The Constitutional Convention is invoked across several episodes of The Bob Zadek Show, usually through particular scenes rather than as a continuous narrative. Guests and host return to the Convention to illustrate arguments about executive power, the absence of a bill of rights, campaign finance, and the character of the delegates themselves.
Washington as chairman
In an episode on George Washington, Bob Zadek describes a moment at the Convention when the delegates were discussing how large an army the country should have. Elbridge Gerry, whom Zadek identifies as the father of the gerrymander, said the army should be limited to 3,000 men. Washington, as chairman, was forbidden to participate in the debates, but could be heard by those in the first two rows. According to Zadek, Washington said sotto voce that limiting the army to 3,000 men was a wonderful idea, as long as everyone else in the world could be gotten to promise not to invade with more than 3,000 men. Zadek adds that Gerry was at the Convention but would not sign it, and describes him as a difficult character who wanted things to be the way he thought they should be. George Washington Was Our Guest (2011)
The same episode recounts a debate over property requirements for the presidency. Zadek says one of the wealthy South Carolinians stood up and proposed that the office of the president be limited to people worth at least $100,000, which Zadek says is the equivalent of $10 million today, with the vice president worth $50,000. Ben Franklin put up his hand and said he was opposed to anything that denigrates or lowers the self-respect of the average man — Zadek notes this is a paraphrase — and asked why the average person should be offended by such a ridiculous idea. Zadek says the proposal was overwhelmingly rejected, and calls this the first time money in politics raised its ugly head. George Washington Was Our Guest (2011)
Madison, Washington, and the strong executive
In the same episode, Thomas Fleming describes James Madison visiting Mount Vernon for a year before the Convention, sitting with Washington on the porch or in the parlor and discussing what kind of government the country needed. Fleming describes Madison as a small, thin man who looked like he was going to expire at any moment, and says Washington hammered into Madison’s head that they had to have a strong president and could not let Congress run the country. Fleming ties this to Washington’s experience of the Continental Congress, which he says created committees for every new problem until there were 3,000 committees and a committee to keep track of the committees. George Washington Was Our Guest (2011)
Fleming also describes Washington descending from the podium during the Convention when the delegates dissolved into a committee of the whole, sitting with the Virginia delegation, and insisting again and again on a strong presidency. According to Fleming, Washington kept saying “one man,” against those who favored a three-man presidency, and argued the president should be elected by the people rather than by Congress. Fleming says Washington also insisted the president should have the right to veto acts of Congress and that they could not override it. George Washington Was Our Guest (2011)
The rejection of a bill of rights
In an episode with Carol Berkin, Bob Zadek frames the Bill of Rights as a nickname for the first ten amendments, and notes that the Constitution as drafted and ratified did not have one. Berkin says the government did not have the power to infringe on people’s liberties, and that the men who wrote the Constitution did not dream of doing that. Carol Berkin on The Bill of Rights No One Wanted (2016)
Berkin describes the Convention’s final days: after four months of arguing, discussing, and compromising, the delegates wanted to go home and their bags were packed when George Mason stood up and said he thought there should be a statement of the people’s liberties and rights. She says everyone groaned, and Mason said it would not take long, but everyone knew nothing took not long at all. Roger Sherman of Connecticut then stood up and said there was no reason to do it, because the Constitution gave no power to infringe upon or protect people’s civil rights, and that was left to the states. Berkin says everyone said thank God and went home. Zadek asks whether she meant Roger Sherman rather than Roger Williams, and she corrects herself. Carol Berkin on The Bill of Rights No One Wanted (2016)
Berkin also describes the Constitution as designed to create a structure of government, with checks and balances to prevent any branch from becoming too powerful. She says the delegates believed that if they did not act, the country would disappear, that France, Spain, and England would divide it up, or there would be civil wars between competing states. She cites the mess of commerce, the absence of an army to protect the borders, and the lack of money to pay debts incurred to fight the Revolution. Carol Berkin on The Bill of Rights No One Wanted (2016)
Madison’s notes and the uses of the Convention
