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And I sort of feel that way about
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Payne.
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Payne is difficult to like.
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He died virtually alone with no real
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friends.
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In the book,
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I quote how Benjamin Franklin's daughter
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said,
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it would have been better if he died
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after Common Sense was published.
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And I know she was one of his
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friends.
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So, you know,
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it gives you an idea of who this
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was.
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But Thomas Payne was...
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I would say arguably the most
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revolutionary of the American Revolution,
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but he was also incredibly principled and
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courageous and charitable and also
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obnoxious and reckless.
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He was all of those things.
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But he may have been ultimately the most
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honest of all of the early figures.
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The reason I've spent so much time on
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Thomas Paine is he's one of two central
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figures that played roles in both
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Revolution, the other being Lafayette.
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Yeah.
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And what fascinated me about Paine is that
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Paine was not enthusiastic about those
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elements I talked about earlier that made
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our revolution more stable and allowed it
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to survive,
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where in France the revolution led to
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tyranny.
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And Paine was not an advocate of those
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Madisonian auxiliary precautions,
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as they were called.
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And he went to Paris very much in
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line with the Jacobins,
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that he wanted more direct democracy.
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And it came damn near to killing him.
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And to Paine's credit,
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he recognized that he was wrong.
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He changed some of his views.
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But he came within twenty four hours of
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being guillotined.
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It was a hard lesson to learn.
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Yeah,
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he's in prison for ten months and it's
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only because they open the door to let
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in air the guards don't see the chalk
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marks that he has to do to be
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taken off.
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And then he does defend the king by
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saying you should exile him,
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send him to America where he can learn
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the proper principles of government.
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It's a very courageous thing to say in
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this assembly that's going to behead
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anyone who has anything good to say about
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monarchy.
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No, it's true.
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And it is funny that Paine really can
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make enemies faster than anyone in
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history.
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You know,
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he was greeted as a virtual deity of
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democracy.
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He was made a member of the National
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Assembly,
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even though he didn't speak French.
00:09:21.645 --> 00:09:24.226
But he immediately began to call out the
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Jacobins.
00:09:25.748 --> 00:09:27.750
And he was associated with the more
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moderate wing of the Jacobins,
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the Girondins.
00:09:31.412 --> 00:09:34.173
And he watched as the Girondins was
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eradicated by the Mao,
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the more radical wing.
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And in the book,
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I talk about how in the end of
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this process,
00:09:42.453 --> 00:09:44.914
he was in an inn where he had
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taken shelter with seven of the survivors.
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And one by one,
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a knock comes on the door and each
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of these people are taken away.
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And then finally,
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even the innkeeper is taken away,
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leaving Paine alone in this inn.
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And he eventually heard the knock on the
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door.
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It was taken to the Luxembourg Palace
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prison.
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And, you know,
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the only thing he took was a copy
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of The Rights of Man,
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which he had just finished.
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That's amazing.
00:10:16.690 --> 00:10:18.311
We're talking with Jonathan Turley,
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whose new book is Rage in the Republic,
00:10:20.393 --> 00:10:22.575
The Unfinished Story of the American
00:10:22.634 --> 00:10:23.315
Revolution,
00:10:23.916 --> 00:10:25.976
which looks at both the American and
00:10:26.076 --> 00:10:27.258
French revolutions.
00:10:27.337 --> 00:10:29.419
And we've been talking about Thomas Paine.
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He is a central figure in both of
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these.
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And Paine and John Adams, of course,
00:10:35.865 --> 00:10:38.025
don't that they have a long-running
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dispute but also gubernator morris and you
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suggest you know pain had attacked morris
00:10:43.388 --> 00:10:45.048
and robert morris for the connections with
00:10:45.109 --> 00:10:47.850
silas dean in the which may be why
00:10:48.191 --> 00:10:50.412
morris really slow walk might be putting
00:10:50.432 --> 00:10:52.873
it too nicely pain's request to help the
00:10:52.932 --> 00:10:54.673
united states have the united states help
00:10:54.714 --> 00:10:56.634
him get out of prison and morris says
00:10:56.653 --> 00:10:57.754
well he's really not a citizen
00:10:59.126 --> 00:10:59.788
That's right.
00:10:59.908 --> 00:11:02.390
And the fascinating aspect to this is that
00:11:02.410 --> 00:11:04.754
was one of the most damaging things that
00:11:04.793 --> 00:11:05.475
Paine did.
00:11:06.255 --> 00:11:08.558
He was never really embraced by many of
00:11:08.578 --> 00:11:09.681
the other founders.
00:11:09.701 --> 00:11:11.322
They preferred figures like Thomas
00:11:11.363 --> 00:11:12.183
Jefferson, you know,
00:11:12.244 --> 00:11:15.227
tall and handsome and erudite and educated
00:11:15.827 --> 00:11:16.668
and a slave owner.
00:11:17.570 --> 00:11:18.671
You know,
00:11:18.750 --> 00:11:21.991
Paine was vehemently against slavery.
00:11:22.692 --> 00:11:24.413
He was largely self-educated.
00:11:24.874 --> 00:11:26.695
He gave most of the money away.
00:11:27.495 --> 00:11:29.855
He was responsible for the first world
00:11:29.895 --> 00:11:30.537
bestseller,
00:11:30.576 --> 00:11:32.538
and he basically gave all the money away.
00:11:33.971 --> 00:11:35.152
And, you know,
00:11:35.172 --> 00:11:37.092
he was not readily embraced for that.
00:11:37.153 --> 00:11:38.572
He was also viewed as a John had
00:11:38.613 --> 00:11:40.774
come lately by people like John Adams.
00:11:40.835 --> 00:11:41.154
Remember,
00:11:41.195 --> 00:11:43.196
he arrived in the United States just two
00:11:43.296 --> 00:11:45.116
years before the Declaration of
00:11:45.157 --> 00:11:45.817
Independence.
00:11:46.577 --> 00:11:51.220
So the attacks on the two Morrises really
00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:54.902
alienated what friends he had left.
00:11:55.761 --> 00:11:57.964
The fascinating thing is that he appears
00:11:58.004 --> 00:12:00.105
to have been correct about Dean.
00:12:01.306 --> 00:12:04.649
Even Dean's allies later admitted that he
00:12:04.668 --> 00:12:07.571
was a scoundrel and he died outside of
00:12:07.591 --> 00:12:08.272
the country.
