Remarkable moment in 1797 for many reasons not least of which that the group offered toast to the constitution, the president and the Vice President and to the congress and then to our illustrious neighbor. He truly had retired from Public Service. His words and response are words that i think of often. I can entertain no doubt of it being so if all of us act the part of good citizens. He included himself in that occasion. He too was now a citizen. But he was a a citizen of that came of both rights and duties, particularly in the next sentence say, do i need to act to maintain to constitution to support the law and guard independence. As you will sigh duty he took seriously and did not retire from Public Service so much take a different approach to it. Tonight we hear about a wonderful book which i heard in prepublication stage which i read in my Vacation Home on christmas break and daunted by how good the book was. Im excited for you to hear about it tonight but we have Upcoming Events that im excited to invite you to. I will mention a few in the near future in just a couple of weeks, on thursday march 19th, we have a book talk, thats free monthly events sponsored by Ford Motor Company that will bring three authors together, ryan, Heather Kelly to talk about their experience as widows. Their book the knock at the door, 3 gold star families bonded by grief and purpose will be a really important statement of the challenge and their approach to the future that came from the news that they heard. Also in future we have Martha Washington lecture which we have every march and in this case itll be march 24th and we will bring 3 historians, 2 biographers and exploring the oufe of mother and father of our country. Its going to be exciting event, please look on our website for more information about that. Ed larson will come and talk about washington. It was a true revolution, not so much because it was led by philosophers and statesmen but because of the power of the ordinary American People. But tonight, let me tell you about tonight, we will hear from john happy horn, graduate of yale university, former white house president ial speech writer and special assistant to george w. Bush. He was well known until this book came out for writing a book decidedly not about George Washington which if you read it you remember thein title, the mn who would not be washington. All about robert e lee and now lives with his wife and here to discus his book, washingtons end, the final years and forgotten struggle. Joining me to discuss the book will be general david popotreius and he served for over 37 years in the u. S. Military and has a dedicated live of Public Service, please welcome Jonathan Horn and general petraeus. [applause] thank you very much, kevin, thanks requester the kind introduction and thanks to all of you for being here. We were told that this was a sellout, we werent surely if this would be a sellout in the end, bold and trepid souls are here today, not risking with handshakes and calculating how much you lost on the stock market today. [laughter] congratulations, jonathan, on a great book. I want to start out actually by saying thanks for what you did when you were government in government which coincide with surge in iraq. He was speech writer for president bush and i offered edits in some of the speeches that he did for the president then. This was a terrific book and it is on a period that is almost entirely overlooked by historians who typically end any history about washington when he leaves the white house, get very little coverage to what follows and i too am very intrigued to read the book before it was published and how much did take place and how much in terms of intrigue and all of the other developments took place during that period, but first you wrote your previous book as noted on robert e lee, what was it that made you turn now to George Washington, did it have something to do with your speech writing during. The final years of the presidency . Yes, first of all, thank you so much general petraeus for being here at the home of washington. I can think of no one more fitting to be at this house tonight than you. Thank you so much for being here. What motivated me to write this booko was my previous book had been as you mentioned a book called the man who would beat washington. Everyone made the joke that the joke was the man who was George Washington and i had served as the speech writer as the general mentioned at thein end of a presidency and so i saw what happened when a president leaves office andap becomes a former president and one of the surprises i had was discovering thatat the story of americas first presidency hasnt been toldld and that might sound surprising when you think about all of the biographies written about George Washington, but if you have sympathy for George Washington, think about how much ground they have to cover. Man who heard the first shots of the indian war and Confederate Army and provided over the constitutional convention, served two terms as president and by the time you get through all of that as the biographyer, youre out of space and you are saying, where is your book, the last year of George Washingtons life tends to get shortchanged. Why didid it take so listenig for someone finally to discover that as you have, really why did it take so long for the forgotten years which turn out to be, you know, really incredible and they are great for historians, quite he died in 1799. Period of little less than 3 years. That means it took me more years to write about George Washington post presidency than it took him to live his post presidency. You do need to make time for the last period of his life because its in the