0:00

Hello

0:03

friends, I'm Jeffrey Rosen, President and

0:05

CEO of the National Constitution Center,

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and welcome to We the People, a weekly

0:09

show of constitutional debate. The

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National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan

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nonprofit, chartered by Congress, to increase

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awareness and understanding of the Constitution

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among the American people. Last

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week, the National Constitution Center hosted

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our third annual President's Council retreat

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in Miami. It featured

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a series of meaningful conversations about

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the Constitution with a diverse group

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of illuminating speakers. During

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the retreat, I had the wonderful opportunity to

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talk about my new book, which is out

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this week. It's called

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The Pursuit of Happiness, how classical

0:44

writers on virtue inspired the lives

0:46

of the founders and defined America.

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After the talk, I was so honored to

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be joined by three of my heroes to

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discuss the founders and the virtuous life. Eric

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Slaughter, the Deputy Dean of Humanities at

0:58

the University of Chicago. Melody

1:00

Barnes, Executive Director of the Karsh

1:02

Institute of Democracy at the University

1:04

of Virginia, and the great columnist

1:06

George F. Will. Dear

1:09

We the People listeners, I'm so excited to share

1:11

the conversations with you, and if you move to

1:13

read the book and would like a signed book

1:15

plate, just let me know. Enjoy

1:17

the show. Dear

1:20

friends, what

1:23

better place to

1:25

discuss the virtues

1:28

of humility, self-abnegation,

1:33

and overcoming the ego than

1:36

with a dinner panel at the President's Council retreat?

1:45

I am so excited to

1:47

talk with you about this

1:50

quest that I've had to explore, the history and

1:54

philosophy behind the pursuit of happiness. I'm

1:57

going to talk a little bit, and then what a

1:59

thrill. I'm thrilled to welcome George

2:02

Will, Eric Slaughter, and Melody Barnes to talk

2:04

with me about the pursuit

2:06

of happiness and the founders. So

2:11

this project came

2:13

unexpectedly during COVID. I

2:20

was reading about Benjamin Franklin's famous

2:22

project to

2:24

achieve moral perfection. And

2:27

in his 20s, as many of you know,

2:29

he set out to achieve moral perfection and

2:31

he made a list of 12 virtues that

2:34

he thought he should live up to every night. Prudence,

2:38

temperance, order, industry.

2:41

He saved the one he found hardest for

2:44

last, and that was indeed humility. And

2:48

he made a list and he decided

2:50

to put an X mark every night next

2:52

to the virtue where he fell short. And

2:54

he tried this for a bit. He found it incredibly depressing, but

2:57

he decided that he was a better person

2:59

for having tried. I

3:02

knew about this system because a friend and I

3:04

actually tried it a few years ago. About a

3:07

decade ago, a rabbi

3:09

in our synagogue recommended

3:11

the Franklin system, which

3:13

was translated into Hebrew in the

3:15

18th century by

3:19

a Hasidic rabbi who admired Franklin

3:21

and wanted to share his wisdom

3:23

with Hebrew and

3:25

was a questioner's. And my friend and I tried it.

3:27

We'd put an X mark every night next to the

3:30

virtue where we fell short. We found

3:32

it incredibly depressing. And

3:35

gave it up as Franklin did. But

3:37

we also felt we were improved by the effort.

3:40

What struck me during COVID was rereading

3:42

the system in Franklin's autobiography. The

3:45

epigraph for his project was this.

3:50

Without virtue, happiness cannot be.

3:53

It was from a book by Cicero that

3:55

I never heard of called the Tusculon Disputations.

3:58

That was intriguing. later

4:00

by another synchronicity, actually

4:02

I was at the Boar's Head Inn in Charlottesville

4:04

next to the University of Virginia and on the

4:06

wall with a list of 12 virtues

4:09

that Thomas Jefferson had drafted

4:11

for his granddaughters, which

4:13

looked remarkably similar to Franklin's.

4:16

Things like, never put off for tomorrow what

4:18

you can do today or resolve to do

4:20

what you ought and do what

4:23

you resolve. What was so

4:25

striking is that Jefferson's motto was also

4:27

from this book by Cicero that

4:29

I never heard of called the

4:31

Tusculon Disputations, Without Virtue Happiness Cannot

4:34

Be. And when Jefferson was

4:36

older and people would write to him and ask

4:38

him for the secret of happiness he

4:40

would send a passage

4:42

from this book which said essentially,

4:44

he who is tranquil in mind,

4:47

who is neither elated by undue

4:49

exuberance or despondent by overly great

4:51

despondency, this is the happy man

4:53

of whom we are in quest,

4:56

he is the virtuous man. So

4:59

I thought after these two synchronicities I've

5:01

got to read this book by Cicero

5:03

called the Tusculon Disputations. But

5:06

what else to read? Soon

5:09

after I came across a reading list that

5:11

Thomas Jefferson drafted for how to

5:13

be an educated person and he would send it to

5:16

kids who were going to law school and friends who

5:18

would write and basically to many people who asked when

5:20

he was old. And in

5:22

the section called Ethics or Natural

5:24

Religion I saw at the top

5:26

of the list Cicero's Tusculon Disputations.

5:29

And then there were a series of other

5:31

books of moral philosophy like

5:34

the Stoics, Marcus Aurelius,

5:37

Seneca, Epictetus, as well as

5:39

some books of enlightenment moral

5:41

philosophy like not only

5:44

John Locke but also Francis Hutchison,

5:46

Lord Cames and David Hume. I

5:49

thought I've got to read these books because this is

5:51

a gap in my education. I've had

5:54

the most marvelous liberal arts education and I'm

5:56

grateful every day for the superb

5:58

teachers at Wonder universities

6:00

who taught me literature,

6:03

politics, history, philosophy.

6:06

But despite this gift,

6:09

I've missed the great works of moral philosophy

6:12

that were on Jefferson's reading list. So I

6:14

set out to read them. Okay, so it's

6:16

COVID and then something unusual

6:18

struck and I was just seized by

6:20

the inspiration. I think it really was

6:23

reading how industrious Jefferson was on his

6:25

reading list. He would recommend times of

6:27

the day that you should read particular

6:29

books. You've got to wake up before

6:32

sunrise and read moral philosophy and history

6:35

and then breakfast and then you can move

6:37

to I guess math or

6:39

something like that and then lunch

6:42

and you're down to novels and

6:44

enjoying wonderful literature in the evenings

6:46

and Jefferson specified which novels to

6:49

read as well. So seized

6:52

by this, I'd never done this before,

6:54

I found myself getting up before sunrise,

6:56

reading from the moral philosophy, watching the

6:59

sunrise and then developing this completely weird

7:01

practice of writing a sonnet summing up

7:03

the wisdom of the moral philosophy. I

7:06

just felt like doing it and it seemed

7:08

extremely odd until I

7:11

discovered that lots of people in the

7:13

founding era did the same thing. Hamilton

7:15

to the sweetly the great poet John

7:17

Quincy Adams would wake up in the

7:19

White House, read Cicero in the original,

7:22

write sonnets, walk along the Potomac and

7:24

then start the day. So there's

7:26

something about this literature that inspires sonnet

7:29

writing and early rising. And

7:33

this was I think the most fulfilling

7:35

reading that I've done in my life.

7:37

Imagine a year of engaging in this

7:39

habit, this practice is really what it was and

7:42

I read this literature that I never read

7:44

before and what I read changed my life.

7:46

It changed my understanding of how to be

7:48

a good person and it changed my

7:50

understanding of how to be a good citizen and what

7:53

I learned from

7:55

the moral philosophy is that for

7:57

the ancients, happiness

8:00

was not feeling good but being

8:02

good, not the pursuit of pleasure but the

8:04

pursuit of virtue. And

8:06

they had a particular understanding of virtue

8:08

which is not intuitive to us. They

8:13

were talking about the

8:15

classical virtues of prudence,

8:17

temperance, courage, and justice,

8:21

which had to do with the improvement

8:23

of character, with self-mastery, with

8:26

self-improvement. We would use phrases

8:28

like being your best

8:30

self. Aristotle in the Nicomachean

8:32

Ethics talks about happiness

8:35

as an activity of the soul in

8:37

conformity with virtue. And

8:39

by virtue, he has

8:41

in mind good character. And

8:44

by good character, he has in mind

8:46

temperance. Temperance is a synonym for

8:48

the kind of moderation of

8:50

the passions that creates a good

8:52

character. And for all

8:55

of the ancients, good character was

8:57

a battle between reason and passion.