00:12:09.432 --> 00:12:10.432
Even though his hometown,
00:12:10.472 --> 00:12:12.894
the United States, still honors him.
00:12:13.556 --> 00:12:18.538
But the other thing that alienated him was
00:12:18.719 --> 00:12:20.541
his attack on George Washington.
00:12:20.620 --> 00:12:20.841
Right.
00:12:21.201 --> 00:12:23.524
after his imprisonment in Paris.
00:12:24.105 --> 00:12:25.687
And as I say in the book,
00:12:26.327 --> 00:12:30.332
pain is a difficult study.
00:12:31.274 --> 00:12:33.397
For a person who wrote so much,
00:12:34.418 --> 00:12:37.282
it's very hard to penetrate the true pain,
00:12:37.302 --> 00:12:38.163
to understand
00:12:39.465 --> 00:12:41.446
who he was on a personal level.
00:12:41.907 --> 00:12:45.349
Paine was brilliant about humanity,
00:12:45.708 --> 00:12:47.509
but he was clueless about humans.
00:12:47.529 --> 00:12:51.273
And you want to know more about why.
00:12:51.832 --> 00:12:54.715
But the closest you get to stripping all
00:12:54.794 --> 00:12:57.817
of that away are his letters from
00:12:57.897 --> 00:13:01.720
Luxembourg about George Washington.
00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:03.841
It was not just that Morris,
00:13:03.860 --> 00:13:05.822
who was the minister,
00:13:06.543 --> 00:13:07.943
the American minister in Paris,
00:13:09.465 --> 00:13:10.566
who abandoned him.
00:13:10.806 --> 00:13:13.028
It was George Washington who abandoned
00:13:13.048 --> 00:13:13.168
him.
00:13:13.207 --> 00:13:14.729
And he had written repeatedly to
00:13:14.769 --> 00:13:16.311
Washington who didn't respond.
00:13:17.071 --> 00:13:20.573
And Paine has a special relationship with
00:13:20.614 --> 00:13:21.274
Washington.
00:13:22.255 --> 00:13:23.976
It's almost a father-son relationship,
00:13:24.037 --> 00:13:26.318
even though Paine was older than many of
00:13:26.339 --> 00:13:29.501
the people of his generation who were
00:13:29.522 --> 00:13:30.422
among the leadership.
00:13:30.461 --> 00:13:31.582
But I...
00:13:32.864 --> 00:13:35.426
He believed that Washington and he had
00:13:35.446 --> 00:13:36.206
this special relation.
00:13:36.225 --> 00:13:38.227
It was Washington that asked him to write,
00:13:38.248 --> 00:13:39.548
to rally his troops.
00:13:39.629 --> 00:13:42.311
It was Washington that credited the common
00:13:42.410 --> 00:13:44.432
sense with the spark of the revolution.
00:13:45.232 --> 00:13:46.634
And then there was silence.
00:13:46.754 --> 00:13:51.716
And it clearly injured pain in a way
00:13:51.736 --> 00:13:57.942
that we get our only glimpse of this
00:13:57.981 --> 00:14:02.085
sort of deep sense of wounding.
00:14:03.586 --> 00:14:03.905
Remember,
00:14:04.306 --> 00:14:05.706
when Paine came to the United States,
00:14:05.746 --> 00:14:07.408
he had literally failed in everything he
00:14:07.447 --> 00:14:07.989
attempted.
00:14:08.048 --> 00:14:09.850
He had been fired from every major job
00:14:09.870 --> 00:14:10.330
he held.
00:14:10.691 --> 00:14:13.192
Every business he started went bankrupt.
00:14:13.472 --> 00:14:15.354
His marriages were failures,
00:14:15.413 --> 00:14:17.034
either death or divorce.
00:14:18.056 --> 00:14:19.317
He was an utter failure.
00:14:20.636 --> 00:14:23.359
And he came to the United States and
00:14:23.379 --> 00:14:25.380
sort of reinvented himself.
00:14:25.400 --> 00:14:26.721
And
00:14:29.081 --> 00:14:30.543
In all of that process,
00:14:30.623 --> 00:14:33.744
I think he became somewhat hardened.
00:14:33.783 --> 00:14:36.085
He was sort of a hardened silo of
00:14:36.105 --> 00:14:36.625
a man.
00:14:37.945 --> 00:14:39.525
Even his friends, I don't think,
00:14:39.605 --> 00:14:41.826
penetrated that.
00:14:41.865 --> 00:14:44.047
But those letters about Washington and his
00:14:44.126 --> 00:14:46.268
later public attacks of Washington,
00:14:47.048 --> 00:14:50.529
are probably the most personal that you'll
00:14:50.570 --> 00:14:51.870
see from Thomas Paine.
00:14:51.890 --> 00:14:51.971
Yeah.
00:14:53.091 --> 00:14:55.253
And he had dedicated The Rights of Man
00:14:55.332 --> 00:14:56.433
to Washington,
00:14:56.594 --> 00:14:58.455
and it was through Paine that Washington
00:14:58.514 --> 00:15:00.856
receives the key to the Bastille after its
00:15:00.897 --> 00:15:01.297
storm.
00:15:01.356 --> 00:15:03.818
So we really see he still feels he
00:15:03.839 --> 00:15:04.918
has this relationship,
00:15:04.958 --> 00:15:07.120
but then there's silence from Washington.
00:15:07.160 --> 00:15:09.361
It takes him a year to respond to
00:15:09.422 --> 00:15:10.222
The Rights of Man.
00:15:10.682 --> 00:15:11.123
That's right.
00:15:11.143 --> 00:15:12.984
And Washington clearly didn't like the
00:15:13.024 --> 00:15:13.764
dedication.
00:15:14.303 --> 00:15:15.183
The dedication,
00:15:15.224 --> 00:15:17.904
the Rights of Man was a very controversial
00:15:17.945 --> 00:15:18.544
publication,
00:15:19.044 --> 00:15:21.586
arguably his most controversial,
00:15:21.706 --> 00:15:23.385
and Washington did not like it.
00:15:23.566 --> 00:15:25.726
He had a lot of people whispering,
00:15:26.167 --> 00:15:27.826
including Morris in his ear,
00:15:27.947 --> 00:15:30.548
that this was alienating people we're
00:15:30.607 --> 00:15:31.768
dealing with in Europe.
