Continuity and change in the postwar era

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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- [Woman] The era from 1945 to 1980

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was action packed, to say the least.

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During this period, the
United States experienced

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the baby boom, the Civil Rights Movement,

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the tumultuous 1960s, and
the quagmire of Vietnam.

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This era was also riddled
with contradictions.

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A sense of optimism in the
future and a conviction

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that American economic
prosperity was endless

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was tempered by fears
of nuclear annihilation

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and a war on poverty.

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A foreign policy based on democracy

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and anti-communism, abroad,

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was undermined by the
suppression of civil rights

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and civil liberties, at home.

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Material comforts and
Leave It To Beaver visions

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of suburbia clashed with growing calls

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for young people to tune
in, turn on, and drop out.

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Would the generation
that fought World War II

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even recognize the generation
that protested Vietnam?

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That's the question I'd like
to explore, in this video,

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taking a high-level look at the impact

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the events of the postwar era

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had on reshaping American
national identity.

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How much did American
national identity change,

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and how much did it stay the
same, over this time period?

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To answer this question,
first, we have to define

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what we mean by American
national identity.

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In other videos, we've
looked at a few aspects

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of American identity as
core ideological beliefs

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about things like who
counts as an American,

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whether the United States is exceptional,

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or whether it's possible
for anyone to succeed,

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so long as they work hard enough.

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So if we're trying to
track continuity and change

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in American identity, over
the period from 1945 to 1980,

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what might be a few beliefs
we should trace, over time?

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I encourage you to pause the video

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and see if you can come up with a couple,

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based on your knowledge of the
events in this time period.

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Some big events that jump
out to me are the Cold War

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and the Civil Rights Movement,

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as well as the protests of the 1960s.

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So with that in mind, the core beliefs

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I'd like to look at are ideas
about the United States' role

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in the world, who counts
as an American citizen,

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and the country's cultural values.

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You might have come up with

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a totally different set of
beliefs, which is great.

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Try out this same process
I'm about to model,

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using the beliefs that you've chosen.

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Now that we've got a few
aspects of national identity

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we wanna track, let's compare each of them

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at the beginning of this period
to the end of this period.

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Remember, we're doing a super,
high-level overview, here.

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So I'm not gonna take a whole lot of time

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to explain events in detail.

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But if something comes up
that you're unfamiliar with,

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just make a note, and you can look it up

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when you've got time.

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All right, let's see what
changed and what stayed the same,

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over this period, in beliefs about

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the United States' role in the world.

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In 1945, the United States
emerged as a world superpower,

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having abandoned isolationism
as a foreign policy.

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Instead, the United States
became a leading member

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of the United Nations and
the NATO defensive pact.

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The U.S. government was determined

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to contain the spread of communism

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and the influence of the Soviet Union

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through providing military
and financial support

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to nations fighting communism,

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which would lead to American
military engagements

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in Korea and Vietnam.

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The United States also
had a lot of confidence

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in its economic role in the world

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as the only country whose industrial might

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hadn't been compromised
by World War II bombings.

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Immediately after the
war, the United States

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was the world's leading
exporter of steel, cars,

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consumer goods, and oil.

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How does that compare to beliefs

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about America's proper
role in the world in 1980?

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Well, the United States was
still a world superpower

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at the end of this era.

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And it was still pursuing anti-communism

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as a foreign policy.

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But in the 1970s, the Cold War
entered a period of detente,

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a relaxation of tensions
and increase in cooperation

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between the United States
and the Soviet Union.

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You could see this as the U.S. government

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accepting peaceful coexistence
with the Soviet Union.

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This approach will
change when Ronald Reagan

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comes into office in 1981.

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But the period of detente lasted
until the end of the 1970s.

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The Vietnam War shook American confidence

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in its interventionist foreign policy.

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After the war, there was more reluctance

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to commit U.S. troops, abroad,

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in what's been called Vietnam Syndrome.

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Likewise, the Nixon Doctrine
called for U.S. allies

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to take primary responsibility
for their own defense.

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Lastly, U.S. economic world
dominance was threatened,

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in the late 1970s, as well,

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as Japanese and German automobile makers

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began competing internationally.

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And the energy-dependent United States

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found that its energy needs
were increasingly tied

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to the oil exporting
countries of the Middle East.

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So in terms of what changed
and what stayed the same,

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from the beginning to the
end of the postwar era,

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I would say that although
the United States

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remained a world superpower,
committed to supporting

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its allies and opposing
the spread of communism,

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by the end of the 1970s, the
country looked to establish

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some limits to its
intervention in world affairs.

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Next, let's look at how
beliefs about citizenship

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changed during this period.

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After the shared experience
of G.I.s in World War II,

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European immigrants who
had been looked upon

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as dangerous others,
in the 1920s and 1930s,

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were accepted as U.S. citizens

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and categorized as simply white,

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not Polish or Irish or Russian.

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But African American soldiers,

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who had served in segregated
units during the war,

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weren't afforded the same courtesy.

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Despite Truman's executive
order desegregating the military

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in 1948, black veterans
encountered racial discrimination

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after the war, along
with difficulty accessing

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the government subsidies
for education and home loans

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that white G.I.s took advantage of.

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The immigration restrictions that set

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national origin quotas in the 1920s

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were still largely intact,

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although the Chinese Exclusion
Act had been repealed

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during the war as China was a U.S. ally.

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Chinese Americans were then eligible

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to become U.S. citizens.

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However, the new quota
for Chinese immigrants

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was just 105 individuals per year.

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What were the beliefs around citizenship

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at the end of the postwar era?

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A lot changed during this time period,

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thanks to the Civil Rights
Movement, Supreme Court decisions

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like Brown versus Board of Education,

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and legislation like the
the Civil Rights Act of 1964

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and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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At the end of the '60s,
African Americans were able

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to access more citizenship rights

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than they ever had, before.

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And, in 1965, Congress repealed the old

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national origin quotas and
passed new immigration laws,

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allowing Asians to enter the country

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as well as prioritizing
family reunification

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and the entrance of skilled immigrants.

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But in the late 1960s and 1970s,

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there was a backlash against
the civil rights policies

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set by the Supreme Court, in
the Johnson administration.

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With many conservatives arguing

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that the federal intervention
to advance civil rights

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had gone too far, and with
some left-leaning organizations

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arguing that it hadn't gone far enough,

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to address issues like housing
and job discrimination,

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looking at the changes and continuities

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in beliefs about citizenship
over this period,

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I'd say there was an enormous
expansion, over time,

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in who was considered a citizen

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or eligible to become a
citizen of the United States.

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But there was also a growing antagonism

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toward the federal government intervening

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on behalf of civil rights.

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Last, let's look at
American cultural values,

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at the beginning and
end of the postwar era.

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In the years after the war,
there was an emphasis on

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domesticity and family life.

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And women were expected to
give up their war time jobs

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and seek fulfillment through
motherhood and consumption.

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The United States began
a postwar economic boom

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that looked virtually unstoppable.

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In fact, the American
standard of living doubled

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in the 25 years after World War II.

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There was also a lot of pressure

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for Americans to conform to
a homogenous, mass culture,

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idealizing the white,
suburban, nuclear family.

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Fear of communist infiltrators

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led to witch hunts, like McCarthyism.

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But few people people
questioned the wisdom

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of the U.S. government or
authority figures, in general.

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Compare that to the end of this period,

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after the tumult of the 1960s

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had turned American culture on its head.

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In the 1960s and 1970s,
the sexual revolution

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and women's rights movement challenged

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the idealized, nuclear family,

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allowing for a more
permissive sexual culture

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and the advancement of
women in jobs and education.

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Starting as early as the 1950s,

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the Beat Generation began
to question the emptiness

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of the single-minded pursuit of wealth

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that was the American Dream.

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In the 1960s, students
began to protest the draft

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and the military industrial
complex, more generally,

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wondering what the United States

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was even doing in Vietnam.

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They vowed not to trust anyone over 30.

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By the 1970s, public confidence
in the U.S. government

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was also at an all-time low,

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after revelations about
presidential misdeeds

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exposed by the Pentagon Papers
and the Watergate scandal.

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To add insult to injury,
the endless economic boom

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finally seemed to be at
an end, by the 1970s,

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with deindustrialization and stagflation,

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increasing prices and unemployment.

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So it seems like American cultural values

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changed a great deal, from 1945 to 1980,

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from a culture of suburban conformity

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to one of greater personal freedom

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but also greater cynicism.

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But it is important to note

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that the people of the United States

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didn't fully reject the
premise of the American Dream.

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Despite the counterculture of the 1960s,

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by the 1970s, most
people were still looking

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for a good job and hoping
to buy a nice home.

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If we return to our question, then,

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how much did the events of the postwar era

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reshape American identity?

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I think we can respond that
they reshaped it quite a bit.

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The Civil Rights
Movement, the Vietnam War,

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and the protest movements of the 1960s

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led to a U.S. national identity

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that was considerably more
inclusive and socially free,

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but also a good deal less confident

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about its government or
its role in the world.

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To see how these forces played out,

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in the next stage of U.S. history,

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we'll have to look to the 1980s.


Shaping American national identity from 1890 to 1945

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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- [Instructor] In 1890, the
United States was not exactly

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a major player on the world stage.

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It was an industrial behemoth,

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attracting immigrants
from all over the world,

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but it was focused on
its own internal growth,

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not foreign affairs.

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There was little in the way
of a shared popular culture,

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and there was practically
no government regulation

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of industry or the market.

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Compare that to the United states in 1945,

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which had a bustling
shared national culture,

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a social safety net, and
lots of industry regulations

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brought on by depression and war.

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And the United States was the
strongest nation on earth.

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For a time, the world's lone atomic power.

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These are all enormous changes,

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changes in ideas about the economy,

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American culture, and the United
States' role in the world.

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As a historian,

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I'm curious about how these changes

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affected American national
identity during this period.

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National identity is a
bit of a slippery thing,

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but it encompasses a lot of core values

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and beliefs in society

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about who counts as an American,
how Americans should act,

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and how the United States should
relate to other countries.

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So how can we measure just how much impact

00:01:11.940 --> 00:01:15.380
the events of the first
half of the 20th century had

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on American national identity.

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First, we need to get more specific

00:01:18.980 --> 00:01:22.150
about which core beliefs
around national identity

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we wanna track,

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since one of the changes we're looking at

00:01:25.290 --> 00:01:27.520
relates to the growing regulation

00:01:27.520 --> 00:01:29.610
of the American economy
in this time period.

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One belief I think would be
valuable to examine over time

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is individualism.

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This is the idea that
everyone should be able

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to pull themselves up by their bootstraps

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to earn a good living
through their own hard work.

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This has been a pretty core
American value over time,

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but there certainly have been moments

00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:48.690
when many have question whether
it can really be achieved.

00:01:48.690 --> 00:01:50.980
Next, I'm curious about changes

00:01:50.980 --> 00:01:54.190
in American cultural
identity over this period.

00:01:54.190 --> 00:01:56.070
People did a lot of moving around

00:01:56.070 --> 00:01:59.610
in the early 20th century,
going from farms to cities,

00:01:59.610 --> 00:02:01.660
and from the old country to the new.

00:02:01.660 --> 00:02:03.990
So did the United States develop a shared

00:02:03.990 --> 00:02:07.150
national culture in this time
period along with the advent

00:02:07.150 --> 00:02:09.850
of new communication
technologies like the radio,

00:02:09.850 --> 00:02:12.400
or were cultural values
in the United States

00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:16.680
fractured along lines of
race, class, and ethnicity?