straightforward. Its difficult in surrendering power proved far more difficult than George Washington ever imagined. You chose a particular style for this, you are relying history through the eyes of those who lived it. Can you tell us about that style and why you decided to adopt it . Yeah. Thats a great question, and thats one of the explanations. You can tell the book from the 21st century, it gives you a sense that you might have made better decisions than the people who were actually living in the past. People actually experienced it. Another approach is to actually tell the story through the eyes of the people who actually lived it and by that, you only give the reader information that was then available to the people who are living in the past and you only present new information when it became known to him and i think this story really required that because to understand why surrounderring power proved so difficult for George Washington and why he brought his life to an s end. He never really imagined to put it out there right now. A little bit more than a year after winning presidency, he found himself drawn out of retirement, put back in command in army of the United States and this was the opposite that George Washington was expecting in capital of philadelphia and understand how he got there, you have to see the past through his eyes, the eyes of his friends, the eyes of his rival and other people that made up the mount vernon community. Washington claimed that he was counting the days he left office. I heard a lot of people say that in washington over thehe years d very few actually meant it. [laughter] but he seemed sincere. Now, of course, maybe it was because it was philadelphia and not washington, d. C. But why was he so eager to leave and tell us about the moment he did and how people viewed him at that stage in his life. Thats a good question. The truth he we wanted to leave presidency after his first term in office and got close doing so and went so far beginning to write a fairwell address but he was convinced that the country would come apart if he left office. People told him this and he immediately regrets the decision to serve a second term and he says he would rather be anywhere than be president of the United States and by the time his second term ends but really no argument in the world that could have convinced him to serve a third term at that particular moment. He wanted to return to mount vernon and he saw himself living out his days essentially as a farmer. He wanted to fix up the Mansion House which he felt had gone into ruin and we wanted to put personal papers in order because he knew like people like yours truly were going to one day want to write a biography. Thats how he saw his post presidency and ended up anything but peaceful. Sos president s nowadays, theres a precedent obviously. Many others have gone out of the white house, have left sequence of that events. They have to go to wall street and raise money for library eventually and all that kind of stuff but there was notu precedt at that time. Was there any example at all that he could look at as he did look to the future for himself as he left the presidency . Right. I guess you do have to raise money for president ial library and we should say that George Washington had the idea for first president ial library and one of the things he did when he got back to mount vernon he we wanted to build an archive for voluminous papers but as for the question as precedent, the American People at this time were very well aware of the story, roman general who saved the republic and returned to his farm but there wasnt a modern precedent for George Washington to work off of and i guess to understand how this was, you have to look across the ocean to france, what was happening there, well, louis the 16th had recently left power and he had very shortly afterwards lost his head in a gillotine. Thats how thing tend to go. What George Washington was doing was revolution and you have to keep in mind as the postpresident diverge. F philadelphia was never far from washingtons thoughts . How did he adjust to life back here at mount vernon . He tried to throw himself back into a routine and to find kept himself busy. He was monitoring the improvements being made, renovations, repairs being made to Mansion House and riding around his farm and he did throw himself intoon looking at his od papers and trying to get them in order, at the same time he has a very hard time separating himself from whats happening in the then capital of philadelphia. Hes very eager to get news. Hes a reader of newspapers, but they dont really satisfy him. He wants to know more, so what does hen do . Well, he goes to the people who know the most, the members of john adams cabinet and they happened to be the same members of his own cabinet because john adams has made a mistake, retained all of George Washingtons cabinet secretaries and so youre right, if you have a few minutes, write me an update of what is happening in philadelphia and he really does push the boundaries of confidentiality. He really does want them to go a little further. He says dont go too far but let me know whats happening and whats happening with this Foreign Policy crisis thats developing between the United States and france. France has been seizing american ships at sea and john adams has sent envoys to france to negotiate a settlement and theres a long period of silence. Everyone is waiting to find out what happened to the envoys in france and George Washington getting more and more agitated, what happened to these envoys . Finally he writes a letter, were our envoys gillotine. And we will get to that in a second. First, we hear these days