00:15:32.288 --> 00:15:35.249
yeah yeah i suspect paine's next book
00:15:35.308 --> 00:15:37.929
though the age of reason also where he
00:15:37.970 --> 00:15:40.910
attacks christianity and revealed religion
00:15:41.030 --> 00:15:43.731
also that doesn't win him yes that's true
00:15:43.751 --> 00:15:48.553
that is true yes of course um madison
00:15:48.594 --> 00:15:50.333
is of course there's another figure that
00:15:50.474 --> 00:15:52.355
appears less in the book but is really
00:15:52.514 --> 00:15:55.336
so essential to creating this this system
00:15:55.355 --> 00:15:55.515
that
00:15:56.600 --> 00:15:59.602
really isn't a fan of at first,
00:15:59.623 --> 00:16:02.125
the bicameral legislature with checks and
00:16:02.144 --> 00:16:03.206
these other things.
00:16:03.245 --> 00:16:04.246
As you say,
00:16:05.368 --> 00:16:08.150
the real polarity you stress between the
00:16:08.191 --> 00:16:10.312
American and French revolutions is the
00:16:10.393 --> 00:16:12.894
French revolution wants to have the
00:16:13.034 --> 00:16:15.337
general will speaking through the
00:16:15.378 --> 00:16:15.957
assembly,
00:16:16.379 --> 00:16:18.059
whereas Madison creates a system where
00:16:18.100 --> 00:16:20.422
factions will be actually empowered to
00:16:20.461 --> 00:16:21.202
challenge each other.
00:16:22.317 --> 00:16:22.778
That's right.
00:16:22.798 --> 00:16:22.977
I mean,
00:16:23.019 --> 00:16:25.440
the French terror was really brought about
00:16:25.620 --> 00:16:27.782
with this sort of Rousseau-ian naivete
00:16:27.802 --> 00:16:32.284
that the people like Robespierre really
00:16:32.325 --> 00:16:34.486
took hold of.
00:16:34.547 --> 00:16:35.847
Rousseau was a beautiful writer,
00:16:35.908 --> 00:16:38.188
but I personally think he had an awful
00:16:38.249 --> 00:16:42.371
concept of government and the theory of
00:16:42.412 --> 00:16:42.893
government.
00:16:43.432 --> 00:16:45.453
And he truly believed that people are
00:16:45.534 --> 00:16:47.855
good, and if you give them power,
00:16:48.135 --> 00:16:49.817
therefore government will be good.
00:16:50.077 --> 00:16:50.177
Right.
00:16:50.658 --> 00:16:53.143
And it was precisely the opposite of what
00:16:53.182 --> 00:16:55.908
the founders believed about the tendency
00:16:56.008 --> 00:16:58.511
of democracies to become mobocracies.
00:16:59.673 --> 00:17:01.738
I am viewed as a Madisonian scholar,
00:17:01.758 --> 00:17:03.421
and I do talk about Madison in the
00:17:03.461 --> 00:17:03.541
book.
00:17:04.461 --> 00:17:05.622
but not as much as Paine,
00:17:05.642 --> 00:17:07.162
largely because I've written a lot about
00:17:07.201 --> 00:17:08.343
him before.
00:17:08.962 --> 00:17:13.184
But I do juxtapose the two individuals
00:17:13.224 --> 00:17:16.365
because Thomas Paine was the righteous
00:17:16.486 --> 00:17:18.467
rage of the American Revolution.
00:17:18.606 --> 00:17:22.048
It was his voice that penetrated
00:17:22.128 --> 00:17:23.630
throughout the colonies.
00:17:24.609 --> 00:17:25.871
He was, in my view,
00:17:25.911 --> 00:17:27.990
correctly called the penman of the
00:17:28.030 --> 00:17:29.071
American Revolution.
00:17:30.321 --> 00:17:34.125
James Madison was that pious logic where
00:17:34.865 --> 00:17:37.409
Payne knew what it would take to move
00:17:37.509 --> 00:17:39.290
a people to revolution.
00:17:40.011 --> 00:17:42.114
Madison knew what it would take to move
00:17:42.153 --> 00:17:43.996
a revolution to a republic.
00:17:44.355 --> 00:17:45.798
And we needed both of them.
00:17:45.817 --> 00:17:46.398
Right, right.
00:17:46.419 --> 00:17:47.259
That's good.
00:17:47.279 --> 00:17:47.380
And...
00:17:50.022 --> 00:17:53.526
another of the fascinating pieces in the
00:17:53.546 --> 00:17:56.688
book is your attention to adam smith and
00:17:56.729 --> 00:17:59.570
his ideas of course the um wealth of
00:17:59.611 --> 00:18:03.713
nations is published in and it become the
00:18:03.913 --> 00:18:05.536
economic ideas becomes one of the real
00:18:05.576 --> 00:18:08.178
underpinnings for the american polity for
00:18:08.198 --> 00:18:11.339
the next century or so and uh how
00:18:11.539 --> 00:18:14.282
why does smith have such a resonance among
00:18:14.363 --> 00:18:16.403
the americans who are forming their new
00:18:16.443 --> 00:18:17.125
government do you think
00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:18.680
You know, Bob,
00:18:18.700 --> 00:18:21.742
that was one of the least appreciated
00:18:21.903 --> 00:18:24.125
aspects of the American Revolution even
00:18:24.164 --> 00:18:24.884
today.
00:18:26.787 --> 00:18:28.689
When Wealth of Nations came out,
00:18:28.709 --> 00:18:31.090
it was not a great hit in Great
00:18:31.111 --> 00:18:31.431
Britain.
00:18:31.830 --> 00:18:33.172
It was a great hit here.
00:18:33.412 --> 00:18:33.613
You know,
00:18:33.653 --> 00:18:36.835
the founders immediately recognized that
00:18:36.894 --> 00:18:39.176
his economic theories were the perfect
00:18:39.196 --> 00:18:41.019
companion for their political theories.
00:18:41.578 --> 00:18:43.000
The American Revolution, in my view,
00:18:43.059 --> 00:18:45.082
is the first true Enlightenment
00:18:45.142 --> 00:18:45.782
revolution.
00:18:46.563 --> 00:18:50.726
And the framers believed in liberty.
00:18:50.746 --> 00:18:50.945
You know,
00:18:50.965 --> 00:18:52.346
the Declaration of Independence doesn't
00:18:52.366 --> 00:18:54.167
refer to democracy once it refers to
00:18:54.228 --> 00:18:54.667
liberty.
00:18:55.327 --> 00:18:56.588
And they did.
