The Second Amendment

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- [Kim] Hi, this is Kim from Khan Academy.

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And today I'm learning
about the Second Amendment

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of the US Constitution,

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which states that a well-regulated militia

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being necessary to the
security of a free state,

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the right of the people
to keep and bear arms

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shall not be infringed.

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To learn more about the Second Amendment,

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I talked to two experts.

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Alan Gura is a lawyer
who successfully argued

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two landmark Second Amendment cases

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before the Supreme Court.

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Adam Winkler is a professor at UCLA Law

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and the author of Gunfight:

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The Battle over the Right
to Bear Arms in America.

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So, Professor Winkler,

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why did the Framers include an amendment

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on the right to keep and bear arms?

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- [Adam] Well, really,
there's been some debate

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over what the meaning of the
right to keep and bear arms is.

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But the most common view,

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and the view supported by the
United States Supreme Court,

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is that the Second Amendment
protects individual liberty,

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in particular the right
to keep and bear arms

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for self-defense.

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Back in the Founding Era,

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the Framers were concerned
about self-defense

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in terms of armed state militias

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made up of common citizens

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who would prevent federal overreach.

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So the federal government
wouldn't be able to run

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over the liberties of the people

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because of these armed state militias.

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And so the Second Amendment was in part

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about protecting those
armed state militias.

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Indeed, the fear behind
all of the Bill of Rights

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was that the Constitution

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gave the new federal
government too much power

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and the federal government
would use that power

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to inhibit liberty.

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And so that was the self-defense
of the Founding Era.

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- [Alan] When we look at the text,

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the first thing that
people should focus on

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is the phrase 'the right of the people,'

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and in particular the
word 'the' before right,

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I think that might be, actually,

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the most important word in the amendment.

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Because what it tells us is
that the right of the people,

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which is the subject of this amendment,

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is a pre-existing right.

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And the fact that this
was a pre-existing right

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tells us that the Framers thought

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that there was something
that was out there

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in their legal system

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that they were preserving
against violation,

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and in fact that is the case.

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In English law,

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since well before the Revolution,

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it had been settled and determined

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that people had an individual right

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to have arms for self-protection.

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And this right was understood

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to enable people to protect themselves

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both against criminal private violence

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as well as the right of
people to protect themselves

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against some culture upon their liberties

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by a tyrant or by a misguided king.

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This was a right that the Framers

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were well-acquainted with in English law

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and they were very
perturbed that the British,

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during the time of the Revolution,

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were violating this right.

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There were various instances

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of the British disarming Americans

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obviously in an attempt to keep
the colonists from revolting

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and an attempt to prevent
them from resisting the king.

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The Battle of Lexington
and Concord, of course,

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which started the Revolution,

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was nothing but a British march

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upon the armories in those towns

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in an attempt to suppress
the right to arms.

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And so what you saw was,

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when the time came for a Bill of Rights,

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you saw five out of seven states
proposed a Bill of Rights,

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and the only provisions common

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in all the demands for a Bill of Rights

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were the right to religious
freedom and the right to arms.

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Now, the Framers were
not necessarily concerned

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about the modern gun control
which is in controversy today.

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- [Adam] Today we have a
different kind of self-defense

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we generally think about
with the Second Amendment.

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And that's about individuals
defending themselves

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against criminals.

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That's a very personal kind of liberty,

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defending yourself against someone

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trying to take away your life,
your health, your property,

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the life of your loved ones.

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And one thing that we need to remember

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is that this kind of change

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in the meaning of a
constitutional amendment over time

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is very common among our
constitutional rights

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as we take the underlying principles

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that are embodied in the text

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and we apply them to modern circumstances.

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- [Kim] What about in this early period

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with the Articles of Confederation,

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did state constitutions also
protect the right to bear arms?

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- [Alan] Yes, there
were state constitutions

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that protected the right to bear arms,

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most notably the
Pennsylvania Constitution.

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Article 13 of the Pennsylvania
Constitution provided,

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quote, that the people
have a right to bear arms

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for the defense of
themselves and the state.

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In Vermont's Constitution
the following year,

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chapter one, article 15
copied that language.

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And you would see other late 18th century,

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early 19th century constitutions

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keep this language or some version of it.

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And what you would notice is

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that this language of course talks

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about the two dimensions
of the right to bear arms.

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That people have a right to bear arms

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for the defense of themselves,

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that can only be
interpreted as self-defense.

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And also for the defense of the state,

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that is they can use those arms
that they individually have

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and gather together and
work to defend the society

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from some force that's attacking them.

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- [Kim] This is really fascinating.

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So, my background is in US history,

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and I know that one of the reasons

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that the Framers decided that
they needed a Constitution

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that would change the
form of the US government

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from what it had been under
the Articles of Confederation

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was Shays' Rebellion,

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when a group of armed farmers
from Western Massachusetts

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marched on Springfield.

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So they had taken their military past

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as a militia in the Revolutionary War

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and then turned that against
the new US government

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instead of the British government.

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Did the Framers have any reservations

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about trying to protect militias

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in light of Shays' Rebellion?

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- [Adam] The Founders did have concerns

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about armed militias,

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as exemplified by Shays' Rebellion.

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They were worried about
self-proclaimed militias,

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groups of basically armed
uprisings in disguise

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that claimed the mantel of a militia

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but were really just trouble-makers
who were taking up arms.

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And that was kind of how Shays' Rebellion

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was thought of at the time.

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And that's why when we think
about the Second Amendment,

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we should focus on that language

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that the Framers were sure to include,

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which is that the militias
must be well-regulated.

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So the Second Amendment itself says

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a well-regulated militia being necessary

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for the security of a free state,

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the right of the people
to keep and bear arms

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shall not be infringed.

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And so they understood
that there was a militia,

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common citizens who took up arms

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to help defend the state and nation.

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But they recognized that the
militia must be well-regulated,

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disciplined, orderly, subject
to appropriate command.

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It wasn't a right for any
self-proclaimed group of radicals

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to get together and grab their guns.

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It was instead a right to
have an orderly state militia

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which was an important
source of national defense

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at the time of the Founding Era.

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- [Kim] So, I see that
the Second Amendment

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and the Third Amendment,

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which bans the government
from quartering soldiers

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in people's houses,

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both reflect fears about standing armies

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and also the dangers of having

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very strong government military power.

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But today we have a very strong
government military power

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and a standing army.

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So to what extent are those
concerns still relevant today?

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- [Alan] Well, those concerns
are still relevant today.

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We're very blessed in America

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that we have a long
tradition of civilian control

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over the military,

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and, in our culture,

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the military has not been
used to suppress the people.

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That's not our experience.

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But it has been the experience
sadly in many other places

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including through today.

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And what the Second Amendment
reflects is the notion

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that the government should
not have a monopoly on force,

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there has to be some means

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that people might still
retain the ability to act

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to defend themselves,

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whether that's against
a private individual,

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a felon, a miscreant,

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or whether it's against
something more nefarious.

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- [Adam] Our understanding

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of what's necessary for national defense

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is very different than it
was in the Founding Era

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because our society is so much different.

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We don't have militias
of ordinary citizens

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the way we once did back
in the Founding Era.

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And we don't have troops
occupying people's homes

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the way the Founders did.

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But nonetheless I think the
Second and Third Amendment

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both have principles
embodied in their text

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that remain relevant for today

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and should not be thought
of as dead letters

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just because the particular
concerns that gave rise to them

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no longer remain our concerns,

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because the principles they embody

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are more important and more enduring.

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- [Alan] We have been blessed

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with peaceful transitions of power,

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with a vibrant democracy.

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Perhaps at least some aspect
of our happy experience

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relative to those of our
friends and ancestors in Europe

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is that we do have a culture

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that includes the
widespread of private arms.

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And that may have a beneficial effect

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in making sure that
everybody plays by the rules

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and observes normal political
conventions and norms.

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- [Kim] So, what are some of
the major Supreme Court cases

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that have shaped our understanding
of the Second Amendment?

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- [Alan] The first one was a case called

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United States v. Miller

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that arose in the 1930s.

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In Miller you had a situation

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where an individual was a gangster

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and he was caught with
a sawed-off shotgun,

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which at the time and still now

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does require a special tax stamp

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that Mr. Miller did not have,

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and he argued that the Second Amendment

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secured his right to this weapon.

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The government took the
case to the Supreme Court,

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and at the conclusion of the
somewhat confused opinion,

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the Supreme Court remanded the case back

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to the District Court

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for a determination as to whether or not

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the sawed-off shotgun
was an arm of the type

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whose possession is protected
by the Second Amendment.

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Subsequently, Mr. Miller was murdered,

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so perhaps he needed a gun
of some kind after all,

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but we never got the
answer to that question.

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So I would read that case,
as other people do, and say,

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look, obviously the Supreme Court thought

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there was some individual right to arms.

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If the Court had held

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that there is no individual right to arms,

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it would have been a much simpler opinion,

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they would've just said so

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and that would've been
the end of the matter.

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But instead, because
more evidence was needed

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relating to whether or not
this was an arm of the type

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that Mr. Miller could posses,

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that shows that there was
some right therein issue.

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Much more helpful, of course,

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is the case that I argued
in the Supreme Court,

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DC v. Heller,

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which was a coherent,
detailed, fully-briefed,

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and exhaustively opined matter

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which struck down various
Washington, DC, gun control laws.

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The main laws at issue in Heller

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were a District of Columbia law

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that banned the possession of all handguns

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by people effectively,

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and also a law that prohibited people

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from having operative
firearms in their home.

