You're Dead to Me - Becoming America

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

Greg Jenner is joined by historian Prof Joanne Freeman and comedian Chris Addison in the 18th century to look at the birth of a nation as America takes its first steps after achieving independence from the British. Where did party politics come from? How were Vice Presidents originally selected? Why was Washington DC chosen as the capital? Did George Washington really have a special presidential suit? And just why did Jefferson keep a mammoth cheese in the lobby?Produced by Cornelius Mendez Script by Greg Jenner and Emma Nagouse Research by Tim GalsworthyA production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a Radio 4 history podcast for everyone. For people who don't like history, people who do like history and people who forgot to learn any at school. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. who forgot to learn any at school. My name is Greg Jenner. I am a public historian, author and broadcaster. I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories.

And you might have heard my other podcast, Homeschool History, but that's mostly for the kids. On this podcast, we run a two-party system of witty wisecracks and historical hijinks. And we are ending Series 3 of You're Dead to Me with five episodes dedicated to American history. Last time out was the Harlem Renaissance, but today we are paddling across the pond and journeying back nearly 250 years to learn all about the early days of the US

Republic. Yes, it's the inevitable politics episode. I mean, we had to really, didn't we? And joining me in the room where it happens, or rather the Zoom where it happens, are two very special guests. In History Corner slash History Cupboard, because she's literally in a closet, she's a professor of history at Yale and specialises in early American politics, political violence and cultural polarisation. Sounds familiar. She was co-host of the American History Podcast Backstory. She's the author of prize winning books such as the staggeringly relevant Field of Blood, Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War. And her book Affairs of Honour inspired a plucky young songsmith called Lin-Manuel Miranda

to write a dueling song in a thing called Hamilton? Yeah, never heard of it. It's Professor Joanne B. Freeman. Hello, Joanne. Thank you for joining us. Your CV is ridiculous. Well, I'm glad to be here. And my CV is full of founder folk smacking each other around. And in Comedy Corner, he's a critically acclaimed comedian, actor, writer and director. You'll know him from his political satire work, In the Thick of It, In the Loop and Mock the Weak.

Plus, he won awards for directing HBO's political satire Veep and then directed actual Hollywood royalty in his debut feature film, The Hustle, starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. Plus, he co-created the darkly hilarious parenting sitcom Breeders starring Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard. Crikey, what a CV. It's Chris Addison. Thanks for having me, Craig. It's a real treat. Your CV also makes me feel inadequate. So please make me feel better by telling me that you're terrible at history and you hated it at school. I am quite bad at history. I am terrible at

history. I didn't hate it at school. The people who mark the A-level papers did inform me at the end of the process that I wasn't terribly good at history. Well, I mean, today we're going to be firing a lot of history at you. Hopefully some of it will feel familiar. You lived and worked in America for quite a while. Quite a while, but it doesn't go back to 1776. Anything that might have happened that was a bit tasty in Baltimore around 2016, I'm there. I can do that. So, what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you at home might know about today's subject. You know what the USA is, don't you? It's got a president who lives in a White House. There's a Congress and a Senate and a star-spangled banner.

And you know the Americans used to be under British rule until they broke away from the colonialords, yadda yadda yadda, Independence Day, Fourth of July, Constitution, Eagles, etc. And then suddenly along came Lin-Manuel Miranda with his amazing uber-smash musical Hamilton. Let's now find out what that really means in terms of politics and in terms of history. What do we need to know about little baby America and its first toddler steps? history. What do we need to know about little baby America and its first toddler steps? Professor Joanne, can you give us the super speediest introduction to how America won independence from Britain? How do they go from being bowler hat wearing, cricket playing, tea drinking Brits to suddenly going, I'm going to get on a jet ski and wear board shorts? The American colonies were under British rule. And then in the 1760s, there were a series of acts

and taxations that angered a lot of the American colonists. So they met in 1774 in the first Continental Congress to organize petitions and things like that to protest. And then in 1775, actual war broke out. 1776, you get the second Continental Congress, they actually declare independence. And then you have a war and then it ends with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. After having won the war, they chose then to sign the paper in Paris. Why did they, I mean, some 3000 miles to the east? Why did they do that? Was the whole thing basically just an attempt to win a holiday? Because the French were American allies.

So they were sort of acting as intermediaries. But they were only prepared to do that from their own house. Apparently so. America had to go to France. Pretty much. As with the famous line from the Hamilton musical, what comes next? How do you set up a country? You've won the war.

What's the first order of business on the first day of a new America? Well, the big problem is holding everybody together. Thank God that's changed. But no, everyone's happy to come together during a war because you're afraid you might die. So the 1780s after the war are not a happy, cheery decade. And Americans, they don't like each other and they're ignoring each other and things aren't really going well. So one of the first things they have to deal with is, what's the us? That requires the foundation of law. It requires the foundation of political government. It's going to require a banking system. Do we get the Constitutional Convention pretty quickly? It takes a while. In the 1780s, they have the Articles of Confederation, which

are just not really strong and can't really make any state do anything. And then in 1787, they decide, yeah, that didn't quite work. So they call the Constitutional Convention. And that's when they come up with the Constitution that we have today. Yes, although there will be amendments, of course, because they don't get it right first time. That's true. Chris, do you know how many states there are in America at this time? 13. Yeah, they don't how many states there are in America at this time? 13. Yeah. They don't really have much in common, right? Exactly. And that's a big part of the problem. How do you pull these states together? And part of the big answer at the Constitutional Convention is federalism, which basically says, yeah, it's a national government, but you know

what? State governments count too. What's the impetus behind that? Is it they don't like centralized power because they didn't like a monarchy? Or is it because they've all got their own, we do things differently in our street, and we want to do it our way? I'm going to be a historian and say, a little bit of both, actually. Historians always have two or three reasons for everything. Boy, were they nervous about monarchy. But also people were calling their state their country for a good 10 years after the government launched. So yeah, they all basically figured their state was really what mattered more than anything else.

