#1430 Argument Is the Answer

Listening to America

Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We are joined this week on the Thomas Jefferson Hour by the respected author Joseph Ellis in a robust discussion about the Constitution, beginning with an agreement that it is time to retire the electoral college. Ellis says that, "Argument is the answer, and the willingness to recognize the legitimacy of different sides in an argument is the crucial fuel that makes the American republic go forward."

Read about Clay's upcoming online course on Oppenheimer here: https://jeffersonhour.com/onlinecourse

Stay tuned for details about the online course on Hamlet.

Find this episode, along with recommended reading, on the blog. Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our new merch. You can find Clay's publications on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics. Thomas Jefferson is interpreted by Clay S. Jenkinson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good day, Thomas Jefferson Hour podcast listeners, as always, most importantly,
0:06.0	thank you for listening, and thank you for all the communications, the emails,
0:12.2	and the letters that you send to the Thomas Jefferson Hour. We read every, I read every one of them,
0:19.2	and in the past couple of weeks, letters from listeners have provided ideas for shows that
0:26.4	we're going to pursue this week, or one of our favorite guests, our returning champion,
0:33.6	Professor Joseph Ellis joins us, and Clay, you and he had a really enjoyable and interesting
0:40.8	conversation. Today, our subject was the Constitution, and I'm teaching this Constitution online.
0:46.4	Of course, it's going great guns. We'll probably do another one in the late summer or fall,
0:50.9	so sign up or express your interest if you're interested, but somebody's been asking me,
0:56.4	well, who wasn't at the Constitutional Convention? Of course, Patrick Henry wasn't there,
1:01.3	and Samuel Adams wasn't there, and Thomas Payne wasn't there, but the two people who really
1:05.9	weren't there are Jefferson and Adams. They were, respectively, in Paris and in London at the time,
1:14.0	and it's hard to know what would have happened if they had been there, but I don't think it
1:19.1	necessarily would have been a good thing for Jefferson to be there. He wouldn't have gone anyway,
1:23.3	because he's so shy, he would have just sent some kind of a draft along with Madison and
1:28.0	asked Madison to introduce it, but, you know, Teflon Jefferson, but Adams would have been there,
1:33.7	and he would have been feisty Adams. He would have been, Governor Morris gave 173 speeches,
1:39.1	the most of anybody, Adams would have given 370 speeches, and he would have been standing up and
1:44.0	talking all the time and rebuking people and insisting on having port or claret late at night
1:49.6	with them and to hammer things out, and he would have had a new idea every day, and he would have
1:53.4	made a complete nuisance of himself, but he would have been dropped dead brilliantly in everything
1:58.0	that he had to say. So it's one of the sort of weird factoids of American history that the
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