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You could have a long
gun or rifle or a shotgun

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in your home in DC

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but you could never
render that operational

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for use in self-defense inside your home.

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Oddly enough, you could
use it in self-defense

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in a place of business,

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just not at your home.

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- [Adam] The most important
case on the Second Amendment

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is District of Columbia against Heller,

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where the Court held
for the very first time

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that the Second Amendment

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protects an individual right to bear arms

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and struck down a gun control law.

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That was a very important case,

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a landmark ruling that has led

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to many, many, many court cases

00:12:38.950 --> 00:12:40.970
challenging the constitutionality

00:12:40.970 --> 00:12:43.520
of a wide number of gun control laws.

00:12:43.520 --> 00:12:44.890
The Supreme Court has not

00:12:44.890 --> 00:12:47.370
again stepped into the Second Amendment,

00:12:47.370 --> 00:12:49.170
with one exception.

00:12:49.170 --> 00:12:53.510
The Court in a case called
McDonald v. City of Chicago

00:12:53.510 --> 00:12:56.490
held that the Second
Amendment applied equally

00:12:56.490 --> 00:12:57.740
to the federal government

00:12:57.740 --> 00:13:00.480
and to the state and local governments.

00:13:00.480 --> 00:13:02.780
One thing to remember about
our constitutional rights

00:13:02.780 --> 00:13:06.010
is that they don't automatically apply

00:13:06.010 --> 00:13:08.590
to the state and local governments.

00:13:08.590 --> 00:13:11.520
But the McDonald case held
that the Second Amendment

00:13:11.520 --> 00:13:13.430
and the principles of the Second Amendment

00:13:13.430 --> 00:13:16.400
nonetheless applied to the states as well.

00:13:16.400 --> 00:13:17.940
And that's pretty common as well.

00:13:17.940 --> 00:13:19.470
Over the course of the 20th century,

00:13:19.470 --> 00:13:20.900
the Supreme Court has held

00:13:20.900 --> 00:13:23.840
that nearly all of the
provisions of the Bill of Rights

00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:27.530
apply equally to the state
and local governments.

00:13:27.530 --> 00:13:29.810
- [Kim] How about limits
on the Second Amendment?

00:13:29.810 --> 00:13:32.870
I mean, I couldn't own a tank, right?

00:13:32.870 --> 00:13:35.820
What sort of limits may
the government place

00:13:35.820 --> 00:13:37.570
on the right to keep and bear arms?

00:13:37.570 --> 00:13:40.610
- [Alan] Well, the Second
Amendment, like other rights,

00:13:40.610 --> 00:13:41.900
has some limitations.

00:13:41.900 --> 00:13:45.980
The first limitations are, of
course, as with all rights,

00:13:45.980 --> 00:13:48.470
given to us by the scope
of the actual rights.

00:13:48.470 --> 00:13:50.823
There are many things that
simply aren't included

00:13:50.823 --> 00:13:52.130
in a particular right.

00:13:52.130 --> 00:13:54.640
The right of free speech, for example,

00:13:54.640 --> 00:13:57.610
guarantees you the right
to speak in some ways.

00:13:57.610 --> 00:14:01.050
But perjuries speech,
terroristic threats or speech,

00:14:01.050 --> 00:14:02.640
extortion is a form of speech,

00:14:02.640 --> 00:14:04.800
none of those are traditionally protected.

00:14:04.800 --> 00:14:07.370
And likewise, there are
going to be some arms

00:14:07.370 --> 00:14:08.410
that are going to fall

00:14:08.410 --> 00:14:11.223
outside of Second Amendment protection.

00:14:12.120 --> 00:14:14.020
The Heller case tells us

00:14:14.020 --> 00:14:16.820
how to go about discovering those limits.

00:14:16.820 --> 00:14:18.710
The amendment, we are told,

00:14:18.710 --> 00:14:20.940
presupposes that people will have arms

00:14:22.210 --> 00:14:24.350
that people would expect to find

00:14:24.350 --> 00:14:28.020
in common use for
traditional lawful purposes.

00:14:28.020 --> 00:14:31.730
And so while a handgun or a rifle

00:14:31.730 --> 00:14:36.010
is a type of arm that people
would keep for self-defense,

00:14:36.010 --> 00:14:37.890
for hunting, for sport,

00:14:37.890 --> 00:14:40.820
a tank or a bazooka is
usually not something

00:14:40.820 --> 00:14:43.870
that you would wish to access

00:14:43.870 --> 00:14:47.280
for some traditional recognized
lawful activity, right?

00:14:47.280 --> 00:14:50.160
I mean, very few people would use a tank

00:14:50.160 --> 00:14:53.450
to defend themselves against
a mugger on the street, right?

00:14:53.450 --> 00:14:55.850
- [Adam] I mean, as a
matter of practicality,

00:14:55.850 --> 00:14:58.240
even if we didn't have a Second Amendment,

00:14:58.240 --> 00:14:59.350
there's no possible way

00:14:59.350 --> 00:15:02.790
we're going to disarm the
entire civilian population.

00:15:02.790 --> 00:15:04.350
So the guns are here to stay.

00:15:04.350 --> 00:15:08.520
The question is, how can we
exist with civilian armament

00:15:08.520 --> 00:15:10.700
and good and effective gun control?

00:15:10.700 --> 00:15:12.310
And I think that history and tradition

00:15:12.310 --> 00:15:14.010
can provide some of those answers.

00:15:14.010 --> 00:15:16.000
In the same way that we try to understand

00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:17.940
what does the text of
the Constitution mean

00:15:17.940 --> 00:15:20.490
and what are the principles
that that text embodies,

00:15:20.490 --> 00:15:22.340
we look to history and tradition,

00:15:22.340 --> 00:15:25.360
how have Americans lived
under that Constitution

00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:27.710
over these 200 years.

00:15:27.710 --> 00:15:30.060
We should also look to
that history and tradition

00:15:30.060 --> 00:15:33.550
in seeing the limits of
those constitutional rights.

00:15:33.550 --> 00:15:35.280
And one thing I think is very clear

00:15:35.280 --> 00:15:36.650
from the history and tradition

00:15:36.650 --> 00:15:38.850
of gun rights and gun regulation

00:15:38.850 --> 00:15:43.350
is that there's ample
room to regulate firearms.

00:15:43.350 --> 00:15:45.840
The Founding Fathers had gun control laws.

00:15:45.840 --> 00:15:48.320
We had gun control laws in the Wild West,

00:15:48.320 --> 00:15:51.200
even though that was the heart
of America's gun culture.

00:15:51.200 --> 00:15:54.700
We've had gun control laws
all through American history

00:15:54.700 --> 00:15:58.130
and they're part of the
story of the Second Amendment

00:15:58.130 --> 00:16:01.810
as much as the six shooter
and the right to bear arms.

00:16:01.810 --> 00:16:04.010
- [Kim] So, we've learned
that the Framers' concerns

00:16:04.010 --> 00:16:05.770
over protecting the right to bear arms

00:16:05.770 --> 00:16:08.890
originated in the experiences
of the American Revolution

00:16:08.890 --> 00:16:11.200
in which militias played a central role

00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:13.530
in winning independence
for the United States.

00:16:13.530 --> 00:16:16.130
But a lot has changed
since the Revolution.

00:16:16.130 --> 00:16:17.720
The US military has grown

00:16:17.720 --> 00:16:20.090
and arms have gotten a lot more powerful.

00:16:20.090 --> 00:16:21.350
Alan Gura suggests

00:16:21.350 --> 00:16:24.200
that the lack of a
government monopoly on force

00:16:24.200 --> 00:16:27.610
is a key component of the
peaceful transitions of power

00:16:27.610 --> 00:16:29.750
that characterize American democracy.

00:16:29.750 --> 00:16:30.850
Adam Winkler, however,

00:16:30.850 --> 00:16:32.440
argues that there's always been

00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:34.910
some form of gun control
in the United States,

00:16:34.910 --> 00:16:36.300
even in the Wild West.

00:16:36.300 --> 00:16:38.150
To learn more about the Second Amendment,

00:16:38.150 --> 00:16:40.280
visit the National Constitution Center's

00:16:40.280 --> 00:16:41.810
Interactive Constitution

00:16:41.810 --> 00:16:45.223
and Khan Academy's resources
on US government and politics.


The Sixth Amendment

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.920 --> 00:00:03.220
- [Kim] Hi this is Kim from Khan Academy.

00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:05.327
Today I'm learning about
the Sixth Amendment

00:00:05.327 --> 00:00:07.310
to the U.S. Constitution.

00:00:07.310 --> 00:00:09.940
One of four Amendments
in the Bill of Rights

00:00:09.940 --> 00:00:12.190
that concerns the rights of the accused,

00:00:12.190 --> 00:00:15.740
the Sixth Amendment guarantees
defendants in criminal cases

00:00:15.740 --> 00:00:19.100
the right to a speedy and public trial.

00:00:19.100 --> 00:00:20.700
To learn more about the Sixth Amendment,

00:00:20.700 --> 00:00:23.137
I sought out the help of two experts.

00:00:23.137 --> 00:00:26.700
Stephanos Bibas is a
United States Circuit Judge

00:00:26.700 --> 00:00:29.300
for the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit.

00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:32.710
He's also a leading scholar
of criminal procedure.

00:00:32.710 --> 00:00:35.272
Jeffrey Fisher is Professor of Law

00:00:35.272 --> 00:00:39.260
and Co-director of the Supreme
Court Litigation Clinic

00:00:39.260 --> 00:00:40.820
at Stanford Law School.