And so they didn't want to surrender their states at all. So Virginia is a commonwealth, which is a sort of oldie worldie word. And then you've got these various states, which people think are essentially their own little countries. And then someone along the line has gone, no, no, this needs to be a United States of America, which suggests it's one big country. And yet at the same time suggests it's more than one thing. So you need a big, strong leader. And that brings us to the president, Chris, who was the first president? I did fall asleep halfway through Hamilton. So is it George III? Yeah, that's right. Yes. Great. Is that right? Or was it George Washington?

Yeah, I know you were joking there, but you sort of hit the nail on the head a little bit there because when they're trying to propose the idea of a President, Joanne, it's a new idea. So why Washington? He's been a great war leader, but does that make him a good political leader? Well, actually, John Adams, who was always, I think, a little jealous of everybody, once said that Washington, the reason he was so great was he was tall, he looked good on a horse. The truth is that after the war, he did a thing that Americans assumed that victorious generals don't do. And that is he gave up power and then just went back to his farm. And so by surrendering power, he became absolutely trusted with power.

He negged America. That's what he did. On a massive scale, he negged America into coming after him. It totally worked. As a political philosophy, I really like the idea of giving power to people who don't want it. It should be like jury service. So you have to do it for two weeks at a time. Twelve of you. Twelve of you who don't really get on in a room have to run the country for two weeks. And spend most of the time deciding what to have lunch. Yeah, that's it. Chris, do you know what the word president means?

The one who is presiding, I suppose. Yeah, and that comes from the Latin sedare, meaning to sit. So to sit in office. So we end up calling him Mr. President, of course, but different suggestions are proposed. And I'm going to ask you to guess which one of these is not true here we go chris his excellency his most exalted leader his highness his most benign highness and the fifth one his high mightiness the president of the united states and protector of their liberties i don't think you made up the last one give me the second one again craig his most exalted leader that one i think that's the one you've got good nose for this that is the made up one yeah it just felt a

little bit too brown nosy my favorite one is his most benign highness his benignness it's benignness that's where it is but to me it sounds like yes we're going to call him his highness but we're going to say he's useless and he can't actually achieve anything. He's not malignant. He's benign. One of the things I love about Mr. President is the implication that by adding Mr. to it, they've given it some sort of dignity. And this is the same country that named a horse Mr. Ed. So that gives you a level of understanding of how important Mr. is in conferring any dignity. Absolutely right. The word president, a lot of people thought, really? Actually,

good old John Adams again, who always has like the, he punches holes in every little balloon of pump. He's the guy who says, president, there are presidents of cricket clubs, president. And he thinks like the whole world is going to be scorning this president of the united states they're all kings and we've got this guy so as an english person what i take about that is a deep sense of pride that somebody so important in american history was discussing cricket on the one hand president doesn't sound properly distinguished enough so it sounds a bit embarrassing that when you go to international conferences, you turn up and go, hello, I'm Mr. President. But on the flip side, you also have John Adams fearing that George Washington is a bit too much like King George III, because he's got a bit of

monarchical razzmatazz. There's a bit of grandeur there, isn't there? Well, that's all that Americans knew was a king. And now what do we have? The whole decade of the 1790s, a big chunk of it is just Americans trying to figure out what the heck is a president and what the heck is a republic and how does it work and how does it compare? And poor George is kind of smack at the center of that when he's president, trying to figure out how to be dignified, but then how to be not so dignified that he looks like a king. There is a quote from James McHenry who says that George Washington is king under a different name. That's not subtle.

No, it's not subtle. Not subtle. And there were people who were kind of comforted by the idea that he would be a kingly kind of guy. You couldn't say that without having people spit on you. But there were other people, you know, there's some point at which Washington gives a speech, and someone refers to it as his most excellent speech. And someone else stands up and says, that's the way they refer to things in England. And the question is, is that good or bad? Are we supposed to sound like England? Are we not supposed to sound like England? So the United States has a bit of an identity crisis, pretty much, in this whole time period. George Washington, you talk about him going back to his farm.

He's not some country bumpkin who's like, oh, I'm just growing my turnips. He is an aristocrat, really. He's a nobleman. He wears very nice, smart suits. He carries a sword. And of course, he's a slave owner. He owns land. This is not someone who is an ordinary man of the people.

How does he dress as president? Well, he probably thought about that a lot when he started. And apparently one of the things he did was he had a president suit, which I only discovered because there's an anecdote, a story, which he's at a dinner party with people and someone knocks at the door to ask the president a question and george goes upstairs changes into his plain black president suit comes back downstairs answers the question then goes back upstairs and gets out of the plain black president suit and goes back to the dinner party so he was trying to look like whatever the heck a president was like a lunatic that's what he ended up looking like it It's like a superhero.