00:02:16.680 --> 00:02:19.120
Finally, since this is the era in which

00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:21.680
the United States grew into a world power,

00:02:21.680 --> 00:02:24.340
I'd like to look at changes in beliefs

00:02:24.340 --> 00:02:27.850
about what the proper US
role in the world should be.

00:02:27.850 --> 00:02:30.480
Okay, now that we've
decided which core values

00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:32.610
of national identity we wanna track,

00:02:32.610 --> 00:02:35.020
let's brain storm some of the major events

00:02:35.020 --> 00:02:37.980
that may have affected these
values during this period.

00:02:37.980 --> 00:02:40.350
I encourage you to pause the video here,

00:02:40.350 --> 00:02:43.010
and think about what events
you might wanna discuss

00:02:43.010 --> 00:02:44.370
related to these themes.

00:02:44.370 --> 00:02:47.000
Think about the big things
that happened in this era

00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.820
and how they could affect
ideas about individualism,

00:02:49.820 --> 00:02:52.780
culture, and the United
States' role in the world.

00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:54.860
You may come up with some
different things than I do,

00:02:54.860 --> 00:02:55.760
and that's okay.

00:02:55.760 --> 00:02:58.990
Remember, we're doing a high-level
overview of events here,

00:02:58.990 --> 00:03:01.800
so I'm not gonna go into
much depth about any of them.

00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:03.690
But if I mention something
you're not familiar with,

00:03:03.690 --> 00:03:04.640
just jot it down,

00:03:04.640 --> 00:03:06.920
and you can follow up
on that concept later.

00:03:06.920 --> 00:03:10.590
Okay, first, let's look at
beliefs around individualism.

00:03:10.590 --> 00:03:12.490
This is really a question
about whether people thought

00:03:12.490 --> 00:03:15.000
it was possible for them
to earn a good living

00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:16.700
through hard work alone.

00:03:16.700 --> 00:03:19.240
In the 1890s, there were
a few questions about

00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:22.600
whether industrialization
and business consolidation

00:03:22.600 --> 00:03:26.150
was making it impossible for
ordinary people to succeed,

00:03:26.150 --> 00:03:28.610
like the farmers who
supported the Populist Party,

00:03:28.610 --> 00:03:31.150
and wanted the government
to regulate railroads

00:03:31.150 --> 00:03:32.730
and alter the money supply.

00:03:32.730 --> 00:03:34.770
But they didn't get too much traction.

00:03:34.770 --> 00:03:36.820
The progressive era also introduced

00:03:36.820 --> 00:03:38.720
some regulations on business,

00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:41.910
with presidents like Teddy
Roosevelt busting trusts,

00:03:41.910 --> 00:03:44.010
and reformers helping to pass laws

00:03:44.010 --> 00:03:46.260
protecting workers and consumers.

00:03:46.260 --> 00:03:48.430
The Roaring Twenties, by contrast,

00:03:48.430 --> 00:03:50.840
was an era of boundless optimism

00:03:50.840 --> 00:03:53.380
about the individual's
ability to get wealthy.

00:03:53.380 --> 00:03:54.850
With lots of ordinary folks

00:03:54.850 --> 00:03:56.410
investing in the stock market,

00:03:56.410 --> 00:03:59.600
and believing that the
economic boom would never end,

00:03:59.600 --> 00:04:01.350
but of course it did end,

00:04:01.350 --> 00:04:02.183
and with it,

00:04:02.183 --> 00:04:04.940
so did a lot of people's
faith in individualism.

00:04:04.940 --> 00:04:07.610
Factors outside the
control of any one person

00:04:07.610 --> 00:04:08.910
brought on the great depression,

00:04:08.910 --> 00:04:10.410
and people looked to the government

00:04:10.410 --> 00:04:12.380
to provide relief to citizens

00:04:12.380 --> 00:04:14.470
in a way that it had never done before.

00:04:14.470 --> 00:04:17.200
The new deal established
a social safety net

00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:18.800
and a limited welfare state

00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:21.940
that would influence the
American economy for decades.

00:04:21.940 --> 00:04:24.020
So looking at this period as a whole,

00:04:24.020 --> 00:04:26.470
it seems like the events of the first half

00:04:26.470 --> 00:04:29.960
of the 20th century had
a pretty profound effect

00:04:29.960 --> 00:04:32.190
on the belief in American individualism.

00:04:32.190 --> 00:04:34.970
Industrialization and
then the Great Depression

00:04:34.970 --> 00:04:38.390
led to a growing sense that
the modern industrial economy

00:04:38.390 --> 00:04:41.300
was too large of a machine for individuals

00:04:41.300 --> 00:04:43.550
to navigate it successfully on their own.

00:04:43.550 --> 00:04:45.420
And therefore, the government had a duty

00:04:45.420 --> 00:04:48.190
to see to the welfare of its citizens.

00:04:48.190 --> 00:04:52.210
Next, let's examine American
culture over this time period.

00:04:52.210 --> 00:04:54.960
Was there one shared national culture,

00:04:54.960 --> 00:04:56.970
like the melting pot analogy

00:04:56.970 --> 00:05:00.130
or were there many tensions
and divisions in culture

00:05:00.130 --> 00:05:04.680
over things like ideas, race,
religion, or gender roles.

00:05:04.680 --> 00:05:05.810
During this time period,

00:05:05.810 --> 00:05:08.290
migration to cities led to the development

00:05:08.290 --> 00:05:11.400
of cultural enclaves, like Little Italy,

00:05:11.400 --> 00:05:14.380
and new cultural movements
like the Harlem Renaissance.

00:05:14.380 --> 00:05:17.380
Those might suggest a
more divided culture.

00:05:17.380 --> 00:05:19.410
On the other hand, the growing popularity

00:05:19.410 --> 00:05:22.320
of radio and cinema in the 1920s

00:05:22.320 --> 00:05:23.730
contributed to the development

00:05:23.730 --> 00:05:26.360
of a national culture where
people across the country

00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:27.850
could watch the same movies,

00:05:27.850 --> 00:05:29.750
listen to the same radio shows,

00:05:29.750 --> 00:05:31.710
and root for the same sports starts.

00:05:31.710 --> 00:05:34.660
But there was also a backlash
against immigrant culture

00:05:34.660 --> 00:05:37.110
and the urban modern environment

00:05:37.110 --> 00:05:39.530
with the re-emergence of the KKK,

00:05:39.530 --> 00:05:41.220
restrictions on freedom of speech,

00:05:41.220 --> 00:05:44.830
and calls for 100% Americanism
during World War I,

00:05:44.830 --> 00:05:47.640
and emigration restrictions in the 1920s.

00:05:47.640 --> 00:05:50.630
However, American propaganda
during World War II

00:05:50.630 --> 00:05:52.290
emphasize the diversity

00:05:52.290 --> 00:05:54.310
and inclusiveness of the United States,

00:05:54.310 --> 00:05:57.210
in contrast to Nazi racial ideology.

00:05:57.210 --> 00:06:00.040
And US culture became more
accepting toward immigrants

00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:01.580
from European backgrounds.

00:06:01.580 --> 00:06:03.910
But Asian-Americans and African-Americans

00:06:03.910 --> 00:06:06.070
were so largely excluded.

00:06:06.070 --> 00:06:08.520
So the cultural transition
of the United States

00:06:08.520 --> 00:06:11.450
is a bit of a mixed bag
in this time period.

00:06:11.450 --> 00:06:12.470
There were both elements

00:06:12.470 --> 00:06:13.870
that brought the country together

00:06:13.870 --> 00:06:15.500
in a shared national culture,

00:06:15.500 --> 00:06:18.290
and elements that
divided it based on race,

00:06:18.290 --> 00:06:20.100
ethnicity, and belief.

00:06:20.100 --> 00:06:22.190
Last, let's look at beliefs about

00:06:22.190 --> 00:06:24.620
the role of the United
States in the world.

00:06:24.620 --> 00:06:28.000
Up until the Spanish-American war in 1898,

00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:31.140
the guiding US foreign
policy was isolationism,

00:06:31.140 --> 00:06:33.170
staying out of world affairs.

00:06:33.170 --> 00:06:34.850
But by the turn of the 20th century,

00:06:34.850 --> 00:06:36.350
the US government was tempted

00:06:36.350 --> 00:06:38.310
to get in on the imperial game,

00:06:38.310 --> 00:06:40.140
like the great powers of Europe,

00:06:40.140 --> 00:06:42.680
and it did so with the
acquisition of Cuba,

00:06:42.680 --> 00:06:44.600
Hawaii, and the Philippines.

00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:46.530
United States was also reluctant

00:06:46.530 --> 00:06:48.450
to get involved in World War I,

00:06:48.450 --> 00:06:52.490
and did so only very late in
the war, after provocation.

00:06:52.490 --> 00:06:53.840
After World War I,

00:06:53.840 --> 00:06:56.840
the United States return to
its policy of isolationism

00:06:56.840 --> 00:06:59.710
throughout the 1920s and 1930s,

00:06:59.710 --> 00:07:03.280
but the Japanese bombing
of Pearl Harbor in 1941

00:07:03.280 --> 00:07:05.980
led the country to fully mobilize for war.

00:07:05.980 --> 00:07:08.100
After the war with Europe in ruins

00:07:08.100 --> 00:07:10.400
and growing tensions
with the Soviet Union,

00:07:10.400 --> 00:07:12.800
the United States would
abandon isolationism

00:07:12.800 --> 00:07:14.010
as a foreign policy,

00:07:14.010 --> 00:07:16.640
in favor of membership
in the United Nations

00:07:16.640 --> 00:07:19.720
and military interventions
to contain communism.

00:07:19.720 --> 00:07:21.950
So this too is a major shift

00:07:21.950 --> 00:07:25.360
from outright isolationism,
to imperialism,

00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:27.080
to interventionism.

00:07:27.080 --> 00:07:29.750
The events of the first
half of the 20th century,

00:07:29.750 --> 00:07:31.640
changed the core belief that

00:07:31.640 --> 00:07:33.310
the United States was better off

00:07:33.310 --> 00:07:35.260
staying out of world affairs

00:07:35.260 --> 00:07:37.680
into the belief that US
involvement was crucial

00:07:37.680 --> 00:07:40.040
to maintaining order in world affairs.

00:07:40.040 --> 00:07:42.710
So given the evidence we've compiled here,

00:07:42.710 --> 00:07:46.580
which major events of the
first half of the 20th century

00:07:46.580 --> 00:07:49.430
had the greatest impact
on national identity?

00:07:49.430 --> 00:07:51.700
It seems like the aspects
of national identity

00:07:51.700 --> 00:07:55.150
that changed the most were
the belief in individualism,

00:07:55.150 --> 00:07:57.560
which transitioned into
a greater acceptance

00:07:57.560 --> 00:07:58.810
of the role of government

00:07:58.810 --> 00:08:00.870
in advancing citizen's welfare,

00:08:00.870 --> 00:08:02.980
and the belief in isolationism,

00:08:02.980 --> 00:08:04.440
which transitioned into the belief

00:08:04.440 --> 00:08:07.670
that the United States should
intervene in world affairs.

00:08:07.670 --> 00:08:09.700
Which events were most crucial

00:08:09.700 --> 00:08:11.420
in changing those beliefs?

00:08:11.420 --> 00:08:12.870
I would say that the Great Depression

00:08:12.870 --> 00:08:14.200
was the most influential

00:08:14.200 --> 00:08:16.160
in altering individualism,

00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:18.640
and World War II was the most influential

00:08:18.640 --> 00:08:20.530
in altering isolationism.

