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Hello in 1774 a wheat farmer from Virginia with refined manners and a quiet lifestyle was moved to put himself forward as the military leader of the most massive rebellion

The British Empire had ever suffered George Washington had been a stout upholder of the status quo

regularly lending money to his near-to-well neighbor simply in order to keep him in the plantation to which he'd become a custom

He even wrote himself a book on how to behave properly in polite society

What drove him to revolution?

Washington may have been a moral man that by anyone's account who's nurse collar yet the American Constitution is one of the great enlightenment

Documents who provided its intellectual inspiration

Inspiration and where does that come from?

With me to discuss George Washington and the American Revolution is Carol Birkin

Professor of history at the City University of New York and author of a brilliant solution

Inventing the American Constitution

Colin Bonwick professor emeritus in American history at Keel University and Simon Middleton lecturer in American history at the University of East Anglia

Carol Birkin let's start with the events that led up to the American Revolution

There were 13 states in continental America that participated in the war

How far was how was that governance organized prior to the revolution?

Well, they were colonies of the King

Prior to the revolution

Their governments varied but by the eve of the American revolution they were really relatively similar

And I think the key point is that the local assemblies the representative assemblies

Local men who were chosen by local voters came to see themselves had come to see themselves as many

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