9:00

Passion is a synonym for emotion. And they

9:03

don't mean that we should lack emotion but

9:05

that we should moderate or temper or master

9:07

our emotions so that we can avoid

9:10

unproductive emotions like anger and

9:12

jealousy and fear and achieve

9:14

the calm balance and tranquility

9:16

of soul that Cicero and

9:19

Pythagoras and all of the

9:21

philosophers believed was the essence of

9:23

happiness. So if we

9:25

had to sum up in one sentence,

9:27

happiness requires a life

9:30

devoted to the pursuit of

9:32

self-improvement so that we can

9:35

be our best self and

9:37

serve others. And

9:39

that's what I learned from the literature.

9:45

And then armed with this light

9:49

and learning and

9:51

not only armed with it but imbibing

9:53

it, feeling it because really

9:55

the feeling of

9:57

alignment that living in a court

10:00

with divine reason, which

10:02

it affords, is

10:05

really a feeling

10:07

of harmony, of balance. Plato

10:10

has a theory of the soul which defined both

10:13

personal and political psychology for much

10:15

of history.

10:19

Reason in the mind, passion in

10:21

the heart, desire is in the

10:23

stomach, and the goal of reason

10:25

is to moderate and align our

10:27

passions and our desires so that

10:29

we're all aligned with

10:32

the divine unity of the

10:34

universe. It is ultimately a spiritual

10:37

quest, and it is

10:39

a very harmonious

10:42

framework for both personal

10:45

and political self-government. I discovered

10:47

also that for the ancients,

10:49

as for the framers, personal

10:51

self-government is necessary for political

10:54

self-government. We can't govern ourselves

10:56

as citizens in a democracy

10:59

unless we first govern the

11:01

unreasonable passions and emotions in

11:03

our own souls. And

11:06

that's why we constantly

11:08

see the framers of

11:10

the Constitution insisting that without

11:14

virtue the republic will fall,

11:16

that to imagine a republic

11:19

without virtue is to imagine what cannot

11:21

be and never has been. Virtue

11:25

is important for democracy in two senses. First,

11:28

citizens have to find

11:31

the temperance, the

11:33

self-mastery to choose wise leaders who

11:36

will put the common good, the

11:38

res publica, above their selfish and

11:41

demagogic ambitions. And

11:44

then the leaders have to find the virtues in

11:46

themselves to set aside their

11:49

immediate political interests to serve

11:51

the common good. It's

11:53

so interesting that both politically

11:56

and personally, virtue requires delayed

11:59

gratification. sober second thoughts, resisting

12:01

your first and most immediate

12:06

impulses for gratification so that

12:08

you can serve your long-term

12:10

interests and those of society.

12:14

So that unites the political

12:16

psychology and the theory

12:19

of democracy, and it was changed

12:21

the way I thought about the Constitution,

12:23

because when you read the Federalist Papers

12:25

through this lens, you understand why Madison

12:27

says that this is the first government

12:30

in history dedicated on

12:32

the proposition of public happiness.

12:34

And the phrase public happiness

12:36

occurs throughout the Federalist Papers

12:38

because the framers thought, again,

12:40

channeling Aristotle and the ancients, that

12:43

just as individuals have a duty

12:45

to achieve political, personal

12:47

happiness, so societies are

12:49

supposed to maximize public happiness.

12:52

So just can

12:54

you imagine, I'm so fortunate that this

12:57

subject just fell to me, I didn't seek

12:59

it, but it was given to me, and

13:01

it really was tremendously clarifying

13:04

and empowering on a personal

13:07

and a constitutional level. The book

13:09

tries to tell this

13:12

quest through stories relating,

13:14

in particular, portraits of the

13:17

founders and their own struggles

13:19

to achieve self-mastery and

13:22

to be better people. And

13:24

what's remarkable is how central this

13:26

was to their lives. They talked

13:28

about it constantly. They would

13:30

write letters to their kids about it, they're

13:34

chastising themselves for their own

13:36

failings until their old age

13:38

and constantly wondering whether they're

13:40

fulfilling their duties

13:42

of self-mastery or an industry

13:44

and temperance or whether they're,

13:46

like the rest of us,

13:48

losing their tempers, descending

13:51

to their worst selves and also betraying

13:53

their ideals. It's

13:56

very striking too how explicitly

13:59

they acknowledged the base hypocrisy

14:01

and vice of slavery. None

14:03

of the enslavers, the

14:06

major ones, Hamilton and, sorry,

14:09

the Virginians, Jefferson and Madison

14:11

and Patrick Henry, all insisted that

14:14

slavery was inconsistent with the natural

14:16

rights declared to

14:18

be self-evident in the Declaration, but

14:21

in their more candid moments they acknowledged that

14:24

they just couldn't be bothered to live up

14:26

to the ideals. Patrick Henry has this amazing

14:28

quotation. Is it not amazing that I, who

14:30

myself believe that slavery violates

14:32

natural rights, my cell phone slaves, I

14:34

will not justify it, I will not

14:36

attempt to, I cannot endure

14:40

the inconvenience of living without it? He

14:44

just was too greedy,

14:46

too avaricious to use the Roman

14:49

phrase that the framers themselves would use to

14:52

give up the lifestyle that slavery made possible. And

14:55

of course Jefferson was

14:57

notoriously, similarly

15:01

avaricious as well as hypocritical in this

15:03

respect. And the fact that he constantly

15:05

kept insisting that slavery was a grievous

15:07

evil that had to be ended at

15:09

some time in the distant future, which

15:11

kept emerging and becoming further and further

15:14

away. And then that

15:16

he died

15:18

having freed only two

15:20

people in his own life who

15:23

were his own children and then

15:25

freed two more, keeping his promise

15:27

to Sally Hemings, but

15:29

left such debts

15:32

to his daughters that they had to

15:34

sell Monticello and his own enslaved population

15:37

and his death. So it's in

15:40

no way absolves any of the enslavers of

15:42

their hypocrisy, but it's striking that they recognized

15:44

it and talked about it in these classical

15:46

terms because the classical terms completely defined their

15:49

moral universe. There

15:51

are so many inspiring

15:54

moments in their quest as well. For

15:57

me among the most inspiring

15:59

is Adam's Jefferson as old

16:01

men, having written

16:03

a declaration together, split

16:06

over the most explosive party

16:08

split in history in the election of 1800

16:11

with the rise of partisanship,

16:13

and then reconciled through Abigail.

16:16

And they're writing these beautiful letters to

16:18

each other, and what they want most

16:20

to talk about is the pursuit of

16:23

happiness, and in particular the connections between

16:25

the Eastern and Western wisdom traditions. And

16:27

Adams is so excited when he learns

16:29

that Pythagoras, the founder of Greek moral

16:31

philosophy, is said to have traveled in

16:34

the East and talked to the ancient

16:37

Brahman authorities and read the Hindu Vedas.

16:39

And Adams wonders whether Joseph Priestley had

16:42

completed his translation of the Bhagavad-gita, and

16:44

Jefferson excitedly writes to him and says,

16:46

I've got good news, Priestley finished the

16:48

translation before he died, I can get

16:50

it to you from Paris. And

16:52

Adams is so excited, he says,

16:55

this will show that Pythagoras took

16:57

the reason, passion, distinction from the

17:00

East and from the wisdom of the Gita that

17:02

we are what we think and life is shaped

17:05

by the mind. That was the core

17:07

of the Eastern and the Stoic wisdom,

17:09

that we have to control the only

17:11

thing we can, which is our own

17:13

thoughts and emotions. And then Adams wanted

17:15

to distill all of that into his

17:17

personal creed, love God and all his

17:19

creatures rejoice in all things. Jefferson

17:22

counters that after a lifetime of reflection,

17:24

he's no longer a Stoic

17:26

or a skeptic and has become an

17:28

Epicurean. And he by that he means

17:30

not the libels of the Stoics,

17:32

which is hedonistic pleasure seeking, but

17:35

the contraction, the rational contraction of

17:38

desires so that we can live

17:40

according to reason. And

17:44

just the fact that they're excitedly

17:46

reading and learning and growing and

17:48

voraciously challenging

17:51

themselves to pursue truth until

17:53

the end is inspiring and also a sign of

17:56

their great industry, which

17:58

was the one virtue of the Eastern.