00:00:40.820 --> 00:00:44.289
So, Judge Bibas, in the
case of the Bill of Rights,

00:00:44.289 --> 00:00:46.148
the Framers were trying

00:00:46.148 --> 00:00:50.780
to prevent particular
abuses of the government.

00:00:50.780 --> 00:00:53.440
So what was the historical
background that led them

00:00:53.440 --> 00:00:56.880
to want to protect these
rights in particular?

00:00:56.880 --> 00:00:59.570
- [Bibas] In England in the late 17th

00:00:59.570 --> 00:01:00.780
and early 18th century,

00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:04.210
there was a series of treason
trials other political trials

00:01:04.210 --> 00:01:06.360
and the king had done some things

00:01:06.360 --> 00:01:10.461
that bypassed the usual mode
of trial in criminal cases.

00:01:10.461 --> 00:01:13.490
The Anglo-American system
is known as the Common Law.

00:01:13.490 --> 00:01:16.556
It involves live testimony in open court

00:01:16.556 --> 00:01:19.300
before a jury of your peers.

00:01:19.300 --> 00:01:22.270
And the jury ultimately
decides did you do it,

00:01:22.270 --> 00:01:25.410
were you blame-worthy, do
you deserve the punishment.

00:01:25.410 --> 00:01:28.790
The Crown had railroaded some
of its political opponents,

00:01:28.790 --> 00:01:30.500
people like Sir Walter Raleigh,

00:01:30.500 --> 00:01:32.625
people accused in the Popish Plots

00:01:32.625 --> 00:01:36.270
during the strife between
Catholics and Protestants.

00:01:36.270 --> 00:01:38.800
And some of these convictions
were later understood

00:01:38.800 --> 00:01:41.030
to have been wrongful ones,

00:01:41.030 --> 00:01:45.110
and so the colonists in
England and then in America

00:01:45.110 --> 00:01:48.036
insisted on protecting
against various ways

00:01:48.036 --> 00:01:51.950
of diminishing or abridging
the trial that would be speedy,

00:01:51.950 --> 00:01:54.020
that would be public, that
would be before a jury,

00:01:54.020 --> 00:01:56.940
that would have an evenly
matched prosecution and defense,

00:01:56.940 --> 00:01:59.890
and would have an opportunity
to look the witness in the eye

00:01:59.890 --> 00:02:02.840
and confront him the way it
was always done in England,

00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:04.880
as opposed to on continental Europe.

00:02:04.880 --> 00:02:07.860
- [Fisher] There's a varied
history, primarily in England,

00:02:07.860 --> 00:02:12.860
of certain periods of time
where people were prosecuted

00:02:13.640 --> 00:02:18.560
in ways that the Founders
deemed fundamentally unfair.

00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:19.961
Probably the most notorious example,

00:02:19.961 --> 00:02:22.010
was the Star Chamber.

00:02:22.010 --> 00:02:26.030
That was a moniker given
to a king-run tribunal

00:02:26.030 --> 00:02:27.650
decades before the founding,

00:02:27.650 --> 00:02:30.250
where people were picked up and arrested

00:02:30.250 --> 00:02:32.830
and then sentenced to criminal punishment

00:02:32.830 --> 00:02:36.140
and sometimes to death without
ever having an opportunity

00:02:36.140 --> 00:02:37.730
to challenge the charges against them

00:02:37.730 --> 00:02:38.860
and sometimes not even knowing

00:02:38.860 --> 00:02:40.730
what the charges were against them.

00:02:40.730 --> 00:02:44.583
And so that kind of a travesty
of justice and abuse of power

00:02:44.583 --> 00:02:48.420
was probably the foremost
thing in the Framers' minds.

00:02:48.420 --> 00:02:50.020
- [Bibas] This was partly for the benefit

00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:51.760
of the defendant or the accused.

00:02:51.760 --> 00:02:53.380
It also was very importantly

00:02:53.380 --> 00:02:55.710
about protecting the citizen's right

00:02:55.710 --> 00:02:57.500
to control criminal justice,

00:02:57.500 --> 00:02:59.650
that it wasn't the king who would do this,

00:02:59.650 --> 00:03:02.930
and the King couldn't just
let his royal officers off.

00:03:02.930 --> 00:03:04.580
So it's very important

00:03:04.580 --> 00:03:08.040
to look at the Declaration
of Independence.

00:03:08.040 --> 00:03:10.400
A bunch of the complaints
in the Declaration

00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:14.920
are complaints that the King
is bypassing these usual modes,

00:03:14.920 --> 00:03:18.810
that he's protecting his
soldiers by a mock trial

00:03:18.810 --> 00:03:21.440
from punishment for murders
which they should commit

00:03:21.440 --> 00:03:23.290
on the inhabitants of the states,

00:03:23.290 --> 00:03:24.970
that he's depriving us in many cases

00:03:24.970 --> 00:03:27.100
of the benefits of trial by jury,

00:03:27.100 --> 00:03:30.055
and that he has made the judges subject

00:03:30.055 --> 00:03:33.120
to his manipulation and pleasure

00:03:33.120 --> 00:03:36.120
because they don't have stable salaries.

00:03:36.120 --> 00:03:38.785
So, the colonists were very suspicious

00:03:38.785 --> 00:03:42.830
of the King's manipulation
of criminal justice.

00:03:42.830 --> 00:03:45.410
- [Kim] So how does the
Sixth Amendment inform

00:03:45.410 --> 00:03:47.890
how the U.S. legal system works today?

00:03:47.890 --> 00:03:50.390
- [Fisher] Well, the first
important thing to understand is

00:03:50.390 --> 00:03:52.690
that when the Sixth Amendment was drafted,

00:03:52.690 --> 00:03:55.446
just like all the other
first ten Amendments,

00:03:55.446 --> 00:03:58.580
they applied primarily only
to the Federal Government,

00:03:58.580 --> 00:04:00.700
not to state governments.

00:04:00.700 --> 00:04:02.820
But in the 60s and 70s,

00:04:02.820 --> 00:04:05.210
the Supreme Court applied

00:04:05.210 --> 00:04:08.000
all of these rights one
by one to the states.

00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:09.890
So now, because the rights apply

00:04:09.890 --> 00:04:13.150
to both the Federal Government
and to state governments,

00:04:13.150 --> 00:04:15.110
the Sixth Amendment applies

00:04:15.110 --> 00:04:19.050
every single time somebody
is charged with a crime.

00:04:19.050 --> 00:04:20.333
And so that starts

00:04:20.333 --> 00:04:25.333
with knowing what you're
being charged with,

00:04:25.340 --> 00:04:28.670
whether it's by what's known
as a Grand Jury Indictment

00:04:28.670 --> 00:04:31.400
or some other method of accusing somebody

00:04:31.400 --> 00:04:33.190
of committing a crime.

00:04:33.190 --> 00:04:37.670
And it continues on with
the right to an attorney

00:04:37.670 --> 00:04:40.480
to represent the accused,

00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:42.870
and goes all the way through
the decision-making process

00:04:42.870 --> 00:04:46.650
with how the jury decides
whether to convict or not.

00:04:46.650 --> 00:04:47.850
- [Kim] This is fascinating.

00:04:47.850 --> 00:04:49.660
There are a couple of things that I see

00:04:49.660 --> 00:04:50.770
in the Sixth Amendment

00:04:50.770 --> 00:04:54.360
that seem like they might be
a little difficult to define,

00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:57.950
particularly the idea of a speedy trial.

00:04:57.950 --> 00:05:01.092
So what actually counts as speedy?

00:05:01.092 --> 00:05:05.929
- [Bibas] The speedy trial
component is not well-defined.

00:05:05.929 --> 00:05:09.810
The Supreme Court has ultimately said,

00:05:09.810 --> 00:05:12.500
well, we're gonna balance
a bunch of factors.

00:05:12.500 --> 00:05:14.142
How long is the delay?

00:05:14.142 --> 00:05:16.510
What's the reason for the delay?

00:05:16.510 --> 00:05:20.190
Has the defendant shown any
prejudice from the delay?

00:05:20.190 --> 00:05:21.190
How long did it take

00:05:21.190 --> 00:05:24.730
after the defendant
requested the speedy trial?

00:05:24.730 --> 00:05:27.220
And very rarely does the court

00:05:27.220 --> 00:05:29.180
actually throw out a case based on that.

00:05:29.180 --> 00:05:30.900
What happens more often is

00:05:30.900 --> 00:05:32.710
that the defendant makes a request

00:05:32.710 --> 00:05:34.490
and then judges really try

00:05:34.490 --> 00:05:37.580
to push the case along to be faster.

00:05:37.580 --> 00:05:40.030
So the court has turned
it into really focusing

00:05:40.030 --> 00:05:42.750
on the defendant's
interest in something fast,

00:05:42.750 --> 00:05:45.980
and that matters a lot when
a defendant doesn't make bail

00:05:45.980 --> 00:05:48.172
and is being held in jail pending trial.

00:05:48.172 --> 00:05:52.603
So those cases will go to
trial in a matter of months.

00:05:53.460 --> 00:05:55.230
A case where someone is out on bail

00:05:55.230 --> 00:05:57.713
can easily take a year or two

00:05:57.713 --> 00:06:00.830
before it ultimately proceeds to trial.

00:06:00.830 --> 00:06:03.833
- [Fisher] What's speedy or
what's reasonable in 1791,

00:06:03.833 --> 00:06:08.833
might not be speedy or reasonable in 2017.