00:08:20.530 --> 00:08:21.363
What do you think?

00:08:21.363 --> 00:08:23.960
Would you come to the same
conclusions that I have?

00:08:23.960 --> 00:08:25.870
Next, think about how you might

00:08:25.870 --> 00:08:28.930
write a thesis statement in
order to answer this question

00:08:28.930 --> 00:08:30.880
using the evidence that we've gathered.


Continuity and change in the Gilded Age

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.150 --> 00:00:02.090
- [Narrator] The Second
Industrial Revolution

00:00:02.090 --> 00:00:03.350
in the United States

00:00:03.350 --> 00:00:05.420
ushered in new technologies

00:00:05.420 --> 00:00:09.510
and new ways of living and
working during the Gilded Age.

00:00:09.510 --> 00:00:12.790
Steel, electricity, and the telephone

00:00:12.790 --> 00:00:15.240
allowed railroads to
crisscross the country,

00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:18.130
skyscrapers to rise out of cities,

00:00:18.130 --> 00:00:20.900
factories to hum along long after sunset,

00:00:20.900 --> 00:00:23.730
and business transactions
to take place instantly

00:00:23.730 --> 00:00:25.490
over hundreds of miles.

00:00:25.490 --> 00:00:28.040
This was the time when
the United States began

00:00:28.040 --> 00:00:31.830
its transition from a
nation of rural farmers

00:00:31.830 --> 00:00:35.280
to a nation of city
dwelling factory workers.

00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:38.400
So, at a glance, the Gilded
Age seems like a time

00:00:38.400 --> 00:00:40.720
of radical change for the country.

00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:42.600
But, as historians,

00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:45.270
how can we tell just how much change

00:00:45.270 --> 00:00:49.500
really occurred from 1865 to 1898?

00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:53.270
One way we can do this
is to track over time

00:00:53.270 --> 00:00:55.810
what changed and what stayed the same

00:00:55.810 --> 00:00:58.520
from the beginning of the
Gilded Age to its end.

00:00:58.520 --> 00:01:00.280
Historians call this process

00:01:00.280 --> 00:01:03.610
examining continuity and change over time.

00:01:03.610 --> 00:01:04.560
When we study history,

00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:07.110
it's important to look at continuities,

00:01:07.110 --> 00:01:10.320
or things that continued on
the same as they were before,

00:01:10.320 --> 00:01:13.300
because it's really easy
to focus on how one aspect

00:01:13.300 --> 00:01:15.130
of society really transformed

00:01:15.130 --> 00:01:16.770
during a certain period of time

00:01:16.770 --> 00:01:18.780
and then forget to account for the fact

00:01:18.780 --> 00:01:21.280
that almost everything
else didn't change at all,

00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:23.050
but it would be practically impossible

00:01:23.050 --> 00:01:26.230
to track the changes in
every aspect of society.

00:01:26.230 --> 00:01:29.150
So let's dial in on a few areas.

00:01:29.150 --> 00:01:31.760
Since the major
transformations came through

00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:34.590
technology and business
in this time period,

00:01:34.590 --> 00:01:36.840
and those are both aspects of work,

00:01:36.840 --> 00:01:40.450
I'm curious about how the
kind of work that people did

00:01:40.450 --> 00:01:42.080
and the way that they did it

00:01:42.080 --> 00:01:44.490
changed over the course of the Gilded Age.

00:01:44.490 --> 00:01:47.150
And since I know that cities grew a lot

00:01:47.150 --> 00:01:48.430
during this time period,

00:01:48.430 --> 00:01:51.190
let's also look at changes
in living patterns.

00:01:51.190 --> 00:01:54.160
Where people migrated to and from

00:01:54.160 --> 00:01:55.310
and how they lived.

00:01:55.310 --> 00:01:58.020
I'm also curious about the extent to which

00:01:58.020 --> 00:02:00.860
these changes in work and living patterns

00:02:00.860 --> 00:02:04.400
affected the major ideas
and culture of the time.

00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:07.370
Did people's beliefs
about society change much

00:02:07.370 --> 00:02:08.560
during the Gilded Age?

00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:10.400
Or was the culture of the United States

00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:12.120
at the end of the 19th century

00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:13.780
pretty much the same as it was at the end

00:02:13.780 --> 00:02:14.820
of the Civil War?

00:02:14.820 --> 00:02:17.280
So let's look at the major trends

00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:20.700
in each of these areas at
the beginning and the end

00:02:20.700 --> 00:02:21.800
of this time period

00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:23.590
so we can try to answer the question

00:02:23.590 --> 00:02:27.350
how much change did
industrialization really bring

00:02:27.350 --> 00:02:28.760
during the Gilded Age?

00:02:28.760 --> 00:02:30.640
By the way, I'm not
gonna go into a whole lot

00:02:30.640 --> 00:02:32.100
of detail on these trends

00:02:32.100 --> 00:02:34.940
because we're doing a really big overview

00:02:34.940 --> 00:02:36.170
of the Gilded Age here.

00:02:36.170 --> 00:02:37.610
So if you find that you're not familiar

00:02:37.610 --> 00:02:38.730
with something that comes up,

00:02:38.730 --> 00:02:40.520
just make a note of it
and you can look it up

00:02:40.520 --> 00:02:41.470
when you have time.

00:02:41.470 --> 00:02:44.900
Okay, first, let's compare
the changes in work

00:02:44.900 --> 00:02:48.980
and business from 1865 to 1898.

00:02:48.980 --> 00:02:51.690
Well in 1865, the United States was still

00:02:51.690 --> 00:02:54.240
a primarily a nation of farmers,

00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:55.960
although there were a
good number of people

00:02:55.960 --> 00:02:58.790
in the North and the
West who worked in mills,

00:02:58.790 --> 00:03:00.610
and mines, and on railroads.

00:03:00.610 --> 00:03:04.130
Many African Americans
had transitioned from

00:03:04.130 --> 00:03:07.600
working as slave laborers
on plantations in the South

00:03:07.600 --> 00:03:09.880
to working as sharecroppers,

00:03:09.880 --> 00:03:12.130
where they would work
portions of plantations

00:03:12.130 --> 00:03:15.700
in return for a pretty
measly share of the profits.

00:03:15.700 --> 00:03:17.680
In fact, most work in the United States

00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:19.460
was segregated by race.

00:03:19.460 --> 00:03:22.500
It was pretty uncommon for
whites, African Americans,

00:03:22.500 --> 00:03:25.480
Chinese laborers, or
Mexican American laborers

00:03:25.480 --> 00:03:27.600
to work side by side anywhere.

00:03:27.600 --> 00:03:30.870
In terms of the way
businesses were organized,

00:03:30.870 --> 00:03:34.000
the Civil War had sowed some initial seeds

00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:36.190
of business consolidation.

00:03:36.190 --> 00:03:38.090
The industrial might
that had helped the North

00:03:38.090 --> 00:03:38.960
win the Civil War

00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:41.800
made it easy for some
large companies to begin

00:03:41.800 --> 00:03:45.140
turning natural resources
into infrastructure.

00:03:45.140 --> 00:03:48.700
How did that compare to
the state of work in 1898?

00:03:48.700 --> 00:03:50.790
Well there were still plenty of farmers

00:03:50.790 --> 00:03:52.010
and sharecroppers,

00:03:52.010 --> 00:03:54.240
although the mechanization of agriculture

00:03:54.240 --> 00:03:55.620
in the late 19th century

00:03:55.620 --> 00:03:58.200
had a negative effect on many farmers,

00:03:58.200 --> 00:04:00.200
sending them to the city looking for work.

00:04:00.200 --> 00:04:01.650
By the end of the century

00:04:01.650 --> 00:04:05.250
more people worked for
someone else for wages

00:04:05.250 --> 00:04:07.610
than worked for themselves
for the first time

00:04:07.610 --> 00:04:08.890
in American history.

00:04:08.890 --> 00:04:11.370
A lot of this factory growth was driven by

00:04:11.370 --> 00:04:13.610
new business practices like

00:04:13.610 --> 00:04:16.140
mass production on the assembly line,

00:04:16.140 --> 00:04:19.520
which broke complex tasks
down into tiny steps

00:04:19.520 --> 00:04:21.700
so that no one required much training

00:04:21.700 --> 00:04:23.020
to work in a factory.

00:04:23.020 --> 00:04:25.400
A process known as deskilling.

00:04:25.400 --> 00:04:28.490
Women and children began
working in factories as well,

00:04:28.490 --> 00:04:30.680
but as at the beginning of the Gilded Age

00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:33.650
work places still tended
to be racially segregated

00:04:33.650 --> 00:04:36.190
and by the end of the 19th century

00:04:36.190 --> 00:04:39.420
businesses undergone major consolidation.

00:04:39.420 --> 00:04:43.470
Often using monopolistic
practices to dominate industries

00:04:43.470 --> 00:04:45.350
and fix prices and wages.

00:04:45.350 --> 00:04:48.890
In response, many workers
began to organize labor unions,

00:04:48.890 --> 00:04:51.590
but they had pretty limited success.

00:04:51.590 --> 00:04:54.600
So overall, I would say
that industrialization

00:04:54.600 --> 00:04:58.140
led to some pretty major
changes in the world of work,

00:04:58.140 --> 00:05:00.860
although work generally
remained segregated

00:05:00.860 --> 00:05:03.260
and the process of transitioning

00:05:03.260 --> 00:05:06.710
from farms to factories
wasn't entirely complete.

00:05:06.710 --> 00:05:09.210
During the Gilded Age
there was a huge shift

00:05:09.210 --> 00:05:12.690
towards unskilled wage
work and big corporations.

00:05:12.690 --> 00:05:16.380
Next let's look at living
and migration patterns.

00:05:16.380 --> 00:05:21.220
In 1865 only about 20% of the
population lived in cities.

00:05:21.220 --> 00:05:23.700
Most of the migrants to cities were

00:05:23.700 --> 00:05:26.350
Irish and German immigrants coming from

00:05:26.350 --> 00:05:27.920
Northern and Western Europe.

00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:31.820
Most African Americans
continued to live in the South

00:05:31.820 --> 00:05:34.440
in the immediate
aftermath of the Civil War

00:05:34.440 --> 00:05:37.230
and the cities themselves had pockets

00:05:37.230 --> 00:05:39.170
of density and poverty,

00:05:39.170 --> 00:05:41.820
like New York City's
Five Points neighborhood,

00:05:41.820 --> 00:05:44.300
but they weren't yet incredibly crowded.

00:05:44.300 --> 00:05:46.000
What about in 1898?

00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:49.260
Well, the percentage of the
population living in cities

00:05:49.260 --> 00:05:52.070
nearly doubled, up to 40%.

00:05:52.070 --> 00:05:54.570
Several cities grew to more
than one million people

00:05:54.570 --> 00:05:56.890
for the first time during the Gilded Age

00:05:56.890 --> 00:05:59.870
and who was coming to the
cities changed as well.

00:05:59.870 --> 00:06:02.200
Political and economic trouble at home

00:06:02.200 --> 00:06:05.060
led many Southern and
Eastern Europeans to head

00:06:05.060 --> 00:06:07.240
for the factories in American cities

00:06:07.240 --> 00:06:09.380
and African Americans also began to

00:06:09.380 --> 00:06:11.725
slowly trickle northward
in order to escape

00:06:11.725 --> 00:06:14.450
sharecropping and Jim Crow.