18:00

that all of the founders maintained until

18:03

their dying days. It's so inspiring to see

18:06

John Quincy Adams too, having

18:10

lost the presidency become, based

18:13

on his own stoic reading, one

18:15

of the greatest anti-slavery advocates of his

18:18

generation, collapse

18:20

on the floor of Congress

18:22

with his last words he

18:24

murmured, I am composed, a

18:26

phrase that he got from Cicero because it

18:29

was really self-composure and self-mastery that

18:31

were his ideal. And

18:34

he always beat himself

18:36

up for having not achieved enough,

18:38

but acknowledged, he said, with more

18:40

industry, I might have ended all

18:42

war and slavery. He set a very

18:44

high bar for himself. But

18:47

he thought he wasn't industrious enough in

18:50

this remarkable life of self-mastery

18:52

industry, but at

18:54

least he was composed. The

18:57

book ends by

19:00

tracing this notion of the pursuit of

19:02

happiness through American history. And

19:04

it's so striking that it was

19:06

central not only to the classical

19:08

education of the founders, but it

19:10

was embraced by Frederick Douglass and

19:12

Abraham Lincoln, who learned it in

19:15

popular readers like the Colombian orator, which

19:17

Douglass bought on the streets of Baltimore,

19:20

paying in bread to the boys who

19:22

were allowed to teach him how to

19:24

read after his wicked master had forbidden

19:26

that he be taught how to read.

19:28

And he viewed that as a greater

19:30

enslavement indeed than the shackles themselves,

19:33

taught himself how to read in the Colombian

19:35

order, found the wisdom of Cicero and the

19:37

Stoics and self-mastery. And he said that that

19:39

changed his life and led

19:41

to his own devotion to what

19:43

he called self-reliance. And

19:46

Lincoln got it from Murphy's English

19:48

Reader and it was

19:50

taught to people like Louis Brandeis at

19:52

the turn of the century. Ruth

19:54

Bader Ginsburg got it from her

19:56

mother who told her to avoid

19:58

unproductive emotions like... anger, jealousy, and

20:01

fear, and to focus on self-mastery

20:03

and serving others. And then it

20:05

just dropped out of the curriculum.

20:07

And why exactly are notions of

20:09

happiness changed in the 1960s and

20:11

70s from feeling good to ...

20:17

from being good to feeling good, from the pursuit of

20:19

virtue to let it all hang out in you do

20:21

you and the me decade is

20:24

a complicated question involving changes

20:26

in psychology. David

20:31

Brooks notes that Freud changed

20:33

our ideas from character

20:35

to personality. It had

20:38

to do with changes in political

20:40

philosophy, from liberalism to post-structural critiques.

20:44

And regardless of its source, it certainly had to do with changes

20:46

in pop culture, which stopped

20:49

celebrating the virtues of

20:51

self-reliance and began exalting

20:54

pleasure at all costs. I

20:56

was, remember, yearning in the

20:58

1980s when I went to college

21:00

for some alternative to the hedonism

21:02

that was being celebrated by popular

21:05

culture and

21:08

not finding it in the Puritan theology that I

21:10

was reading as an English major because that required

21:13

a degree of acceptance

21:15

of truth by authority

21:18

and faith and also readings

21:24

of the text, which struck me as unpersuasive,

21:28

that predestination by faith rather than good works

21:30

and so forth. And what I didn't realize,

21:32

because this classical moral philosophy had fallen out

21:34

of the curriculum, is that it was hiding

21:36

in plain sight and it was

21:38

just such a gift to learn

21:40

about it and to imbibe it. There

21:43

are many implications

21:45

for me of this learning,

21:48

which has redirected

21:50

my thinking about

21:53

constitutional education and personal education, and

21:55

I think that the NCC

21:58

has a great opportunity. and

22:00

responsibility to defend

22:04

this ancient

22:07

ideal, which is the liberal idea and

22:10

also the American

22:13

idea, and in a

22:15

culture in which it's very much

22:17

under siege. And the way

22:19

to do that is by sparking

22:21

curiosity about it and inspiring

22:24

people across the country of

22:27

all ages to learn

22:30

and grow and read and to be

22:33

inspired by these primary texts and

22:35

by these ideals and

22:37

to apply them in their own

22:40

lives. In

22:42

the end, it all comes down to reading,

22:44

and we face a great challenge for the

22:47

fact that people are not reading today. That

22:49

challenge is as deep as the political

22:52

polarization that afflicts us, and

22:54

it's urgently important to inspire people actually

22:57

to engage with the text. And

23:03

that's just what we'll try to do. But

23:05

in addition, we have an opportunity to

23:08

change individual hearts and minds. And I'm

23:10

just an evangelist for how wonderful it

23:12

is to read these books. I

23:14

remember very distinctly with being

23:17

a really young kid and

23:19

going with my mom to the Library of

23:21

Congress for the first time, the Thomas Jefferson

23:23

building I think is perhaps one of the

23:25

most inspiring buildings in D.C. And I was

23:27

standing in that gorgeous rotunda

23:30

and just being filled with wonder at the thought

23:32

that all of the books in the world were

23:34

in that one place. And

23:37

now we carry all of

23:40

those books around with us in our

23:42

pockets. These cell phones

23:44

and tablets and agents of distraction

23:46

and browsing and idleness are also

23:49

portals to all the wisdom of

23:51

the world. It just blows

23:53

my mind that I was able to read, sitting

23:56

on my couch, free

23:59

copies of the text. that inspired people

24:01

throughout history or the actual books

24:04

that the founders read with their marginalia

24:06

in them. All of this

24:08

wonder and wisdom is just glimmering

24:10

out there waiting all we need is

24:12

the self-discipline to read it. So

24:15

I'm really eager to talk

24:19

about how inspiring it can be to read and

24:21

learn and grow and also how necessary it is

24:23

if we're going to preserve

24:25

American democracy and the liberal idea and

24:27

we're going to do that together. But

24:29

now I have the incredible treat and

24:31

thrill of discussing these issues

24:33

with three of my heroes. So

24:36

please join me in welcoming them right now.

24:41

We're going

24:43

to begin

24:45

with Eric

24:48

Slaughter. Eric

24:50

is a distinguished professor at the University

24:52

of Chicago where he teaches a class

24:54

on Thomas Jefferson's reading list. I

24:56

guess we met at an

24:58

event a few years ago and

25:01

I mentioned I was writing this book and you said

25:03

well I teach a course on it and tomorrow Eric

25:05

and I will be in a breakout session on the

25:07

reading list and we'll run through some of the books.