00:18:56.788 --> 00:18:59.270
They believe that you could not truly be
00:18:59.471 --> 00:19:02.392
free unless you were also economically
00:19:02.452 --> 00:19:02.732
free.
00:19:02.813 --> 00:19:04.894
And suddenly you have this book.
00:19:05.034 --> 00:19:07.934
that talks about free markets and how the
00:19:07.994 --> 00:19:11.755
economy can be driven by this invisible or
00:19:11.795 --> 00:19:15.476
hidden hand of people making choices on
00:19:15.576 --> 00:19:18.876
products that ultimately guide economic
00:19:18.957 --> 00:19:19.537
movements.
00:19:19.977 --> 00:19:23.057
That had an innate appeal to the founders
00:19:23.097 --> 00:19:26.278
that that economy should be driven by
00:19:26.378 --> 00:19:27.778
choice in that sense.
00:19:28.499 --> 00:19:30.560
And it was the perfect companion.
00:19:30.681 --> 00:19:32.102
And people, I think,
00:19:32.142 --> 00:19:35.484
fail to realize how much those free market
00:19:35.525 --> 00:19:38.567
principles played a role in the ascendancy
00:19:38.606 --> 00:19:41.048
of the American democratic system,
00:19:41.470 --> 00:19:44.071
that the combination brought enormous
00:19:44.112 --> 00:19:46.153
prosperity to the United States.
00:19:46.473 --> 00:19:47.855
And that's why in the book I talk
00:19:47.894 --> 00:19:49.635
about the need in the twenty first
00:19:49.655 --> 00:19:50.136
century.
00:19:50.817 --> 00:19:53.038
of preserving what I call a
00:19:53.137 --> 00:19:55.278
liberty-enhancing economy.
00:19:55.719 --> 00:19:58.299
Because many of the challenges that we're
00:19:58.359 --> 00:19:58.880
facing,
00:19:58.940 --> 00:20:01.240
including the combination of robotics and
00:20:01.381 --> 00:20:02.721
AI,
00:20:02.800 --> 00:20:06.242
are likely to produce greater subsidies
00:20:06.303 --> 00:20:07.823
for the unemployed,
00:20:08.324 --> 00:20:10.703
for a large portion of our population.
00:20:11.184 --> 00:20:13.025
And while that may be inevitable,
00:20:13.945 --> 00:20:17.386
the book raises a cautionary note
00:20:17.866 --> 00:20:21.450
that it is essential for our republic for
00:20:21.529 --> 00:20:23.391
citizens to be independent from the
00:20:23.431 --> 00:20:26.173
government for this republic to work as it
00:20:26.232 --> 00:20:29.955
is designed uh the charlestown town
00:20:29.996 --> 00:20:32.017
meeting said that to possess the fruits of
00:20:32.057 --> 00:20:34.499
his labor and insecurities the greatest
00:20:34.519 --> 00:20:37.701
happiness man can enjoy that is seeing
00:20:37.721 --> 00:20:41.384
this is essential and even some we were
00:20:41.443 --> 00:20:43.164
talking with jonathan turley whose new
00:20:43.205 --> 00:20:44.767
book is rage in the republic the
00:20:44.826 --> 00:20:45.247
unfinished
00:20:45.346 --> 00:20:47.808
story of the American Revolution.
00:20:48.709 --> 00:20:52.151
And when you do have this very wonderful
00:20:52.191 --> 00:20:53.672
section on Adam Smith,
00:20:53.711 --> 00:20:57.035
you're talking about this true economic
00:20:57.115 --> 00:20:58.955
liberty, which he is espousing.
00:20:59.296 --> 00:21:00.537
And even someone like Hamilton,
00:21:00.557 --> 00:21:03.138
who wants to build a state and have
00:21:03.159 --> 00:21:04.199
things like tariffs,
00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:08.221
he's also really closely studied Smith.
00:21:09.038 --> 00:21:09.618
That's right.
00:21:09.699 --> 00:21:11.400
And by the way, so did Paine.
00:21:11.799 --> 00:21:12.000
You know,
00:21:12.019 --> 00:21:14.619
there's a lot of misconceptions about
00:21:14.660 --> 00:21:14.940
Paine.
00:21:15.220 --> 00:21:16.500
Paine believed in the free market.
00:21:16.540 --> 00:21:20.842
He also had early sort of examples of
00:21:20.862 --> 00:21:23.321
what we would call sort of a UBI
00:21:23.382 --> 00:21:25.242
or payments to people.
00:21:25.843 --> 00:21:28.183
So he was forward-looking in that sense,
00:21:28.223 --> 00:21:30.284
but he was a huge believer in the
00:21:30.644 --> 00:21:33.025
free market and economic independence of
00:21:33.085 --> 00:21:33.904
individuals.
00:21:34.444 --> 00:21:37.665
uh and across the board interestingly
00:21:37.705 --> 00:21:41.326
enough uh you had jeffersonians and
00:21:41.567 --> 00:21:44.648
federalists alike embracing smith's work
00:21:44.669 --> 00:21:49.250
yeah and smith also is a critic of
00:21:49.289 --> 00:21:51.191
the east india company and the rise of
00:21:51.211 --> 00:21:53.412
this conglomerate before the revolution
00:21:53.432 --> 00:21:55.051
which is and perhaps the east india
00:21:55.092 --> 00:21:56.772
company did cause the revolution
00:21:57.133 --> 00:21:59.054
inadvertently through parliament trying to
00:21:59.114 --> 00:21:59.773
subsidize it
00:22:00.336 --> 00:22:00.976
That's right.
00:22:01.296 --> 00:22:05.017
And the book looks at how the current
00:22:05.037 --> 00:22:08.116
conditions in some ways mirror the
00:22:08.836 --> 00:22:10.238
objections that Smith had,
00:22:10.298 --> 00:22:12.377
including what I call corporate feudalism,
00:22:13.298 --> 00:22:16.578
the sort of new versions of the East
00:22:16.659 --> 00:22:17.519
India Company.
00:22:18.219 --> 00:22:20.259
And we're looking at massive levels of
00:22:20.338 --> 00:22:23.279
power invested in companies from AI to
00:22:23.339 --> 00:22:24.200
social media.
00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:26.359
And the book sort of explores that.
00:22:26.420 --> 00:22:26.599
I mean,
00:22:26.619 --> 00:22:28.861
the book asks the question of whether...
