DERRICK A. BELL JR.
Visiting professor, New York University School of Law
The founding fathers had two fears. One was of a strong Federal Government that would emulate England and be very heavy-handed. The other thing is, they were afraid of the little people—because the little people were not being good citizens; they weren't paying their taxes; they were raising Cain. And so if you look at the Constitution—they had little role in how the President was selected. That's where we got the college of electors, which is of course a disaster. The Senators were elected by the state legislatures.
A main area of controversy was slavery, because some of the framers were absolutely opposed to slavery, and others were absolutely opposed to any kind of new government that did not protect their property in slaves. The way of the slave owners and those who profited from slavery—not all of whom were slave owners—was to say, "How can you bring a new country into being, a new government to protect property, when you're not going to protect our property in slaves?" And even the abolitionists had no answer to this.
The significant thing for today is that we still make decisions—the structure of government is such, that it's much easier to have policies to protect vested property than it is to protect the interests of poor people to work, to health care, to decent education, you name it.
ROGER WILKINS
Author, Jefferson's Pillow: The founding fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism
In 1797, when Washington is 65 years old, he goes home after serving two terms as President. Even then, people were saying, "Hey, another term."
And for a rich Virginian, he does something that is quite incredible. He might have sent a better earlier signal, but the greatest man, the greatest American of his time, [in] the last summer of his life, in 1799 ... reworked his will so his slaves were freed. The ones he owned were freed at the death of his wife. A very powerful antislavery message.
When he let his slaves go, it sent a powerful message down through the generations that the greatest of all Americans thought slavery was a bad idea. No, people didn't just jump up and free their slaves. But on the other hand, they could not claim that the founding was purely a pro-slavery episode. Not when the most powerful figure of the founding said, "I wish slavery would go away."
PETER JENNINGS
ABC's World News Tonight editor and anchor; co-author, In Search of America, with Todd Brewster
The founding fathers' ideas are alive and well, and debated and practiced and a sinew for American life every day, even though most of us don't go around talking about Jefferson and Hamilton and Franklin and George Washington and John Adams. Every day I cover issues of church and state and the determination of large numbers of people in the country to build a more moral society, or to have again a society that they thought was more moral at an earlier age. What we see every time, whether it's a battle over the teaching of evolution or creation, [is] the constant battle over church and state.
We take democracy for granted. We are attempting to export it now to Iraq, and it probably pays to go back and look at the founding fathers' arguments about the dangers, the fragility of democracy, as we try to encourage it in Iraq. The founding fathers would argue that it has to come from the bottom up. The assumption that we can do it is risky.
ROBERT BYRD
U.S. Senator from West Virginia
Nathan Hale volunteered to go behind the British lines in response to a call for volunteers by General Washington. He was discovered and arrested as a spy. That was on Sept. 21, 1776. The next morning he was hauled up before a crude gallows, and they said, "Do you have anything to say?" He said, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
So here was Nathan Hale, who was willing to give everything he had. And yet we're not willing today in the U.S. Senate—the Senate passed that resolution shifting the power to declare war from the Congress to the President of the U.S. That was a shame, and only 23 Senators voted against shifting that power. When it came to the Senate, and we didn't cast a vote that demonstrated courage and not intimidation, we should have been reminded of Nathan Hale.
If the Founders had seen just that one vote, they would have been ashamed of us. We politicians have a duty, and we in the Senate have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution. The Constitution says Congress shall have the power to declare war. Yet we stood that right on its head, turned right around and shifted that power over to a President who was not even elected by a majority of the American people.
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON
Avalon Foundation professor in the humanities, University of Pennsylvania
They were great but flawed men. Thomas Jefferson was the architect of Monticello and of American democracy as we know it in large part, but he also was a slaveholder and, it has now been proved, the father of several children who were black. We need more of that insight, not less of it. We need more of the critical details, of the flaws and flesh of the founding fathers, to give us a sense of their true accomplishments and to take measure of their true greatness.
It is even more important now to recall the lessons of liberty that the founding fathers bequeathed, especially as civil liberties are eroded and democratic institutions are rendered vulnerable in the aftermath of 9/11 and the ostensible war on terror.
The founding fathers would be appalled that the best and the brightest often don't seek political office as the manifestation of their citizenship but are going into private industry and business—not that the founding fathers were against entrepreneurship, from Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Franklin. The apathy displayed by the electorate might deeply disappoint them but perhaps not surprise them in light of the nation's ineffective bridging of the gulf between the 'have gots' and the 'have nots.' The government has basically been held hostage by moneyed interests.
AL FRANKEN
Author, the upcoming Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
If you put Jefferson, Franklin and Madison on a commission to reform our political system, they'd come back maybe a year later, and Franklin would have a minority report and Jefferson and Madison would have a 300-page document on campaign-finance reform that involves regulating money in ways that reflect the advertising prices in each congressional district.
I don't know if our founding fathers could solve what we have right now. And of course they should be politically correctly called our founding parents.
In other words, Madison would have a constitutional objection to McCain-Feingold. Jefferson wouldn't. Adams would be, "Anything goes," just full disclosure. It would just be funny to see these guys come back and face the entire press. They'd just ask Jefferson if he'd had sex with his slaves. And he'd just say, "Well, I thought we were talking about getting politics working again in this great republic."
"We know, but tell us about Sally Hemings."
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