WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Constitution Corner: Article 1

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

Schoolhouse Rock, Filibusters, and Green Eggs and Ham... what in the world could those have to do with the Constitution? Join Mattingly Watson as she finds the answer exploring Article 1 in a fun and interactive episode of the Constitution Corner!

This is Constitution Corner on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Now let's go make one of our most impactful documents fun to learn and easy to understand with some crazy stories and some interesting pop culture references. I am your host, Maddingly Watson, and today we will be discussing Article 1 in the United States Constitution. Now, I think the only proper way to start a series on the Constitution is to listen to some good old schoolhouse rock. All right, all right, we won't listen to the rest of the song, but be rest assured that is not the last we will be hearing of school house rock. Because how could you just not? All right, now let's get into Article 1.

Article 1 jumpstarts our Constitution with a detailed structuring of the legislative branch. Now, the legislative branch is what you might have heard to refer to as Congress. At least that's the main part. And Congress in America is divided up into two separate entities. We have the House of Representatives and the Senate. Now, I'm not going to bore you by going into all of the detailed interworkings of Article 1 and reading it to you word for word because I think we might all fall asleep if I did that. But today we are going to be diving into how the founders came up with this idea,

some funny pop culture references and to bring us to a close, a fun little pop quiz. Now, Article 1 is mainly known for giving Congress the power to pass bills or laws and giving them limits to their power so they don't do anything too crazy. I'm not sure I'd want to see what happened if they had, you know, just unlimited power. But what it does not elaborate on in great detail is how the founders came up with this niche structure of Congress. So let's take a step back to the summer of 1787. The young United States was operating under a faulty constitution that was fragmenting the country. No, no, no, I'm not talking about the Constitution we know and love in modern times.

That constitution was actually our second. The first in the one the Americans of early 1787 found themselves living under was the Articles of Confederation. Now, the Articles of Confederation were pretty different than what we see America as today. They only had a shadow of a federal government and it was tearing apart the country. The young United States was really just a sitting duck with hardly any defense against larger and more powerful countries. There was nothing to unify all of the states together. So, a man you might have heard of, James Madison, who actually ended up becoming one of our presidents, decided to call a meeting with some men.

And this was leading up to something called the Constitutional Convention. But this meeting was a little bit secret. And he called them all together, and one of the men he invited. was soon to be first president George Washington, but nobody knew this yet. Now, at this meeting, James Madison proposed a plan, and the other men helped him craft it, and it became known as the Virginia Plan. Now, the Virginia plan had three branches of government laid out, and that might sound familiar because we actually ended up deciding to adopt these three branches.

So that's the legislative, what we were talking about with Congress, the executive, and the judicial, which we'll get to in later weeks talking about the second and third articles. Now, the Virginia plan they took to the Constitutional Convention. But what's crazy about this convention, guys, listen to this. They had to have the utmost amount of secrecy. So the windows are all shut. The doors are locked. And that may not sound too crazy to you for a secret meeting.

But listen to this, there were 55 men packed in this tiny, tiny room. And now, I've seen this room before visiting up in Philadelphia, which was where the convention was, and that's a lot of men for one room. It was hot, stuffy, sweaty. Guys, there was no air conditioning. It hadn't been invented yet. There were no fans. And they were like that for three months in the dead summer heat.

Imagine being stuffed in a locked up shut room with no airflow with 55 grown men who are arguing with one another, who are running around. I just cannot even imagine what that would be like. But they did it for three months. They sacrificed this comfort to come up with a government that would protect us for years to come. Now, the Virginia plan had a little bit of an enemy plan at the convention, and that is called the New Jersey Plan. Now, the New Jersey plan advocated for a unicameral Congress. And what that means is instead of having two separate entities in Congress,

like the House of Representatives and the Senate, there would just be one. Now, some of you might have heard of this before, some of you might have not, because there actually is a state in the country that did adopt this unicameral plan and still operates under it today. And that is Nebraska. So if you're from Nebraska, this is probably just old hat to you sounds familiar. But if you're like me and you've never lived in Nebraska, this might car was a bit of a shock. Another thing the New Jersey plan advocated for was equal representatives among the states.