00:06:14.450 --> 00:06:16.450
This massive influx of people meant that

00:06:16.450 --> 00:06:18.330
cities were very dense

00:06:18.330 --> 00:06:20.960
and many people had to
crowd into tenements,

00:06:20.960 --> 00:06:24.950
unsafe, unventilated,
ramshackle apartment buildings.

00:06:24.950 --> 00:06:28.230
In 1900, the Lower East Side of Manhattan

00:06:28.230 --> 00:06:31.060
was the most densely
populated neighborhood

00:06:31.060 --> 00:06:32.220
in the world.

00:06:32.220 --> 00:06:35.500
So I would say that
industrialization also led

00:06:35.500 --> 00:06:37.560
to quite the transformation

00:06:37.560 --> 00:06:39.830
in living and migration patterns.

00:06:39.830 --> 00:06:42.920
The factory jobs available
in American cities

00:06:42.920 --> 00:06:46.040
drew new people to them
from all over the country,

00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:49.740
and the world, and also changed
the standards of living.

00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:53.262
Last, let's map the
changes and continuities

00:06:53.262 --> 00:06:56.150
in prominent cultural ideas

00:06:56.150 --> 00:06:57.900
over the course of the Gilded Age.

00:06:57.900 --> 00:06:59.980
Although there are lots of different ideas

00:06:59.980 --> 00:07:02.610
and forms of cultural
expression we could talk about,

00:07:02.610 --> 00:07:05.490
I'm gonna focus on ideas about

00:07:05.490 --> 00:07:08.540
the economy, and race, and immigration

00:07:08.540 --> 00:07:12.470
since those are so closely tied
to the other two categories

00:07:12.470 --> 00:07:14.010
of analysis we've got here.

00:07:14.010 --> 00:07:16.010
Immediately after the Civil War,

00:07:16.010 --> 00:07:19.010
there was an intense push in Congress

00:07:19.010 --> 00:07:21.980
and in the North to ensure racial equality

00:07:21.980 --> 00:07:23.400
for African Americans

00:07:23.400 --> 00:07:27.450
with the passage of the 13th,
14th, and 15th Amendments,

00:07:27.450 --> 00:07:30.410
but there was also a very strong nativist

00:07:30.410 --> 00:07:32.740
or anti-immigrant sentiment

00:07:32.740 --> 00:07:35.150
among white native born Protestants

00:07:35.150 --> 00:07:37.430
who especially objected to the immigration

00:07:37.430 --> 00:07:38.740
of Irish Catholics.

00:07:38.740 --> 00:07:40.430
As far as the economy went,

00:07:40.430 --> 00:07:43.200
there were many people
who argued in favor of

00:07:43.200 --> 00:07:44.955
laissez faire economics,

00:07:44.955 --> 00:07:47.710
that the government should engage in

00:07:47.710 --> 00:07:50.140
little to no regulation of the market

00:07:50.140 --> 00:07:52.240
and that was pretty much the prevailing

00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:53.930
government approach of the day.

00:07:53.930 --> 00:07:56.310
Alright, how does that compare to 1898?

00:07:56.310 --> 00:07:59.600
Well unlike in the
immediate post war period,

00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:01.900
racial equality for African Americans

00:08:01.900 --> 00:08:05.050
had been abandoned as a mainstream idea

00:08:05.050 --> 00:08:07.560
with the rise of Jim Crow and rulings like

00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:11.520
the 1896 Supreme Court case,
Plessy versus Ferguson,

00:08:11.520 --> 00:08:13.300
which approved segregation.

00:08:13.300 --> 00:08:16.870
Nativism was also still
a force in American life

00:08:16.870 --> 00:08:18.541
and it had even intensified

00:08:18.541 --> 00:08:22.020
thanks to the flawed racial pseudo-science

00:08:22.020 --> 00:08:24.100
known as Social Darwinism,

00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:27.050
which suggested that people
who were in high positions

00:08:27.050 --> 00:08:30.230
in society, both in
terms of race and wealth,

00:08:30.230 --> 00:08:33.100
belonged there because
they were the fittest.

00:08:33.100 --> 00:08:35.750
But there were a few
reformers who were beginning

00:08:35.750 --> 00:08:39.260
to question the effects
of industrialization

00:08:39.260 --> 00:08:42.280
like settlement house founder, Jane Addams

00:08:42.280 --> 00:08:45.140
or early muckraker Jacob Riis.

00:08:45.140 --> 00:08:47.418
So in terms of ideas and culture,

00:08:47.418 --> 00:08:50.350
it looks like there was
actually more continuity

00:08:50.350 --> 00:08:53.160
than change over the
course of the Gilded Age.

00:08:53.160 --> 00:08:55.950
There may even have been
an overall regression

00:08:55.950 --> 00:08:58.490
in ideas about race and immigration

00:08:58.490 --> 00:08:59.730
in this time period.

00:08:59.730 --> 00:09:02.450
There were a few efforts
to soften the pains

00:09:02.450 --> 00:09:05.150
of industrialization and urbanization,

00:09:05.150 --> 00:09:07.190
but they weren't yet widespread.

00:09:07.190 --> 00:09:09.100
Let's return to our question then

00:09:09.100 --> 00:09:11.840
and see if we can formulate
a thesis statement

00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:15.050
to address the extent to which

00:09:15.050 --> 00:09:20.050
industrialization brought
change from 1865 to 1898.

00:09:20.150 --> 00:09:21.790
From the evidence we've gathered,

00:09:21.790 --> 00:09:25.590
I'd say that the technological
and business advancements

00:09:25.590 --> 00:09:27.670
of the Second Industrial Revolution

00:09:27.670 --> 00:09:29.510
brought enormous changes to the ways

00:09:29.510 --> 00:09:32.690
that people lived and
worked in the United States,

00:09:32.690 --> 00:09:36.620
transforming the country
from a rural farming nation

00:09:36.620 --> 00:09:38.940
to an urban industrial one,

00:09:38.940 --> 00:09:43.330
but the major ideas about
immigration, race, and the economy

00:09:43.330 --> 00:09:44.830
didn't change as much.

00:09:44.830 --> 00:09:48.090
Segregation and nativist
sentiment intensified

00:09:48.090 --> 00:09:49.200
over the time period

00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:52.270
and efforts to reign in the excesses

00:09:52.270 --> 00:09:55.570
of industrial capitalism
were just getting started.

00:09:55.570 --> 00:09:59.330
The major social efforts to
improve the lives and work

00:09:59.330 --> 00:10:02.200
of this new urban population
would have to wait

00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:03.753
until the Progressive Era.


The Eighth Amendment

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:02.300
- [Kim] Hi, this is Kim from Khan Academy.

00:00:02.300 --> 00:00:04.820
Today, I'm learning
about the 8th Amendment

00:00:04.820 --> 00:00:07.840
to the US Constitution, which
prohibits the government

00:00:07.840 --> 00:00:10.620
from imposing excessive fines and bail,

00:00:10.620 --> 00:00:14.110
or inflicting cruel and unusual punishment

00:00:14.110 --> 00:00:16.860
on individuals accused
or convicted of a crime.

00:00:16.860 --> 00:00:20.820
But what counts as excessive,
or cruel and unusual?

00:00:20.820 --> 00:00:22.240
To learn more, I sought out the help

00:00:22.240 --> 00:00:24.240
of two experts on the 8th Amendment.

00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:26.620
John Stinneford is the assistant director

00:00:26.620 --> 00:00:28.400
of the Criminal Justice Center

00:00:28.400 --> 00:00:30.590
at the University of Florida Law School.

00:00:30.590 --> 00:00:33.440
John Bessler is an
associate professor of law

00:00:33.440 --> 00:00:35.660
at the University of Baltimore Law School.

00:00:35.660 --> 00:00:36.910
So, Professor Bessler,

00:00:36.910 --> 00:00:41.090
why were the framers so keen
to include the 8th Amendment?

00:00:41.090 --> 00:00:44.200
Why did they wanna protect
these rights in particular?

00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:46.630
- [John B.] Well, these
rights were actually enshrined

00:00:46.630 --> 00:00:49.610
in the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

00:00:49.610 --> 00:00:52.250
And so, when the Americans
got into the dispute

00:00:52.250 --> 00:00:54.199
with Great Britain,
they decided they wanted

00:00:54.199 --> 00:00:56.580
to have the same rights
that Englishman had.

00:00:56.580 --> 00:00:58.090
And so, it was not too surprising that

00:00:58.090 --> 00:01:01.620
when George Mason actually
wrote the Virginia Declaration

00:01:01.620 --> 00:01:04.960
of Rights in 1776, that
he looked to English law

00:01:04.960 --> 00:01:06.420
to see what rights the English had

00:01:06.420 --> 00:01:08.980
because he wanted exactly the same rights.

00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:12.740
And so, this 16 words in the
8th Amendment have been subject

00:01:12.740 --> 00:01:16.210
to a lot of controversy over the years,

00:01:16.210 --> 00:01:17.930
but, I think, one of the reasons

00:01:17.930 --> 00:01:20.650
that the founders wanted this was that,

00:01:20.650 --> 00:01:22.600
like the English would have problems

00:01:22.600 --> 00:01:27.600
with the monarch imposing
excessive bail, excessive fines,

00:01:27.610 --> 00:01:29.800
inflicting cruel and unusual punishments,

00:01:29.800 --> 00:01:31.390
the founders also knew that was a risk

00:01:31.390 --> 00:01:33.970
that there was abuse from the government

00:01:33.970 --> 00:01:34.803
in the United States.

00:01:34.803 --> 00:01:36.890
And so, they also wanted those rights.

00:01:36.890 --> 00:01:38.260
Because, originally, in the Constitution,

00:01:38.260 --> 00:01:41.490
these rights were not protected against,

00:01:41.490 --> 00:01:45.480
and the Bill of Rights
was ratified in 1791

00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:47.160
which ensured that there
would be protections

00:01:47.160 --> 00:01:49.640
against these cruel and
unusual punishments,

00:01:49.640 --> 00:01:51.600
and excessive bail and excessive fines.

00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:53.860
- [John S.] If you look
at the 8th Amendment,

00:01:53.860 --> 00:01:55.310
there's three clauses, right?

00:01:55.310 --> 00:01:59.560
The excessive bail clause,
the excessive fines clause,

00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:01.300
and the cruel and unusual
punishments clause.

00:02:01.300 --> 00:02:03.360
And these all have one thing in common,

00:02:03.360 --> 00:02:06.640
which is that these are
all penalties, essentially,

00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:09.510
that the government
inflicts on people usually

00:02:09.510 --> 00:02:12.810
as the result of either
being accused of crime

00:02:12.810 --> 00:02:14.650
or of being convicted of crime.

00:02:14.650 --> 00:02:17.690
So if you've been arrested,
you're waiting for trial,

00:02:17.690 --> 00:02:19.090
very often your only way to get out

00:02:19.090 --> 00:02:23.020
of jail before trial is to make bail.

00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:25.100
And, of course, after
you've been convicted,

00:02:25.100 --> 00:02:27.560
the court might impose a fine on you,

00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:29.210
or some other kind of punishment.

00:02:29.210 --> 00:02:31.190
And so, the 8th Amendment is designed

00:02:31.190 --> 00:02:33.390
to prevent the government
from doing things

00:02:33.390 --> 00:02:35.170
that are excessive.

00:02:35.170 --> 00:02:38.480
When the government punishes a person,

00:02:38.480 --> 00:02:40.530
that's the most coercive
thing the government

00:02:40.530 --> 00:02:42.650
does short of war, right?