00:06:10.916 --> 00:06:14.779
So what the courts have said
with respect to speedy is

00:06:14.779 --> 00:06:17.020
there's not a bright line rule,

00:06:17.020 --> 00:06:21.580
say one year, five years,
whatever it might be

00:06:21.580 --> 00:06:22.770
that somebody has to be brought

00:06:22.770 --> 00:06:24.930
to trial after being charged.

00:06:24.930 --> 00:06:27.631
Rather what the court does is it considers

00:06:27.631 --> 00:06:32.599
how diligently the prosecution
has tried to pursue the case

00:06:32.599 --> 00:06:34.300
in light of other factors,

00:06:34.300 --> 00:06:36.290
such as the complexity of the case,

00:06:36.290 --> 00:06:39.160
whether the defendant
himself wants the case

00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:40.160
to go to trial soon,

00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:42.100
or whether the defendant
himself has agreed

00:06:42.100 --> 00:06:46.350
to certain delays or said
that he doesn't mind them,

00:06:46.350 --> 00:06:48.870
and whether there's
prejudice that has occurred,

00:06:48.870 --> 00:06:51.010
which is a legal way of saying

00:06:51.010 --> 00:06:54.010
whether somebody's been harmed
or injured by the delay.

00:06:54.010 --> 00:06:56.270
Say, for example, a key
witness has now died

00:06:56.270 --> 00:06:57.840
or fled the jurisdiction.

00:06:57.840 --> 00:07:02.740
So it's flexible words like
speedy in essence translates

00:07:02.740 --> 00:07:06.680
some measure of discretion
and flexibility to the courts.

00:07:06.680 --> 00:07:11.164
- [Kim] Why is our legal process
so much slower than it was

00:07:11.164 --> 00:07:13.520
in the 18th century?

00:07:13.520 --> 00:07:15.530
- [Bibas] Okay, so that connects up

00:07:15.530 --> 00:07:19.140
to the second set of
rights we've constructed

00:07:19.140 --> 00:07:21.570
around what makes
something a public trial.

00:07:21.570 --> 00:07:24.589
One of the main things
there is the jury right.

00:07:24.589 --> 00:07:27.566
Juries in the 18th century,

00:07:27.566 --> 00:07:29.930
we didn't have a jury selection process.

00:07:29.930 --> 00:07:33.160
The first 12 people who
didn't know the plaintiff

00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:35.640
or the defendant, or the
victim, or whoever it was,

00:07:35.640 --> 00:07:37.820
would be impaneled and
they would serve all day

00:07:37.820 --> 00:07:40.690
and they'd hear all the
cases that came that day.

00:07:40.690 --> 00:07:44.870
And you didn't have lawyers
involved in most of these cases.

00:07:44.870 --> 00:07:46.510
Usually it was the victim

00:07:46.510 --> 00:07:48.530
against the defendant himself or herself,

00:07:48.530 --> 00:07:51.403
no lawyers speaking for either side.

00:07:52.787 --> 00:07:54.140
That was the norm.

00:07:54.140 --> 00:07:55.610
The defendant had a
right to hire a lawyer,

00:07:55.610 --> 00:07:58.500
but usually couldn't afford it and didn't.

00:07:58.500 --> 00:08:01.330
There weren't rules of evidence.

00:08:01.330 --> 00:08:04.070
There weren't complicated motions.

00:08:04.070 --> 00:08:06.410
There weren't technical jury instructions.

00:08:06.410 --> 00:08:08.860
So the trials themselves took, as I said,

00:08:08.860 --> 00:08:10.400
an hour, two hours.

00:08:10.400 --> 00:08:12.940
Pre-trial proceedings did not involve lots

00:08:12.940 --> 00:08:15.050
of legal motions because there
were no lawyers to run them.

00:08:15.050 --> 00:08:17.460
The judges themselves often
didn't have legal training.

00:08:17.460 --> 00:08:19.300
There were no law schools in America.

00:08:19.300 --> 00:08:21.020
So when you have a system like that,

00:08:21.020 --> 00:08:22.170
it's not that cumbersome.

00:08:22.170 --> 00:08:24.700
There's very little
incentive to bypass it.

00:08:24.700 --> 00:08:26.910
And you don't have professional
lawyers who are looking

00:08:26.910 --> 00:08:30.519
to get this case done with
and get on to the next case,

00:08:30.519 --> 00:08:33.420
or who have seen enough cases

00:08:33.420 --> 00:08:35.440
that they can bargain back and forth

00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:37.320
and strike a bargain for this case

00:08:37.320 --> 00:08:40.090
that's about where the
previous cases came out.

00:08:40.090 --> 00:08:42.250
So you didn't have an
incentive for plea bargaining.

00:08:42.250 --> 00:08:43.901
It wasn't slow enough.

00:08:43.901 --> 00:08:44.734
You didn't have the experts

00:08:44.734 --> 00:08:47.020
who'd take to run plea bargaining.

00:08:47.020 --> 00:08:51.146
And you didn't have the lack
of investment in your own case

00:08:51.146 --> 00:08:53.100
that makes plea bargaining possible,

00:08:53.100 --> 00:08:54.939
or the technical rules.

00:08:54.939 --> 00:08:57.920
So these cases actually
all did go to juries

00:08:57.920 --> 00:09:00.110
and the expectation was
they all would go to juries

00:09:00.110 --> 00:09:03.640
and the jury right wasn't
just a right of a defendant,

00:09:03.640 --> 00:09:06.330
this happened in every case
because the public had a right

00:09:06.330 --> 00:09:10.180
to do justice itself as
well as seeing justice done.

00:09:10.180 --> 00:09:11.970
- [Kim] I have so many
questions about this.

00:09:11.970 --> 00:09:16.228
So for one thing, do you
think our current system

00:09:16.228 --> 00:09:20.430
is an improvement on this
older system of juries

00:09:20.430 --> 00:09:22.984
and not so much plea bargaining?

00:09:22.984 --> 00:09:26.853
Also, why is there is so
much plea bargaining today?

00:09:27.700 --> 00:09:29.587
- [Fisher] At the time of the founding,

00:09:29.587 --> 00:09:33.750
there were no deals to be
made short of a full trial.

00:09:33.750 --> 00:09:37.500
That's a huge contrast
with today where over 90%

00:09:37.500 --> 00:09:41.910
of criminal cases in this country
are not resolved by trial,

00:09:41.910 --> 00:09:43.910
but rather by what's
called a plea bargain,

00:09:43.910 --> 00:09:46.310
which is a defendant coming in and saying,

00:09:46.310 --> 00:09:49.001
look, I will plead guilty
to a lesser offense

00:09:49.001 --> 00:09:51.390
or to the same offense you're charging

00:09:51.390 --> 00:09:54.000
but with a guarantee of lesser punishment,

00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:58.040
as long as you don't require
me to go through a full trial.

00:09:58.040 --> 00:10:00.280
And so the idea is that because the system

00:10:00.280 --> 00:10:03.338
has grown so large and
there are so many cases,

00:10:03.338 --> 00:10:07.300
that it's a relief to the
prosecution and the court system

00:10:07.300 --> 00:10:09.490
not to have to have a trial in every case.

00:10:09.490 --> 00:10:11.282
And the benefit to the defendant is

00:10:11.282 --> 00:10:13.430
that he gets a slightly better deal

00:10:13.430 --> 00:10:16.670
or is able to plea to a lesser crime.

00:10:16.670 --> 00:10:18.700
- [Bibas] Over the course
of the 19th century,

00:10:18.700 --> 00:10:21.520
prosecutors are really taking
over most of these cases.

00:10:21.520 --> 00:10:24.800
It goes from a few percent
to the lion's share of cases.

00:10:24.800 --> 00:10:27.102
Then defense lawyers
get hired more and more

00:10:27.102 --> 00:10:28.600
to counteract that.

00:10:28.600 --> 00:10:31.200
Once you have prosecutors and
defense lawyers on both sides,

00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:33.100
and the Sixth Amendment
guarantees you the right

00:10:33.100 --> 00:10:35.570
to hire a defense lawyer,
that's how it's understood

00:10:35.570 --> 00:10:37.501
in the 18th and 19th centuries.

00:10:37.501 --> 00:10:39.150
The prosecutors and defense lawyers

00:10:39.150 --> 00:10:40.500
develop rules of evidence,

00:10:40.500 --> 00:10:42.370
and they develop procedures,

00:10:42.370 --> 00:10:43.860
and jury instructions,

00:10:43.860 --> 00:10:45.590
and they argue motions.

00:10:45.590 --> 00:10:47.507
And so they get more active

00:10:47.507 --> 00:10:50.720
and the judge gets more
passive or reactive.

00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:53.040
So the judge isn't pushing
the case along as much

00:10:53.040 --> 00:10:56.080
and the prosecutor and defense
lawyer are slowing it down.

00:10:56.080 --> 00:10:57.740
Now that seems like it makes it fairer,

00:10:57.740 --> 00:10:59.670
but once it gets to a certain point

00:10:59.670 --> 00:11:03.330
of being slow the prosecutors
want to get rid of the cases.

00:11:03.330 --> 00:11:05.120
They have too many of them.

00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:06.700
The judges, they have a bunch

00:11:06.700 --> 00:11:08.980
of civil cases they need to get rid of.

00:11:08.980 --> 00:11:11.640
So the prosecutors and the
judges and the defense lawyers

00:11:11.640 --> 00:11:14.840
all get together and find
ways to bargain the case away

00:11:14.840 --> 00:11:19.060
rather than spending now its
days on each case for trial.

00:11:19.060 --> 00:11:21.370
So from their point of
view it makes sense.