about relationships and a the press. What was that relationship back in back in washingtons days and did he get supplement from appointees still in office . If you look back at the period you will conclude that the relationship between the press and the president was always a difficult relationship. George washington, one of the reasons hes so eager to leave the presidency is hes being attacked by newspaper editors who are associated with the emerging Opposition Party. They accuse him of claiming a crown and they even say, they reprint forged letters that suggest he had been a lukewarm patriot during the American Revolution and to give you an idea how far this goes, George Washington spent last day in Office Putting documentation down showing that those letters were not true and he himself was not airlockwarm patriot during the American Revolution. Thats how hes spending his last day as president. Some of these were actually funded by serving politicians as i recall, were they not. Thats true. One of the first opposition newspapers the editor is working part time for Thomas Jefferson, George Washingtons secretary of state. The criticisms wound him deeper than you might imagine and hes pained by them, at the same timee he doesnt want peope to think that hes necessarily wanting to read the newspapers but he is and hes trying to find creative ways for them to be sent to mount vernon during retirement that doesnt required him to be a subscriber but he might be able to get it through the cover of the department or some other way, so he is a reader andnd tensions are so hih that it surprises many people and ends up supporting the alien exhibition acts which was legislation that actually led to journalists negotiated with Opposition Party being put in prison in the United States and George Washington supports this as a former president. Like we dont have that these days. [laughter] sound familiar today, what parallels do you see in fact, between the Political Climate and late 1790s and today . That was one of great surprised was discovering that so many things that we are worriedes about today would soud familiar to George Washington, for example, we, today are worried about foreign intervention in elections, well, George Washington was worried too, in fact, the first form of and took place in 1796, foreign power intervened on the then Republican Party which was then trying to get Thomas Jefferson elected president of the United States and the foreign power thats france. We today are worried about new forms of media spreading fake news, they were worried about new forms of media too. They were worried about the spread and they would agree described as fake news and they were worried about the emergence of Political Parties and polarization breaking country apart and in a way seeing that they had the concerns that mirror our concerns today should give us great confidence because they were worried the country was going to come apart. For what its worth i observed it over the years when people particularly in foreign countries, my gosh, whats going on in the u. S. , not just in recent years, its been many occasions and obviously noted that we have been through tough times before, so tough that, of course, one particular episode had to beug settled with a fouryear civil war and there have been plenty of others as well, butle it is instructive i think to go back that far and to realize that even then right at the beginning that our Founding Fathers, most of whom had literally been put on pedestals around the country had engaged at intrigue and sniping at each other with press that they owned and the rest of that. Lets turn to france. Arguably the s first Foreign Policy crisis that dominated successors war with john adams and ended up cutting short washingtons retirement. Everyone in the United States is waiting to hear what happened to the envoys in france. Well news eventually comes back and essentially the house is that the french would not receive the envoys unless they paid a bribe. [laughter] and so you can decide if you see parallels today. I hear all of the audience laughing. [laughter] but and so as a result theres an uproar in the United States and immediately the country sort of begins preparing for war. There are preparations being made. Theres a new army thats going to be formed, there are preparations being made at sea for a navy and as part of that john adams nominates George Washington to be commander in chief of the armys of the United States without pausing to ponder why the constitution might specifically reserve the commander in chief for the president or bothering to ask whether George Washington might have any terms or conditions for acceptance and as it turned out George Washington did have conditions for acceptance and thats going to cause some Serious Problems between john adams and George Washington. By the way, this is the first cof what will be several facts that will be revealed on stage today that i bet many here did not know and i must confess that i had completely overlooked the fact that washington served, again, as the commander of armies but how did he react to this request and what were his thoughts on this . Yes, George Washington is torn. He feels that he cannot sit on the sidelines if everything he has worked his whole life for is threatened. If the country, which really is the legacy, hes the father of the country and he needs to do his duty, at the same time hes hesitant because he has questions, for example, hes worried about what people will say, hes very sensitive to criticism, well, all of the things he said during second term of presidency about hes longing for retirement, the farewell address was a sham and that he couldnt be