Ken Burns

And they were just risking their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for something much bigger than anything else.

So we have a technical problem, which I'll share with you, or I thought it was a technical problem, which is the climax.

If you're making a film called The American Revolution, the climax is this.

The Battle of Yorktown happens in October of 1781.

The British don't leave New York for two more years until 1783.

They're occupying New York, which they took over in the summer of 1776.

And our Articles of Convention are doing nothing

Articles of Confederation are doing nothing.

They're toothless.

They can't be a government.

And so in 1787, we have this constitutional convention that happens in Philadelphia, four months.

They hammer together the shortest constitution in the world, and it is exactly that.

Jefferson's writing in from Paris, representing our interests, going, but what about this?

What about – they're trying to check the possibility of somebody being –

somebody who would try to take advantage of the system and rig it to their own benefit.

And so all of those elaborately beautiful checks and balances, Article 1 is the legislative.

Article 2 is the executive.

It delineates Article 3, the judicial.

It delineates what the responsibilities are and the way in which the system has worked and fits and starts with lots of problems and, you know,

There's something encouraging about seeing how divided Americans were back then because we're always wringing our hands.