25:10

But tell us about what it's like to teach

25:12

the course on the reading list, what the students

25:14

take from Jefferson's wisdom

25:17

about the connections between virtue and

25:19

happiness and what are the big themes

25:22

about divisions that the founders had

25:24

about virtue and happiness that you

25:26

teach. Yeah, thank you. Well

25:29

the first thing to say is

25:32

that my students have other classes

25:34

so they cannot fulfill Jefferson's injunction

25:36

of his 12 hour day devoted

25:38

to the various

25:40

branches of philosophy. I

25:43

want to start out by just saying thank you

25:45

for the opportunity to read the book. I got

25:47

the chance to read the book in

25:50

manuscript. This is really the

25:55

best pandemic project I've ever seen

25:59

and I think you've done. an incredible

26:01

service, both in this

26:03

book and

26:06

through the National Constitution Center's

26:09

Founders Library, of really helping us

26:11

appreciate not just what the founders

26:14

wrote, but what they read and

26:17

what they made of it. And

26:19

so the course I teach

26:21

is actually a course on the Declaration of

26:24

Independence. And it traces

26:26

the early

26:29

ideas about independence from

26:32

documents like the 1689 Declaration of Rights. And

26:36

it goes through the drafting

26:38

process, the editing process. They're

26:41

introduced to the various members

26:44

of the Committee of

26:46

Five, so Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, all of

26:48

whom are incredible readers. And it goes

26:50

all the way up through Douglas,

26:53

Lincoln, and all

26:55

and and on and on, up to our own

26:58

times, about the ways in which the Declaration

27:00

has evolved. And

27:03

those three men were

27:05

just voracious readers. And

27:07

Jefferson accumulated a library of 6,500 volumes

27:16

by 1814. And

27:18

at that point, the British

27:20

had sacked the capital and

27:23

destroyed the first congressional

27:25

library. Jefferson wrote a note

27:27

offering to sell his library

27:30

to the country. It

27:32

met some federalist opposition. They

27:36

were not completely convinced

27:39

that

27:42

the Congress should buy the

27:44

ex-president's books, especially

27:46

books like Voltaire's Works

27:48

and other infidel philosophy,

27:50

they said. But

27:53

the Democratic Republicans were in charge and

27:55

were able to get it through. But

27:57

in any case, Jefferson, throughout

28:01

his life created syllabi for

28:04

friends and family. We're gonna talk

28:06

about one of those lists tomorrow. But

28:10

he, Adams, Franklin, they love to

28:12

tell people what to do and

28:14

what to read. And

28:16

Jefferson changed his mind about

28:22

the various things should be on

28:24

the list and you're able to

28:27

sort of synthesize the top things.

28:30

From the various lists. Jefferson

28:34

sometimes read with

28:36

a pair of scissors in his hand. He

28:40

sat, he did a number of things in the White

28:42

House that were questionable. One

28:46

of which was to sit with a polyglot

28:48

version of the New Testament, cutting it up

28:52

and producing a book of moral

28:54

philosophy that he called the Life

28:56

and Opinions of Jesus of

28:58

Nazareth, who he thought was the greatest, one

29:01

of the greatest moral philosophers. John

29:04

Adams loved to make recommendations as

29:06

well. He was sometimes, sometimes

29:11

he made them in advance of actually reading the

29:13

books that he recommended, which I think

29:15

we all have done. He

29:19

was quite surprised when he finally

29:22

did read Plato's Republic and was

29:24

upset that he had been recommending

29:27

it so often. But

29:29

he did find in there a sense

29:31

that education was the foundation for a

29:34

political form. He

29:37

read with a pen in his hand. And

29:39

his books are now, have now been,

29:41

I think, fully digitized by the digital, by

29:44

the Internet Archive, archive.org.

29:47

And you can see, I mean,

29:50

he was a marginalia

29:52

reactionary of

29:55

the best kind, constantly noting in

29:57

the margins about

29:59

what was the best. what pleased and more

30:01

often displeased him about what he read,

30:03

giving us a real sense of somebody

30:06

who was not a passive consumer

30:09

of, but an active reader. And

30:11

Franklin, too. I mean, many of you know his

30:14

autobiography. And

30:18

that's a, it's an account of his

30:20

life before he

30:22

enters politics, but that's a life of

30:24

a reader. And he,

30:26

you know, the moral virtues

30:28

that he talks about much,

30:31

much later in his life, in the 1780s, he goes back to the

30:33

1720s to create that list. And

30:37

that list includes things like temperance,

30:40

you know, eat not to dullness,

30:42

drink not to elevation, which is

30:44

a good thing for everyone to

30:46

think about. But

30:49

that was a phrase that he himself took from

30:51

a book that he mentioned in his autobiography, which

30:54

was Thomas

30:56

Tryon's, it's

31:00

called Apparisms, but

31:03

Tryon was a firm

31:05

believer that, in

31:08

animal rights, he was a firm

31:10

believer that any meat

31:13

was a kind of unprovoked murder. And

31:16

he wrote what was essentially the

31:18

first vegetarian cookbook in the 1680s.

31:22

Franklin loved this book because he was

31:25

able to convince his brother

31:27

that he, that, you know,

31:30

if his brother gave him the

31:32

money for food, he would spend

31:34

it cheaply on vegetables and

31:37

then use the rest on books. And

31:39

then he took exactly that phrase, eat

31:41

not to dullness, right out of Thomas

31:44

Tryon. But these were, you

31:47

know, people who, the historians

31:50

in this room, we spend a lot

31:52

of time thinking very much about how

31:54

these people, how

31:58

these people wrote, what they wrote. the

32:00

Constitution, the Declaration. And so a

32:02

book like yours that points us

32:04

back to the

32:07

material that they digested.

32:09

And they really did. They

32:12

were not shallow readers, any

32:14

of them. And they often

32:16

read in ways that

32:18

were, Franklin became

32:21

a deist because he read books of

32:24

anti-deism and thought that

32:26

the arguments were not very strong. And

32:29

so read against the grain.

32:31

So they were incredibly active

32:33

readers. And that's what it

32:35

took, they thought, to develop a kind

32:37

of virtuous citizenry.

32:40

Superb. So exciting to hear all of

32:42

that. Melody Barnes, we

32:45

had the most wonderful discussion last night about

32:47

the liberal idea. And we

32:49

talked about liberty, equality, and democracy. We

32:51

might add to the American idea, or

32:54

the liberal idea, the pursuit of happiness.

32:57

You are at UVA.

33:00

Thomas Jefferson's university, his

33:02

legacy is contested about many things.

33:06

Describe, how would

33:08

you describe what

33:11

the pursuit of happiness meant at the founding and

33:13

what the big debates over it

33:15

were and remain? Well,

33:18

first of all, I want to congratulate

33:20

you for this book. I mean, you

33:22

all would expect someone sitting here to

33:25

say something like that. But

33:28

I mean that very deeply and

33:30

sincerely. It is an engrossing book.

33:33

And the stories that you tell as you

33:36

work your way through the list

33:38

of virtues are thoroughly engaging.

33:40

So thank you for this contribution.

33:44

Yes, I am at the University of Virginia.

33:46

I also sit on the board of the Thomas

33:49

Jefferson Foundation and

33:51

have spent quite a bit of

33:54

time thinking about and engaging with

33:56

Jefferson and thinking about and engaging

33:58

with the questions. that were

34:00

at hand during that point

34:03

in time. And it's

34:05

really, it's interesting, and it's something

34:07

that certainly comes out in your

34:09

book as well, when you think

34:11

about, if you fast

34:14

forward to the period when

34:16

the founders, many of them were reaching

34:18

the end of their life, the things

34:21

that they were concerned about as

34:23

they had spent most of their life developing

34:26

self-government, setting out

34:29

the ideals and the values for the

34:31

country, this idea of

34:33

virtue, both personal self-government

34:35

as well as public self-government that

34:37

they believe was absolutely necessary, the

34:40

reasons you described during your book

34:42

talk, that if we

34:44

were going to move forward as

34:46

a country, we have to put

34:49

aside our selfish, short-term, short-term

34:52

selfishness for long-term pursuits.

34:55

And the ability to exercise

34:57

and move forward and those values in

35:00

a way that would allow the nation

35:02

to move forward was absolutely critical. By

35:04

the end of their lives, they were

35:06

concerned about that the nation that they

35:08

had helped create was in

35:11

fact maybe not

35:13

going to survive. And

35:15

for Jefferson, he was

35:17

concerned, very deeply concerned

35:19

about the geographic disputes

35:24

and the dispute around slavery. And certainly

35:26

if you are at the University of

35:28

Virginia, if you come to Monticello and

35:30

if you haven't, I encourage you to

35:32

be there, you find

35:34

yourself in a place where you have to

35:36

grapple with and think what it was like

35:39

to be Jefferson, walking those

35:41

grounds, walking through Mulberry

35:44

Row, having

35:47

owned over the period of his life 607 people and

35:50

the things that you describe in your book. You've

35:53

got Adams who is deeply

35:55

concerned about virtue. Do

35:58

we have enough... civic virtue

36:00

in our country to sustain what

36:03

we have created, does

36:05

the population have

36:08

that kind of self-control? And

36:10

you've got Washington who's worried about

36:13

partisan faction, Hamilton who's worried about

36:16

whether or not the federal government is robust.

