Would the U.S. Constitution have surprised the American revolutionaries of 1776?

0:05I think it's important to understand that in 1776, these 13 independent states, they come together in what they called the treaty very similar to the EU. If you think of the situation in 1776, this 13 states who come together just like the EU has, have a treaty holding them together. Our treaty was the Articles of Confederation. When Jefferson said "My country" he meant Virginia, when John Adams said "My country" he meant Massachusetts so these people have real loyalties to their states, which have a long history, they come together in this thing called the United States, which had a literal meaning then that to some extent, we've lost over the last 250 years.

0:53This treaty of 1778 is what was a confederation bringing together these 13 independent states. Nobody in 1776, imagined the government that emerged in 1787 with the Federal Constitution. Nobody even in their wildest dreams concocted such a government. No one could have imagined it. Something awful had to happen over the next 10 years to change people's minds and have them create this Federal Constitution. We take it for granted because we think it's the normal thing, it was almost inevitable that they would have such a strong government, but that was not the case in 1776. No one imagined it. What led to that was not only problems with the confederation, which could have easily been solved by a few

1:46extra articles but I think more important problems with democracy in the states that led many people to worry about whether we had the virtue to sustain these 13 states and that led to Madison and others. He was not alone in creating what he called the Virginia plan, which became the working model for the new constitution, which is a very powerful government, totally unexpected and unanticipated in 1776. It's the government we have today, essentially.