[BLANK_AUDIO] Welcome back. We've not reached our final chapter, quite literally in the story of the written Constitution. I say quite literally, because as you'll recall we're walking through the written constitution in textual order and in the process we're also tracking a book that I did in nine, in 2005 called America's Constitution, a biography. And that book tracks the flow of the text, which is in turn chronologically laid out. We started with the founding era. The original constitution followed very quickly, by the first ten amendments, the so called Bill of Rights. A judiciary limiting 11th Amendment and a pro populist, pro partisan presidency, pro democracy but alas, also pro slavery 12th Amendment codifying kind of the Jeffersonian vision of the presidency. And that brought the founding era to a close. The original Constitution and the first 12 amendments. Then we flash, we move forward in time. And after the Civil War, we encountered the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, ending Slavery and guaranteeing civil and eventually political equality, to African Americans. More recently we, we flashed forward yet again and focused on the amendments of the progressive era. The beginning of the 20th century, we focus particular attention on the 16th, 17th, and 19th amendments from that era, income tax, direct election of senators, and, and woman suffrage. Today and in the next lecture we're going to talk about the more modern amendments, the late 20th-century amendments. And as I said that's the last chapter of, of the book America's Constitution, a biography. But before we talk about them, the late 20th century amendments, you might have thought that I gave short shrift to the 18th and the 21st amendments from the, the early 20th century. The 18th enacting prohibition, and the 21st, repealing it. If you thought that, you were right. I did kind of breeze by those, because the 21st basically, in effect, undoes the 18th. I can't cover everything in exquisite detail, in these lectures. If you do want more background on, on those amendments or on virtually anything else that we discussed in, in this online course. The book has lots more detail on that. But I thought I should say a word or two about, the 18th and the 21st before moving forward. The 18th Amendment was part of the progressive era and those who supported prohibition saw it as. Consistent with many of those who support it so I was very consistent, with the other reforms of the era. An era that gave us initiative and referendum and recall. The pol, political primaries, a kind of democratic reform. Direct election of senators. This is an era resist, that was which a lot of social energy was spent sort of resisting forces of corruption, corporate corruption, city bosses. City legislatures were seen some what corrupt in the way they picked Senators. Often taking bribes from the likes of direct election of senators. Was kind of a clean government reform. It turns out that, in order to run clean elections, that requires a lot of money too, campaign contributions. But maybe that money is spread around in ad campaigns, directed at the populace rather than slipped into the pockets of of state legislators. But direct election of senators was a kind of reform. And, and, and, and women's suffrage of course Prohibition was also seen as a reform of sorts. The saloons in big cities were seen as particularly. Corrupt places there's a feminist angle to the whole thing. Many women felt that men, especially working men were getting their wages on Friday afternoon, going into the saloon, drinking down their wages rather than bringing, the the money home. To their wives and, and kids instead, because they had been drinking too much at the saloon, they would come, home and beat up their wives and kids. That was a stereotype or an image that, that, that fueled the prohibition movement, and it was a movement strongly supported by women. Remember maybe from the history books a famous organization you might have heard of, the Women Christian Temperance Movement. And indeed one of the major forces that lobbied against women's suffrage was the liquor lobby. Because they feared that woman's suffrage would actually lead to prohibition, leads to dry laws. And indeed the 18th Amendment and the 19th Amendment are coming from the same error. Prohibition also had a, a national security angle. There was a need for grain during World War I. And, and, and people said, well, grain is being diverted to, to make beer and, and other things. So I did want to just briefly mention prohibition since I gave it short-shrift last time It's the one amendment really of all of them, that arguably restricts liberty and equality, and interestingly it's the one that doesn't take. Shortly after prohibition is passed in the 19 teens it's repealed in the early 1930s, so, And that's the 21st Amendment. And that's one of the reasons I didn't spend so much time on it. Because the 21st that cancels out the 18th. But one interesting question is how is it from a process point of view. That an amendment could be passed. Remember it requires 2 3rds the House, 2 3rds the Senate, 3 quarters the States. And, yet, so quickly they're out there. You get 2 3rds, 2 3rds, 3 quarters, for the exact opposite position. How could that switching happen so soon? And and one factor, I think is, that, that, this was an