36:18

And I think when you look at the things

36:20

that they were concerned about at that time,

36:24

in answer to your question, they're

36:27

also mirrored and the kinds of things

36:29

that we are deeply concerned about today.

36:31

And I think we are having a

36:34

conversation with those same concerns at this

36:36

moment. The

36:39

history and the legacy as a result of

36:41

the regional conflict that was slavery. A

36:44

debate about, and we talked about it

36:46

some last night, about the role of

36:48

the federal government in

36:51

our lives and the way that

36:53

that plays out. Certainly the

36:55

partisan faction. And

36:57

whether or not we can take

37:00

the time to move beyond

37:02

the reflexive reaction to problems

37:05

to really grapple with what

37:07

the long-term implications are going to be.

37:10

And do we have

37:12

the health in our

37:14

body politic that

37:16

is a result of civic virtue

37:18

to grapple with these problems in

37:20

a way that allows our country

37:23

to move forward? I think

37:25

that is, those are the questions they

37:27

were thinking about then. Those are the

37:29

questions that we are still grappling

37:31

with today. And that

37:34

long-term civic health

37:36

question, the body politic,

37:38

it is no mistake that we describe

37:40

this in physical terms, is

37:43

not healthy. So

37:46

what are the habits? How do

37:48

we exercise the muscles? What can

37:50

we learn from this period? And

37:53

from the other philosophers and intellectuals

37:55

of this day and the days

37:57

that followed so that we can...

38:00

establish those muscles so that we

38:02

can build them and so

38:04

that our nation is healthier,

38:08

that our nation is able to survive.

38:11

That was beautiful. That was so

38:14

well expressed. I'm just going

38:16

to repeat it because I want to add

38:18

that to our discussion of

38:21

the American idea, but you

38:23

said that the founders are

38:26

hopeful that people can achieve

38:28

virtue which they described as long-term

38:30

thinking, sacrificing short-term impulses and gratification

38:33

for long-term interest, but then

38:35

at the end of their lives they

38:37

weren't sure whether the experiment would succeed

38:39

and they disagreed about whether citizens could

38:41

find the necessary virtue and also what

38:43

role government should play in that and

38:45

that's exactly the proposition that's being tested

38:47

today. So true.

38:51

George, well thank you so much for

38:53

being here. You have

38:56

written several books about

38:59

the pursuit of happiness. You wrote a book

39:01

in 1979 called The Pursuit of Happiness and

39:03

Other Sobering Thoughts. More

39:05

recently you've written Happiness and

39:07

its Discontent and in

39:10

your great recent book The Conservative Sensibility

39:12

you argue that America was

39:14

the only country founded on the proposition

39:16

of public happiness, but you noted

39:18

disagreement from the time of the founding among

39:21

Hamilton and Jefferson about what role

39:23

if any government should play in

39:26

making it possible for citizens to

39:28

achieve the virtue necessary for the

39:30

Republican experiment. Please

39:32

discuss. Well

39:34

an example of Jefferson

39:38

helping government not legislate morality but

39:40

promote morality was his greatest act

39:43

which was the Louisiana Purchase was

39:46

to get all this land so that they

39:48

could have all those small farmers who

39:50

by their daily rhythms of life would

39:53

have the virtues he thought necessary whereas

39:56

his adversary Alexander Hamilton

39:59

also agreed that it was the job

40:01

of the government to promote a

40:03

system which created certain virtues. He just

40:05

had different virtues in mind. It

40:09

seems to me the reason we are

40:11

having the same arguments that they had

40:13

in Pericles Athens today in Joe Biden's

40:15

America is that the political problem always

40:17

and everywhere is the same. Human

40:20

beings are opinionated

40:23

and egotistical. That is, they prefer

40:25

their opinions. The

40:27

question is how to get these people to live

40:29

together. Well, if you live in Pericles Athens, someplace

40:32

you can walk across in a day of face-to-face

40:34

society, then perhaps you

40:36

can have a homogenized community without

40:39

the plague of faction and

40:42

more or less a consensus about the

40:44

great questions of life. If

40:47

so, then you can approach

40:49

politics as the ancients did.

40:51

Define the best and the most noble

40:53

and pursue it. Well,

40:55

25 centuries later we've seen

40:58

how awful things can get and beginning

41:01

with Machiavelli and then Hobbes and then

41:03

Locke, the modern said, we have a

41:05

better idea. Let's define the worst and

41:07

avoid it. Hence

41:10

the Madisonian Revolution and political

41:13

philosophy. Beginning with Federalist 10,

41:16

hitherto the few people who had believed

41:18

that democracy was either possible or a

41:20

good idea believed that

41:23

it had to be in a small

41:25

face-to-face society because factions were the enemy

41:27

of democracy and

41:29

therefore a homogenized small

41:32

society could be democratic. Madison,

41:35

who famously said that if every Athenian

41:38

were Socrates, the Athenian assembly would still

41:40

be a mob, was

41:43

less sanguine about this and

41:46

he said no, we

41:48

have a catechism. What

41:50

is the worst outcome of politics?

41:52

Tyranny. To what form of tyranny

41:54

is a democracy? Pray tyranny with

41:57

the majority. Solution? Don't have majorities.

42:00

that is don't have stable tyrannical

42:02

majorities, have majorities that

42:04

are unstable, shifting

42:06

coalitions of minorities.

42:09

And the way to do that is

42:11

to have an extensive republic, bringing in

42:13

a vast number of factions

42:16

and to understand that

42:19

the first duty of government is to

42:21

protect the different and unequal capacities of

42:23

acquiring property, so that you will have

42:25

this saving multiplicity of factions

42:27

which will prevent the worst, which

42:29

is tyranny. Well,

42:34

I think Jeff's

42:36

book, which you're all going to read

42:38

before the quiz tomorrow morning. Jeff's

42:42

book, I think Jeff's

42:45

opinion is that the framers took

42:47

civic virtue, to use your modifier,

42:49

not just virtue, but civic virtue,

42:52

more seriously and hopefully than I think

42:54

they did. I

42:56

think they, to go to the other

42:59

greatest, second of

43:01

the two greatest federalist papers, the Federalist

43:03

51, where Madison said,

43:05

you'll cease throughout our system,

43:07

the process of supplying by

43:09

opposite and rival interests the

43:12

defect of better motives. Good

43:15

motives are fine, virtue's excellent, but don't count

43:17

on either of them. We

43:20

want to have a safe policy,

43:22

almost that will work without anyone

43:24

having good motives. Won't work ideally,

43:26

better to have good motives, but

43:29

I think the framers had a hierarchy

43:32

of virtues. They

43:34

wanted virtues in

43:37

the statesmen, in

43:40

the greatest understatement in the history of

43:42

political rhetoric, it's in Federalist 10, Madison

43:45

said, enlightened statesmen will not always be

43:47

at the helm. Turns

43:50

out to be true. But

43:57

they thought there would be ways of.

44:01

filter, sort of trickle-up virtue,

44:03

and that you could get

44:06

a minority of the really

44:09

virtuous, and then

44:12

you would count on the

44:14

virtue that Harvey Mansfield says,

44:16

the virtue of acknowledging and

44:18

recognizing virtue. That's

44:20

what they wanted from the mass of people. They

44:23

wanted the mass of people to recognize

44:25

virtues which would

44:28

necessarily be rare in a

44:31

necessarily few people. This

44:33

is, of course, an aristocratic leavening

44:37

of our democracy. But then, as Harvey

44:39

Mansfield likes to point out, an

44:41

election is an inherently aristocratic

44:46

premise, which is that some people are

44:48

better at things than others. And

44:51

therefore, elections

44:53

are preferable to lotteries, because elections

44:55

at least give you a chance

44:58

of rewarding merit and recognizing excellence

45:00

and nobility. So it seems

45:03

to me we've always in this country talked

45:05

about virtue. But basically, it

45:08

has been the virtue either of the

45:10

yeoman farmer populating the American

45:13

West or the

45:16

crackling energy that

45:19

the immigrant child Alexander Hamilton

45:21

wanted. The

45:25

anti-federalists opposed the Constitution

45:28

for exactly the same reason Hamilton supported

45:30

it. They said, you're going to get

45:32

a big government of

45:35

this energetic, restless, muscular

45:38

economy, and we don't like

45:40

it. We want a more

45:42

intimate government. Madison, in this

45:44

case, agreeing with Hamilton, said,

45:47

we don't want an intimate

45:49

relationship with our government. We

45:51

want the government to be doing big

45:54

things as

45:56

an umbrella over this energetic people.