happy in retirement. Hes worried, and somebody more younger, more qualified, the french terrific success with the general who might know today. He was very young and the final thing George Washington is worried about, will he damage his legacy. His legacy is so important to him at this stage and its always been important and always really cared and conscious of his role in history and doesnt want to do something thats going to sacrifice the fame hes already earned and thats one of the reasons he has a condition. The condition is he doesnt want to take active command of this army unless theres an actual invasion by france and he wants to choose the second in command who will serve as the chief in his absence and for that position, for a variety of interesting reasons he ends up choosing somebody who he actually has john adams specifically does not want and that person is the star of everyones favorite musical, Alexander Hamilton. [laughter] i wish i could have set conditions before i took my command. So right away, here we are, year or so into the post presidency and the relationship between washington and in some respects chosen successor turns contentious. Was this unavoidable . Probably a variety of factors that made it unavoidable and john adams is a touchy guy and to give you an idea how touchy he is and in 1798, in february, George Washingtons birthday uance he left office and john adams who is now the sitting president gets an invitation where you come to a ball in honor of George Washingtons birthday and sure enough right before the ball c shows up in te newspaper responds saying no, i will not go to a ball in honor of George Washingtons birthday and every this causes a social scandal in philadelphia and across the country. There are other factors to consider. John adams goes back to quincy, massachusetts and George Washington is in mount vernon, war henry who everyone agrees is not qualified for job, the person serving as the man in the middle between passing messages along between mount vernon and quincy and information did not travel fast back then. It could take 3 weeks for a letter to be relayed to philadelphia to mount vernon and back to mount vernon back to philadelphia to quincy. So it was plagued with miscommunications and the most important miscommunication of all was that he did not want Alexander Hamilton as second in command and keeps trying to find ways to get out of it. I guess some explanation is necessary. Why didnt he want alexander as second in command, it didnt hurt that he knew that Alexander Hamilton had conspired against his election in 1796. Hamilton had other issues of who should be president. Both he and he is wife believed that Alexander Hamilton resembles a cesar and the adams cant really afford a fallen out with George Washington and George Washington makes clear that he will resign if he doesnt get his way, so ultimately john adams does have to give way and George Washington gets his way. So much for former president s not meddling with successors. Just as an aside, of course, adams was so touchy as you will recall, that later on he cuts off all communications with Thomas Jefferson and refuses to communicate directly with him and would only do so through abigail and this lasted, i think, right up until before the death. Right. In the sense whats interesting a lot of the Founding Fathers were touchy and a lot of the communications between people broke off. By the time George Washington died, he was no longer on speaking with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and james monroe. Wait, thats your third, fourth, fifth president s of the United States and George Washington is no longer in speaking terms with them when he dies. Theres a variety of reasons for why that happened and serious personal reasons behind each of the collapse of those relationships, but to give you an idea and remind us that all our Founding Fathers were not friends. [laughter] im glad there are arent egos in the oval office anymore. So we do think nowadays think that president s leaving office become less partisan. I think thats the model. You think about george h. W. Bush coming together with bill clinton who, of course, defeated him in quest for second term for a variety of very good causes. Almost the most recent president s had gotten together, the expresident s for a variety ofof causes, but you suggested leaving Office Actually made washington more partisan, how does this transpire . I think George Washington did become more partisan after he left the presidency and we do have the per exception today that leaving office in some way lifts president s above partisan feuds, but really the exact opposite happened to George Washington and in a way that he never would have as president , he he he supported as i mentioned the alien act that led the printers that were associated with the Opposition Party being locked up and he he al also favored excluding w Position Party and this essentially was a partisan army and the reason its so surprising for us today that we look at George Washingtons fairwell address and we and tried to avoid spirit of Political Parties but whats less remembered during last years of George Washingtons life he wrote a letter basically saying that all americans only had a choice at this point but to be a member of one party or the other, and back then the choice between being a federalist and being a republican and George Washington was a federalist and theres an effort that john adams will lose presidency in 1800 and try to convince l George Washington to try to seek a third term as president and there are influential people who are in touchde with members of john adams cabinet trying to make this case to George Washington