He had to go downstairs to his president cave, where his butler had laid out his president suit next to the presidential carriage that special. Took out his president orang and just threw it at the person who asked the question. Joanne, when we spoke before, you told us a story that I found fascinating about a man, I think it was a party, who was agonising about whether to talk to Washington.

Because on the one hand, he didn't want to be rude, and it's exciting to talk to the president. On the other hand, he didn't want to inflate his ego. He had this internal weird peep show monologue of like, should I talk to the president? I don't want to make him an arrogant douche. Right. Well, and that's a great story,

although I can promise you he did not write douche in his diary. I can, I can, I can vow. This particular guy was really worried that the United States was going to slip back into a monarchy. He's a Pennsylvania senator named William McClay, and he loves George Washington. He calls him in his diary, the first man, right? He doesn't even use his name. And he goes to a dinner party and there's Washington at the door. He doesn't even use his name. And he goes to a dinner party and there's Washington at the door. He doesn't know what to do, but he starts walking away from Washington because he makes an awkward bow and he feels stupid and he sees an empty seat and he takes a few steps away from Washington and Washington gestures, come sit here near me. And McClay stops and thinks,

if I turn around and go back, I'm kind of kowtowing to him. And if I'm kowtowing to him, he's going to start to think he's worthy of being kowtowed to. And he might start to act monarchical. And then he might become a monarch. And then the Republic will die. So he does not take the seat. Do the rest of his diaries really reveal him to be a bit of a catastrophizer? He's absolutely paralyzed by the possibility of

the worst case scenario happening whatever they choose to do if i have cornflakes america will fall yeah that's right that tells us quite a lot about washington's the great man and he does play up to the kingly thing a bit joanne he has levees did he drive his chevy to the levees he drove his chevy to the levee? He drove his Chevy to the levee. But it was dry. Yeah, I remember hearing about that. But yeah, he did have these ceremonies where I think it was like every Tuesday or Thursday afternoon, all of the important folk would come in the capital city and he would walk around and will actually not shake their hands.

He decided as president, there would be no handshaking. COVID safe. Good. And so, yeah, that was a little monarchical. But I mean, there's also the idea, Joanne, that in order to combat that, Washington would go for a walk and just meet ordinary people on the street. Well, right. He had the levees. But then in the afternoon, supposedly, he would go for a walk around the block and he would look up at a steeple and correct his time piece and then go back into his office and that was a really deliberate thing and he was basically saying look at me i'm walking in the street just like everybody else i'm not a king and he got fan mail for the walk because people got it right they knew what he was doing i think if i saw george washington go out every day take take his watch out, look at the

steeple, adjust his watch and go back in again, I'd be thinking, he really wants us to get him a watch. His watch clearly doesn't work. Chris, where does George Washington live? Now, I don't think he does, Greg, you... Well, he wouldn't have been in the White House, I guess, at the time. So one high street, Washington, D.C. It's not quite Washington yet, is it, Joanne? Is he New York based for his public house? Partly New York and then the capital moves to Philadelphia. So then partly Philadelphia too. And that's it.

It's the presidential house. And is it open to the public? Are there guards on the door or can you just wander in and go, George, I've noticed your watch isn't working. Well, it's not a palace, but they asked that question. When he first became president, he sent a letter to a bunch of politicians who he valued and trusted their judgment and said, I need some help. Like, what do I do? Do I shake hands? Do I not shake hands? Do I visit people? Do they visit me? And they gave him long lists of what he should do as president. And one of them was, you do not make calls on other people, but they can make calls on you.

But not anyone can make a call any time because that would be a little bit too democratic. So they're actually struggling with that very question. And then, of course, he does the most famous thing of all. In 1796, he resigns. And he is called the American Cincinnatus. Do you know that name, Chris? He's the guy who founded Cincinnati, isn't he? Or rather, Cincinnati is a large collection of different Cincinnatuses. Is that right? There's more than one Cincinnatus.

It's a Cincinnati. That's how it's actually pronounced, Cincinnati. Cincinnatus is a very famous Roman general who in the mid-400s... Can I stop you there? He's not as famous as you think he is. Okay. All right. Sorry.

To Romans, very famous, in the mid-400s BCE, back in the times where Rome really is a minor power, Rome had been invaded. He had stepped up, come out of retirement, led the Roman nation, and then had handed power back and went back to his farm. And Washington does the same. So he's the American St. Anastasioan. He does it three times. He resigns from the British Army, he resigns from the colonial army,

and then he resigns from the presidency. This is a radical new idea, right? Well, yeah, and it really does continually make him trusted because people don't tend to surrender power. Unlike a monarchy, republics were vulnerable to demagogues and people who could appeal to the public and warp them and take them over. And you didn't ever want really ambitious people to be in charge of a republic because over all of history, they were the people who tended to bring republics down.