00:22:29.861 --> 00:22:32.623
this American republic can survive the
00:22:32.663 --> 00:22:33.824
twenty first century,
00:22:34.423 --> 00:22:36.505
but really whether it can survive us.
00:22:36.525 --> 00:22:40.067
And it looks at what we will have
00:22:40.106 --> 00:22:41.888
to do to achieve that,
00:22:42.288 --> 00:22:44.589
because it's a dangerous conceit that
00:22:44.630 --> 00:22:47.211
we've lasted so long that it means we'll
00:22:47.231 --> 00:22:49.153
be here another two hundred fifty years.
00:22:49.853 --> 00:22:51.875
And I think Benjamin Franklin captured
00:22:51.914 --> 00:22:54.736
that moment when he said it's a republic
00:22:54.796 --> 00:22:57.478
if you can keep it.
00:22:57.557 --> 00:22:58.659
Are you optimistic?
00:22:59.963 --> 00:23:00.964
I am optimistic.
00:23:01.045 --> 00:23:03.587
I think that we have the perfect system
00:23:03.627 --> 00:23:05.288
to face what we are looking at.
00:23:05.690 --> 00:23:07.932
I don't downplay the challenges.
00:23:08.092 --> 00:23:09.752
I actually think these challenges are
00:23:09.833 --> 00:23:13.777
likely to cause really extreme changes
00:23:13.817 --> 00:23:15.419
politically and economically.
00:23:15.598 --> 00:23:17.200
I do not have a great deal of
00:23:17.279 --> 00:23:19.923
faith in the EU, for example.
00:23:19.982 --> 00:23:21.544
The first half of this book is
00:23:22.125 --> 00:23:22.724
correct,
00:23:23.085 --> 00:23:25.385
then the EU is likely to collapse under
00:23:25.425 --> 00:23:26.726
these pressures because they have
00:23:26.786 --> 00:23:29.267
eliminated many of the very elements that
00:23:29.287 --> 00:23:30.528
the book identifies.
00:23:31.347 --> 00:23:33.169
But the real test for us,
00:23:33.868 --> 00:23:35.388
perhaps the real crisis,
00:23:35.429 --> 00:23:37.170
is not a constitutional crisis.
00:23:37.950 --> 00:23:39.352
It's a crisis of faith.
00:23:39.432 --> 00:23:43.155
We have many people today who are arguing
00:23:43.236 --> 00:23:45.838
for trashing the Constitution or making
00:23:46.058 --> 00:23:47.580
fundamental changes in some of the
00:23:47.641 --> 00:23:49.663
elements that I've identified in the book.
00:23:50.663 --> 00:23:52.226
That would, in my view,
00:23:52.266 --> 00:23:54.327
be an existential challenge here.
00:23:55.028 --> 00:23:58.792
But perhaps the greatest challenge that I
00:23:58.853 --> 00:23:59.733
raise in the book
00:24:00.942 --> 00:24:03.444
is our faith in each other.
00:24:03.964 --> 00:24:09.130
I quote a wonderful writer who wrote under
00:24:09.691 --> 00:24:12.012
the name of American Farmer.
00:24:12.653 --> 00:24:14.115
And it was a Frenchman by the name
00:24:14.154 --> 00:24:15.016
of Preve Coeur.
00:24:15.856 --> 00:24:17.298
And in his book,
00:24:17.317 --> 00:24:18.739
which was a hit in France,
00:24:19.579 --> 00:24:22.663
He tries to tell people about this
00:24:22.702 --> 00:24:23.083
country.
00:24:23.143 --> 00:24:25.105
We were a fascination of people.
00:24:25.125 --> 00:24:27.767
People couldn't understand how a nation
00:24:27.807 --> 00:24:29.949
composed of people from so many different
00:24:29.969 --> 00:24:32.250
places with so little in common with each
00:24:32.330 --> 00:24:35.212
other could suddenly not only form a
00:24:35.313 --> 00:24:38.695
people and a revolution, but around ideas,
00:24:38.955 --> 00:24:41.979
not around land or religion or any other
00:24:42.019 --> 00:24:43.200
traditional connections.
00:24:43.880 --> 00:24:45.520
an Enlightenment revolution,
00:24:46.361 --> 00:24:48.102
which of course sort of captured that in
00:24:48.122 --> 00:24:48.961
the book and asked,
00:24:49.642 --> 00:24:51.403
what then is this America?
00:24:52.304 --> 00:24:54.124
And what I suggest in the book is
00:24:54.324 --> 00:24:55.805
we have to be able to answer that
00:24:55.984 --> 00:24:58.405
in this country or this republic won't
00:24:58.465 --> 00:24:58.905
last.
00:24:59.467 --> 00:25:01.748
What were we then and who are we
00:25:01.827 --> 00:25:02.147
now?
00:25:02.807 --> 00:25:05.729
it's a very difficult question and at a
00:25:05.749 --> 00:25:07.369
time but i call it an age of
00:25:07.450 --> 00:25:09.871
rage it's a question that makes people
00:25:09.911 --> 00:25:12.511
feel uncomfortable because in order to
00:25:12.652 --> 00:25:14.833
answer that question we are going to have
00:25:14.873 --> 00:25:16.413
to talk to each other we're going to
00:25:16.453 --> 00:25:19.434
have to not necessarily come together in
00:25:19.515 --> 00:25:22.457
commonality of youth but to come together
00:25:22.497 --> 00:25:26.238
in a commonality of identification that as
00:25:26.278 --> 00:25:29.279
americans we remain different we remain
00:25:30.220 --> 00:25:33.421
a remarkable experiment in governance.
00:25:35.041 --> 00:25:37.603
That is certainly something that Madison
00:25:37.663 --> 00:25:40.723
gets at in seeing that factions actually
00:25:42.144 --> 00:25:43.664
can play a positive role,
00:25:44.545 --> 00:25:47.445
having ambition check ambition,
00:25:47.486 --> 00:25:48.586
as someone said,
00:25:48.646 --> 00:25:50.646
and not saying that we'll let everyone
00:25:50.707 --> 00:25:52.948
free and everything will be great,
00:25:53.028 --> 00:25:54.548
but we'll let them free so they can
00:25:55.048 --> 00:25:56.528
work these things out without,
00:25:56.729 --> 00:25:58.309
as Franklin says in another speech in the
00:25:58.369 --> 00:26:00.069
Convention coming together for the purpose
00:26:00.089 --> 00:26:01.550
of cutting each other's throats.