So what we see now in the Senate where each state gets two senators, they wanted that for their one body of Congress. See, New Jersey was representing the smaller states, who, in a plan where everyone had varying amounts of representatives really have hardly any voice at all. So that's why some people were leaning towards that, especially the smaller states. But other states that were bigger, such as Virginia, were leaning towards the Virginia plan because the Virginia plan had a proportionally represented structure in their both houses of Congress. So that would be like if both houses were represented just like the way the House of Representatives is now, where each state has a varying number of representatives based on their population.

So they were pretty divided on this because the bigger states, they wanted their power. They wanted to have all these votes. But the smaller states were like, hey guys, what about me? What's going on here? So the final product is what we see to this day and what is represented in our constitution. And that is a two-house legislature, like I was saying, with the House of Representatives and the Senate both being in Congress. Now, the House of Representatives

follows that Virginia plan nature of having everyone be different representatives from all the different states. So California is going to have a ton while smaller states like Rhode Island are really not going to have that many representatives. But the other side of Congress, the Senate, follows that New Jersey plan structure

where each state gets equal representation. So smaller states like Rhode Island, or New Jersey might have a little bit more of a say and actually get to influence the country that they're living in. So it equals out pretty well, giving everyone the different power they deserve so everyone in the states has a voice. Now, one of my favorite things about this convention

that you know not only created Article 1, but the rest of the articles as well, was a famous quote from the end of it. So after everything was finished and, you know, they're walking out for the last, last time, a woman by the name of Elizabeth Willing Powell stopped Benjamin Franklin and said, well, what have we got, doctor, a republic or a monarchy? Benjamin Franklin stopped and said, a republic, if you can keep it.

You're probably thinking, Mattingly, what even is a republic? I thought we were a democracy. If you're thinking that, you're not alone. Many people confused the United States for being a pure democracy. But what most don't know is that the founders actually tried to steer clear of that outcome. We were founded to be a constitutional republic, to safeguard the people from any one person or party gaining power, and to ensure that all people, regardless of where they live,

lived had a say in their government through representatives. Progressive influences in the 20th century promoted laws to push our constitutional republic towards democracy. And while some of these laws passed and our country certainly has aspects of democracy, we are a constitutional republic. And so that is why Benjamin Franklin's quote to Elizabeth Powell matters so much. It was on these principles that not only Article 1 and the legislative branch were structured, but also the rest of the Constitution. Now, as we head into our pop culture segment, I want to highlight probably one of the funniest things to come out of the legislative branch. And that is something called a filibuster. A filibuster is when a congressman speaks for an extraordinarily long amount of time about random things to stall proceedings from moving

forward. This is usually to persuade people to switch sides of the disagreement so that the congressman's position might pull through. Now, there have been some wild filibuster moments throughout history that maybe you've heard of and maybe you haven't, so I definitely want to share them with you. On June 12, 1935, Huey Long stood there from one day to the next, reading off entire recipes of good old Southern cooking from back home in Louisiana. Now, I might have to go pull up those recipes after this. And then in 2013, I remember when this happened. It was all over the news.

People made memes about it. I mean, this was a pop culture reference in and of itself. Senator Ted Cruz from Texas stayed on the floor for 21 hours and resulted to reading Dr. Seuss's green eggs and ham. Here it is. And I love this story and so I'm going to read it to you. Sam I am. That Sam I am, that Sam I am. I do not like that Sam I am. Do you like green eggs and ham? I do not like them Sam I am. I do not like green eggs and ham. Would you like them here or there? I would. not like them here or there. I would not like them anywhere. I do not like green eggs and ham.