46:00

In that sense, the anti-federalists and the federalists

46:02

agreed. They just disagreed about whether they

46:04

wanted what this government was going to

46:06

achieve. So we

46:08

have always been talking about very

46:10

little other than virtue. We often

46:12

do it, however, in a disguised

46:14

vocabulary, the vocabulary of

46:16

what used to be called and

46:18

should be called again the subject

46:21

of political economy. So

46:24

you so powerfully teach

46:29

us that all

46:32

sides at the founding are

46:34

converged around liberating people

46:36

to achieve virtuous self-mastery

46:39

and happiness, but they disagree,

46:41

as you said, about human

46:43

nature and about the role of the

46:46

government in accommodating. And you

46:48

argue that Hamilton and

46:50

Hamiltonians wanted a strong national

46:52

government to unleash national

46:55

energy so that commerce could

46:57

promote habits of politeness and

46:59

civility. And the Jeffersonians,

47:01

who are much more idealistic about

47:04

democracy on a small scale in

47:06

human nature, want nightwatchmen states so

47:08

that agrarian shires and

47:10

farmers are able to thrive.

47:14

Eric, I want to ask you about the

47:16

relation among the founders

47:18

different conceptions of human nature,

47:20

democracy, and happiness. So

47:23

let's try this version. The

47:26

Hamiltonians think

47:29

humans are fallen. They fear and

47:31

abhor democracy is the greatest danger.

47:34

And they want a strong national

47:36

government and a strong executive to

47:38

release, to resist populist pressures in

47:41

order to allow the commerce

47:43

and energy that will allow all to thrive. Jefferson's

47:46

so idealistic about human nature, dreaming of

47:48

the perfectibility of men, and imagining

47:52

these small shires of self-governing

47:55

farmers, wants a

47:57

nightwatchman state and is really

48:00

optimistic that these little communities will

48:02

be virtuous. And Madison,

48:04

always the moderate, expects

48:07

less of government, views the Constitution

48:09

as a means of contestation, a

48:11

place for people to productively disagree.

48:15

But he, at the end of

48:17

his life, learns about the importance of public

48:19

opinion and thinks that as long as public

48:21

opinion can be educated by a new media

48:24

technology, the broadside press, will

48:27

read the Federalist Papers and discuss them

48:29

in coffeehouses, and reason will slowly diffuse

48:31

across the land, and that will ensure

48:34

the long-term thinking that Melody said was

48:36

the key to virtue.

48:39

Have I got that right? And you teach the

48:41

relationship between the Founders' visions of

48:43

human nature and what they expected

48:45

of virtue. Help

48:48

us understand it. Yeah. I

48:50

mean, I think we heard last

48:52

night from Charlie that the U.S.

48:54

Constitution incorporates human nature,

48:56

and I think that's probably true.

48:58

It incorporates one idea of what

49:00

human nature was. But

49:03

the question of what human nature was was

49:05

one of the great philosophical questions of the

49:07

18th century, 17th century as well.

49:11

Locke's great essay on human

49:13

understanding is a work

49:15

about human nature. David

49:18

Hume's first book is called The Treatise

49:20

of Human Nature. It's

49:23

one of the great questions

49:26

that is animating philosophers

49:30

across this period.

49:32

And I think we see it in big

49:36

and small ways in

49:38

the constitutional debates and

49:40

in the period of

49:42

the American Revolution, everywhere

49:45

from the nature

49:49

of bicameralism. Bicameralism

49:52

is preferable

49:55

because it should have different

49:58

terms, term lengths. because

50:00

the House is always

50:02

going to be hot and passionate, and

50:05

the Senate is always going to be cool and

50:07

reasonable. Right?

50:13

If you're trying to structure that,

50:15

right, as George was saying, Enlightenment statesmen

50:17

are not always going to be at

50:20

the helm, and part of the project is

50:23

to find those structures that will reinforce

50:28

virtue for a population that may not have

50:30

it. The question of

50:32

virtue throughout this period is an

50:34

extremely vexed one, and part of

50:37

it goes to the way in

50:39

which Montesquieu, for instance, thinks about

50:42

human nature. And Montesquieu is

50:45

writing in the 1730s, 40s, and

50:50

trying to really reconceptualize

50:52

what political thought is going to

50:54

look like. It's not

50:56

going to be the old-style political

50:58

theory of John Locke and Grotius

51:00

and so forth, where you

51:03

have a kind of fiction of the state of nature. We're

51:05

really looking at a kind of comparative

51:08

constitutionalism, and

51:11

it's got a philosophic component insofar as

51:13

he believes each polity has a different

51:16

kind of spirit, right?

51:18

So despotisms and

51:20

absolute monarchies operate with the

51:24

passion of fear. It's

51:27

central to their operation. Aristocracies

51:30

operate mostly on honor,

51:33

and republics can only operate

51:35

with virtuous citizens, right? So

51:37

you see a constant

51:40

stream of anxiety

51:42

about whether

51:45

or not the population is

51:47

sufficiently virtuous to support a

51:49

republic in this period.

51:51

That's why in the 1780s, Franklin

51:55

is looking back at

51:57

the 1720s and thinking about his

51:59

own. own scheme for moral

52:01

improvement. He's trying to imagine what

52:03

are the practices that could be

52:05

useful no

52:08

matter what denomination of religion

52:11

you were or no denomination

52:13

that might provide sufficient

52:16

virtue for a population

52:19

if, as you say, self-government is

52:21

largely going to be about the ability

52:23

to govern one's self. Right?

52:25

So, you know, these theories

52:28

of human nature are up for

52:33

grabs in this period,

52:36

but throughout, you know, what

52:38

you see is what I

52:41

would call anxiety. I mean,

52:44

we have anxiety now about

52:46

the nature of our populations.

52:48

I could hear it in your

52:52

Jeremiah that

52:54

you ended your book talk with about

52:56

the we no longer live in a

52:58

land of readers. And

53:01

you know, I think you

53:03

see some of that in this period.

53:05

Think about all of those early bills

53:07

of rights or declarations of rights that

53:10

precede the state constitutions.

53:14

Almost all of them. Hamilton makes fun of

53:16

these in Federalists

53:18

84. You

53:21

know, he says they're like aphorisms that

53:23

might make sense in a treatise of

53:25

moral philosophy, but they don't belong in

53:27

a constitution. And what he means is

53:29

that they're just highly didactic.

53:31

They're things like Virginia's, you

53:36

know, the freedom of the

53:38

press is one of the great bulwarks of

53:40

liberty and can only be restrained by despotic

53:43

governments. Now,

53:45

that's not an enforceable provision.

53:48

That's not Congress shall make no

53:50

law respecting, you know, the freedom

53:52

of the press. And so

53:55

the language of all of those early state

53:57

constitutions, their bills of rights were

54:00

highly moral. They

54:03

speak the language of ought to rather than

54:05

shall. So even

54:07

something like the future Eighth Amendment

54:10

appears not as excessive

54:13

fines shall not be imposed, but

54:15

excessive fines ought not to be

54:18

imposed. Because

54:20

they were trying to guide

54:22

legislators and so forth. You

54:25

know that I am, as you learned, I'm

54:30

a great collector of pocket constitutions.

54:32

So I was very happy to

54:34

get a new one this weekend.

54:37

And I've spent the last year or

54:39

so buying them on eBay. And what

54:42

I've learned from that is

54:44

that, and I mean this

54:46

has no disrespect to the learned law professors,

54:49

lawyers, judges, and

54:51

committee members here. But

54:55

the Constitution was mostly over time in

54:57

American history read by children, I think.