So George kept over and over and over again, basically saying, I'm the guy, but not really necessarily wanting to be the guy. I mean, I think by the time he stepped down as president, he felt that he was kind of done. I don't think he loved being president. And I think by the time he stepped down, he was like, okay, now I get to go back to Mar-a-Lago and play golf. We then get a national capital founded called Washington, dc named in his honor but it's in a weird place so far you've talked about new york and philadelphia why is washington dc established in that slightly weird swampy place it's where the monument is isn't it greg you've got to put it where the monument is otherwise it makes no sense, it's partly a compromise. Alexander Hamilton,

he's Secretary of the Treasury. One of his financial plans is having a hard time passing, and they make a deal where a bunch of Southerners agree to Hamilton's plan if the capital will move south to the banks of the Potomac. It's actually called Washington City for a while. And they create this city to be a federal city. And they build buildings and streets that are meant to be for some great country that doesn't exist yet. And there aren't streets. You know, someone said it was like the British Museum in a brickyard was what it looked like because there was one big, wonderful structure and then nothing. And the first president to live at the White House is John Adams, who's the second president, who famously says, may none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof. That's worked out big time.

The funny thing about John Adams, he was Washington's vice president, or the veep in your language, of course. Yeah, yeah. How do you think he got the gig? I'm guessing from your question that he wasn't elected. So was it some kind of game show? Did he win a raffle? He lost the election. It's literally a runner's up medal. You lose the election, you get to be VP.

Right. There was no, initially, the constitution doesn't assume there's going to be a two-party system. They just, there's a presidential election and the guy with the most votes becomes president and the guy with the second most votes becomes vice president and does this go further down so if if 17 people stood would there be a vice vice vice vice vice vice vice vice vice vice vice vice vice vice vice vice president you just never know basically it's a runner's up prize which is very nice and then it gets changed by jefferson and by the time we get to Jefferson, who's the third president, he's quite different in a lot of ways to Washington, in a lot of ways to certainly to Adams. They don't seem to get on that well. His presidential style is quite different as well, isn't he? He's a bit more informal. He's a bit more man of the people.

Oh, definitely. And on purpose, because the 1790s, the Federalists, the Hamilton folk, were in power and they were a little monarchical and a little aristocratic and they smiled at Britain and they had a view of what the United States should be that was more akin to what they'd known before. Jefferson is much more comfortable with democratic politicking and when he becomes president, he decides he's going to show his politics with his style. So yeah, he wears rundown clothing. For his presidential inauguration, he walks to his inauguration rather than taking a carriage. And then at the end of it, goes back to his boarding

house to hang out with whoever was at the boarding house. So he's making over and over and over and over again, these statements that are not only I'm not a king, but like, I'm just a guy. I'm one of the people. I'm like you. And that world, which is still a world of kings, that's a big deal. And as a matter of fact, the French who knew him from when he was in France, they're saying to each other, we saw him over here. He didn't dress like that. So this is all an act. So in France, he's dressing like Elton John, presumably, like huge, massive wig, great robe. The glasses, the glasses were the giveaway. Yes.

Jefferson is dressing down. But some of the politicians are dressing up, Joanne. We've got people wearing French lace and nice shoes and riding around in fancy carriages. So some of the politicians, the senators, they are a bit more elite, right? There were definitely people who wanted the government to be more posh and aristocratic seeming than Jefferson and his pals did. And they always assumed from the very beginning that what you dress like would basically not only show what your politics was, but then influence Americans who would want to dress like you, and then they would start behaving like you,

and then the government and the nation would get a character. So they're basically early influencers. That's really what you're describing there. They get a deal with the tailor. Everybody then goes to this tailor. Use my offer code, get 10% off britches. All right, let's talk about governmental structure. The 1787 Constitutional Convention is like, what is America?

How does it work? Oh my God, let's try and solve this. I mean, the last election seemed a bit like that, to be absolutely honest. There's a real debate about what should American political structures be. The Senate, Congress, the presidency, that takes a while to figure out that compromise of having two chambers and an executive, doesn't it? For sure. Small states, for example, chambers and an executive, doesn't it? For sure. Small states, for example, don't want to have a legislative body, a Congress where population determines how many representatives you get, because then they're not going to matter very much. So they come into the Constitutional

Convention thinking, well, one state, one vote. That makes the most sense. And then, of course, large states want to have population matter. Southern states come in and although they own, supposedly, their enslaved population, they want those pieces of property to count as people in representation. So there's a huge debate over how representation works, who's representing what, should there be two houses of Congress or one house of Congress? Should there be a Bill of Rights? And then you end up with that compromise of senators would serve for six years rather than serving for life. A lot of deals being made, a lot of politicking, a lot of compromising, a lot of arguments,

a lot of people going, well, we don't want that. The foundation of American political structure sounds most like a best worst case scenario. It's perfect to think of it as they're kind of figuring it out as they go, because that's totally true. And it's not like perfect government is sort of beamed down. They don't really know what they're doing or if it'll work. And there's a reason why it's entirely confidential. They don't want any word leaked of anything being discussed in the room where the debates are happening, because they're afraid if the public can hear what they're saying in that room. And

some of the things people suggest that they're basically going to freak out and not want a new government at all. And the Bill of Rights is where we get the amendments to the Constitution. Is it 10 amendments? Yes. And the Bill of Rights is the deal. Talk about politicking. So there are people who are unsure about the Constitution who ultimately sign on because they're promised a Bill of Rights. So that's ultimately how the Constitution gets passed. It reminds me also, is it Jefferson who talks about the dead hand of history? Yes. The idea that the Constitution should be rewritten every 19 years? He decides a generation is 19 years.