era, the early 20th century, of, of democratic experimentation, that progressors believed in, in progress, we've been trying things. But also learning from the data, and many people considered prohibition a failed experiment. It was designed to stamp out the corruption, of the saloon it didn't do that at all. It drove liquor underground. Speakeasies, and a lot of organized crime by the time of the the Great Depression a lot of people wanted and perhaps needed a drink from time to time. And if you repeal Prohibition you, and brought this industry back into the daylight, you could tax it. And that would be a source of, of government revenue, a sorely needed revenue So some people who supported prohibition in the 19-teens, some politicians actually changed their minds. So you can look at the votes, and you can see some people who voted both for prohibition and it's repeal. But another factor is that prohibition emerged from a somewhat mal-apportioned system. Cities tended to be wet, pro-liquor, counties tended to be dry, anti liquor prohibitionist. And in the early 20th century, lots of state legislatures, were malapportioned, and many house districts were malapportioned. And, so, in this mal-apportionment the counties, counted for the rural counties counted for more than their fair share. The cities got short-shrift. They weren't really proportionately represented, the urban areas, which were wet. More immigrant more, a pro liquor and, and so the, the process that generated the 18th Amendment was one that kind of over weighted rural areas in the ratification process. And even in the House of Representatives. By the time of the 21st Amendment however, Congress for the first and only time said, we want this amendment to be ratified. Not by state legislators. But by specially elected conventions of the citizens. And those specially elected conventions, were in effect in many places, adopted, one person one vote statewide. So there wasn't the amount of malapportionment. So cities played a bigger, role in that process. So with both direct election of senators, and the 21st Amendment we see an anticipation of the one person, one vote idea. Remember, when Senators are picked by state legislators and state legislators are malapportioned, and the senate is basically a feature of that, that malproportion system. But with the 17th Amendment, direct election Senators. You count all the, the voters in the state equally, one person, one vote. And, and so the senate itself is a one person one vote idea. And so to the process, that generated the 21st Amendment involved one person one vote. It's also possible that ordinary people are more willing to just sort of vote openly for liquor, where some politicians, state legisla so, so in the convention, I'm basically they're not ordinary politicians, there. It's kind of like a referandum of sorts. And people vote their preferences, they, they want to drink. But politicians, the state legislatures, even though they may occasionally have a drink or two themselves on the sly, they, they might have hesitated to vote for liquor. To be seen as soft on, on morality or something like that. So, there is sometimes a possibility that ordinary voters might have a sort of, different tendencies than the professional politicians. Okay, so that was the 18th and the 21st, and now let's carry the story forward in time. Recall that virtually all the amendments, that we've had have come in generational spurts or clusters and the founding era the first 12 beginning as shortly after the constitution is ratified and ending, with, in Thomas Jefferson's first administration the 12th Amendment. 12 amendments ten in the bill of rights, 11 in the judiciary, and 12th modifying the rules of the electoral college that's, the founding generation's amendments, and then you have the Civil War Reconstruction generation's amendments, 13, 14, 15. Then you have this spurt of amendments in the 19 teens carrying forward to the repeal of, of prohibition in the early 1930s. and, the final set of amendments were all ratified in generational, a later generational spurt, pretty much. The next spurt is really going to be the 1960s. But there's one stand-alone amendment, kind of, that's worth mentioning. Then the the final amendment is a little a tricky so I'll, I'll tell you about that tomorrow in the next lecture. But, but, the two term amendment, the 22nd Amendment kind of stands alone chronologically. It's ratified in 1951, so it's you know, almost 20 years after the lame duck amendment and the repeal of prohibition, which was early on in Franklin Roosevelt's ad, ad, administration. And so, so 20 years basically after the last set of amendments and ten years before the next cluster, this two term amendment kind of just stands out there on its own chronologically. And let's, let's talk about that amendment. Remember that the original constitution on on paper allows for a President to be perpetually re-elected, every four years, he has to come before the electorate. And four years means, absolutely four years Come hell or high water we hold presidential elections. In the middle of civil wars and world wars, and great depressions. That's not true in an English Parliamentary system, where the elections can sometimes be pushed back and in fact, in, in world war II, basically Parliament postponed elections. There basically was no election at all, a