00:02:42.650 --> 00:02:46.860
Other than shooting you
in battle, picking you up

00:02:46.860 --> 00:02:49.420
and throwing you in a jail cell
is about as bad as it gets.

00:02:49.420 --> 00:02:51.520
And so, the framers wanted to make sure

00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:53.630
that we had a constitutional protection

00:02:53.630 --> 00:02:55.740
when it comes to criminal punishment.

00:02:55.740 --> 00:02:58.840
- [Kim] So, in a lot of
cases in the Bill of Rights

00:02:58.840 --> 00:03:03.100
you see the framers reacting
to some historical evil

00:03:03.100 --> 00:03:04.140
that they hope to prevent.

00:03:04.140 --> 00:03:06.160
For example, the 3rd Amendment says

00:03:06.160 --> 00:03:10.110
you can't quarter soldiers
in private citizens' homes

00:03:10.110 --> 00:03:13.160
because that had been such
a important tipping point

00:03:13.160 --> 00:03:14.710
in the American Revolution.

00:03:14.710 --> 00:03:17.230
Was there something that
the framers had in mind

00:03:17.230 --> 00:03:21.410
as a particular historical evil
that they wanted to prevent?

00:03:21.410 --> 00:03:24.710
- [John B.] Well, there
was some historical evils,

00:03:24.710 --> 00:03:29.080
and the English Bill of Rights
went into place in 1689,

00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:30.690
and when that went into place

00:03:30.690 --> 00:03:32.570
there was actually a
controversy in England

00:03:32.570 --> 00:03:35.530
around a person by the
name of Titus Oates.

00:03:35.530 --> 00:03:40.200
Titus Oates was somebody
who had false accusation,

00:03:40.200 --> 00:03:42.810
what was had committed
perjury resulted, actually,

00:03:42.810 --> 00:03:46.850
that allegation in the
execution of 15 Catholics.

00:03:46.850 --> 00:03:49.240
And the plot that he'd alleged

00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:52.690
was one to assassinate
the king of England.

00:03:52.690 --> 00:03:54.870
- [John S.] The question is
what to do with Oates, right?

00:03:54.870 --> 00:03:57.480
Because as a sort of a moral matter,

00:03:57.480 --> 00:03:58.860
he's about as bad as it gets.

00:03:58.860 --> 00:04:00.840
In fact, in 2005,

00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:03.820
English historians voted
him the worst Briton

00:04:03.820 --> 00:04:05.540
of the 17th century
(Kim laughs)

00:04:05.540 --> 00:04:09.430
and the third worst Briton
of the last 1,000 years,

00:04:09.430 --> 00:04:10.263
or something like that.

00:04:10.263 --> 00:04:11.580
So a very bad guy,

00:04:11.580 --> 00:04:14.300
you could think of him as
a sort of a serial killer.

00:04:14.300 --> 00:04:18.030
But the problem is that the
actual crime he committed

00:04:18.030 --> 00:04:20.180
was the crime of perjury.

00:04:20.180 --> 00:04:22.970
And even though his perjury
resulted in the deaths

00:04:22.970 --> 00:04:24.410
of many innocent people,

00:04:24.410 --> 00:04:26.430
nonetheless he could only
be convicted of perjury,

00:04:26.430 --> 00:04:28.300
which at the time was a misdemeanor.

00:04:28.300 --> 00:04:31.590
Which meant that he could not
be executed for his crime.

00:04:31.590 --> 00:04:36.460
So when it came time for
his sentencing, the judge,

00:04:36.460 --> 00:04:39.010
Chief Justice Jeffreys, who
is a famous hanging judge

00:04:39.010 --> 00:04:41.347
from English history, says to Oates,

00:04:41.347 --> 00:04:43.587
"Well, Oates, we can't take your life,

00:04:43.587 --> 00:04:45.347
"we can't take your limb,

00:04:45.347 --> 00:04:48.337
"but we have something
special prepared for you."

00:04:49.420 --> 00:04:52.030
And it turns out that what
they had prepared for him was,

00:04:52.030 --> 00:04:56.030
number one, a huge fine, they
fined him like 2,000 marks.

00:04:56.030 --> 00:04:58.390
They sentenced that he'd
be dragged across the city

00:04:58.390 --> 00:05:01.640
of London while being flogged,
he was dragged from Aldgate

00:05:01.640 --> 00:05:04.860
to Newgate while being flogged,
and then two days later,

00:05:04.860 --> 00:05:08.020
just as the scabs were
starting to form on his wounds,

00:05:08.020 --> 00:05:10.690
he's dragged back across the
city of London from Newgate

00:05:10.690 --> 00:05:13.130
to Tyburn, again while being flogged.

00:05:13.130 --> 00:05:14.720
Many people think the
hope was that he would die

00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:16.210
from the flogging, but,

00:05:16.210 --> 00:05:18.570
like a cockroach in a
nuclear war, he survived.

00:05:18.570 --> 00:05:20.660
- [John B.] This punishment was actually

00:05:20.660 --> 00:05:21.620
a very severe punishment,

00:05:21.620 --> 00:05:24.813
and after the English Bill of
Rights, it was promulgated.

00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:29.030
The Titus Oates' punishment was challenged

00:05:29.030 --> 00:05:31.600
and some of the members
of the House of Lords

00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:34.460
actually called the punishment
barbarous, inhumane,

00:05:34.460 --> 00:05:38.040
and unchristian, and contrary
to the English Bill of Rights.

00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:40.460
And so, there was no precedence
to warrant the punishments

00:05:40.460 --> 00:05:42.890
of whipping and committing
to prison for life

00:05:42.890 --> 00:05:44.280
for the crime of perjury.

00:05:44.280 --> 00:05:46.050
This punishment was eventually remitted,

00:05:46.050 --> 00:05:48.350
in the sense that Oates
was later released.

00:05:48.350 --> 00:05:50.410
- [John S.] Although, the
House of Lords refused to vote

00:05:50.410 --> 00:05:52.020
to suspend the judgment against Oates

00:05:52.020 --> 00:05:54.377
'cause they hated him so much they said,

00:05:54.377 --> 00:05:59.030
"So ill a man shouldn't get
the benefit of any relief."

00:05:59.030 --> 00:06:00.640
But they all agreed that
the punishment was cruel

00:06:00.640 --> 00:06:03.610
and unusual, and what's
interesting is in the debate

00:06:03.610 --> 00:06:05.147
they say things like,

00:06:05.147 --> 00:06:09.167
"This punishment is contrary
to law and ancient practice.

00:06:09.167 --> 00:06:10.777
"It is without precedent,

00:06:10.777 --> 00:06:13.600
"and it'll be a bad
precedent for the future."

00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:16.100
So, in other words, it's cruel

00:06:16.100 --> 00:06:17.950
and the way we know it's cruel is

00:06:17.950 --> 00:06:19.890
because it's so much harsher

00:06:19.890 --> 00:06:21.470
than has previously been inflicted

00:06:21.470 --> 00:06:23.670
for the crime of perjury, right?

00:06:23.670 --> 00:06:27.860
So the Oates case shows us
that when the words cruel

00:06:27.860 --> 00:06:30.200
and unusual were first used,

00:06:30.200 --> 00:06:31.940
they were used to describe punishments

00:06:31.940 --> 00:06:35.040
that are harsher than the
Common law would permit,

00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:39.093
or harsher than long-standing
prior practice would permit.

00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:42.320
And this means that, among other things,

00:06:42.320 --> 00:06:46.400
the cruel and unusual
punishments clause is not limited

00:06:46.400 --> 00:06:48.830
to gruesome punishments like torture

00:06:48.830 --> 00:06:50.830
and the rack and all that kind of thing.

00:06:51.730 --> 00:06:53.550
Because, in fact, the
punishments inflicted on Oates,

00:06:53.550 --> 00:06:56.230
although they were very harsh
for the crime of perjury,

00:06:56.230 --> 00:06:58.380
were not as harsh as
some other punishments

00:06:58.380 --> 00:07:01.320
that the Common law permitted
for other crimes like treason.

00:07:01.320 --> 00:07:02.270
- [Kim] Wow!

00:07:02.270 --> 00:07:05.830
So that tells us a lot
about the English context

00:07:05.830 --> 00:07:07.780
of cruel and unusual punishment.

00:07:07.780 --> 00:07:10.000
Do we know what cruel and unusual meant

00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.653
to the framers of the U.S. Bill of Rights?

00:07:13.520 --> 00:07:16.620
- [John S.] So, punishments
were cruel and unusual,

00:07:16.620 --> 00:07:19.070
again if they're too harsh in light

00:07:19.070 --> 00:07:20.800
of long-standing prior practice

00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:23.560
for the crime for which they're inflicted.

00:07:23.560 --> 00:07:26.540
There's another problem
with statutory law,

00:07:26.540 --> 00:07:30.790
or with decisions of a judge or a king

00:07:30.790 --> 00:07:32.850
or a president for that matter,

00:07:32.850 --> 00:07:34.100
that's also really relevant

00:07:34.100 --> 00:07:35.830
when we think about the 8th Amendment.

00:07:35.830 --> 00:07:37.430
And that is,

00:07:37.430 --> 00:07:41.430
sometimes the government
gets really mad at someone.

00:07:41.430 --> 00:07:44.440
They either think of a person
as an enemy of the state

00:07:44.440 --> 00:07:46.450
and they wanna inflict the
worst punishment they can

00:07:46.450 --> 00:07:50.360
on that person, or perhaps there's a panic

00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:52.670
about a certain group in society.

00:07:52.670 --> 00:07:55.160
So, for example, in
American society recently,

00:07:55.160 --> 00:07:57.120
there have been panics about drug crime,

00:07:57.120 --> 00:08:00.730
or panics about sex offenses,
and every time that happens,

00:08:00.730 --> 00:08:04.270
the government tries to respond
with new forms of punishment

00:08:04.270 --> 00:08:07.580
that are much, much harsher
than what came before.

00:08:07.580 --> 00:08:10.750
And so, the insight behind
the 8th Amendment is that

00:08:10.750 --> 00:08:13.780
when the government wants
to inflict a new punishment,

00:08:13.780 --> 00:08:16.760
you have to compare it against
long-standing prior practice,

00:08:16.760 --> 00:08:17.670
that is you have to compare it

00:08:17.670 --> 00:08:19.840
against the Common law, right?

00:08:19.840 --> 00:08:21.010
So the Common law was called

00:08:21.010 --> 00:08:24.870
the law of custom and long usage, right?

00:08:24.870 --> 00:08:26.170
So, if something comported

00:08:26.170 --> 00:08:28.210
with the Common law, it was usual.

00:08:28.210 --> 00:08:30.380
If it was contrary to the Common law,

00:08:30.380 --> 00:08:33.210
it was unusual, and that's
where we get the phrase

00:08:33.210 --> 00:08:35.740
cruel and unusual punishments.

00:08:35.740 --> 00:08:39.160
It's basically punishments
that are cruel in light of

00:08:39.160 --> 00:08:42.940
or in comparison to
long-standing prior practice.

00:08:42.940 --> 00:08:45.330
So the basic point of the 8th Amendment

00:08:45.330 --> 00:08:47.490
from a historical point of view is

00:08:47.490 --> 00:08:50.750
to prohibit the government from innovating

00:08:50.750 --> 00:08:55.210
in a cruel manner, making
up new cruel punishments

00:08:55.210 --> 00:08:57.050
in response to some actual

00:08:57.050 --> 00:09:01.180
or perceived provocation by a criminal.