Firstly, it's a weird amount of time. 19 years is really... But also the idea that every generation should get to redefine what its laws are and who it is as a nation. It's quite a progressive idea. You would be furious if that was actually enshrined in the American way of life. Every 19 years, you had to have a massive shit fight and figure out how you were going to govern this country. It would be a nightmare. It'd be like Brexit every 20 years, just like, oh God, what now? And then there's also the money stuff. Chris, you lived in America for a while. You used dollars. By and large, yeah.

I found it was most successful when I used dollars. When I didn't use dollars, less successful. But the dollar is invented. America needs a new currency. It comes from a different place. It comes from the thala, I think, which is a... Thala. The thala is what it is.

Thala. Oh, yeah. Hello. Tell us about the thala, Chris. Isn't it a bohemian currency? Like the Tala means from the valley, doesn't it? So it's something tal that the currency actually is. And that's corrupted to dollar.

And it is also true there was a Spanish dollar too, because there were other places that had dollars. And what Americans liked about particularly the Spanish dollar was it was a decimal system. There's a Jefferson quote in which he says something like, the arithmetic of British currency, a shilling and a farthing, and you carry what than the pence. And he just didn't like it. So he was very happy along with many other people.

He said the easier the arithmetic, the currency, the better we are. And yet America doesn't like the metric system. What's going on there? Come on. Paper money doesn't come in until 1861. So it's coins are issued, but paper money, way later. So states issue some paper money, which in and of itself is even more confusing. So the last book I wrote, there's a New Hampshire guy, and he gets in a carriage to go to Washington, DC. And he writes to his wife halfway down and says,

use all your New Hampshire money by the time you get to New York, because after New York, no one wants New Hampshire money. So we've talked about money. We've talked about the political structure. Let's talk about flags. Chris, we're going to show you some of the early flag designs. There have been 27 different editions of the Stars and Stripes between 1777 and 1960. So they're constantly changing it. And the rule is every time they had a state, they had a star, but not a stripe, because otherwise it just gets very pinstriped. And it looks like it's glitching on the screen, presumably. The stripes are the 13 original states, aren't they? But for a while there were 15. They added extra states and then they went,

add too many stripes, too many stripes, it's ruining the look. So then they went back to 13 stripes. So here, Chris, we are showing you early American flags. I'd like you just to talk us through them. Okay, well, the first one, this is labelled as the Continental Flag. The Americans fought under this at Bunker Hill in 1775. It is a red flag. In the top left corner, there is a white square which has the silhouette of a tree in it. And it was a problem for the Americans because, of course, the British thought that they were fighting the Lebanese at this point because it looks almost exactly like the cedar of Lebanon flag. It's a Christmas tree to me. The Gadsden flag devised in 1725 by a South Carolina patriot is a coiled snake on a yellow background with its mouth open its tongue out saying don't tread on me

incorrectly punctuated unfortunately which is why it never got taken on. It was the large apostrophe lobby objected to the fact there was no apostrophe between the N and the T of don't. Don't tread on me. Don't tread on me. Maybe that's just how he talked. You don't tread on me. That's strange, actually. Where are you from?

So flag number three is the 13 stripes. That's what we're used to. And then, weirdly, where you'd expect the stars to be, normally there is a Union Jack. That's an interesting one, isn't it? Because that's being raised in 1776 to celebrate the newly formed Continental Army. And yet it contains within it the flag of the oppressor and the enemy. That's a strange thing to do. Well, who's the greatest Navy in the world?

Okay, but the people they were fighting were the British. I mean, it must have been confusing. Yes, yes, yes, yes. There must have been some points where people were going, no, don't shoot at them. That's us. That's the famous one. It's the Betsy Ross.

Which is the stripes and then the sort of EU-style circle of stars in the corner. You'll note, by the way, that the EU, when they lose or gain a member, don't end up adding or taking away stars because it costs a lot of money you can't go changing your flag 27 times there's a lot of money in that so that's the american flag and now we're going to talk a little bit about the seal the american seal obviously is an eagle it's a fantastic emblem but it was slightly controversial there was a big old committee put in place to try and choose what the seal would be and franklin thought the eagle was an immoral lazy bird. And he preferred turkeys.

Weirdly, John Adams wanted the American seal to be Hercules. The Disney character. Yes, that's right. They were all ahead of their time. Weirdly, Jefferson wanted the US seal to feature Hengist and Horsa. That's an Anglo-Saxon thing, isn't it? Yeah, these are the Germanic jutes who invaded England in the 5th century and helped found Kent. So weirdly, Jefferson was like,

there are guys, that's what we're all about. Chris, if you founded the People's Democratic Republic of Adisonia tomorrow, what's your flag and seal going to look like? Oh, my flag, I just have a large glass of wine. Just because if you're going to be in your office staring at your flag all day, there's something that gives you hope about the end of the working day. On my seal, so I think it would be an actual seal. I would put live seals on all documents because they're adorable. They're hard to fake. Well, I'm going to give you the seal of approval for that joke. Joanne, the founding fathers squabbled over the small stuff. And then they also fall out over the big stuff. This is where we get the arrival of the two party system, which is not in the

constitution. No one has seen this coming. No one wants this really. And yet the political powers to be split down the middle. We have the federalists, hoity toity elitist types who like Britain and want central power. And then we have the Democratic Republicans, which is Jefferson's lot. They want an agrarian country. They're not very excited by industry. They're looking towards France instead of England. So it's not so much that you decide one day. I always say this to my students.