regular parliamentary election, be, in England, between 1935 and 1945. But in America, we held elections on schedule every four years for the presidency. Lincoln in the middle of the Civil War submits to the voters judgement. And lets see, under the founders writ, written constitution, presidents are perpetually re-eligible. But, as we talked about before, George Washington set all sorts of important precedents. And one of the most important is that he stepped down after two terms. He would have been reelected had he stood for a third term. He was unanimously picked the first time around in 1789, he was unanimously re-elected. In 1792, he would have been unanimously, or virtually unanimously, re-re-elected, but he stepped down. And he didn't say a lot about it,um, but later Americans came to understand that Washington was sending a signal that the republic needs to be bigger than any one person, and he was kind of imp arched sending this message that other people are perfectly capable of carrying the, the torch. And indeed Thomas Jefferson wins re-election. He steps down after, after his second term and says explicitly, I don't think we should have in effect a lifetime presidency. John Adams, of course, runs for re-election and loses, so it's not really an issue for him. But when Thomas Jefferson wins his second term, at the end of that he declines to run again. And remember in the states. Governors that were governorships that had no term limits to them, the governors were almost always re-elected basically until they died or you know, were close to death. John Hancock in Massachusetts, George Clinton, in New York Trumbull in, in, in Connecticut, also in New Jersey. Governors who could run for re-election ran again and again and again and were almost always elected. But Jefferson didn't like that model, so he said, like Washington, I think I should step down after two terms After Jefferson, James Madison did the same thing. James Munroe did the same thing, John Quincy Adams runs for re-election and loses to Andrew Jackson after two terms. Steps down, thus a tradition emerges, it's not in the text, but it's a tradition of two terms. Now, that tradition isn't inviable, the next president who gets re-elected, Abraham Lincoln, is assassinated. So we, we never know whether he would have chosen to follow that example or not. McKinley also is assassinated in his second term, so, we don't know. We do know that there were some presidents, who, did dream at least of, of, of third terms. It's a little cheeky though, given the tradition, if you're basically saying, well I'm greater than General Jackson and General Washington and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, because, you know, I'm going to seek a third term even though they didn't. But, Ulysses Grant, after two terms steps down, following the Washington precedent, and Grant is a lot of ways like George Washington, this general above political party. He steps down, but then, four years later, he gets the itch and he kind of runs again. And maybe, you see, the tradition is not so clear, is it no, is it that no third term, or no third consecutive term. There's an ambiguity in this unwritten tradition, so Grant steps down and [UNKNOWN] runs in the Republican process that Republican convention four years later doesn't get it. Grover Cleveland, he wins and he loses his bid for re-election, then he runs again and wins. So he now has two terms, and he dreams of a third term, it wouldn't be a third consecutive term, it would be a third total term. But only a second consecutive term. But the Democratic party isn't interested in having him. There's another issue unresolved in the tradition, how do you count partial terms? Teddy Roosevelt basically has three years as president when McKinley dies, then he wins in his own right. Can he run for a second term in his own right? Two full terms as president plus an early threes, well he decides not to but then four years later he, and, and Taft becomes president, but four years later Ro, Teddy Roosevelt gets the itch again, and he runs. And he says, yeah, when I said that I, I didn't want a third term, I meant a third consecutive term. If I said I didn't want a third cup of coffee, coffee, no one would think that I was forever giving up the beverage. so, he runs, loses Woodrow Wilson is dreaming of a third term even after his stroke. So, so the tradition is ambiguous in certain respects, how to think about third terms, how to think about non consecutive terms and of course famously Franklin Roosevelt serves not two, not three, but he actually serves into his fourth term. He dies early in his fourth term. But he, he runs for a third term and gets the re-elected for that third term, runs for a fourth term and gets re-elected. And in the wake of that, the two term amendment the 22nd Amendment emerges, and it's kind of a retrospective rebuke to some extent of, of the Roosevelt precedent. It's saying, you know, never again should one person make himself so indispensable. And remember this is a merging in a world where there's anxiety about other mili, other strong leaders around the world. Stalin, and Hitler and Mussolini and people say, American democracy should never be organized around one indispensable man. The fearless leader, the big brother, so the critique is that we shouldn't have, basically presidencies for life. The