55:04

I have some early copies here

55:07

of examples of

55:10

children's copies of the Constitution.

55:12

This one from 1787 that was owned

55:14

by an eight-year-old named Nathaniel

55:20

Gleason. I mean, imagine the joy

55:22

of an eight-year-old getting a copy

55:24

of the Massachusetts Constitution as a

55:26

president. But we tend to think

55:29

of the pocket constitution as largely

55:31

a post-Watergate effect.

55:34

But in fact, Tom Paine is the

55:36

great theorist of the pocket constitution. Because

55:38

he says in his debate with Edmund

55:40

Burke, if you can't pull a constitution out of

55:42

your pocket, you don't really have one. And he

55:45

says in Philadelphia,

55:48

in the Philadelphia state legislature, that's

55:50

exactly what the legislators did. And

55:52

every family had a copy and

55:54

so forth. So

55:56

shortly after Shay's rebellion, the printer

55:59

Isaiah Thomas, sensed there was a

56:01

market. This was a rebellion

56:03

that happened, an insurrection

56:05

that shut down courthouses

56:09

and that called for radical changes to

56:11

the state constitution.

56:14

Isaiah Thomas and Worcester thought, I

56:17

see a market here. Nobody

56:21

really knows what's in that constitution

56:23

because they have, it's not easily

56:26

available. But if I produce a

56:28

pocket version, then people will know

56:30

at least if it's good or bad. The

56:34

printer takes no

56:36

particular position. But

56:38

like those other early state constitutions,

56:41

the Bill of Rights is a

56:43

highly didactic kind of

56:45

thing and you can treat

56:47

it as something to be

56:49

catechized about. The Massachusetts

56:51

government in 1805 decided to

56:54

recommend for all

56:56

public schools, for all common

56:59

schools, the Constitution, the Declaration

57:01

and Washington's farewell address.

57:03

This copy, as a shout out to some

57:05

of the teachers in the room, was in

57:08

the school district library. This

57:11

one I showed to Sean earlier because

57:14

he had mentioned Jackson's nullification proclamation,

57:17

but it's a copy owned by a

57:20

young woman named Phoebe Harnett in

57:22

the 1830s and it includes not

57:25

only the Declaration, the Constitution

57:28

and Washington's farewell

57:30

address, but also Jackson's proclamation

57:33

against nullification. Why

57:36

this is important and why I think it

57:38

is so important that the Constitution Center focused

57:40

so much attention on that

57:43

next generation is that the

57:45

revolutionary generation was extremely worried,

57:48

very anxious. They

57:50

were anxious about the generation that

57:52

had been lived under monarchy

57:54

and was going to experience a regime

57:56

change to a republic and they were

57:59

worried about how their children were

58:01

going to continue that revolution

58:03

and continue that form

58:06

of government. And

58:08

I think that anxiety has never really gone

58:10

away. Wow. It's

58:13

so moving. It's

58:18

extraordinarily moving to think of an

58:20

eight-year-old being given this constitution and

58:22

reading it and printers and the

58:24

entire industry is being devoted to

58:26

educate the young in

58:29

the science of politics and the constitution and

58:31

we've got to do it. Yeah, it's why

58:33

you have, I love the

58:35

constitution onesies out there. Absolutely.

58:38

And that's the gateway drug

58:40

to the interactive constitution. Who

58:43

could resist? Absolutely.

58:48

I want to just tee up the right question, Melody, because

58:50

you're so incredibly

58:53

brilliant in kind of bringing the

58:55

themes together. So the question, I guess, is

58:58

the evolution of the pursuit of

59:00

happiness over time from being

59:03

good to feeling good, from self-mastery

59:06

to let it

59:08

all hang out. You do see

59:10

it throughout the 19th and early 20th

59:12

century. Frederick Douglass invokes

59:15

it, Tophol invokes it. It's invoked

59:17

by William Walker,

59:19

all the great abolitionists and stuff. It does fall out

59:21

in the popular culture. How

59:23

would you describe the evolution? Why did

59:25

it fall out and where is it

59:27

today? And I'm sorry,

59:29

why did it fall out from doing good to feeling good?

59:34

Yeah, I mean, that's a big question. But before you

59:36

do that, I just wanted to just take us up

59:38

from the founding to today and the

59:42

evolution of the pursuit of happiness and the American

59:44

idea. Well,

59:47

there are several things that I've been

59:49

thinking about as I

59:51

listen to this conversation. I mean, one,

59:54

and George was

59:56

talking about this idea of

1:00:00

the small group that was involved

1:00:02

in governing. And then we have the

1:00:05

expansion of that group

1:00:07

over time to include more. But

1:00:10

even the masses that

1:00:12

were involved were a relatively small group.

1:00:16

But throughout all of it,

1:00:18

there was the idea and

1:00:20

the importance that was placed

1:00:22

on reasoning and

1:00:24

education. We've

1:00:26

talked about the fact that I work at UVA,

1:00:29

the relationship with Monticello. UVA,

1:00:33

unlike most universities, is

1:00:36

not built around a chapel.

1:00:39

UVA is built around the rotunda,

1:00:41

which was a library. And

1:00:44

it is a reflection of

1:00:46

this idea of the centrality

1:00:48

of education, the centrality of

1:00:51

reasoning, which the founders

1:00:53

also believed was

1:00:56

absolutely essential to

1:00:58

the health of the democracy,

1:01:00

the ability to think for yourself.

1:01:04

And we've

1:01:06

seen the challenge to education

1:01:08

over time, the lack

1:01:10

of civic education over

1:01:13

time. At some point, it seemed to

1:01:15

fall out of favor. We

1:01:18

are also now seeing efforts to try

1:01:20

and recapture that, part

1:01:22

of efforts that we're a part of,

1:01:24

with an organization called More Perfect and

1:01:27

others, to try and reestablish civic education

1:01:29

in school. But the reason why I bring

1:01:32

that up, and I think that that's more

1:01:34

so important, as we have

1:01:36

importantly and necessarily seen the expansion

1:01:38

of those to include

1:01:40

more people in civic

1:01:43

life and voting and

1:01:45

participating, is the absolute

1:01:47

necessity for people to

1:01:49

think for themselves. And now we are

1:01:52

at a moment where civic education is

1:01:54

challenged, the educational system is challenged. I

1:01:56

know there's going to be a conversation

1:01:58

about that tomorrow. And

1:02:01

we also have a moment where the

1:02:05

way that we receive information over that

1:02:07

arc of time has also changed and

1:02:10

challenges us. It

1:02:12

has brought us benefit, but

1:02:14

it also challenges us significantly

1:02:16

from the rise of social media. Today

1:02:19

we talked about AI, but the

1:02:21

many different ways that people get

1:02:23

information and the important data

1:02:25

point that disinformation

1:02:29

has got traveled six times

1:02:31

faster than fact. So

1:02:33

we have more people engaged.

1:02:36

We have institutions that

1:02:38

are not necessarily providing

1:02:40

the kind of civic

1:02:42

training that's necessary.

1:02:45

And we have this influx of

1:02:47

information that we are being bombarded

1:02:49

with constantly. And

1:02:52

no good way to

1:02:55

deal with that challenge or

1:02:58

to be able to sift through that information

1:03:00

in a way that people are able to

1:03:02

actively think for themselves and reason.

1:03:04

And all at a time, when

1:03:07

I think one of the biggest challenges

1:03:09

we face is that people

1:03:12

feel an existential threat. It

1:03:15

shows up for people in lots

1:03:17

of different ways, but people feel

1:03:20

who they are, who they are to

1:03:22

this country, what this country is. All

1:03:25

of those things are being threatened

1:03:27

and being challenged at

1:03:30

a time when they're not able to discern

1:03:32

and make wise

1:03:35

decisions. It doesn't mean that we can't.

1:03:38

It doesn't mean that we haven't been

1:03:40

through challenging periods before. But

1:03:42

I think when we look at that arc, we

1:03:45

recognize the challenge that we find

1:03:47

ourselves in at this

1:03:50

particular moment and

1:03:52

against the backdrop that you've described. Exactly.