They don't wake up one day and say, you know what? Parties, that would be really good. But they divide over their major vision for what the nation should be. And the Federalists are less democratic, and the Republicans are more democratic. And that ends up being a really big dividing point. I suppose the other thing we need to talk about, Joanne, the Constitution starts with the preamble, we the people, which is a fantastic opening line. But then you look at the small print and chris who are the people that get counted do you think i'm gonna assume it's men who own property and that's it

it's it's sort of it's a little bit more open than that okay men who own really nice property can we say that this we the people really excludes women, black people, Native Americans, and the poor? Or is it a little bit more capacious? It depends on what the we is doing at any given moment. If you're talking about people with like real power who can vote and actually do things, then it's pretty much white men with a certain amount of money. If you're talking about people who are kind of embraced in the big American we, yeah, it could be a little bigger than that. And I suppose women are there.

Native Americans, Indians are not entirely accepted, but more accepted than African Americans. It's a pretty amorphous we. We've already mentioned, Joanne, that the three-fifths clause, this is the gimmick of the cheat, right, Joanne, that means that on the one hand, enslaved people count for the weighting of political power but they also don't count as human beings so it's three-fifths of the

amount of slaves in an area counters population right they count three-fifths of the enslaved population and they do that because the southerners want that extra power and so they're not allowed allowed to count their entire enslaved population, but they're allowed to count three fifths of it, which means that they dominate the national government for a really long time. And so this is why slavery is not abolished until well into the 1860s, because the people literally with the whip hand are the people in power, the slaveholders. It's important to note here, Joanne, that there are free African Americans in the northern states who can't vote, but they get to represent themselves, don't they? They can protest, they can write newspapers, they can speak up. Yeah, the 1790s, the first decade, there's a lot of argument and a lot of people trying to decide how much you're allowed to protest and be in the streets. And it's not just white men in the streets trying to figure out how to express their wants and their political views. So yeah, in that case, it definitely goes beyond

white men. But the bigger problem, of course, is that the first president is a slave owner. Jefferson is a slave owner. There are many very powerful men in this government who own human beings, and they're not going to free them. And then on the other hand, there are people like Ben Franklin. He's an abolitionist. I think Hamilton, we're not quite sure where he stands. He was not an abolitionist. Hamilton would say he's against slavery and he belonged to the New York Manumission Society.

And there were slaves still in his family. There's debate now about whether he, his own family, had enslaved people, but his father-in-law's family did during the revolution something that people point out all the time is that americans are constantly saying we're enslaved to the british and they're a population of people that are enslaving other people and then there are people like john lawrence who is famously in the hamilton musical who's trying to say well look let me raise a regiment of black troops we'll liberate them and they can fight for a new america and it'll be great and that gets stopped by the southern states. They're like, no, we don't want any of that. And he dies

in battle. So there are people trying to win that argument, but they don't have the numbers. And then let's talk about women as well. Chris, what sort of rights do you think women had in early America? Well, if it's like the rest of the world, I wouldn't imagine very much, right? Unless there's something genuinely revolutionary going on. I mean, there is one state, Joanne. Yeah, it's a moment of glory for this one state. It's a state that some Americans tend to poke fun at. There's a brief period when women have the vote in New Jersey. The assumption was that these would be wealthy women, probably widows, they would have a certain amount of property. And it

was allowed because the people in power thought it would help them. And eventually, when it was not seen that it would help the people in power, that right was taken away. But there was a little window in there when women in New Jersey could vote. Everything's legal in New Jersey. spinning wheels put in motion by female hands will do as much towards establishing independence as 100,000 of the best militia men in America. So women felt part of the revolutionary movement, the war against Britain, and they presumably felt part of this new America as well. And that brings us on to a slightly weird contribution. Chris, I'm assuming you're a fan of the West Wing? Oh, God, yes. You will know about Big Block of Cheese Day. I certainly do. I've just, I've resisted asking about it up to this point. Come on then, tell us about Big Block of Cheese Day. I certainly do. I've just, I've resisted asking about it up to this point.

Go on then, tell us about Big Block of Cheese Day. Leo, who is the chief of staff to the president, Jed Bartlett, explains to his appalled staff that they have to spend one day every year listening to whomever might want to come in and pitch their crazy fringe ideas to the president's closest team. And this is based on the fact that whichever president it was, had installed in the White House a big block of cheese for the people to come in and take from, because he believed that the place of government should be open to all and beneficial to all.

On that basis, they have to sit there and listen to crackpots all day. The big block of cheese, or rather the mammoth cheese, as it was known. Joanne, this is 1802. This is President Jefferson. And this cheese is pretty big. It's 18 inches tall and it weighs 1,200 pounds. Wait, 18 inches tall? It's not that tall, is it? So it's very wide. It's a very wide block of cheese. This is disappointing. In my head, I always had like a sort of cube of cheddar that was roughly the size of the hallway. They had to deliver it on a cart, Chris, so you can't have anything too towering. It won't get under the bridges. There's absolutely no reason that you couldn't deliver several blocks like that and then sort of use Philadelphia as a

mortar to stack them all together. Philadelphia is literally just down the road. I mean, there's loads of that cheese. But this mammoth cheese is a gift to Jefferson from the ladies of Cheshire. It's a weird gift, but why are they sending him cheese? People were giving Jefferson mammoth everythings, right? He got a mammoth bread and a mammoth pipe and a lot of mammoth things because he thought there were woolly mammoths wandering out in the West and he became known for that. I think Joanne might be having a stroke. Could we send someone to her apartment?