00:09:01.180 --> 00:09:05.120
- [John B.] When the U.S.
Bill of Rights was adopted,

00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:07.300
many years later, many decades later,

00:09:07.300 --> 00:09:10.170
they had their own issues that
they were struggling with.

00:09:10.170 --> 00:09:12.350
And so, the history shows

00:09:12.350 --> 00:09:15.260
that the American founders

00:09:15.260 --> 00:09:17.260
probably meant something
different than the English meant

00:09:17.260 --> 00:09:19.180
because it was done over 100 years later,

00:09:19.180 --> 00:09:22.380
but no one knows exactly what was meant

00:09:22.380 --> 00:09:24.240
when they adopted that wording.

00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:25.350
To give you an example,

00:09:25.350 --> 00:09:27.940
when the bill was debated in Congress,

00:09:27.940 --> 00:09:29.590
a delegate from South Carolina,

00:09:29.590 --> 00:09:31.120
a representative from South Carolina said

00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:33.410
that he objected to the words nor cruel

00:09:33.410 --> 00:09:35.030
and unusual punishments because he said

00:09:35.030 --> 00:09:38.510
the import of them was too indefinite.

00:09:38.510 --> 00:09:40.200
And there was another legislator,

00:09:40.200 --> 00:09:43.017
Mr. Livermore from New
Hampshire, who said that,

00:09:43.017 --> 00:09:46.207
"The clause seems to express
a great deal of humanity

00:09:46.207 --> 00:09:48.527
"in which account I
have no objection to it,

00:09:48.527 --> 00:09:50.587
"but as it seems to have no meaning in it,

00:09:50.587 --> 00:09:52.700
"I do not think it necessary.

00:09:52.700 --> 00:09:54.820
What is meant by the
terms excessive bail?",

00:09:54.820 --> 00:09:56.540
he asked. "Who are to be the judges?",

00:09:56.540 --> 00:09:57.887
he also asked.

00:09:57.887 --> 00:10:00.200
"What is understood by excessive fines?

00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:02.350
It lies with the Court to determine."

00:10:02.350 --> 00:10:04.490
And so, that's really where
we are today in a lot of ways,

00:10:04.490 --> 00:10:05.760
the Court is still deciding,

00:10:05.760 --> 00:10:07.020
in this case the U.S. Supreme Court,

00:10:07.020 --> 00:10:08.903
is still deciding what
the 8th Amendment line

00:10:08.903 --> 00:10:10.870
what it actually means today.

00:10:10.870 --> 00:10:11.950
- [John S.] The modern case law,

00:10:11.950 --> 00:10:14.220
especially starting in the 1970s,

00:10:14.220 --> 00:10:16.370
revolved a lot around the death penalty.

00:10:16.370 --> 00:10:17.860
And so, the question was,

00:10:17.860 --> 00:10:20.670
is it still okay to execute people

00:10:20.670 --> 00:10:23.570
for various crimes short of murder?

00:10:23.570 --> 00:10:26.310
Since the 70s, the Court
has continued to do that

00:10:26.310 --> 00:10:28.440
in a number of areas so it's said

00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:31.550
you can't execute the
mentally disabled anymore,

00:10:31.550 --> 00:10:34.330
you can't execute minors,

00:10:34.330 --> 00:10:37.700
you can't execute anyone
for a non-homicide offense.

00:10:37.700 --> 00:10:39.080
Although it's limited the death penalty

00:10:39.080 --> 00:10:42.150
in the name of current
standards of decency,

00:10:42.150 --> 00:10:45.940
it's really not clear how
the Court has set about

00:10:45.940 --> 00:10:48.160
to determine whether a punishment

00:10:48.160 --> 00:10:50.060
meets current standards of decency.

00:10:50.060 --> 00:10:53.110
When the Court is kind
of on its own saying

00:10:53.110 --> 00:10:56.760
that a punishment violates
current standards of decency,

00:10:56.760 --> 00:10:57.720
despite the fact

00:10:57.720 --> 00:11:00.700
that most democratically
elected legislators

00:11:00.700 --> 00:11:02.580
actually approved the practice

00:11:02.580 --> 00:11:04.150
that it looks like the Court's acting

00:11:04.150 --> 00:11:05.850
as sort of a political body.

00:11:05.850 --> 00:11:08.450
It sort of led the Court to ignore

00:11:08.450 --> 00:11:11.600
what I think is the
real danger of cruelty,

00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:13.930
which is that when there's a public panic

00:11:13.930 --> 00:11:16.690
and the legislature responds
by ratcheting a punishment

00:11:16.690 --> 00:11:20.370
to new and unprecedented
levels of punishment.

00:11:20.370 --> 00:11:22.480
And that's actually happened quite a lot

00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:24.040
in the last 40 years.

00:11:24.040 --> 00:11:25.850
And every time there's a panic,

00:11:25.850 --> 00:11:28.490
you'll predicatively see
the legislators coming up

00:11:28.490 --> 00:11:31.160
with new punishments that are much,

00:11:31.160 --> 00:11:33.550
much harsher than what came before.

00:11:33.550 --> 00:11:35.950
And so, for example, with
registered sex offenders,

00:11:35.950 --> 00:11:37.260
there are now a bunch of states

00:11:37.260 --> 00:11:39.840
that actually impose chemical castration

00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:42.530
as a form of punishment for sex offenders.

00:11:42.530 --> 00:11:45.300
Now, castration as a form
of punishment fell out

00:11:45.300 --> 00:11:47.960
of usage in the 13th century.

00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:50.463
We're literally getting
medieval on sex offenders,

00:11:51.350 --> 00:11:54.180
but the Court can't do
anything really to stop it

00:11:54.180 --> 00:11:59.180
or at least hasn't because
these are very popular forms

00:11:59.460 --> 00:12:02.070
of punishment, everyone
hates sex offenders.

00:12:02.070 --> 00:12:04.470
- [John B.] The UN has actually decided

00:12:04.470 --> 00:12:08.230
that anything more than 15 days
use of solitary confinement

00:12:08.230 --> 00:12:10.110
should not be permitted.

00:12:10.110 --> 00:12:12.700
Justice Anthony Kennedy
actually raised the issue

00:12:12.700 --> 00:12:15.570
of solitary confinement in recent opinion.

00:12:15.570 --> 00:12:17.410
He authored for the Supreme Court,

00:12:17.410 --> 00:12:18.770
he actually raised the issue on his own,

00:12:18.770 --> 00:12:21.750
had a whole argument at
one point talking about

00:12:21.750 --> 00:12:24.620
how long people actually
spent in solitary confinement

00:12:24.620 --> 00:12:29.180
in American prisons,
including on death row.

00:12:29.180 --> 00:12:30.370
And you have cases actually

00:12:30.370 --> 00:12:33.500
where people are spending not just years,

00:12:33.500 --> 00:12:35.810
but sometimes decades on death row

00:12:35.810 --> 00:12:37.690
in these kinds of conditions.

00:12:37.690 --> 00:12:41.000
Justice Breyer just
wrote a dissent in a case

00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:43.100
where the person had been on death row

00:12:43.100 --> 00:12:46.780
for more than 40 years,
so literally four decades

00:12:46.780 --> 00:12:50.200
in these kinds of very harsh
conditions of confinement.

00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:54.250
Other countries have decided
that is not something

00:12:54.250 --> 00:12:58.120
that they want to permit and
they've actually set out a rule

00:12:58.120 --> 00:12:59.530
that anybody that's on death row

00:12:59.530 --> 00:13:01.330
for a certain number
of years, for example,

00:13:01.330 --> 00:13:03.760
would have their sentence
commuted to a life sentence

00:13:03.760 --> 00:13:05.600
because of the psychological aspect

00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:10.070
of sorta waiting for one's own death.

00:13:10.070 --> 00:13:11.070
- [Kim] In the Bill of Rights,

00:13:11.070 --> 00:13:14.590
this is the last of four
amendments actually,

00:13:14.590 --> 00:13:18.700
that are concerned with
protections for the accused.

00:13:18.700 --> 00:13:20.850
So, why do you think there's so much

00:13:20.850 --> 00:13:24.100
in the Bill of Rights
about the justice system?

00:13:24.100 --> 00:13:26.970
Were the framers particularly interested

00:13:26.970 --> 00:13:29.720
in making sure that
the accused had rights?

00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:30.820
- [John S.] Yeah, they were.

00:13:30.820 --> 00:13:34.160
And, in particular,
Americans were very devoted

00:13:34.160 --> 00:13:38.170
to the idea of the Common law
as a source of rights, right?

00:13:38.170 --> 00:13:41.140
In fact, that's why we had
the American Revolution

00:13:41.140 --> 00:13:43.630
in the first place, was
that England was denying

00:13:43.630 --> 00:13:47.790
to Americans Common law
rights, like the right not

00:13:47.790 --> 00:13:50.450
to be taxed without
representation in parliament,

00:13:50.450 --> 00:13:53.060
but also more specifically
to the criminal law,

00:13:53.060 --> 00:13:54.430
they were denying them the right

00:13:54.430 --> 00:13:57.410
to a jury trial in criminal cases.

00:13:57.410 --> 00:13:59.910
And so, Americans wanted to make sure that

00:13:59.910 --> 00:14:02.980
when the U.S. Constitution was adopted,

00:14:02.980 --> 00:14:05.900
that those Common law rights
that had built up over time

00:14:05.900 --> 00:14:09.150
in England would be preserved

00:14:09.150 --> 00:14:13.060
in the new American constitutional order.

00:14:13.060 --> 00:14:16.280
And many of those rights
had to do with criminal law,

00:14:16.280 --> 00:14:19.230
both criminal procedures
and, to some degree,

00:14:19.230 --> 00:14:22.240
subset of criminal law and, of
course, criminal punishments.

00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:24.360
And again, the reason gets back to sort of

00:14:24.360 --> 00:14:25.980
what I said at the beginning,

00:14:25.980 --> 00:14:28.560
which is that when the
government punishes someone,

00:14:28.560 --> 00:14:30.990
that's about the worst thing it can do.

00:14:30.990 --> 00:14:33.590
And because the early Americans

00:14:33.590 --> 00:14:37.380
who framed the Constitution
were very powerfully concerned

00:14:37.380 --> 00:14:39.880
with liberty, they wanted
to make sure the government

00:14:39.880 --> 00:14:43.780
would preserve their liberty,
protect their liberty,

00:14:43.780 --> 00:14:46.170
and not become tyrannical, right?

00:14:46.170 --> 00:14:48.700
And so, one of the main ways

00:14:48.700 --> 00:14:50.910
that they wanted to
make sure this happened

00:14:50.910 --> 00:14:53.550
was by limiting the
power of the government

00:14:53.550 --> 00:14:55.620
to punish whoever it wanted to

00:14:55.620 --> 00:14:57.340
for any reason that it wanted to.

00:14:57.340 --> 00:15:00.860
And so, we have a, really the
majority of the protections

00:15:00.860 --> 00:15:02.870
in the Bill of Rights have to do

00:15:02.870 --> 00:15:05.390
with the protections
for criminal defendants.

00:15:05.390 --> 00:15:08.560
- [Kim] What about excessive
bail and excessive fines?

00:15:08.560 --> 00:15:10.130
How can we define

00:15:10.130 --> 00:15:11.850
what kind of,

00:15:11.850 --> 00:15:14.360
financial penalty,

00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:17.780
is proportionate to a crime?

00:15:17.780 --> 00:15:19.260
- [John B.] The courts
have said, essentially,

00:15:19.260 --> 00:15:21.030
they've looked at dictionary definitions

00:15:21.030 --> 00:15:24.790
that excessive means
more than is necessary.