00:26:02.871 --> 00:26:03.490
That's right.
00:26:03.530 --> 00:26:05.372
And I spent a lot of time on
00:26:05.412 --> 00:26:08.212
Madison's factions because you really see
00:26:08.232 --> 00:26:09.712
that play out in Paris.
00:26:10.093 --> 00:26:12.814
Paris was an example of what happens when
00:26:12.834 --> 00:26:14.474
you don't have a system that can deal
00:26:14.515 --> 00:26:15.954
with factional disputes.
00:26:16.335 --> 00:26:18.115
And what happens is that the factions kill
00:26:18.135 --> 00:26:18.576
each other.
00:26:18.615 --> 00:26:21.236
And so the mountain killed Desjardins and
00:26:21.256 --> 00:26:22.696
the mountain itself was killed.
00:26:23.416 --> 00:26:26.299
And the book actually starts with a quote
00:26:26.319 --> 00:26:28.080
from a leading French writer from the
00:26:28.122 --> 00:26:32.065
revolution that says that revolutions like
00:26:32.164 --> 00:26:33.987
Saturn devour their own.
00:26:34.827 --> 00:26:36.829
And Paine watched that.
00:26:37.069 --> 00:26:39.951
He watched a revolution devour itself,
00:26:39.991 --> 00:26:41.933
devoured its central figures.
00:26:42.734 --> 00:26:43.996
We escaped that,
00:26:44.215 --> 00:26:46.919
which is the true miracle of Philadelphia.
00:26:48.604 --> 00:26:49.444
It really is.
00:26:49.644 --> 00:26:50.464
And, you know,
00:26:50.505 --> 00:26:52.646
you point out that the constitutional
00:26:52.686 --> 00:26:55.067
system provides these three essential
00:26:55.367 --> 00:26:55.909
safeguards.
00:26:56.009 --> 00:26:58.009
One is protecting individual rights and
00:26:58.049 --> 00:27:01.071
another is prohibiting concentrations of
00:27:01.132 --> 00:27:02.712
power, diffusing power,
00:27:03.213 --> 00:27:05.275
and then accommodating these factional
00:27:05.434 --> 00:27:06.134
interests.
00:27:08.518 --> 00:27:12.142
I'm wondering if you think that the idea
00:27:12.201 --> 00:27:13.364
of the rights and freedoms of the
00:27:13.403 --> 00:27:14.945
individual are something that's been
00:27:15.026 --> 00:27:18.750
eroded in the current American polity.
00:27:20.705 --> 00:27:22.488
I think that we have to be aware
00:27:22.548 --> 00:27:25.309
that the things that define us as a
00:27:25.390 --> 00:27:26.991
people are under attack.
00:27:27.832 --> 00:27:29.213
That includes free speech.
00:27:29.834 --> 00:27:34.038
And in the earlier book dealing with what
00:27:34.077 --> 00:27:35.538
I call the age of rage,
00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:37.901
I note this is not our first age
00:27:37.980 --> 00:27:38.622
of rage.
00:27:40.603 --> 00:27:42.085
This country was born in rage.
00:27:42.105 --> 00:27:43.965
That's what the Boston Party was after
00:27:43.986 --> 00:27:44.105
all.
00:27:44.405 --> 00:27:45.426
It's an act of rage.
00:27:46.067 --> 00:27:47.409
And rage is an odd thing.
00:27:48.009 --> 00:27:50.151
If you agree with it, it's righteous.
00:27:50.191 --> 00:27:51.832
And if you don't, it's dangerous.
00:27:52.532 --> 00:27:54.713
But usually what happens is that the
00:27:54.753 --> 00:27:56.875
greatest danger to an age of rage is
00:27:56.915 --> 00:27:58.257
the response to it,
00:27:58.277 --> 00:28:00.999
where the government seeks to use that
00:28:01.058 --> 00:28:02.540
rage to limit rights,
00:28:02.580 --> 00:28:03.981
particularly free speech.
00:28:04.561 --> 00:28:07.387
And we're certainly seeing that more so in
00:28:07.528 --> 00:28:09.792
Europe where free speech isn't a free fall
00:28:09.853 --> 00:28:13.078
and in countries like United Kingdom and
00:28:13.480 --> 00:28:14.561
France and Germany.
00:28:15.458 --> 00:28:18.121
But that tide has reached our shore,
00:28:18.901 --> 00:28:21.243
and it adds to this sense of crisis
00:28:21.304 --> 00:28:24.807
of faith that really we've lost faith in
00:28:24.846 --> 00:28:28.290
each other because this is a system that
00:28:28.351 --> 00:28:30.313
requires something of a leap of faith.
00:28:31.334 --> 00:28:32.954
We have to have faith in our neighbors
00:28:33.036 --> 00:28:34.336
even if we disagree with them.
00:28:35.483 --> 00:28:36.305
Yeah.
00:28:36.325 --> 00:28:38.865
And we also have to come together for
00:28:38.925 --> 00:28:41.448
purposes of governing and purposes of
00:28:41.508 --> 00:28:42.429
doing things,
00:28:42.509 --> 00:28:44.410
even with people with whom we disagree.
00:28:44.450 --> 00:28:48.272
I think one of the failures we're seeing
00:28:48.353 --> 00:28:50.013
in Washington right now is that
00:28:52.188 --> 00:28:53.308
No, I think that's right.
00:28:53.388 --> 00:28:55.589
And in past ages of rage,
00:28:55.670 --> 00:28:58.152
the rage has burned off over time.
00:28:58.751 --> 00:28:59.532
Quite frankly,
00:28:59.593 --> 00:29:01.574
we reach a point where we realize that
00:29:01.614 --> 00:29:02.914
we have become grotesque,
00:29:03.476 --> 00:29:06.698
that we have just given ourselves to hate.
00:29:07.077 --> 00:29:09.799
The rage has a narcotic effect.
00:29:09.839 --> 00:29:10.539
It's addictive.
00:29:11.020 --> 00:29:12.000
It's contagious.
00:29:12.521 --> 00:29:15.083
And what people won't admit from either
00:29:15.143 --> 00:29:17.085
party is that they like it.
00:29:17.785 --> 00:29:20.166
And you see that all around you.