It's genuinely true. He believed that woolly mammoths still existed and they wandered the wilds of the West. But the cheese was a people's cheese. It was a democratic cheese, yes. It was a gift to the man of the West. But the cheese was a people's cheese. It was a democratic cheese. Yes. It was a gift to the man of the people, Thomas Jefferson, a massive block of cheese. And as you say, Chris, it was available for people to nibble on and it was there for two years. By the end, it was Stilton. There's a congressman who eats it. Jefferson would put pieces of it on the dinner table to sort of show off, like, there's my cheese.

To get rid of guests at the end of an evening. Have some three-year-old cheese. You know, we do have to go, Thomas. It's been a lovely evening. Well, this one guy from New Hampshire eats a piece and then he writes in his diary, it was far from being very good. Oh, this is a reminder, actually, Joanne, of the women of America participating in politics,

but it's also a reminder of the people of America. And this is something we need to focus on. There's a really famous story of Hamilton being booed by a crowd and basically saying, shut up. I'm Alexander Hamilton. I'm more important than you are. You should listen to me. And they chuck a rock at his his head he pretty much thought that voting is good people can vote and put people in office and that's under their control and then they should basically shut up and get out of the way until the next election and one of the things happening in the 1790s is Americans figuring out how to voice what they want and voice what they think and protest in the streets. And Hamilton and friends are not super excited by that. And indeed, on this occasion that you mentioned, there were people protesting a

treaty in the street. And Hamilton gets up in front of them and tries to explain the treaty to them. And they don't really want that to happen. And a newspaper describes him as being met with hissings, coughings, and hootings. And when he tells the crowd that they don't have a right to have an opinion on the treaty, then they, yes, indeed, throw a rock at his head. Is this a democracy? It's a democratic republic. So if you'd asked these guys what a democracy was, they would have looked back to the ancient world. They would have thought of Greece, and they would have said, oh, it's a government where every single person takes part. It's not a representative government. And they weren't all that keen on that pure democracy idea.

So I think Americans think back to the founders and assume that anything that's positive in the modern world, you know, liberty, freedom, democracy, blah, blah, blah, had to start with the founders. But democracy, they understood it in a very different way. In the 1790s, there's a phony war with France. And there's the passing of the Alien and Sedition Act, which basically boots out foreigners, makes it illegal to spread any fake news about the government, whatever fake news might be, inverted commas. Journalists are fined, papers are shut down. This is censorship. This is exiling people you don't want in the country. It's not liberty and freedom, is it? Well, it's definitely people who are nervous about democracy, right? These are the

Federalists. And there's this, you called it a phony war. It's called the quasi war with France. And the Federalists take advantage of that and say, okay, well, if we are almost fighting the French, then we should be able to deport French people and we should be able to, for national security purposes, shut down newspapers that criticize the government or at least put people in jail. So, yeah, the Federalists are using that moment to try and stamp down on their opposition, which is not exactly what you expect in a land of liberty. This is true. And there's also been the Whiskey Rebellion, so the Whiskey Riots.

There's usually a riot following whiskey. You have to be more specific. Joanne, this is a major moment, really, because this is the first time that American troops essentially are sent to put down Americans, right? Well, the Whiskey Rebellion is true. It's earlier, it's a couple of years before what we're talking about here

with the Alien and Sedition Acts. But yeah, it's a big deal because actually Hamilton sees people in Western Pennsylvania who are not excited about paying a tax on whiskey and they're protesting. And Hamilton, among others, says, you know what, people shouldn't be protesting against the government. We should march troops out there to silence them. And they get there and they find like eight guys in a flag. So they really didn't need an army. But still, they do march this big army on citizens in western Pennsylvania. Do the Americans now feel like Americans? come from England. But they're very proud. They think that, you know, being American means no old world corruption. It's new world purity and a new way of seeing things. So they definitely

feel that they've started a new kind of trend in government. Yeah. So we get early American novels, we get the foundation of American art academies and institutions trying to sort of get culture to flourish, aren't they? Right. Early on, there's a museum, which appropriately enough is called the American Museum. And there's a wall with portraits of significant Americans. And there's an account of a Massachusetts congressman who goes strolling through there. And he's really stunned that enough Americans at this point have done significant things that they can cover a wall. And we also have Benjamin Franklin, who's one of my favourite people from history. I think he's an extraordinarily fascinating guy who tries to invent a phonetic alphabet. He looks at English spelling and goes,

English spelling is stupid. There are too many U's and O's and G's and H's in random places, which broadly I agree with him. And he's like, we need to have our own language, our own dictionary, our own spellings so that we can be Americans and we don't have to be British anymore. That just sounds like a man with far too much time on his hands, don't you think? I mean, to be absolutely honest, there are so many more important things to be dealing with. Even the cheese, getting rid of the cheese is more important than the alphabet. This seems like an extraordinary waste of time and effort. One of the things I do like about this actually is that because it's a phonetic dictionary,

it tells us how things are pronounced. It actually tells us how the founding father sounded. We know that Benjamin Franklin would have pronounced founding fathers as founding fathers, which is quite charming. I quite like the idea of fathers. Oh, I want to see a movie now of the American Revolution entirely in those accents. In fact, somebody should tell Mel Gibson about this. He will absolutely do that. Should have been Jefferson on Hamilton on all these sort of fancy people going like, we're the people.