In an episode with Frank H. Buckley, Zadek says James Madison was not the secretary of the Constitutional Convention, but every night after the long debates went back to his room and reconstructed the debates from memory and notes, often verbatim. Zadek says Madison kept the book secret for many years so the country would not be affected by the debates, and that it was released much later in his life and became a crucial source document. Has America Become an “Elective Monarchy”? (2014)
Buckley, in the same episode, says the Framers were not omniscient, and that saying we ended up with something they did not like 227 years later is merely to say they were not omniscient. He says they had it running pretty well until fairly recently, and that the idea of designing a constitution that would work for 200 years is not a criticism. He calls them the most brilliant people, with a political sense and practical reason a mere theoretician would not have, and says their debates are the most fascinating set of readings on the structure of liberty, better even than the Federalist Papers. Has America Become an “Elective Monarchy”? (2014)
Gerry and the gerrymander
In an episode on gerrymandering, Zadek raises Elbridge Gerry, whom he calls the Governor of Massachusetts and one of the three representatives in the Continental Congress who refused to sign the Constitution. Zadek says Gerry did not like it, and calls this a footnote to his point about the word gerrymander. He asks Nick Seabrook why the word is pronounced with a soft G, and Seabrook says he looked into it for his book, and that when the term was first coined it was pronounced “Gerry-mander.” Seabrook cites an obscure reference in the transcripts of the Indiana State Constitutional Convention from the mid-19th century, where a delegate considering a proposed amendment to ban gerrymandering in Indiana said an opponent was constantly gerrymandering the state, or Jerry-mandering as he maintained it should be pronounced, the G being soft. Midterm Elections Special: The Surprising History of Gerrymandering (2022)
Seabrook says the “mander” part comes from a cartoon published in the Boston Gazette in 1812, after Governor Gerry unveiled his new state Senate map. He says an editor put a map of the districts on his wall and drew a salamander shape on one district that snakes around the border of Essex County, the district into which Gerry’s Federalist foes had been packed. An associate remarked it looked like a salamander, and the editor said, better say a Gerry-mander. Seabrook says the cartoon was reprinted in more than 80 newspapers in six months and that within a year politicians in Maryland were being accused of gerrymandering. Midterm Elections Special: The Surprising History of Gerrymandering (2022)
Calls for a new convention
In an episode with Larry Klayman, a caller identified as Max argues that putting all trust in one person will fail, and that a many-to-many networked model is needed rather than a hierarchical one. Klayman responds that you have to keep it simple. Who’s Looking Out for Us? (2012)
Klayman says most conservatives say not to have a constitutional convention because the liberals will get in there and make it worse, but he says we have nothing to lose, that we have no Constitution now, that it is not being enforced and means nothing. He suggests a recall provision like California’s, or a vote of no confidence, as ways to remove a president short of a revolution. He also says the country can be turned around, and that whatever method is chosen — whether a constitutional convention, lawsuits, or civil disobedience — he thinks it is going to come to that. Who’s Looking Out for Us? (2012)
Bob Zadek, in the same episode, says the founders never envisioned such a strong president, that the president was simply supposed to be a chief executive running the government, and that the concept of a president with so much power would have frightened the founders. Zadek says his one change, if he could make one, would be term limits for the Supreme Court, and Klayman agrees, adding term limits for federal judges. Who’s Looking Out for Us? (2012)
Across episodes
The Convention is treated in these excerpts as a storehouse of scenes rather than as a developing argument. The 2011 episode supplies the Washington and Madison material; the 2016 episode supplies the bill of rights debate; the 2022 episode supplies Gerry and the gerrymander; the 2012 episode supplies the call for a new convention. The excerpts show no development between earlier and later treatment, only different uses of the same event.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not describe the Convention’s organization, its dates, its location beyond Philadelphia, or the ratification process in any detail. They do not state what any case held, which amendment turned on what, or the titles and fields of most speakers beyond what the labels give. The ending of the 2011 excerpt’s Tyranny of the Majority section and the 2016 excerpt’s ratification section break off before any content, and nothing is supplied for them here.