and he, of course, tried to silence all talk of the idea and one of the arguments he makes is he can command more votes than any othert federalist would because the country was so polarized and he says, the republicans would line up behind anyone for president and he even throws out the prospect that a broom stick can run for the president and the father of our country pondering, losing the president to a broom stick during theck final months of his life. We better retreat to safer ground here for a moment. The potential was there too great, there. Washington had no biological children and yet you point out in well little known fact that he did help raise children, he parented marthas grandchildren from her first marriage. What kind of father was the father of our country . Well, i think he found that kind of fatherhood to be particularly challenging and especially when dealing with marthas grandson George Washington and we know this because we had the letters that George Washington sent to George Washington park at schools and variety of schools that he went to because he kept dropping out and George Washington would have to have to find a new school and constantly just filled letters with advice and more and more advice and so in some ways a lot of the advices, dont trust yourself, listen to your teachers and [laughter] whats interesting too that for me was that many years later m decades later another virginian would find George Washington park to be similar to all things that George Washington worried that he would turn out to be and that person was his soninlaw robert e lee and that has another connection which led me to a story of George Washingtons last years. Only a few letters survived between george and Martha Washington, what was their relationship like during post presidency years . Tragically martha, we think burned the letters that george and martha exchanged but we do have a sense of what the letters might have said because washington described them during the last year and he said if anyone read them, they would get the sense of friendship and i think thats probably a good way of thinking about their marriage, rarely were they ikone, but they like to be together and he was described as friendship, as partnership. He would love to give advice to other people, when passion subsides you need to have something firmer to underpin marriage and we also do know that he was still thinking during the last years about one salary fairfax and we know that Sally Fairfax was a married woman who George Washington fell inwa love with. Two terms as president had notment much by the time as a young t man. Martha didnt see that one i think. [laughter] how did their mention complicate the clause that he wrote into his will for emancipating slaves . That was a major complication. They belonged to the estate of marthas first husband and it was actually not in George Washingtons power to emancipate the slaves, its not clear that martha herself supported emancipating slaves even having been in her power. That was painful for him and you can see it in his will. He acknowledges that painful consequences will result. There would be many marriages between his slaves and slaves in marthas exhusband and similar to the United States as a whole, ends up being half slave and half free. Did we by the way, talk about collecting questions . So we are supposed to ask you to send questions down and you are collecting the questions . Okay. Good, because there are several more questions and then we will reach the time in audiences questions. Washington ultimately dies a really tough excruciating death in 1789. Was there any hope for saving him . The medical treatment he received did not help and he died because of infection, modern term thats given to acute and cant breathe and slowly, slowly suffocating, choking to death and theres one doctor, a younger doctor, 3 doctors tend to go him who has the idea for a tracheotomy which would bypass whats obstructing his wind pipe and the doctor said maybe we shouldnt be bleeding him quite as much as we are. Bleeding back then, they thought it was effective and we know that when he woke up on the day of his w death, he had someone o worked at the estate do the first bleeding and the person was tentative about it and martha was worried that too much blood was being taken and George Washington says more and the doctors who followed took a long more blood from him and the younger doctor says at some point, you know, i dont think bleeding is the right thing. Blhe needs his strength, but evn he thought that bleeding was the best thing under the best circumstances of George Washingtons conditions so would a tracheotomy would have worked . Maybe, he would have died of complications of having the tracheotomy. You mentioned that he was conscious of place in history, how conscious was he in particular during final years . He was conscious of role in history. He wanted to get them and hes actually spending some of his time during this period making edits to his old letters. You might be thinking what kind of edits is he making and not really, hes trying to fix up his grammar. He actually, by the way, i think its important to say because and my book records, this a lot of people back then said that George Washington was illiterate and, you know, he couldnt have written his own letters and had his other people write letters for him. George washington was an extremely good writer and i was impressed with his writing and so hes conscious of place in history and so much so that he had to i think long before most of us got the idea in the social media world that anything you say can live on forever if somebody writes it down. George washington already