00:15:24.790 --> 00:15:26.430
One of the core principles
actually go back

00:15:26.430 --> 00:15:29.490
to look at Beccaria's work in the 1760s.

00:15:29.490 --> 00:15:32.497
He talked about this
idea of a scale of crimes

00:15:32.497 --> 00:15:34.670
and a scale of punishments, and he said

00:15:34.670 --> 00:15:37.874
that there should be
proportionality between the two.

00:15:37.874 --> 00:15:39.760
And so, that proportionality
principle is one

00:15:39.760 --> 00:15:43.260
that we're really still
wrestling with today.

00:15:43.260 --> 00:15:47.490
- [John S.] Now, the point of
bail is not to punish someone,

00:15:47.490 --> 00:15:48.730
but rather just to make sure

00:15:48.730 --> 00:15:51.710
that they will appear at trial, right?

00:15:51.710 --> 00:15:54.640
And so, the amount of
money you have to impose

00:15:54.640 --> 00:15:57.550
for bail doesn't depend so much
on what crime you committed,

00:15:57.550 --> 00:16:00.760
but what your financial
resources are, right?

00:16:00.760 --> 00:16:02.630
It depends partially on the crime too,

00:16:02.630 --> 00:16:04.160
but largely on your financial resources.

00:16:04.160 --> 00:16:06.650
So the amount of money
necessary to make sure

00:16:06.650 --> 00:16:09.460
that a poor man appears at trial

00:16:09.460 --> 00:16:10.810
is probably gonna be much lower

00:16:10.810 --> 00:16:12.480
than the amount of money
necessary to make sure

00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:14.650
that a rich man appears at trial.

00:16:14.650 --> 00:16:17.680
And so, it's a standard
that depends partly

00:16:17.680 --> 00:16:18.513
on the nature of the crime,

00:16:18.513 --> 00:16:22.470
but also partially on the
nature of the offender.

00:16:22.470 --> 00:16:25.120
- [Kim] I imagine that
what seems like cruel

00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:30.120
and unusual punishment in
the 18th century might not be

00:16:30.180 --> 00:16:32.870
what we consider cruel and unusual today.

00:16:32.870 --> 00:16:37.670
For example, we don't do
whipping as a punishment anymore.

00:16:37.670 --> 00:16:39.940
How has what counts as cruel

00:16:39.940 --> 00:16:43.100
and unusual punishment changed over time?

00:16:43.100 --> 00:16:44.910
- [John B.] The law
really changes gradually

00:16:44.910 --> 00:16:46.070
over time, as you know.

00:16:46.070 --> 00:16:48.610
And so, when you look back at history

00:16:48.610 --> 00:16:50.310
they actually had a large collection

00:16:50.310 --> 00:16:55.310
of pretty gruesome punishments
back in the 18th century.

00:16:56.050 --> 00:16:58.360
And we had non-lethal
corporal punishments,

00:16:58.360 --> 00:17:00.990
they used things like branding people,

00:17:00.990 --> 00:17:04.410
they, of course, were
whipping slaves back then,

00:17:04.410 --> 00:17:06.060
slavery was still around,

00:17:06.060 --> 00:17:08.870
this was well before the Civil War ended,

00:17:08.870 --> 00:17:10.470
the institution of slavery.

00:17:10.470 --> 00:17:12.720
And we also had things like ear cropping,

00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:15.400
people would get their ears cut off.

00:17:15.400 --> 00:17:18.350
In the Crimes Act of 1790,

00:17:18.350 --> 00:17:20.450
which was passed just the
year before the ratification

00:17:20.450 --> 00:17:22.610
of the 8th Amendment,

00:17:22.610 --> 00:17:25.800
the Congress actually
authorized public whipping,

00:17:25.800 --> 00:17:29.200
lashing of people, and also
authorized the pillory,

00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:32.110
the same punishment that had
been used against Titus Oates.

00:17:32.110 --> 00:17:36.510
So, there was these non-lethal
corporal punishments,

00:17:36.510 --> 00:17:40.087
and really the death penalty
is sort of the last vestige

00:17:40.087 --> 00:17:42.287
of bodily punishment
that the 8th Amendment,

00:17:43.140 --> 00:17:44.690
the Supreme Court has
read the 8th Amendment

00:17:44.690 --> 00:17:47.540
to allow the use of capital punishment.

00:17:47.540 --> 00:17:49.180
That issue is still a very live one

00:17:49.180 --> 00:17:50.080
before the Supreme Court.

00:17:50.080 --> 00:17:51.250
We're now seeing challenges

00:17:51.250 --> 00:17:54.470
about lethal injection, protocols.

00:17:54.470 --> 00:17:58.700
We saw a challenge to a
protocol in Kentucky in 2008.

00:17:58.700 --> 00:18:03.360
We saw one to a protocol
in Oklahoma in 2015.

00:18:03.360 --> 00:18:04.233
These, of course, are things

00:18:04.233 --> 00:18:06.720
that the founding fathers
would never have envisioned .

00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:09.270
- [John S.] Lethal
injection typically involves

00:18:09.270 --> 00:18:10.820
a three-drug cocktail.

00:18:10.820 --> 00:18:12.070
So there's a barbiturate,

00:18:12.070 --> 00:18:13.730
which is supposed to put you to sleep.

00:18:13.730 --> 00:18:15.130
There's a paralyzing agent,

00:18:15.130 --> 00:18:16.480
which paralyzes your body

00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:18.300
and also stops your lungs from moving.

00:18:18.300 --> 00:18:19.910
And there's a heart-stopping agent.

00:18:19.910 --> 00:18:21.810
Give the offender all three

00:18:21.810 --> 00:18:25.320
and they're supposed to
die quickly and painlessly.

00:18:25.320 --> 00:18:28.170
But the problem is if
the sedative doesn't put

00:18:28.170 --> 00:18:32.130
you completely, deeply unconscious,

00:18:32.130 --> 00:18:35.780
then the other two drugs are likely

00:18:35.780 --> 00:18:38.350
to make you suffer quite
a bit before you die.

00:18:38.350 --> 00:18:41.270
And so, the question is
this cruel and unusual,

00:18:41.270 --> 00:18:43.370
or is it not cruel and unusual?

00:18:43.370 --> 00:18:47.670
And to date, the Supreme
Court has twice held

00:18:47.670 --> 00:18:50.610
that lethal injection is
not cruel and unusual,

00:18:50.610 --> 00:18:52.080
and their main reason has been

00:18:52.080 --> 00:18:55.200
that the state's not trying
to torture you to death.

00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:57.960
And so, if maybe, or
sometimes accidentally,

00:18:57.960 --> 00:19:00.750
tortured to death, well,
that's just too bad,

00:19:00.750 --> 00:19:02.700
but it's not a cruel
and unusual punishment.

00:19:02.700 --> 00:19:03.533
- [John B.] So, the Supreme Court

00:19:03.533 --> 00:19:05.640
has approved various methods of execution.

00:19:05.640 --> 00:19:06.547
At the same time, however,

00:19:06.547 --> 00:19:10.300
the 8th Amendment has been
read to protect prisoners.

00:19:10.300 --> 00:19:11.400
So, in general,

00:19:11.400 --> 00:19:13.330
the 8th Amendment is sort
of a protective shield

00:19:13.330 --> 00:19:14.990
that prohibits prison guards

00:19:14.990 --> 00:19:17.770
from gratuitously beating up inmates.

00:19:17.770 --> 00:19:22.770
It requires prisons to provide
some level of healthcare

00:19:23.180 --> 00:19:25.390
to prisoners because they
cannot get it themselves,

00:19:25.390 --> 00:19:27.120
they're sort of wards of the state

00:19:27.120 --> 00:19:28.960
once they're put in prison.

00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:32.710
It requires inmates be fed and sheltered.

00:19:32.710 --> 00:19:33.690
So, in a lot of ways,

00:19:33.690 --> 00:19:37.700
the 8th Amendment is a protective
shield protecting inmates,

00:19:37.700 --> 00:19:40.280
but then in the use of
the capital punishment

00:19:40.280 --> 00:19:42.000
it becomes what I like to call kind of a,

00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:45.120
it's kind of a Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde kind of jurisprudence

00:19:45.120 --> 00:19:47.420
that the 8th Amendment has right now.

00:19:47.420 --> 00:19:50.020
- [Kim] So we've learned
that the 8th Amendment seeks

00:19:50.020 --> 00:19:52.060
to limit the power of the government

00:19:52.060 --> 00:19:54.040
in meting out punishment to people

00:19:54.040 --> 00:19:57.270
who have been accused
or convicted of a crime.

00:19:57.270 --> 00:19:59.340
Although it's hard to tell exactly

00:19:59.340 --> 00:20:01.950
what constitutes excessive fines or bail,

00:20:01.950 --> 00:20:04.360
in general, it's accepted
that those punishments

00:20:04.360 --> 00:20:07.210
should be proportional to
the crimes in question.

00:20:07.210 --> 00:20:10.550
Today, one of the biggest
debates concerns whether,

00:20:10.550 --> 00:20:14.810
or how, the 8th Amendment
may limit the death penalty.

00:20:14.810 --> 00:20:16.490
To learn more about the 8th Amendment,

00:20:16.490 --> 00:20:18.400
visit the National Constituiton Center's

00:20:18.400 --> 00:20:21.810
interactive Constitution
and Khan Academy's resources

00:20:21.810 --> 00:20:23.853
on U.S. government and politics.


Developing an American colonial identity

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.150 --> 00:00:02.530
- [Instructor] The first
long-term English colony

00:00:02.530 --> 00:00:06.710
in North America was established
at Jamestown in 1607.

00:00:06.710 --> 00:00:09.070
No one expected that it
would last very long.

00:00:09.070 --> 00:00:10.480
It was intended to be a get rich

00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:12.270
quick scheme for its investors,

00:00:12.270 --> 00:00:14.900
who hoped they would find gold
in the swamps of Virginia.

00:00:14.900 --> 00:00:17.560
They didn't, but they did
find that they could grow

00:00:17.560 --> 00:00:20.060
a valuable cash crop in tobacco.

00:00:20.060 --> 00:00:22.160
Over the next century more and more

00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:25.060
English settlements began
haphazardly popping up

00:00:25.060 --> 00:00:27.240
along the Atlantic
seaboard of North America.

00:00:27.240 --> 00:00:29.740
Some founded as religious refuges,

00:00:29.740 --> 00:00:34.600
some as proprietary colonies,
some as joint stock companies.

00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:37.110
Compared to the Spanish
Empire in the New World,

00:00:37.110 --> 00:00:41.020
which had clear goals and
unified colonial systems,

00:00:41.020 --> 00:00:43.860
the English Empire was
pretty disorganized.

00:00:43.860 --> 00:00:46.290
Internal strife like the English Civil War

00:00:46.290 --> 00:00:48.150
and the Glorious Revolution,

00:00:48.150 --> 00:00:50.570
meant that the government
kept changing hands,

00:00:50.570 --> 00:00:53.560
and some monarchs took
a more hands on approach

00:00:53.560 --> 00:00:55.220
towards the colonies than others.

00:00:55.220 --> 00:00:58.740
This benign neglect of
the American colonies

00:00:58.740 --> 00:01:00.800
left them to develop self-government

00:01:00.800 --> 00:01:02.600
and a sense of independence.

00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:06.400
But even in the early 1770s
most American colonist

00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:09.270
thought of themselves as English citizens

00:01:09.270 --> 00:01:11.000
who were part of the British Empire.

