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Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Way the World Works.

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Today is very, very exciting because today we are going to dive into a lesson coming to you from the

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third Tuttle Twins history book. This is brand new. So if you haven't gotten it already,

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don't sleep on this. This is great. This is going to pick up where the other books left off.

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So I want to kind of get into that. So let's talk about what we learned in the other history

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books. Now, in the first one, we learned about everything leading up to the American Revolution.

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And then in the next book, we learned about the American Revolution and everything that came

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after that, which was, of course, the framing of the Constitution. And this was a huge deal,

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right? We saw everything that the founders fought for. And then we saw everything that the framers

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were working to correct with this new form of government. And so that kind of begs the question,

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what happens next, right? So the Constitution is supposed to limit power. It's supposed to help

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keep Americans free. It's supposed to, you know, correct the mistakes, not just of the British

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government, but of every government that has ever oppressed its people. And so this was huge,

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right? This is this American experiment. And the beginnings are going to be a little bit rough.

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I know we'd like to think that the story ended happily ever after and everyone obeyed the Constitution,

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and it was great. But it's going to be a little bit of a rough start. So I want to pick up where

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the other book left off. Now, we talked before in an earlier episode about something called

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the Whiskey Rebellion. And the reason I'm bringing this up is it was a moment where we learned that

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even under this new American government, you're going to see taxes being raised, something that

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they were very against for the revolution. And you're going to see the government become very

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powerful and start doing things that they probably would have rebelled against years earlier. You're

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going to see, and we did another episode on this, that George Washington was a great man. He was

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a great leader. But even he faltered a little bit, meaning he kind of messed up a little bit when

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it came to really encompassing, really, really embodying, really leading like a leader of a free world.

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And that's natural, right? All human beings were all flawed. We all do things that maybe aren't so

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great. And the Whiskey Rebellion was kind of an example of that. And we can low key blame Alexander

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Hamilton for that. Go back in that episode and listen to that. But now what's going to happen next.

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So let's remember, Washington is again, very, very powerful, very great leader. He steps down,

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which is huge, right? And then the next presidential election is going to happen,

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and it's going to go to John Adams. And Thomas Jefferson is going to be his vice president,

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which is weird because they ran in different parties. But back then, it used to be that the

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second place winner of an election became the vice president. So as you can imagine,

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that's going to cause some problems. And by this time, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson are not as

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friendly as they were during the revolution. Because remember, they were like best friends

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during the revolution. They were very close, even though they didn't always agree. Now things

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are going to get a little contentious, we'll say, and things are going to get a little, a little wild.

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So country even under a unifying figure like George Washington was still divided, right? And

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listen, as long as there are people, there will always be diverse opinions and people will always

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be a little bit divided. But people were hoping that maybe things would calm down as Adam took

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office. Spoiler alert, things did not calm down. So let's talk about the state of things. So at

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this point in time, there were two rising political parties. You had the federalists, and you remember

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that from the federalist papers. And at this point in time, it's going to be like Alexander Hamilton

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and John Adams. They're even though they didn't always get along, but they're going to be the two

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federalist figureheads of this time. And then you have the Republicans. And that's Thomas Jefferson

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and James Madison. And this is really interesting. And I want us to remember this.

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These words did not mean the same thing today as they meant then. You're always going to see

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political parties and names kind of changing over time. That's kind of why the word liberal

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used to mean something like an enlightened almost like a libertarian, like less government and free

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markets. And now we hear the word liberal and it means something entirely different. It means,

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you know, a big welfare system, things like that. And so terms are going to change over time.

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And that's why it's really, really interesting. If you decide to be a historian someday or you want

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to really dig into history of this founding era, it's interesting to get a 18th century dictionary.

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The reason is because some words that mean something to us now might mean something a little

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different back then. So that's a really interesting little, little side quest for you. If you want

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to be a historian, which is remember a detective who looks through time for things and understanding

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things and how they relate to each other. But all right, back to John Adams presidency.