folks other there say, it's up to the voters to decide, we have elections and if you don't want the fellow vote against him. And the believer in, in presidential term limits say, no, but a president, as a practical matter, can entrench himself in all sorts ways and make himself an indispensable leader. And so in the name of democracy we're going to limit presidential terms. And interestingly, once the federal government does that, a bunch of states follow suit for governorships. Many states though prohibit just more than two consecutive terms, but they allow non consecutive third and even, fourth terms. But once again we see a very interesting interplay between state govern, state constitutions and the federal constitution. State the Constitution was modelled on state constitutions, to some extent. It created, and in turn was copied by, state constitutions, the Constitution, in particular the presidency, created a very strong executive branch. And then states started to reconfigure at the founding their governorships to look more like presidents, four year terms. Veto pen, pardon pens became much more common at the state editorial level after article two had put forth that model. And so too after the constitution the federal constitution is amended to add term limits for the presidency, bunch of state constitutions add term limits for governorship. Now these term limits create very interesting incentives and I'm going to close actually with a, this lecture, with a conversation about what, what happens when you term limit the executive. Well one thing maybe you see in, in is, is that that you, that we've seen is actually President's in their second term are weakened. They're lame ducks from day, in, from day one and so their enemies can come out and attack them knowing that they're not going to even be able to threaten to run. On the third term and vanquished their foes, and so we've seen in second term presidencies recently Richard Nixon resigning in disgrace under the threat of impeachment. Bill Clinton actually being impeached, not convicted but impeached, Ronald Regan having Iran being wounded politically. And Iran contra in his second term George W Bush kind of limping along a bit in his second term. We'll see how the Obama second term runs, but one feature structurally is that the two-term amendment makes a President a lame-duck at the beginning of the second term. At the state level sometimes term-limited governors have, have pec, run their lives, in effective. You know vote for Lerleen Wallace, for George Wallace's additional term and you know Maw Ferguson in Texas so, so. And that's been the strategy that sometimes has occurred at the state level. But final thing I want to talk about is federal level, is how this weakening of the presidency to the two term amendment has actually empowered the vice-presidents. If a president can't run for a third term on his own, but he can run in fact by proxy by taking his wing man, his Vice President will be his third term. And before the two term amendment you didn't see, Vice Presidents weren't very significant. They were significant the founding because, the founding at the very, very beginning was the guy who comes in second for the presidency. So John Adams was someone substantial, and so was Thomas Jefferson, they ran for the presidency came you know but came in second. But remember the 12th Amendment let's you vote separately for president and vice-president, creates a ticket system and after the 12th Amendment vice-presidents basically are, are, really not typically very important political figures. There are one or two who are significant but generally not, but after the 22nd Amendment, vice pres, presidents kind of begin to come into their own. Bet, between the 12th Amendment and the 22nd Amendment, the two term amendment, only about 15% percent of vice presidents ever ran, won the party their party nomination for the presidency itself. They weren't sort of major figures, but since the two term amendment, more than half of them have a vice presidents have actually won the party nomination for presidency later on. At the end of the 20th Century, I think five resigning presidents all, sort of, watched their wingman, their vice president, sort of, run for president. In his own right, so, Eisenhower watched Nixon run and Nix, and, and Johnson watched Humphrey run for president, his, his, vice president. And Richard Nixon, who had just, who had resigned, already watched, Gerald Ford run and Regan watched George H.W. Bush run and Clinton watched, Gore run. And win again the party nomination, so, one of the important stories of the 22nd Amendment has been how it's actually strengthened the political tag team between president and vice president. Vice presidents become presidents wingman, and, and the way, in effect in the modern era you win a third term you become like Franklin Roosevelt, as not by running and winning in your own right, but having your own hand picked successor run. George, H.W. Bush, that was Reagan's third term, on this interpretation. Now two of the themes that we've talked about today, one person one vote, and the tag team between president and vice president are going to be themes we're also going to see in the last round of amendments from the 1960s. And that's going to be the story I'm going to tell you in the next lecture. So, hope to see you. [MUSIC]