00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:13.640
They read the same books,
spoke the same language,

00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:16.230
drank the same tea, and
fought the same enemies

00:01:16.230 --> 00:01:18.420
as their counterparts
on the British Isles.

00:01:18.420 --> 00:01:21.250
Nevertheless, there was
something clearly different

00:01:21.250 --> 00:01:23.870
about the 13 colonies in North America.

00:01:23.870 --> 00:01:26.740
After all, there were more
than 30 British colonies

00:01:26.740 --> 00:01:30.570
in the Caribbean and
North America by 1776.

00:01:30.570 --> 00:01:35.460
So why did those 13 in
particular unite and rebel?

00:01:35.460 --> 00:01:37.190
So that leaves us with a question.

00:01:37.190 --> 00:01:40.290
During this period of
colonial development,

00:01:40.290 --> 00:01:43.710
how British were the American colonists?

00:01:43.710 --> 00:01:45.880
What aspects of society brought them

00:01:45.880 --> 00:01:47.580
closer with the mother country,

00:01:47.580 --> 00:01:51.520
and what aspects brought on
resistance to Britain's control?

00:01:51.520 --> 00:01:53.780
Let's take a look at the major political,

00:01:53.780 --> 00:01:56.810
social and economic
exchanges that took place

00:01:56.810 --> 00:01:59.400
between the British Empire
and the 13 colonies,

00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:01.400
and compare whether they either brought

00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:03.950
the colonies in the mother
country closer together

00:02:03.950 --> 00:02:07.450
or created resentment that
drove them further apart.

00:02:07.450 --> 00:02:10.880
Okay, first let's look at
the political exchanges

00:02:10.880 --> 00:02:12.570
between the colonies and England.

00:02:12.570 --> 00:02:15.750
One thing that they shared
was a political culture.

00:02:15.750 --> 00:02:18.030
A shared sense that all citizens,

00:02:18.030 --> 00:02:19.870
both at home and in the colonies,

00:02:19.870 --> 00:02:21.930
enjoyed the rights of Englishmen.

00:02:21.930 --> 00:02:25.060
So I would say that the political
culture that the colonies,

00:02:25.060 --> 00:02:27.910
and later the United States,
inherited from England

00:02:27.910 --> 00:02:30.930
was a factor that united them with Empire.

00:02:30.930 --> 00:02:33.500
But because the colonies were far away

00:02:33.500 --> 00:02:35.280
from the mother country and because

00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:37.520
the mother country was
often too distracted

00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:40.930
by its own problems to take an
active role in managing them,

00:02:40.930 --> 00:02:42.910
the colonies also developed their own

00:02:42.910 --> 00:02:45.070
local representative governments.

00:02:45.070 --> 00:02:49.110
This led to a tradition of
self-rule and self-taxation,

00:02:49.110 --> 00:02:51.160
and the colonists were irate any time

00:02:51.160 --> 00:02:52.950
the British colonial governors attempted

00:02:52.950 --> 00:02:55.730
to interfere with their
representative bodies.

00:02:55.730 --> 00:02:57.990
So I would say this tended to divide

00:02:57.990 --> 00:02:59.620
the colonies from England.

00:02:59.620 --> 00:03:00.960
What else happened politically?

00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:02.870
Well, during this time
period there was also

00:03:02.870 --> 00:03:05.420
a lot of warfare against competing

00:03:05.420 --> 00:03:07.490
colonial powers in North America,

00:03:07.490 --> 00:03:10.040
particularly France and Spain,

00:03:10.040 --> 00:03:12.840
who were supported by
Native American allies.

00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:16.440
For the colonists warfare
against a common enemy

00:03:16.440 --> 00:03:17.980
strengthened their sense that they

00:03:17.980 --> 00:03:19.430
belonged to the British Empire.

00:03:19.430 --> 00:03:21.840
But they also felt
frustrated when they didn't

00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:24.520
receive enough help
defending their settlements

00:03:24.520 --> 00:03:28.310
or when British regulars
insulted their colonial militias.

00:03:28.310 --> 00:03:30.030
So these conflicts were probably both

00:03:30.030 --> 00:03:32.870
a source of unity and division between

00:03:32.870 --> 00:03:35.210
the colonists and the British Government.

00:03:35.210 --> 00:03:37.760
Next, let's look at some of the social

00:03:37.760 --> 00:03:39.680
and cultural exchanges that happened

00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:42.140
between the colonies and
England during this period.

00:03:42.140 --> 00:03:45.760
A big area of cultural
exchange was in religion.

00:03:45.760 --> 00:03:47.440
America became the destination

00:03:47.440 --> 00:03:49.520
of choice for religious dissenters

00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:51.990
since most of the colonies
were fairly tolerant

00:03:51.990 --> 00:03:53.730
of a broad range of religions.

00:03:53.730 --> 00:03:55.780
The established Church of England

00:03:55.780 --> 00:03:57.820
was pretty weak in the colonies.

00:03:57.820 --> 00:04:00.970
So religion in general
didn't tie the colonies

00:04:00.970 --> 00:04:02.470
together with the mother country.

00:04:02.470 --> 00:04:05.770
But in the early 1700s both
England and the colonies

00:04:05.770 --> 00:04:07.960
experienced a shared religious

00:04:07.960 --> 00:04:10.150
revival with the Great Awakening.

00:04:10.150 --> 00:04:12.610
One of the most popular
preachers throughout the colonies

00:04:12.610 --> 00:04:15.140
was the English parson George Whitefield.

00:04:15.140 --> 00:04:16.640
So we might put religion down as

00:04:16.640 --> 00:04:19.310
something that both united and divided

00:04:19.310 --> 00:04:20.930
the colonies from Great Britain.

00:04:20.930 --> 00:04:24.340
Another shared cultural
experience was the Enlightenment,

00:04:24.340 --> 00:04:27.480
which spread ideas about
reason and self-government

00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:28.930
through books and pamphlets that

00:04:28.930 --> 00:04:31.040
were read all over the Atlantic world.

00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:34.040
Ben Franklin, the American
printer and scientist,

00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:36.720
was as famous in England
as he was in the colonies.

00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:38.730
So the shared ideas of the Enlightenment

00:04:38.730 --> 00:04:41.700
brought the Empire together,
at least at this point.

00:04:41.700 --> 00:04:43.480
Another aspect of cultural exchange

00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:46.080
was fashion and consumer goods.

00:04:46.080 --> 00:04:48.950
The elite American colonists dressed

00:04:48.950 --> 00:04:52.480
like the English gentry, built
homes in the English style,

00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:54.730
imported luxury goods from England,

00:04:54.730 --> 00:04:57.510
and drank tea like the
fashionable British.

00:04:57.510 --> 00:05:00.240
So these cultural exchanges
definitely were a force

00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:02.700
uniting the colonies
with the mother country.

00:05:02.700 --> 00:05:06.440
Last, let's examine economic exchanges.

00:05:06.440 --> 00:05:08.430
One thing that the colonies had in common

00:05:08.430 --> 00:05:10.800
with the rest of the British Empire was

00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:14.760
their dependence on slave
labor to produce cash crops.

00:05:14.760 --> 00:05:18.130
British investors and
the owners of slave ships

00:05:18.130 --> 00:05:20.050
and plantations in the Caribbean

00:05:20.050 --> 00:05:22.720
were deeply involved in
the system of slavery.

00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:25.120
And so were the 13 American colonies,

00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:27.970
which produced food for enslaved laborers,

00:05:27.970 --> 00:05:31.080
turned slave produced molasses into rum,

00:05:31.080 --> 00:05:33.690
and shipped enslaved
people across the Atlantic,

00:05:33.690 --> 00:05:36.310
not to mention the American
slave owners in the South.

00:05:36.310 --> 00:05:38.920
Slavery was central to the united

00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:41.720
economic prosperity of the British Empire.

00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:43.310
Another central aspect of the

00:05:43.310 --> 00:05:45.950
British Empire's economy was mercantilism,

00:05:45.950 --> 00:05:48.130
an economic philosophy that championed

00:05:48.130 --> 00:05:51.580
using colonies as sources of raw materials

00:05:51.580 --> 00:05:53.950
and as markets for finished goods.

00:05:53.950 --> 00:05:58.320
Mercantilism both helped and
hindered the American colonies

00:05:58.320 --> 00:06:00.300
by making sure that their raw materials

00:06:00.300 --> 00:06:02.250
got preferential treatment in England,

00:06:02.250 --> 00:06:04.870
but also by preventing them from

00:06:04.870 --> 00:06:06.850
developing industries of their own.

00:06:06.850 --> 00:06:08.680
So I would say that mercantilism both

00:06:08.680 --> 00:06:12.080
united and divided the
colonies from the Empire.

00:06:12.080 --> 00:06:14.970
Along with mercantilism
came the Navigation Acts,

00:06:14.970 --> 00:06:16.880
a series of laws passed by Parliament

00:06:16.880 --> 00:06:19.610
that attempted to prevent
the American colonies

00:06:19.610 --> 00:06:21.520
from trading with other countries.

00:06:21.520 --> 00:06:24.030
Basically a way to
enforce that the benefits

00:06:24.030 --> 00:06:26.230
of mercantilism went to England alone.

00:06:26.230 --> 00:06:29.050
But there were two major problems
with the Navigation Acts.

00:06:29.050 --> 00:06:32.100
First, the British Government
rarely enforced them,

00:06:32.100 --> 00:06:34.510
especially when it was
occupied with other matters.

00:06:34.510 --> 00:06:36.100
The other problem was that even when

00:06:36.100 --> 00:06:39.310
efforts were made to
enforce the Navigation Acts,

00:06:39.310 --> 00:06:41.000
American merchants responded by

00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:44.890
smuggling and bribing officials,
not by obeying the law.

00:06:44.890 --> 00:06:46.740
So the Navigation Acts worked to

00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:48.740
divide the colonies from the Empire,

00:06:48.740 --> 00:06:50.820
both because they didn't work and because

00:06:50.820 --> 00:06:53.840
they hampered American's
belief in free trade.

00:06:53.840 --> 00:06:56.900
Taking a look at these
three categories as a whole,

00:06:56.900 --> 00:06:59.970
you can see that the
colonists had mixed feelings

00:06:59.970 --> 00:07:01.960
about their role in the British Empire.

00:07:01.960 --> 00:07:04.750
In terms of social and cultural exchanges

00:07:04.750 --> 00:07:06.790
it seems like the colonies were tied into

00:07:06.790 --> 00:07:10.220
a greater world of ideas that
spanned across the Atlantic.

00:07:10.220 --> 00:07:12.810
But both politically and economically

00:07:12.810 --> 00:07:15.590
there were developments
that bonded the colonies

00:07:15.590 --> 00:07:17.420
closer together with Great Britain

00:07:17.420 --> 00:07:19.570
and developments that had the colonies

00:07:19.570 --> 00:07:22.170
tugging at their leashes
and trying to run free.

00:07:22.170 --> 00:07:23.820
These mixed feelings might help

00:07:23.820 --> 00:07:27.070
to explain why in 1754 the colonies

00:07:27.070 --> 00:07:29.670
had not yet pursued their independence.

00:07:29.670 --> 00:07:32.440
But are there some things
that I've identified here

00:07:32.440 --> 00:07:37.250
as promoting unity that might
not be so unifying by 1776?

00:07:37.250 --> 00:07:39.870
What changed between this
point and the signing

00:07:39.870 --> 00:07:41.630
of the Declaration of Independence

00:07:41.630 --> 00:07:45.553
that pushed the colonists off
the fence and into revolution?