00:11:21.370 --> 00:11:24.630
They have a faster system
and everyone goes home happy

00:11:24.630 --> 00:11:26.157
and the prosecutor can pursue more cases

00:11:26.157 --> 00:11:28.670
and the defendant gets a lighter deal,

00:11:28.670 --> 00:11:29.990
but the prosecution makes sure there's

00:11:29.990 --> 00:11:31.940
some conviction and sentence.

00:11:31.940 --> 00:11:33.520
But for the point of view of the public,

00:11:33.520 --> 00:11:34.777
the public doesn't see justice done

00:11:34.777 --> 00:11:37.490
and the public doesn't
trust these plea bargains.

00:11:37.490 --> 00:11:38.520
But at the end of the day,

00:11:38.520 --> 00:11:40.060
what the defense lawyer's mostly doing

00:11:40.060 --> 00:11:42.740
is not making sure there's
a speedy and public trial,

00:11:42.740 --> 00:11:47.600
but bargaining 95% of cases
away before there's a trial.

00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:50.250
- [Kim] What happens if the defendant

00:11:50.250 --> 00:11:53.373
can't afford a legal counsel?

00:11:54.570 --> 00:11:56.698
- [Fisher] The history of the
right to counsel is actually

00:11:56.698 --> 00:11:57.780
one of the more interesting components

00:11:57.780 --> 00:12:00.670
of the Sixth Amendment because many

00:12:00.670 --> 00:12:04.410
of the components have deep
roots in the history of England,

00:12:04.410 --> 00:12:07.658
and so were rights that Englishmen enjoyed

00:12:07.658 --> 00:12:10.740
for many many years before
they were brought over

00:12:10.740 --> 00:12:12.200
to the colonies and became part

00:12:12.200 --> 00:12:14.540
of our Constitution of the United States.

00:12:14.540 --> 00:12:16.430
The right to counsel is
a little bit different

00:12:16.430 --> 00:12:17.773
in that respect.

00:12:17.773 --> 00:12:21.608
Criminal defendants in
England and other countries

00:12:21.608 --> 00:12:23.660
around the time of our founding

00:12:23.660 --> 00:12:25.810
often did not have a right to counsel

00:12:25.810 --> 00:12:28.380
of any kind, whether they
could pay for it or not.

00:12:28.380 --> 00:12:30.550
And so this was a bit of an innovation

00:12:30.550 --> 00:12:32.760
on the part of the Framers,

00:12:32.760 --> 00:12:36.567
recognizing that all the other
rights they were identifying

00:12:36.567 --> 00:12:40.130
to defend yourself in court
might not amount to much

00:12:40.130 --> 00:12:41.780
if you didn't have expert assistance

00:12:41.780 --> 00:12:44.380
or at least the right to
obtain expert assistance.

00:12:44.380 --> 00:12:46.740
- [Kim] So you described a lot of changes

00:12:46.740 --> 00:12:50.450
to how our legal system
works over the years.

00:12:50.450 --> 00:12:53.440
What do you think would have
surprised the Framers most

00:12:53.440 --> 00:12:56.120
about how our legal system works today?

00:12:56.120 --> 00:12:58.750
- [Bibas] I think they
would have been shocked

00:12:58.750 --> 00:13:02.129
that a system that was meant to slow down

00:13:02.129 --> 00:13:06.590
and check governmental power
and protect overreaching

00:13:06.590 --> 00:13:10.744
and protect the people's
role has been so subverted

00:13:10.744 --> 00:13:12.710
that the people are involved

00:13:12.710 --> 00:13:15.590
in a few percent of cases.

00:13:15.590 --> 00:13:18.550
They designed a system that's
slower and less efficient

00:13:18.550 --> 00:13:21.320
by design than the criminal justice system

00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:23.450
of continental Europe
because they were worried

00:13:23.450 --> 00:13:27.850
about the king and the Crown
pushing around citizens

00:13:27.850 --> 00:13:29.260
and abusing their power.

00:13:29.260 --> 00:13:32.650
They wanted grand juries to
authorize every criminal charge.

00:13:32.650 --> 00:13:36.170
Well, we've largely gotten
around that in most cases.

00:13:36.170 --> 00:13:38.440
They wanted petty juries to ensure

00:13:38.440 --> 00:13:40.630
that every prosecutor's
charge was justified

00:13:40.630 --> 00:13:42.680
and that the legislature's criminal laws

00:13:42.680 --> 00:13:44.130
weren't being applied too broadly.

00:13:44.130 --> 00:13:47.830
And again, prosecutors
now have so many threats

00:13:47.830 --> 00:13:50.440
and tools and sentences that
they can make almost everybody

00:13:50.440 --> 00:13:53.440
give up their jury-trial rights.

00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:55.050
But the Framers also weren't dealing

00:13:55.050 --> 00:13:57.100
with the volume of cases
we're talking about,

00:13:57.100 --> 00:14:00.080
and they weren't focused
primarily on the violent crimes.

00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:01.700
The federal crimes they were dealing with

00:14:01.700 --> 00:14:05.710
were seditious libel,
criticizing the government,

00:14:05.710 --> 00:14:07.770
violations of the revenue laws.

00:14:07.770 --> 00:14:10.100
So, it's also fair to point out

00:14:10.100 --> 00:14:12.810
that they did not expect that these rights

00:14:12.810 --> 00:14:14.630
were mainly gonna be limitations

00:14:14.630 --> 00:14:18.600
that benefited people in
rape and murder cases.

00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:20.650
A lot of these protections
are mainly designed

00:14:20.650 --> 00:14:22.800
to make sure that the innocent people

00:14:22.800 --> 00:14:25.580
get vindicated against unjust charges.

00:14:25.580 --> 00:14:27.970
And they might be a little bit surprised

00:14:27.970 --> 00:14:30.350
that almost all the
litigation is by people

00:14:30.350 --> 00:14:33.100
who may be factually guilty.

00:14:33.100 --> 00:14:34.780
- [Fisher] The next thing
that would've surprised

00:14:34.780 --> 00:14:36.900
the Framers a great deal, I think,

00:14:36.900 --> 00:14:39.431
is the role of the jury today.

00:14:39.431 --> 00:14:43.318
The jury-trial right mentioned
in the Sixth Amendment

00:14:43.318 --> 00:14:46.870
is actually one of the
only things mentioned twice

00:14:46.870 --> 00:14:48.573
in the Constitution.

00:14:48.573 --> 00:14:50.270
The right to a jury trial
is actually mentioned

00:14:50.270 --> 00:14:52.770
in the body of the Constitution itself,

00:14:52.770 --> 00:14:55.220
in article four and then
it's mentioned again

00:14:55.220 --> 00:14:56.150
in the Sixth Amendment.

00:14:56.150 --> 00:14:57.990
And the reason why is because the jury

00:14:57.990 --> 00:15:01.400
were truly the people's
check on the court system,

00:15:01.400 --> 00:15:05.930
and in particular, on
the prosecutorial power.

00:15:05.930 --> 00:15:10.930
So serving on a jury, to
the Framers, was an honor.

00:15:11.440 --> 00:15:16.440
It was an act of deep political
participation and meaning.

00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:19.830
In a way that we joke
about jury service today

00:15:19.830 --> 00:15:21.640
as being something of a nuisance,

00:15:21.640 --> 00:15:24.110
they viewed it as almost as important

00:15:24.110 --> 00:15:26.440
as voting for the
President on Election Day.

00:15:26.440 --> 00:15:30.080
- [Kim] By guaranteeing
speedy public trials by jury

00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:31.830
and due process of law,

00:15:31.830 --> 00:15:34.610
the Sixth Amendment ensures that citizens,

00:15:34.610 --> 00:15:38.180
not the government,
control criminal justice.

00:15:38.180 --> 00:15:41.710
But today, as Professor
Fisher and Judge Bibas note,

00:15:41.710 --> 00:15:44.070
the Framers might be surprised to learn

00:15:44.070 --> 00:15:46.780
that due to the rise of plea bargaining,

00:15:46.780 --> 00:15:50.970
only a small percentage of
cases go to trial by jury,

00:15:50.970 --> 00:15:53.694
circumventing this process.

00:15:53.694 --> 00:15:55.310
To learn more about the
Sixth Amendment, visit the

00:15:55.310 --> 00:15:58.680
National Constitution Center's
Interactive Constitution

00:15:58.680 --> 00:16:00.300
and Khan Academy's resources

00:16:00.300 --> 00:16:01.953
on U.S. government and politics.


Article VII of the Constitution

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:02.220
- [Kim] Hi, this is Kim from Khan Academy,

00:00:02.220 --> 00:00:04.940
and today I'm learning
more about Article VII

00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:07.470
of the U.S. Constitution,
which is the provision

00:00:07.470 --> 00:00:09.450
that specified the conditions

00:00:09.450 --> 00:00:11.570
for the Constitution to become law.

00:00:11.570 --> 00:00:12.500
It reads,

00:00:12.500 --> 00:00:15.940
The Ratification of the
Conventions of nine States,

00:00:15.940 --> 00:00:17.930
shall be sufficient for the Establishment

00:00:17.930 --> 00:00:19.940
of this Constitution between the States

00:00:19.940 --> 00:00:21.790
so ratifying the Same.

00:00:21.790 --> 00:00:23.340
Although this sounds simple,

00:00:23.340 --> 00:00:25.490
it reminds us that when
the Framers finished

00:00:25.490 --> 00:00:29.410
drafting the Constitution
in Philadelphia in 1787,

00:00:29.410 --> 00:00:31.560
it was by no means a done deal.

00:00:31.560 --> 00:00:35.150
At least nine states had
to ratify the Constitution

00:00:35.150 --> 00:00:37.670
in order to replace
the existing government

00:00:37.670 --> 00:00:39.680
under the Articles of Confederation.