00:29:20.227 --> 00:29:22.669
People are enjoying it too much because
00:29:22.929 --> 00:29:24.671
you have decent people that for the first
00:29:24.730 --> 00:29:27.133
time can hate completely,
00:29:27.153 --> 00:29:28.874
hate people they don't know,
00:29:29.034 --> 00:29:30.516
hate people they don't want to know.
00:29:31.737 --> 00:29:34.558
That tends to burn off with time if
00:29:34.598 --> 00:29:36.861
history is any example.
00:29:36.881 --> 00:29:37.101
Mm-hmm.
00:29:38.913 --> 00:29:40.414
Well,
00:29:40.434 --> 00:29:41.895
there is so much in this book that
00:29:41.935 --> 00:29:42.895
we could talk about.
00:29:43.016 --> 00:29:44.497
We're talking with Jonathan Turley,
00:29:44.537 --> 00:29:46.417
whose new book is The Rage in the
00:29:46.458 --> 00:29:46.978
Republic,
00:29:47.019 --> 00:29:49.519
The Unfinished Story of the American
00:29:49.599 --> 00:29:50.259
Revolution.
00:29:53.832 --> 00:29:54.952
One of the things that comes up in
00:29:54.972 --> 00:29:56.954
the idea of the French Revolution is this
00:29:57.015 --> 00:29:57.895
idea of virtue,
00:29:57.935 --> 00:29:59.636
and each side talks about virtue.
00:29:59.857 --> 00:30:00.137
That is,
00:30:00.538 --> 00:30:02.359
the virtuous republic is one of the
00:30:02.420 --> 00:30:04.582
centerpieces of the idea behind the
00:30:04.642 --> 00:30:06.123
framers of the Constitution.
00:30:06.683 --> 00:30:07.163
And then, of course,
00:30:07.203 --> 00:30:09.787
the French also use virtue,
00:30:09.846 --> 00:30:11.748
but they have much different effects.
00:30:13.413 --> 00:30:14.473
No, that's very true.
00:30:14.733 --> 00:30:18.654
And the French Revolution is itself a
00:30:18.694 --> 00:30:21.474
great lesson because it shows the
00:30:21.515 --> 00:30:24.895
corruption of humanity that can come in
00:30:24.935 --> 00:30:25.895
these moments.
00:30:26.375 --> 00:30:28.777
If you read some of Robespierre's early
00:30:28.817 --> 00:30:29.477
writings,
00:30:30.436 --> 00:30:32.317
at the start of the Jacobin movement,
00:30:32.356 --> 00:30:34.238
you would think he was an ACLU lawyer.
00:30:34.298 --> 00:30:37.577
He talked about due process and protecting
00:30:37.617 --> 00:30:38.458
minority rights.
00:30:38.798 --> 00:30:39.939
Within a few years,
00:30:39.959 --> 00:30:42.219
he would be calling terror a virtue.
00:30:43.098 --> 00:30:45.921
and sending thousands to be guillotined.
00:30:46.761 --> 00:30:51.125
And there is a cathartic aspect to this
00:30:51.164 --> 00:30:52.645
that you sort of watch.
00:30:52.685 --> 00:30:53.566
And it's horrible.
00:30:53.605 --> 00:30:56.028
And the scenes I describe in the book
00:30:56.107 --> 00:30:57.288
are often horrible.
00:30:58.128 --> 00:31:01.672
But I wanted people to understand the sort
00:31:01.692 --> 00:31:04.212
of madness that can take hold in a
00:31:04.252 --> 00:31:05.634
system that doesn't have these
00:31:05.693 --> 00:31:06.634
precautions.
00:31:07.234 --> 00:31:08.195
And in some ways,
00:31:08.695 --> 00:31:11.377
I point to a turning point with Charlotte
00:31:11.397 --> 00:31:11.959
Corday,
00:31:12.739 --> 00:31:16.319
who was just an absolutely wonderful
00:31:16.380 --> 00:31:17.299
figure.
00:31:17.359 --> 00:31:20.080
She was this beautiful young French woman
00:31:20.121 --> 00:31:22.862
who came to Paris with a murderous agenda.
00:31:23.281 --> 00:31:25.301
She decided that the only way to stop
00:31:25.321 --> 00:31:27.643
the killing was to kill Marat,
00:31:27.682 --> 00:31:29.522
who was one of the most loathsome
00:31:29.563 --> 00:31:31.503
creatures that came out of the French
00:31:31.564 --> 00:31:32.163
Revolution.
00:31:33.084 --> 00:31:35.445
And she was herself a Republican.
00:31:36.567 --> 00:31:38.808
She was associated more with the gendarme.
00:31:40.170 --> 00:31:42.592
But she decided that she had to stop
00:31:42.632 --> 00:31:43.252
the killing.
00:31:43.893 --> 00:31:46.174
And she did it in true French fashion.
00:31:46.214 --> 00:31:48.396
She got off the stage and had her
00:31:48.436 --> 00:31:50.818
hair done, put on a beautiful dress,
00:31:50.858 --> 00:31:52.701
bought a butcher's knife,
00:31:52.740 --> 00:31:55.502
and then plunged into the chest of Marat
00:31:55.542 --> 00:31:58.645
when he was in his bathtub.
00:31:58.806 --> 00:31:59.967
Her trial is...
00:32:00.919 --> 00:32:05.261
did seem to change the context.
00:32:05.643 --> 00:32:08.045
She was incredibly articulate and
00:32:08.105 --> 00:32:08.944
courageous.
00:32:09.425 --> 00:32:11.406
She didn't deny for a second what she
00:32:11.446 --> 00:32:11.827
had done.
00:32:11.867 --> 00:32:12.127
In fact,
00:32:12.147 --> 00:32:14.390
she sounded a lot like Robespierre and
00:32:14.430 --> 00:32:14.950
Marat.
00:32:15.390 --> 00:32:16.270
She kept on saying,
00:32:16.570 --> 00:32:18.472
what's one life if I'm saving the
00:32:18.512 --> 00:32:19.534
Republic, right?
00:32:20.094 --> 00:32:21.934
And so when she was executed,
00:32:22.016 --> 00:32:25.577
Robespierre and Danton were watching from
00:32:25.678 --> 00:32:26.459
a balcony, right?
00:32:27.087 --> 00:32:31.349
And they no doubt took notice that there
00:32:31.410 --> 00:32:34.230
was a difference in how the crowd was
00:32:34.290 --> 00:32:36.132
reacting to Corday,
00:32:36.432 --> 00:32:39.794
who showed tremendous courage standing on
00:32:39.834 --> 00:32:40.513
the scaffold.