1:03:57

That's exactly right. think

1:04:00

for yourself and to reason. That

1:04:02

was the definition of the pursuit

1:04:05

of happiness, virtuous self-mastery so that

1:04:07

you could think for yourself and

1:04:09

live according to reason and that's

1:04:12

exactly what's under siege in a

1:04:14

world of social media and existential

1:04:17

anxiety about identity and landscape where

1:04:19

falsehoods travel

1:04:22

further and faster than reason

1:04:24

and truth. And therefore the goal of

1:04:26

the movement must be not only to

1:04:29

spark curiosity about the

1:04:32

Constitution, the Declaration, the American idea

1:04:34

in order to empower people to

1:04:37

think for themselves and to live

1:04:39

according to reason and to we're

1:04:41

really fighting for the American idea

1:04:44

and the liberal idea we're fighting

1:04:46

as we discussed yesterday for the

1:04:49

enlightenment, faith and reason and it

1:04:51

is under siege not

1:04:53

only from our politics but from

1:04:55

technology and from a loss of faith in

1:04:57

it and that's exactly what we're gonna resurrect. Alright

1:05:00

George, we'll just send

1:05:03

us off into the night at the end

1:05:05

of this extraordinary conversation frame it as you

1:05:07

think best but there are many

1:05:09

questions I'd love to hear you

1:05:11

on including why happiness changed

1:05:13

from being good to feeling

1:05:16

good what exactly explains that fundamental

1:05:18

cultural shift that transformed our understanding

1:05:20

of how to be a good

1:05:23

person. How important is it

1:05:25

to resurrect it? Do you think our democracy

1:05:27

is a machine that can go of itself

1:05:29

or is it important to resurrect some commitment

1:05:32

to self-mastery and

1:05:34

is the point of what's the point

1:05:36

of civics? Do we teach knowledge and

1:05:38

the habits of deliberation or something more?

1:05:43

Harvey Mansfield, I'll quote one more time.

1:05:45

Harvey says the aim of education

1:05:48

is to learn how to praise because

1:05:50

to learn how to praise is to learn that

1:05:52

there are standards and that they

1:05:55

can still be applied to things that are among

1:05:57

us excellent things. 1981,

1:06:02

I gave the Godkin lectures at Harvard that

1:06:04

became a book read by dozens. Another

1:06:08

feeling. One

1:06:12

of whom is married to her. One

1:06:15

of the odds. I mean, astonishing.

1:06:19

You should hear what happens in our kitchen at home. The

1:06:23

title of the book was Statecraft

1:06:25

as Soulcraft. The subtitle was more

1:06:28

important. What government does. Not what

1:06:30

government ought to do, but what government cannot help

1:06:32

but do. That is, whatever

1:06:35

regime you have will shape the

1:06:37

souls of the citizens. So

1:06:40

when you establish a regime, you're

1:06:43

saying, this is what we hope

1:06:45

it will, the impress we hope

1:06:47

it will leave on people. The

1:06:50

economy, that's why it's called political

1:06:53

economy that we have, the transactions,

1:06:56

the cooperativeness, the

1:06:58

commands, whatever. You

1:07:00

are necessarily, when you establish a regime,

1:07:03

you're establishing an aspiration

1:07:05

for the character of people. Which

1:07:09

is why our politics always

1:07:12

has been full of energy

1:07:14

and high stakes, because

1:07:17

you are arguing about the souls of the citizens. At

1:07:19

all times. I'm

1:07:22

standing between you and nourishment

1:07:24

and strong drink, so I will subside. But

1:07:29

it seems to me, Jeffrey, if you

1:07:31

want, if something changed, you're saying, well, how did we get here?

1:07:37

It's when we went from free speech. Speech

1:07:41

is about someone

1:07:43

else. It's about persuasion. It requires

1:07:46

patience. That's what democracy requires. We

1:07:49

went from free speech to free expression. Expression

1:07:51

is about you. We

1:07:54

went from a kind of

1:07:56

other-regarding virtue, speech to... Expellipsism.

1:08:02

Expression is inherently good, protecting

1:08:04

the expression. Never mind

1:08:06

that people have anything worth expressing,

1:08:09

the sheer expressing of it

1:08:11

that matters. I think

1:08:13

it doesn't. I'm not

1:08:16

a little ray of sunshine at any time. At

1:08:22

least of all, on

1:08:24

the cusp of the difficulties

1:08:26

we're having, because

1:08:28

I think we've gone from speech,

1:08:31

which is reasonable, persuasive, and

1:08:34

other regarding, to expression,

1:08:36

which is self-absorbed.

1:08:41

I must ask, though, because I think

1:08:43

that you can provide an answer. Why did

1:08:45

that shift occur from speech to

1:08:48

expression, from virtue

1:08:50

to autonomy? In the

1:08:52

60s, it was a cultural shift, but it

1:08:54

must have been reflecting an awful lot of

1:08:57

other shifts. Why did it happen? I

1:08:59

think what happened, and this goes

1:09:01

all the way back to the 19th century,

1:09:03

you can blame Marx, you can blame Hegel,

1:09:05

for Marx. Never

1:09:08

mind. What happened in

1:09:10

the 19th century, and it's live

1:09:12

in the third decade of the 21st century, is

1:09:16

we decided that human beings were not—there

1:09:18

really is no such thing as human

1:09:21

nature, that we are

1:09:23

only people who acquire the

1:09:25

impress of our particular surroundings,

1:09:27

our culture. Once

1:09:30

you say that, then

1:09:32

the stakes of politics become

1:09:34

enormous, because

1:09:36

politics and culture,

1:09:39

everything becomes political, because

1:09:42

you are deciding with the laws you

1:09:44

write, and what

1:09:46

you teach in schools, what

1:09:49

culture will leave what impress on people.

1:09:53

When consciousness itself becomes a

1:09:55

project, what you get

1:09:57

is today. You get— the

1:10:01

woke and the anti-woke arguing

1:10:04

with extreme heat and

1:10:07

bitterness, because what

1:10:09

is at stake is the

1:10:12

human nature we're going to acquire,

1:10:15

not the human nature we have. Whereas

1:10:18

the 30th president, the last one with whom

1:10:21

I fully agreed, I refer of course to

1:10:23

Coolidge. Coolidge

1:10:27

said in his magnificent

1:10:30

address on the sesquicentennial of the

1:10:32

Declaration of Independence, he says

1:10:35

if there's a human nature, how

1:10:37

restful it's settled, if

1:10:39

there are natural rights,

1:10:41

rights that are essential to the

1:10:44

flourishing of people of our natures,

1:10:47

how settled, how restful it is. When

1:10:51

you drop that idea, you get

1:10:53

today which is not restful. For

1:11:00

showing us the connection between

1:11:02

the Declaration, human nature, virtue,

1:11:04

happiness, and the future of the Republic, please

1:11:06

join me in thanking our viewers. Today's

1:11:22

episode was produced by Advanced Staging

1:11:24

Productions, Lana Ulrich, Bill Pollack, and

1:11:26

Samson Mastashare. It was engineered by

1:11:28

Advanced Staging Productions and Bill Pollack.

1:11:31

Research was provided by Samson Mastashare, Cooper

1:11:33

Smith, and Yara Durefe. As

1:11:35

I mentioned, my new book came out

1:11:37

on February 13th. It's The Pursuit of

1:11:39

Happiness, How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired

1:11:41

the Lives of the Founders and Defined

1:11:43

America. If you'd like a

1:11:45

signed book plate, email your address to

1:11:47

me at jrozen at constitutioncenter.org, and I'll

1:11:50

put one in the mail. Thanks

1:11:52

so much to those listeners who've asked for book

1:11:54

plates already and hope you're finding

1:11:56

the book meaningful. Please

1:11:59

recommend the show to people. friends, colleagues, or anyone

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anywhere who's eager for a weekly

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always remember that the National Constitution

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a donation of any amount

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to support our work, including

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the podcast at constitutioncenter.org/donate. On

1:12:24

behalf of the National Constitution Center, I'm

1:12:27

Jeffrey Rosen. it

1:12:32

up.