I do not like them. Sam, I am. Would you like them in a house? Would you like them with a mouse? All right, all right, all right. I won't subject you guys to listening to the entirety of Dr. Seuss's green eggs and ham, but Senator Ted Cruz certainly did to the rest of the Senate. Not only have we seen these crazy filibusters in real life, but some comedic YouTubers have decided to take it into their own hands and put their own twist on it. So here is a hilarious video from Studio C titled Best Filibuster Ever. The chair recognizes Mr. Warner. Thank you, Mr. Meese.

My fellow senators, I have done everything in my power to stop this bill from passing. I have pleaded, I have begged, and I have bribed. Excuse me? But none of that was good enough, so you've left me no choice. Prepare yourselves for a filibuster. Mr. Warner, you understand that in order to filibuster you may not sit, eat, or stop talking. I understand, and I am prepared. My head was spinning, trying to stop talking.

was spinning, trying to analyze every word Edward had spoken today. What did he mean it was better if we weren't friends? My stomach twisted as I realized that he must, what he must have meant. He must see how absorbed I was by him. He must not want to lead me on. So he couldn't even be friends, because he wasn't interested in me at all. Of course he wasn't interested in me, I thought, angrily. My eye stinging, a delayed reaction to the onions.

I wasn't interesting, and he was. All right, if you want to hear the rest of that skit by Studio C, which you're about a third of the way through, then you can go check it out on their YouTube. Like I said, it's called Best Fillobuster Ever by Studio C. That's their channel name. They make lots of different funny videos, but I just thought it was kind of funny.

You know, we see not only the actual literal filibusters, which are funny in and of themselves in Congress, but our pop culture has taken to putting their own twist on something you never would have thought of, Article 1. Now, some different movies in pop culture kind of segueing out of what happens on the floor, but these movies have highlighted our beloved National Congress. And one of them is a classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Now, this is a 1939 classic in which a naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacant. in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and

subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character. And now, if you're looking for something a bit more modern to become more familiar with Article 1, here is The Campaign, a 2012 comedy movie starring Will Ferrell. An incumbent representative embroiled in personal scandal faces a no-holds-barred challenge from a naive newcomer funded by two unscrupulous billionaire lobbyist brothers. All righty. I have one more pop culture reference for you guys. And this isn't a movie to go see, but actually, this one doesn't directly involve a legislative branch. In fact, it actually is about the preamble, which comes right before the.

the legislative branch, which is a really cool thing to read that kind of sets the context for everything. So if you want more context on like the rest of the Constitution, definitely read the preamble. You can see maybe where some of the founders are coming from. But this pop culture reference is like I said about the preamble. And it is the preamble song from school house rock. And I remember listening to this and my class is going up, but also from my dad at home. So let's listen to that because it is just a classic. It's principles down on Constitution. And it's been helping us run our country ever since them.

The first part of the Constitution is called the preamble and tells what those founding fathers set out to do. We're making that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day because it will certainly be stuck in mine. All right. And now the moment we have all been waiting for. Drum roll, please. our pop quiz. Now, this one's going to be fun. I promise. It's not like those science and math

pop quizzes you remember from high school. All righty. Question number one. Which senator famously read Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham while filibustering for 21 hours? You guessed Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas? Then you would be correct. Give yourself. a pat on the bat. All righty. Now, how many senators does each state have serving in the United States Senate?

That's right. It is two. Good job, guys. And now for our third and final question, which founding father coined the quote, a republic, if you can keep it. Benjamin Franklin. Good job, guys.

you guys, you handled that pop quiz like a champ. And that brings us to a conclusion today. It has been a pleasure exploring the quirks of Article I with y'all. Make sure to tune back in next week for our highlight of Article 2. That one is sure to be an interesting one, to say the least. Make sure to check us out on Instagram at Constitution Corner. And listen anywhere you get your podcasts. I am your host, Maddingley Watson.

And this has been Constitution Corner on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.