00:32:41.494 --> 00:32:43.055
And within a short time,
00:32:43.134 --> 00:32:45.175
Danton would be standing right there and
00:32:45.195 --> 00:32:45.895
be guillotined,
00:32:45.936 --> 00:32:48.037
and then Robespierre himself would follow.
00:32:50.519 --> 00:32:52.560
It's really such a sobering story about
00:32:52.601 --> 00:32:56.863
the French Revolution and comparing it
00:32:56.903 --> 00:32:58.363
with the American Revolution.
00:32:58.522 --> 00:32:59.003
And in fact,
00:32:59.023 --> 00:33:00.624
you compare the American Revolution with
00:33:00.683 --> 00:33:02.704
most revolutions since.
00:33:03.285 --> 00:33:04.766
And one of the points you make is
00:33:04.786 --> 00:33:07.626
that the American system is designed for
00:33:07.666 --> 00:33:09.788
revolutionary change without devolving
00:33:09.847 --> 00:33:11.709
into revolution.
00:33:11.729 --> 00:33:12.368
That's right.
00:33:12.388 --> 00:33:13.529
I mean, the thing is,
00:33:13.970 --> 00:33:15.250
what I say in the book,
00:33:15.369 --> 00:33:16.611
and the reason I have...
00:33:17.708 --> 00:33:20.490
such optimism for the twenty-first century
00:33:21.351 --> 00:33:23.353
is that we have the perfect system to
00:33:23.413 --> 00:33:25.375
adjust to changing conditions.
00:33:25.875 --> 00:33:27.757
This was a system designed for changing
00:33:27.777 --> 00:33:28.196
conditions.
00:33:28.257 --> 00:33:29.939
It was designed for bad times,
00:33:30.019 --> 00:33:30.898
not good times.
00:33:30.939 --> 00:33:33.300
It was written in a time like ours,
00:33:34.221 --> 00:33:36.084
where people were at each other's throats.
00:33:36.124 --> 00:33:38.846
It's a system designed to adapt and to
00:33:38.945 --> 00:33:41.448
move without changing the underlying
00:33:41.489 --> 00:33:42.990
constitutional order.
00:33:43.309 --> 00:33:44.330
And so what I say in the book
00:33:44.411 --> 00:33:45.031
is, yes,
00:33:45.672 --> 00:33:47.653
These are revolutionary times,
00:33:48.075 --> 00:33:51.097
but we remain a revolutionary people.
00:33:51.778 --> 00:33:54.201
I think we've been talking,
00:33:54.662 --> 00:33:56.203
there's probably much more we could say,
00:33:56.243 --> 00:33:58.606
but that's really a wonderful note to end
00:33:59.448 --> 00:34:00.148
on,
00:34:00.209 --> 00:34:01.790
unless there's more you would like to add.
00:34:01.971 --> 00:34:02.711
No, that's fine.
00:34:03.907 --> 00:34:06.108
We've been talking with Jonathan Turley,
00:34:06.148 --> 00:34:09.931
who is the Shapiro Chair for Public
00:34:09.990 --> 00:34:11.592
Interest Law at George Washington
00:34:11.692 --> 00:34:15.673
University and the author of Rage in the
00:34:15.713 --> 00:34:16.175
Republic.
00:34:16.215 --> 00:34:17.996
Your first book was The Indispensable
00:34:18.056 --> 00:34:20.157
Right About Free Speech and the First
00:34:20.177 --> 00:34:20.797
Amendment.
00:34:20.817 --> 00:34:22.458
You have a great section in here.
00:34:22.838 --> 00:34:24.079
Now I see that you don't like to
00:34:24.119 --> 00:34:25.960
repeat things you have already said from
00:34:26.019 --> 00:34:27.400
one book to another, which is...
00:34:28.266 --> 00:34:31.226
rare skill rage in the republic the
00:34:31.347 --> 00:34:33.288
unfinished story of the american
00:34:33.327 --> 00:34:34.967
revolution thank you so much for joining
00:34:35.027 --> 00:34:37.108
us this morning it's been a great pleasure
00:34:37.148 --> 00:34:40.010
bob thank you and so i want to
00:34:40.050 --> 00:34:42.090
thank you and i thank jonathan lane our
00:34:42.210 --> 00:34:44.251
producer the man behind the curtain and if
00:34:44.271 --> 00:34:46.771
you want some of our revolution two fifty
00:34:46.831 --> 00:34:49.313
swag send jonathan lane an email jay lane
00:34:49.432 --> 00:34:51.153
revolution two five oh dot org
00:34:51.894 --> 00:34:53.655
And every week I thank folks who are
00:34:53.715 --> 00:34:54.795
regular listeners.
00:34:55.016 --> 00:34:56.476
And if you're in one of these places
00:34:56.516 --> 00:34:58.436
and want some Revolution Two-Fifty stuff,
00:34:58.456 --> 00:34:59.637
send Jonathan an email.
00:34:59.697 --> 00:35:01.757
This week I want to thank our listeners
00:35:01.777 --> 00:35:03.177
in Mount Kisco, New York,
00:35:03.458 --> 00:35:06.099
and in Missoula and Belgrade, Montana,
00:35:06.619 --> 00:35:08.860
Edison, New Jersey, here in Massachusetts,
00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:11.519
in Orange, Woburn, and Chelmsford, Dalton,
00:35:11.559 --> 00:35:13.960
Georgia, Middletown and Parma, and Ohio.
00:35:14.630 --> 00:35:17.652
and across the planet in Tel Aviv, Lima,
00:35:17.692 --> 00:35:20.552
Montreal, Lesti in Newfoundland, St.
00:35:20.592 --> 00:35:23.713
Helens, Erbil in Kurdistan, Pringi,
00:35:23.773 --> 00:35:25.173
Hennessy in Upper Savoy,
00:35:25.454 --> 00:35:27.715
Delmanhurst in Lower Saxony, Liverpool,
00:35:27.775 --> 00:35:31.034
Bordeaux, Taipei, Singapore, and Almaty,
00:35:31.074 --> 00:35:31.896
Kazakhstan,
00:35:31.936 --> 00:35:33.456
and all places between and beyond.
00:35:33.496 --> 00:35:34.476
Thanks for joining us.
00:35:35.016 --> 00:35:36.157
And now we'll be piped out on the
00:35:36.197 --> 00:35:36.777
road to Boston.