00:00:39.680 --> 00:00:41.950
To learn more about the
ratification process,

00:00:41.950 --> 00:00:43.840
I sought out the help of two experts.

00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:46.800
Mark Graber is the Jacob
A. France Professor

00:00:46.800 --> 00:00:49.610
of Constitutionalism at
the University of Maryland

00:00:49.610 --> 00:00:52.230
Francis King Carey School of Law.

00:00:52.230 --> 00:00:55.250
Michael Rappaport is the
Darling Foundation Professor

00:00:55.250 --> 00:00:58.010
at the University of
San Diego School of Law.

00:00:58.010 --> 00:01:00.230
Professor Graber, can
you tell us a little bit

00:01:00.230 --> 00:01:03.090
about the political
context of ratification?

00:01:03.090 --> 00:01:05.970
What was going on at this time as

00:01:05.970 --> 00:01:10.090
the Framers tried to
put a new Constitution

00:01:10.090 --> 00:01:12.700
into the fabric of the United States?

00:01:12.700 --> 00:01:14.810
- [Mark] Well, one central problem

00:01:14.810 --> 00:01:19.030
of the Articles of Confederation
was the Articles required

00:01:19.030 --> 00:01:23.680
that all 13 states
consent for any amendment.

00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:25.280
And it turned out, at this time,

00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:27.250
Rhode Island was a great outlier,

00:01:27.250 --> 00:01:30.930
so Rhode Island wasn't going
to consent to much of anything.

00:01:30.930 --> 00:01:33.730
And, in fact, Rhode Island
did not even send delegates

00:01:33.730 --> 00:01:36.490
to the convention that
drafted the Constitution.

00:01:36.490 --> 00:01:38.220
So the Framers knew

00:01:38.220 --> 00:01:41.890
that if you had the unanimous
rule for ratification,

00:01:41.890 --> 00:01:43.480
it would not work.

00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:46.393
So instead, they chose
nine, it's about 2/3, 3/4,

00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:52.460
in part to make sure
Rhode Island, one outlier,

00:01:52.460 --> 00:01:54.610
could not prevent adoption.

00:01:54.610 --> 00:01:57.500
- [Michael] So let's remember,
there's two stages here

00:01:57.500 --> 00:01:59.790
in how the Constitution
gets written and ratified.

00:01:59.790 --> 00:02:01.690
So first, it's written

00:02:01.690 --> 00:02:04.080
in what's called the Drafting Convention

00:02:04.080 --> 00:02:05.790
or the Philadelphia Convention,

00:02:05.790 --> 00:02:09.930
which was held during the summer of 1787.

00:02:09.930 --> 00:02:14.030
And in that convention, it
was pretty much in agreement

00:02:14.030 --> 00:02:18.040
that the Federal Government
needed to be made stronger,

00:02:18.040 --> 00:02:20.300
but that was just a proposal.

00:02:20.300 --> 00:02:23.440
In order for the
Constitution to be ratified,

00:02:23.440 --> 00:02:26.550
it needed nine of the 13 states,

00:02:26.550 --> 00:02:30.240
and so it went to the second stage.

00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:32.790
And there, things were, in some ways,

00:02:32.790 --> 00:02:34.090
gonna be more difficult

00:02:34.090 --> 00:02:36.390
because there was a variety of viewpoints

00:02:36.390 --> 00:02:37.900
in the different states.

00:02:37.900 --> 00:02:39.670
And the main question that came up

00:02:39.670 --> 00:02:42.030
in state after state after state was

00:02:42.030 --> 00:02:44.560
was the Federal Government being given

00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:47.070
too much additional power?

00:02:47.070 --> 00:02:50.160
Under the previous regime of
the Articles of Confederation,

00:02:50.160 --> 00:02:53.610
the Federal Government
had very limited powers,

00:02:53.610 --> 00:02:55.093
and the Constitution was gonna

00:02:55.093 --> 00:02:57.230
give the Federal Government more power.

00:02:57.230 --> 00:02:59.640
- [Mark] They wanted a strategy that,

00:02:59.640 --> 00:03:02.083
once the ball started rolling,

00:03:03.070 --> 00:03:04.600
states that were slower

00:03:04.600 --> 00:03:07.070
were going to be faced with a choice.

00:03:07.070 --> 00:03:10.100
You could get in on the inside

00:03:10.100 --> 00:03:12.970
and maybe effect some changes early.

00:03:12.970 --> 00:03:15.010
But if you were left out,

00:03:15.010 --> 00:03:16.890
whatever happened would
happen without you,

00:03:16.890 --> 00:03:18.360
and a lot of states, at the end,

00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:20.870
were fearful of being left out.

00:03:20.870 --> 00:03:22.060
- [Michael] This strategy worked.

00:03:22.060 --> 00:03:26.130
And as they went through in
tough states, as time went on,

00:03:26.130 --> 00:03:29.520
so New Hampshire, Virginia,

00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:33.240
New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island,

00:03:33.240 --> 00:03:34.940
in order to get ratification,

00:03:34.940 --> 00:03:38.830
each time, they promised,
we'll have a Bill of Rights

00:03:38.830 --> 00:03:41.220
and those states added

00:03:41.220 --> 00:03:44.350
a list of amendments that they wanted

00:03:44.350 --> 00:03:46.070
added to the Constitution.

00:03:46.070 --> 00:03:49.000
- [Kim] So was it controversial
that the Framers decided

00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:51.680
that only nine states would be necessary

00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:53.790
to ratify the Constitution?

00:03:53.790 --> 00:03:55.260
- [Mark] Very controversial.

00:03:55.260 --> 00:03:58.510
One of the central
points of Anti-Federalist

00:03:58.510 --> 00:04:00.780
was that this was illegal,

00:04:00.780 --> 00:04:04.010
that the existing
Constitution said all states,

00:04:04.010 --> 00:04:07.420
and therefore only all states
could change the Constitution.

00:04:07.420 --> 00:04:09.420
- [Michael] So in that respect,

00:04:09.420 --> 00:04:11.000
it was somewhat controversial.

00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:12.876
Another way in which it
departed from the Articles

00:04:12.876 --> 00:04:16.760
is the Articles said you
needed the state legislatures

00:04:16.760 --> 00:04:18.900
to approve the amendments,

00:04:18.900 --> 00:04:20.780
and the U.S. Constitution said, no,

00:04:20.780 --> 00:04:23.210
we want state conventions,

00:04:23.210 --> 00:04:26.190
special bodies elected by the people,

00:04:26.190 --> 00:04:27.620
to approve these things.

00:04:27.620 --> 00:04:28.810
Why did they say that?

00:04:28.810 --> 00:04:31.240
Because they feared that
the state legislatures,

00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:33.610
who would be losing a lot of
power under the Constitution,

00:04:33.610 --> 00:04:34.830
would vote against it.

00:04:34.830 --> 00:04:38.450
So they wanted sort of to
go directly to the people

00:04:38.450 --> 00:04:41.630
in these conventions and
bypass the state legislatures.

00:04:41.630 --> 00:04:43.960
- [Kim] So we know that
there were some opponents

00:04:43.960 --> 00:04:45.970
of this new Constitution.

00:04:45.970 --> 00:04:47.630
How close did they actually come

00:04:47.630 --> 00:04:49.800
to preventing its ratification?

00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:53.620
- [Michael] Well, it
was a very close fight.

00:04:53.620 --> 00:04:54.880
We look back on it,

00:04:54.880 --> 00:04:57.940
and eventually all 13
states are gonna ratify,

00:04:57.940 --> 00:04:59.710
and it just looks like, oh well,

00:04:59.710 --> 00:05:01.590
that wasn't too much of a trouble.

00:05:01.590 --> 00:05:03.300
But it was very close,

00:05:03.300 --> 00:05:07.120
and things could have easily
gone in the opposite direction.

00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:09.270
One of the ways in which it was close was

00:05:09.270 --> 00:05:12.170
that there were just very close votes.

00:05:12.170 --> 00:05:14.790
Massachusetts was

00:05:14.790 --> 00:05:17.330
187 to 168.

00:05:17.330 --> 00:05:20.850
New Hampshire was 57-47.

00:05:20.850 --> 00:05:23.490
New York was 30-27.

00:05:23.490 --> 00:05:25.780
So very close votes involved,

00:05:25.780 --> 00:05:28.470
but, you know, a couple of
people changing their mind,

00:05:28.470 --> 00:05:32.330
and that would've meant
various states didn't ratify.

00:05:32.330 --> 00:05:34.380
In addition to that,

00:05:34.380 --> 00:05:37.830
some of the states
actually did not ratify.

00:05:37.830 --> 00:05:40.200
So the first thing that
happened was Rhode Island,

00:05:40.200 --> 00:05:42.190
early on in the process, says,

00:05:42.190 --> 00:05:45.030
we don't like your horrible Constitution.

00:05:45.030 --> 00:05:46.250
They all expected that.

00:05:46.250 --> 00:05:47.970
We're not gonna hold even a convention.

00:05:47.970 --> 00:05:48.960
You want us to hold a convention.

00:05:48.960 --> 00:05:50.230
We're not gonna hold a convention.

00:05:50.230 --> 00:05:53.290
We're just gonna have a vote in state.

00:05:53.290 --> 00:05:54.557
And that vote in the state,

00:05:54.557 --> 00:05:57.490
90% of the people voted
against the Constitution.

00:05:57.490 --> 00:06:01.500
So, in a way, Rhode Island actually

00:06:01.500 --> 00:06:03.110
voted against ratification,

00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:05.850
although it didn't use the proper method.