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So remember the federalists, they're going to favor a stronger government, a bigger centralized

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government. And they also wanted to keep the door open to be friends with Britain. They wanted to

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keep them as someone they could be allies with. And that might sound crazy to you after we just

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fought a war, but the world goes on, right? And then you're going to have the Republicans now

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Thomas Jefferson's a big part of this. And so it's going to be obviously this smaller government,

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this, you know, the opposite of centralized government, right? He wanted states rights.

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And what's interesting is you're going to notice I mentioned Madison's name as being a Republican.

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But Madison was one of the OG federalists, right? He wrote the federalist papers. And so it's

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interesting to see this switch. And he was also, you know, the federalists were pretty against the

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Bill of Rights. And we talked about that in other episodes, you can go back and check that out.

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And then Madison ended up being the the drafter of the Bill of Rights. And so you see him kind of,

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I don't want to say switch. I think he was a man very committed to principles, but you see him

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start to become disillusioned with the way the federalists are acting. I think it might be

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easier for us to think that, oh, the Constitution was ratified. So everyone agreed on what it meant

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false. In fact, that's why we have the judicial system, right? The Supreme Court is constantly,

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you know, hearing cases that determine, oh, does the Constitution really mean that?

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And so same thing. It goes all the way back to then. So there's going to be a debate, many debates

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over what the Constitution actually meant. Now, at the same time as America is embarking on this

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new experiment, right? There's a crisis in Europe. So Europe is at war. You have French

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revolutions, which even though they were inspired by our revolution, get completely out of whack.

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We've done episodes on that too. So you can check out those. So France is in a crisis.

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They're a war with Britain. We are just like, whoa, whoa, we're a brand new nation. We don't

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need this. We need to stay out of foreign entanglements. Like this is not for us. Fight amongst yourselves.

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But sometimes staying neutral isn't as easy as you might think it is. And so you have, you know,

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friendships targeting American ships. And so things are getting a little bit chaotic and

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we're trying to stay out of it. And to John Adams credit, he did really want to stay out of it.

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Oh, John Adams, you know, we have a I love and respect him so much. He's one of my favorite

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founders, but his presidency is where things get a little weird. So Congress ends up passing

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the Alien and Sedition Acts and John Adams is, you know, leading the country at this point.

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What did that mean? Well, that was making it harder for immigrants to become citizens over in America.

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And this was targeted directly at the French because they were worried, they meaning the

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federalists were worried that French agents were going to come over and stir trouble here.

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And remember, we just fought a revolution. We don't need another one, right? And that's very

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real fear. I get that. But they were also worried because the French and also the Irish

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immigrants coming over here were strengthening Jefferson's Republican party. And you have

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federalists in power and federalists with a lot of pride because that was John Adams

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shortcoming. And he would admit that himself. He had a lot of pride. And you're having this,

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this, you know, crisis come about where all of a sudden things start becoming a little stricter.

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And politics, party politics is starting to come into play. So early on, we think it's bad now.

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It started then. At this point, we get very close to going to war again with France. And little

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known facts, they thought it was the quasi war because we weren't actually in the war, but we were

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toying around with it. Here's the interesting thing. George Washington was actually going to come

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out of retirement. He was going to be a general again with the promise that he wouldn't be fighting

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active battle, but he would be leading the army if we were going to war. He was like kind of on standby.

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But then the war never came to a full war. And so that didn't happen luckily.

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Now I called it remember the alien and sedition acts. Now the alien part is alien is a term people

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use for somebody that isn't from where you're from. So think of immigrant. So alien is a term,

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not somebody from outer space, but somebody who just isn't where you're from. So that's the alien

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part. What is sedition act, seditious act? That is someone, something you do that is against something,

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can someone in power maybe? So I want you to think about this because this to me is the

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worst thing John Adams ever supported. We have the First Amendment, which promises free speech,

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right? That's already in play. The sedition act is going to penalize, going to criminalize

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anybody who speaks out against the president. This is crazy to pass a law like this after we

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have the First Amendment. And it wasn't just for insulting the president. It was for any

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government official. And it wasn't just like a bad law that was in place and wasn't acted upon.

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Journalists were being arrested. Newspapers were being penalized.