We were the people. We don't want any of that. This is fantastic. So essentially what we've got is it just basically sounds like pirates. It's an entire country filled with pirates. That's what we've got. We owe these truths to be self-evident

they got a point uh joanne in the early 1800s where america was trying to celebrate independence day the july 4th thing had been brought in but federalists and democratic republicans refused to celebrate together they had their own different unique parades and festivities. It's true. I mean, and the Federalists like to celebrate George Washington even more than the Declaration of Independence. George was theirs. So they would all over the place celebrate George. And they wanted him to get full credit for the farewell address.

And Hamilton helped Washington write it. full credit for the farewell address. And Hamilton helped Washington write it. And their big quest was to keep people from knowing that Hamilton helped Washington write the address because it made him seem less glorious. But everybody could tell because it was all in rap. Exactly. And also people by this point, Joanna, wearing their political badges, literally. Yeah. In the late 1790, when the French Revolution's going and Americans are picking sides. Yeah, they're wearing little cockades on their hats. And the Federalists have one color and the Republicans have another color. So yeah, pretty much there's not really a moment when there isn't severe partisanship. That's the story of American politics. This is

a nation that's been created from scratch, but no one knows quite what that should be. It's time now for the nuance window. This is where Chris and I have a little sit back and relax. And we allow our expert, Professor Joanne, to tell us something really important. Without much further ado, Professor Joanne Freeman, the nuance window. Well, what I want to talk about actually is the founders written in all capital letters. Certainly Americans think about their founders as this golden, perfect group of people who came up with golden, perfect, beautiful things and made a constitution and then everything worked fine. And of course they won the revolution and of course the constitution worked and of course

everything worked because they were the founders. And even the founders didn't think that about the founders, right? The founders knew they were a bunch of guys who were trying to make it up as they went, didn't agree, didn't know what they were doing. old age when people are writing to him and saying, what was it like writing the Declaration? And he says, well, we made mistakes in 1774, 1775, 1776, 1777. And he goes on way further than he needs to to make the point they didn't know what they were doing. And by making them perfect in that way, we're defeating what they did with the government. The government was supposed to be a government where the people kept it going. It wasn't supposed to be something perfect and wonderful. It was supposed to be something that relied on the citizens to make it go. So to be true to the founders, we should not be treating them as marvelous, wonderful guys on a pedestal. Thank you so much. So what do you know now? you know now? It is time for the So What Do You Know Now? This is a 60 second quickfire quiz for Chris to see how much he has learned. Here we go. Three, two, one. Question one. Why was George

Washington nicknamed the American Cincinnati? Because like the very famous Roman general Cincinnati, he retired. Correct. Question two. Name one of the honorific titles suggested for George Washington apart from president. His benignness. His most benign highness.

His most benign highness. Question three. Which US president was the first to live in the White House? It wasn't Clinton, right? Earlier than Clinton, yeah? Earlier than Clinton. John Adams.

Correct. Question four. In the early days of the Republic, how did you become vice president? Whoever lost the presidential election became the vice president, which seems like a really good recipe for very stable government with two people who absolutely hate each other at the top of the tree. Absolutely. Question five. Alexander Hamilton, who supported the constitution and advocated for strong national government and was a bit of an elitist, was a member of which political party? Run DMC. No, wait, the Federalists. Question six. What was the three-fifths clause? That was a rule whereby the slave states were allowed to count

three-fifths of their population as actual people. Exactly that. Question seven. Where does the dollar come from? I say it's Bohemia, but if you talk to cupboard-based New York historians, they'll tell you Spain. Question eight.

Which medieval brothers did Thomas Jefferson want to be shown on the American seal? They were jutes. The jutes of hazard. No, it wasn't. It was Hengist and Horsa. It was Hengist and Horsa. Question nine.

You're doing really well so far. President Thomas Jefferson received what gift from the ladies of Cheshire? The mammoth cheese. This for a perfect round, Chris Addison. For a brief period in the late 18th and early 19th century, in which state could white women vote? That was New Jersey.

You've done 10 out of 10. Remarkable knowledge. You literally just told me all of the answers to that over our conversation. But that's how education works, Chris. You get taught things, you remember things in exams, they give you a pat on the head. I don't feel I've reinvented the wheel here. Outstanding stuff, Chris, 10 out of 10. And listeners, if after this episode you fancy comparing 18th century American party politics to the absolute bin fire that was the British political system in the 18th century, why not check out our History of General Elections episode? Or if you're interested in how the first

English colonists journeyed to America, then you can check out our Mayflower episode. And remember, if you've had a laugh, if you've learned some stuff, please do share this podcast with your friends or leave a review online. Make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. All that's left is for me to say a huge thank you to our fantastic guests in History Corner, the magnificent Professor Joanne B. Freeman of Yale University. Thank you, Joanne.

Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast. And in Comedy Corner, the simply sensational Chris Addison. Thanks for having us. That was a blast and in comedy corner the simply sensational chris addison thanks for having us that was a proper laugh and to you dear listener join me next time for another revolutionary romp through history with a different pair of tip-top compatriots but for now i'm off to go and change my job title from podcast host to his high mightiness president of podcasts and the defender of their liberty bye you're dead to me was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4. The research was by Tim Golesworthy, the script was by Emma Neguse and me,

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