00:06:05.850 --> 00:06:09.390
North Carolina, also,
they held a convention,

00:06:09.390 --> 00:06:11.460
and they were very upset
about there not being

00:06:11.460 --> 00:06:13.980
a Bill of Rights in the Constitution.

00:06:13.980 --> 00:06:15.780
And they just didn't approve it.

00:06:15.780 --> 00:06:17.050
They didn't disapprove it,

00:06:17.050 --> 00:06:19.750
they just did nothing, and they waited.

00:06:19.750 --> 00:06:22.840
So, in a way, two of the states

00:06:22.840 --> 00:06:24.510
voted against ratification.

00:06:24.510 --> 00:06:27.840
- [Mark] North Carolina
had not yet ratified

00:06:27.840 --> 00:06:29.610
when George Washington took office.

00:06:29.610 --> 00:06:32.440
So, in fact, when George
Washington took office,

00:06:32.440 --> 00:06:35.120
there were only 11 states in the Union.

00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:37.960
At the end of the day, crucial people,

00:06:37.960 --> 00:06:42.610
I think, decided it was better
to sign the Constitution

00:06:42.610 --> 00:06:45.510
and be in on the ground floor

00:06:45.510 --> 00:06:48.070
than stay out and see what happened.

00:06:48.070 --> 00:06:50.610
- [Kim] Interesting, so who
are some of the major players

00:06:50.610 --> 00:06:53.520
involved here, and what
were they arguing about?

00:06:53.520 --> 00:06:55.138
- [Michael] There were the Federalists,

00:06:55.138 --> 00:06:59.815
who were arguing in favor of
ratifying the Constitution,

00:06:59.815 --> 00:07:01.157
and the Anti-Federalists,

00:07:01.157 --> 00:07:04.610
who were arguing against
ratifying the Constitution.

00:07:04.610 --> 00:07:06.180
So the Federalists,

00:07:06.180 --> 00:07:09.810
two of the very famous
ones are familiar names,

00:07:09.810 --> 00:07:13.180
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

00:07:13.180 --> 00:07:16.220
Those two people, though, were
also particularly important

00:07:16.220 --> 00:07:18.267
because they decided, Hamilton said,

00:07:18.267 --> 00:07:19.427
"We're gonna have a tough time

00:07:19.427 --> 00:07:21.527
"getting ratification in New York.

00:07:21.527 --> 00:07:25.320
"We need to write some essays
defending the Constitution."

00:07:25.320 --> 00:07:28.790
And so Hamilton and
Madison cooperated together

00:07:28.790 --> 00:07:31.350
and wrote what we now call
The Federalist Papers,

00:07:31.350 --> 00:07:36.020
which were simply essays
written in the newspapers,

00:07:36.020 --> 00:07:39.540
trying to urge the New York Convention

00:07:39.540 --> 00:07:41.410
to ratify the Constitution.

00:07:41.410 --> 00:07:44.710
Eventually, those essays
were sent to other states

00:07:44.710 --> 00:07:49.630
and became known, and now we
come to revere those essays

00:07:49.630 --> 00:07:51.960
as The Federalist Papers,
but they were originally

00:07:51.960 --> 00:07:56.890
just kind of advocacy pieces
for ratifying the convention.

00:07:56.890 --> 00:07:59.340
Now, there were also Anti-Federalists.

00:07:59.340 --> 00:08:01.300
- [Mark] The Anti-Federalists, in part,

00:08:01.300 --> 00:08:04.440
were simply people who
opposed the Constitution.

00:08:04.440 --> 00:08:07.700
And just as is the case that,
say, people opposed Obamacare

00:08:07.700 --> 00:08:10.070
from both the left and the right,

00:08:10.070 --> 00:08:12.370
people who opposed the Constitution

00:08:12.370 --> 00:08:14.300
opposed it for many different reasons,

00:08:14.300 --> 00:08:18.370
and one of their problems was
they were not a united bunch.

00:08:18.370 --> 00:08:21.090
But, in general, these were people fearful

00:08:21.090 --> 00:08:24.060
of a very strong national government.

00:08:24.060 --> 00:08:26.310
They believed states were sovereign,

00:08:26.310 --> 00:08:28.730
they wanted to keep power local,

00:08:28.730 --> 00:08:30.290
and they were very fearful of

00:08:30.290 --> 00:08:32.370
what they perceived to be an elite,

00:08:32.370 --> 00:08:36.660
who would run the Constitution
after ratification.

00:08:36.660 --> 00:08:40.240
The names that people may
know who were Anti-Federalists

00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:44.570
were people like Patrick
Henry and Samuel Adams.

00:08:44.570 --> 00:08:47.350
- [Kim] So what were some
of the major arguments made

00:08:47.350 --> 00:08:50.360
in favor of adopting
this new Constitution?

00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:53.980
- [Michael] There were, I
think, two types of arguments.

00:08:53.980 --> 00:08:58.020
People felt that the Articles
were not working properly.

00:08:58.020 --> 00:09:00.440
They had all kinds of problems.

00:09:00.440 --> 00:09:02.620
And one of the strongest arguments

00:09:02.620 --> 00:09:05.200
that The Federalist Papers made was that

00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:10.200
if we don't fix this and make
for a stronger union together,

00:09:10.470 --> 00:09:12.720
what'll happen is, we'll break apart.

00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:16.490
Look at what happens when
you have a bunch of states

00:09:16.490 --> 00:09:19.380
all next to one another in a land area.

00:09:19.380 --> 00:09:21.910
We know what that looks
like, it's called Europe.

00:09:21.910 --> 00:09:23.210
And what happens in Europe?

00:09:23.210 --> 00:09:25.980
They fight wars with one
another all the time,

00:09:25.980 --> 00:09:28.890
and those wars are very problematic.

00:09:28.890 --> 00:09:32.710
You have to have big
armies, standing armies.

00:09:32.710 --> 00:09:35.000
Now, there were also the
particular arguments about

00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:38.890
what powers were missing that
the Federal Government had.

00:09:38.890 --> 00:09:40.340
The main arguments were made was

00:09:40.340 --> 00:09:42.570
the Federal Government
did not have enough power.

00:09:42.570 --> 00:09:45.740
So they didn't have, for
example, the taxing power,

00:09:45.740 --> 00:09:49.540
and they didn't have a
way of enforcing treaties

00:09:49.540 --> 00:09:51.790
against the states very well.

00:09:51.790 --> 00:09:54.180
And some of the states
were putting tariffs up,

00:09:54.180 --> 00:09:56.670
so interfering with
trade within the country.

00:09:56.670 --> 00:10:00.400
- [Mark] So states would set
tariffs on out-of-state goods.

00:10:00.400 --> 00:10:03.900
States wouldn't contribute
to the national government.

00:10:03.900 --> 00:10:07.070
Second, we needed to
present a united front

00:10:07.070 --> 00:10:09.110
to foreign governments.

00:10:09.110 --> 00:10:11.510
So we were very worried, what would happen

00:10:11.510 --> 00:10:15.300
if South Carolina formed
an alliance with England

00:10:15.300 --> 00:10:18.170
and North Carolina formed
an alliance with France?

00:10:18.170 --> 00:10:19.140
That wouldn't be good.

00:10:19.140 --> 00:10:22.190
The country needed to
speak with one voice.

00:10:22.190 --> 00:10:23.880
- [Kim] So those are some
of the arguments made

00:10:23.880 --> 00:10:25.790
for adopting the Constitution.

00:10:25.790 --> 00:10:27.610
What were some of the arguments against

00:10:27.610 --> 00:10:30.270
adopting this new Constitution?

00:10:30.270 --> 00:10:32.320
- [Mark] Well, first argument was,

00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:34.730
even though most Anti-Federalists admitted

00:10:34.730 --> 00:10:37.150
the Articles needed some repair,

00:10:37.150 --> 00:10:39.030
they said it's not really urgent.

00:10:39.030 --> 00:10:41.820
It's not like the house is
gonna fall down tomorrow.

00:10:41.820 --> 00:10:44.180
It's just, you know, the
wind is coming through,

00:10:44.180 --> 00:10:45.870
and we can figure it out.

00:10:45.870 --> 00:10:48.880
We really want a better Constitution.

00:10:48.880 --> 00:10:51.420
The other arguments were the Constitution

00:10:51.420 --> 00:10:54.900
put too much power in
the national government.

00:10:54.900 --> 00:10:56.900
It put too much power in elites.

00:10:56.900 --> 00:11:00.030
The fear was if you
had national elections,

00:11:00.030 --> 00:11:01.960
only elites would win.

00:11:01.960 --> 00:11:03.560
If you had local elections,

00:11:03.560 --> 00:11:07.060
people the people actually knew would win.

00:11:07.060 --> 00:11:10.580
- [Kim] So they thought
a big national government

00:11:10.580 --> 00:11:13.450
would be too far away from the people

00:11:13.450 --> 00:11:15.440
to know what they really needed,

00:11:15.440 --> 00:11:17.210
as opposed to state governments,

00:11:17.210 --> 00:11:20.310
which they perceived as
being sort of more personal,

00:11:20.310 --> 00:11:23.480
closer to the needs of individuals?

00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:26.470
- [Mark] So compare
two kinds of elections.

00:11:26.470 --> 00:11:30.680
First, how many people really know anyone

00:11:30.680 --> 00:11:34.480
who runs for senator,
who runs for president,

00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:37.580
that you're on a first-name basis with?

00:11:37.580 --> 00:11:40.420
Now compare, you're in a school club.