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This is something very real that was happening. And you have to step back and think, whoa,

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we're just getting started and already people are cracking down and abusing their power.

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What's really interesting about this is this where the written constitution became so important

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because kings would, if it wasn't written down, like in England, it's a bunch of different things

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in the English Constitution. But if you had everything written down that the leaders would know,

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like, I can't do this. And then the Bill of Rights was to make that even stronger and to say,

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you absolutely can never do this. And here you have John Adams, who's flawed and other presidents who

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are flawed already going against this. And that's because men are flawed, right? Human beings.

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When I say men, I mean men, women, human beings, mankind are flawed. And John Adams, like I said,

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has a lot of pride. And so when people start insulting him publicly, he doesn't like that.

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And so even the greatest leaders, even the smartest intellectuals, people who were so passionate for

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liberty and the revolution, are going to fall prey to the same things, you know, none of us like being

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talked badly about. But we know that First Amendment is very, very important. So Jefferson and Madison

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are not having it. They're like, no, they have crossed the line. The federal government has

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already become exactly what the anti-feds, exactly what, you know, for Jefferson was exactly what he

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thought was going to happen. Now, normally the courts are supposed to interpret what the law means,

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but Jefferson and Madison didn't have a lot of faith in that because all the government entities

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were kind of overtaken by federalists. And so they didn't think that was going to do much help.

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So they draft legislation secretly, which ends up being called the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions.

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Now, these are passed in Kentucky and Virginia. These are not federal, this is just in the states.

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And what these resolutions said is they said, hey, wait a second, if the federal government does

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something that we do not think is constitutional, then we don't have to follow that law. We're not

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going to do it. This is very pro states rights. This term, this idea is called nullification.

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Nullify means to kind of cancel, right? So what Jefferson and Madison were basically trying to say

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with these pieces of legislation is our check, remember checks and balances or how you check how

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you keep another government entity in line, our check on the federal government is going to be to

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say, no, no, that's not constitutional. We're not doing it. And this brings up an interesting

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question, a question that we are still dealing with today. And that is, who has the final say

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when there are constitutional questions? Is it the executive? Is it the legislative? Is it the

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judicial branch? Is it the state? And so this is something that we've gone back and forth with

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for years. And nullification, state nullification is this idea that state should have the state

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rights that they were promised. And they should be able to say, no, we're not doing this. And you

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see this happen now, you see this happening with immigration laws, you see some states saying we're

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not going to enforce, you know, or we're not going to let, you know, ice in here. Back in the day,

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you saw this happen with cannabis when that was being actually it's still happening, I guess,

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where some states are just saying whatever we're going to ignore the federal prohibition on it.

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So you have this back and forth between state rights and federal authority. And this is again,

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has been going on forever. The thing I want you to keep in mind is we're going through this next

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part of American history is that you'll notice the Constitution didn't magically fix human nature

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problems. People are always going to want power. People are always going to have their pride wounded

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when people say bad things about them. That's going to happen. But it got us closer, got us at least

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to a better starting point in keeping them in line and rating them in. But the Constitution

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is only as powerful as the people who are willing to defend it. And, you know, here I would agree

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with Jefferson and Madison where they're saying, hold on, it's already getting out of control.

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We need to bring the power to the people, which in this case, the closest way to do that was the

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states, right? And we were, you know, we need to say no if something is unconstitutional.

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So, you know, this really puts a responsibility on all of us to say we need to make sure our leaders

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are following the Constitution. So, this is the kickoff of this great American experiment where

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we're seeing if we can put our money where our mouth is, if we can see if we can agree on what

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the Constitution even means, spoiler alert, we never do. But it's just a really interesting

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point of history. And, you know, we've been focusing a lot on the founding with America

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250 and we'll continue to do that. But this is really interesting because now we see if it worked

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or what the shortcomings were. So, if you are also eager to know what happened in this

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interesting part of American history, pick up the new book. You guys, it's so great.

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I got it in the mail last week and I was just devouring it and taking notes and so excited to

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share with you guys. So, I will leave it there. As always, don't forget to like and subscribe to

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the podcast. And until next time, I will talk to you later.