00:11:40.420 --> 00:11:43.120
Chances are, when someone
runs for an officer

00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:45.310
of the school club, you know who they are.

00:11:45.310 --> 00:11:47.150
- [Michael] Another type of argument was,

00:11:47.150 --> 00:11:50.360
if you give the Federal
Government this power,

00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:52.550
and even if, and the
Federalists will always argue

00:11:52.550 --> 00:11:55.200
that the power was limited
that they were being given

00:11:55.200 --> 00:11:56.540
to the Federal Government.

00:11:56.540 --> 00:11:58.200
And the Anti-Federalist
came back and says,

00:11:58.200 --> 00:12:00.540
well, you say it's limited,

00:12:00.540 --> 00:12:03.470
but what we know from
historical experience is,

00:12:03.470 --> 00:12:06.010
is that once a government's in power,

00:12:06.010 --> 00:12:08.700
it tends to seize more power.

00:12:08.700 --> 00:12:12.540
There's a lot of vague
phrases in the Constitution,

00:12:12.540 --> 00:12:16.440
and the Federal Government
will use those vague phrases

00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:18.720
to assert greater and greater power.

00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:20.300
- [Kim] What were some of the strategies

00:12:20.300 --> 00:12:24.050
that the Framers used to
entice some of the opponents

00:12:24.050 --> 00:12:27.180
of a strong central government
to ratify the Constitution?

00:12:27.180 --> 00:12:29.640
- [Michael] So the first
thing that they did was

00:12:29.640 --> 00:12:32.010
to try to build up momentum.

00:12:32.010 --> 00:12:34.400
So they knew there were certain states

00:12:34.400 --> 00:12:37.200
which were strongly in
favor of ratification.

00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:41.760
Small states sometimes
wanted ratification.

00:12:41.760 --> 00:12:44.010
So the first state that
comes in is Delaware,

00:12:44.010 --> 00:12:46.850
and they vote 30 to zero
for the Constitution.

00:12:46.850 --> 00:12:49.030
And a bunch of early states,

00:12:49.030 --> 00:12:53.140
so let's say the first five states,

00:12:53.140 --> 00:12:57.090
all vote for ratification
by pretty lopsided margins.

00:12:57.090 --> 00:12:59.300
So that builds up a kind of momentum.

00:12:59.300 --> 00:13:02.230
All right, we have five
states, we only need four more.

00:13:02.230 --> 00:13:04.820
Of course, the next ones
that were gonna come

00:13:04.820 --> 00:13:06.520
were gonna be much more difficult.

00:13:07.700 --> 00:13:11.800
And they then needed to change

00:13:11.800 --> 00:13:13.200
their strategy at that point.

00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:15.290
- [Mark] You know, they argued like crazy.

00:13:15.290 --> 00:13:18.890
The Federalist Papers are
a very famous example.

00:13:18.890 --> 00:13:21.670
They indicated they'd be open to amendment

00:13:21.670 --> 00:13:24.803
once the Constitution was ratified.

00:13:25.650 --> 00:13:27.820
Then, again, in Pennsylvania,

00:13:27.820 --> 00:13:30.680
when Anti-Federalists
boycotted the convention,

00:13:30.680 --> 00:13:33.520
and the result is the
convention didn't have a quorum.

00:13:33.520 --> 00:13:36.730
They ordered the Sergeant
at Arms to a tavern.

00:13:36.730 --> 00:13:39.790
The Sergeant at Arms found some
boycotting Anti-Federalists

00:13:39.790 --> 00:13:41.420
and physically put them in the building

00:13:41.420 --> 00:13:43.313
so they could count for a quorum.

00:13:43.313 --> 00:13:44.990
- [Kim] (laughing) That's terrific.

00:13:44.990 --> 00:13:46.540
- [Mark] That one doesn't
get told in a whole lot

00:13:46.540 --> 00:13:48.910
of history books.
(Kim laughs)

00:13:48.910 --> 00:13:49.743
- [Kim] Wow.

00:13:49.743 --> 00:13:51.810
- [Mark] The Framers could
play rough-and-tumble politics

00:13:51.810 --> 00:13:53.060
with the best of them.

00:13:53.060 --> 00:13:54.850
- [Kim] A lot of the things that pop up

00:13:54.850 --> 00:13:56.700
at the time of the framing,

00:13:56.700 --> 00:13:59.560
I think, we look back
on today and imagine,

00:13:59.560 --> 00:14:02.650
how would this work in today's era,

00:14:02.650 --> 00:14:06.590
with, you know, 330 million Americans?

00:14:06.590 --> 00:14:10.440
Do you think the system under
the Articles of Confederation

00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:13.200
with a smaller, more local government

00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:14.633
could possibly work today?

00:14:15.490 --> 00:14:16.690
- [Mark] Well, among other things,

00:14:16.690 --> 00:14:18.480
the Articles had no great means

00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:21.140
of collecting taxes or gaining revenue.

00:14:21.140 --> 00:14:24.690
Given that modern government
needs trillions of dollars,

00:14:24.690 --> 00:14:26.770
the Articles, if you
got a thousand dollars,

00:14:26.770 --> 00:14:30.280
it was a miracle, so the
Articles clearly don't work.

00:14:30.280 --> 00:14:33.240
But the Articles were inadequate

00:14:33.240 --> 00:14:36.010
for 18th-century government.

00:14:36.010 --> 00:14:38.180
They were clearly inadequate

00:14:38.180 --> 00:14:41.260
or would be clearly inadequate
for 21st-century government.

00:14:41.260 --> 00:14:44.240
Now, the Constitution
appears to have been adequate

00:14:44.240 --> 00:14:45.960
for 18th-century government.

00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:48.450
Whether it is adequate for
21st-century government

00:14:48.450 --> 00:14:49.930
is a fair question.

00:14:49.930 --> 00:14:52.240
- [Michael] One of the
interesting questions about

00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:56.820
the Constitution is how
democratic is the Constitution?

00:14:56.820 --> 00:15:00.300
This debate about how
democratic the Constitution is

00:15:00.300 --> 00:15:04.170
actually enters into the
question about ratification.

00:15:04.170 --> 00:15:06.020
On one level,

00:15:06.020 --> 00:15:09.100
the Constitution was democratic

00:15:09.100 --> 00:15:12.930
because each state in these
ratification conventions

00:15:12.930 --> 00:15:17.710
voted on whether to
ratify by majority vote.

00:15:17.710 --> 00:15:20.050
On the other hand, at the federal level,

00:15:20.050 --> 00:15:24.060
the ratification requirement
required nine out of 13.

00:15:24.060 --> 00:15:28.340
And the idea there would
be we needed more buy-in.

00:15:28.340 --> 00:15:31.450
We needed a limitation
on simple majority rule

00:15:31.450 --> 00:15:34.460
in order to make the system function well,

00:15:34.460 --> 00:15:37.660
in order to produce a Constitution

00:15:37.660 --> 00:15:40.830
that would have support
from the whole country.

00:15:40.830 --> 00:15:43.630
The interesting thing about
that supermajority rule

00:15:43.630 --> 00:15:45.340
and something that people don't often

00:15:45.340 --> 00:15:48.380
make the connection
with is we probably owe

00:15:48.380 --> 00:15:52.280
our Bill of Rights to
that supermajority rule.

00:15:52.280 --> 00:15:56.533
Because if only seven of the
13 states, the mere majority,

00:15:57.610 --> 00:16:00.860
had been needed to
ratify the Constitution,

00:16:00.860 --> 00:16:04.670
then it's quite possible
that the Federalists

00:16:04.670 --> 00:16:08.160
wouldn't have had to promise
to put a Bill of Rights

00:16:08.160 --> 00:16:11.190
into the Constitution because
they wouldn't have needed to.

00:16:11.190 --> 00:16:13.810
And they were initially quite opposed

00:16:13.810 --> 00:16:16.260
to putting a Bill of
Rights in the Constitution.

00:16:16.260 --> 00:16:18.330
It was only the fact that they needed nine

00:16:18.330 --> 00:16:22.720
out of the 13 states that
really forced their hand

00:16:22.720 --> 00:16:24.180
and forced them to promise

00:16:24.180 --> 00:16:25.870
that they would put the
Bill of Rights in there.

00:16:25.870 --> 00:16:28.760
So we see the, in terms
of the ratification,

00:16:28.760 --> 00:16:30.790
that there's both sort
of democratic elements

00:16:30.790 --> 00:16:35.640
but also republican or
supermajority elements.

00:16:35.640 --> 00:16:37.470
- [Kim] So we've learned
that it wasn't easy

00:16:37.470 --> 00:16:39.200
to ratify the Constitution.

00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:41.570
The Framers bypassed state legislatures

00:16:41.570 --> 00:16:44.820
and went directly to the
people in state conventions,

00:16:44.820 --> 00:16:46.900
hoping that momentum and arguments

00:16:46.900 --> 00:16:49.610
for a stronger Federal
Government would entice

00:16:49.610 --> 00:16:52.510
the opponents of the
Constitution to ratify it.

00:16:52.510 --> 00:16:55.250
It took until 1789

00:16:55.250 --> 00:16:59.690
for nine out of 13 states
to ratify the Constitution

00:16:59.690 --> 00:17:01.490
and finally make it law.

00:17:01.490 --> 00:17:03.890
To learn more about Article VII, check out

00:17:03.890 --> 00:17:07.410
the National Constitution
Center's Interactive Constitution

00:17:07.410 --> 00:17:08.970
and Khan Academy's resources

00:17:08.970 --> 00:17:10.993
on U.S. government and politics.