understood that reality because he had been living the reality for a long time and he knew after you had dinner with George Washington that you went home and sent letter and put in dairy and those things can be found by historians or worked their way in newspapers. You haveri to be careful about what he said and what he wrote and he knew that people like me were going read his letters. Churchillth famously observed that history would be find to him because he intended to write it. [laughter] did washington have that idea . Well, there was an attempt at an official biography actually, small part of it was published but the opportunity was somewhat blown and the official biography and didnt turn into much and did provide interesting insights because you have washingtons edit, washington puts information to the biographer and so it is interesting for us to look at, but at the same time its somebody who writes biographies for a living, its very upsetting to see someone blow the opportunity. The speech writer like you. He has pretty god speech good speech writers. Can you talko a bit about the relationship between the man and the city of washington . Yes. And so this was not lost on people that George Washington dies and just months later a new capital city opens with the name washington and it was very fitting that the city of washington was called washington, it was George Washington who had chosen the spot in potomic river and George Washington who spent a good year of his presidency overseeing the construction by the city and didnt call it starting calling it washington himself until tend of presidency. But i think he hoped that the city could do what he no longer could which is put together feuding factions and today theres irony, the fact that George Washington during the prime of his life really was the man who most americans said was the force who held together america and when you look at the city of washington so often i think its almost anonymous. Actually a story of the beginning of a city of washington. All of us on the back of the blurbing away on how great the book is. How does learning this history change your view of him overall and what lessons should our president s today draw from his last years . Well, i think actually, you might say seeing George Washington struggle in retirement. Does it make you think less of the man but just the opposite for me. I actually sort of coming to understand how difficult it was to surrender power, gave me all the more appreciation for what it took for George Washington to do it and by understanding how many forces and personalities were trying to lure back washington into power and great it took for him to surrounder surrender power. And diverges from the way president s should act and in some sense former president s get their ideas they are above politics and the second you reenter, thats gone and youre open to attack again. I think thats in some sense what gives former president s a a perception of power is also what in effect leaves them powerless. As former general i try to avoid that as well. We celebrated his birthday. What would surprise him most of the way we now celebrate the birthday . I think he would be pretty surprise how many people call the holiday president s day and i think what might surprise him about that first of all the official name is washingtons birthday and everybody in mount vernon, of course, knows that. It will surprise him that so many people generally call it president s day, is that the president that succeeded him in office really did like celebrating the day at all. I told you a story about john adams refusing to attend a ball in honor of George Washingtons birthday and called him a mini scandal, James Madison in 1796 celebrated the house of representatives refusing to adjourn for 30 minutes in honor of George Washingtons birthday. He thought this was a great feet and defeated that and james monroe, the idea of chancing on George Washingtons birthday and Thomas Jefferson said, the only birthday that he would ever celebrate was july 4th, of course, thats particularly convenient for Thomas Jefferson because he celebrated adoption of a document that he had written, the declaration of independence. Makes you feel a lotdo better about today, doesnt it . [laughter] so you discussed the parallels of washington, later George C Marshal is compared and can you discuss any similarities or mention any other statesmen with whom you see those parallels. Well, the man sitting beside me on stage. I think its so interesting i didnt have a farm to go back to. [laughter] we didnt have anything to go back to. [laughter] modern equivalent of farms today. But thats a really tough question and i think part of it is the reason its so difficult is because so many former president s probably can see themselves as following in the mold of the american and the reason that the case is because George Washington had to go through the struggle he did and i think probably today we dont even appreciate how revolutionary the words former president sounds. The fact s that they sound so cliche its a testament to what George Washington did. He made it normal for a former president to leave power and became a figure. Im sure a lot in here are well aware of the society and the beautiful building and where it has headquarters across from the club on massachusetts avenue. I assumed you visited that during your looked into the history of George Washingtons final years. And whats interesting about it was a controversial thing during George Washingtons own life, again, its amazing, everything, everything caused controversy. Descendant of staff officers, is it not . Im not sure what the modern criteria is. Now its descendants of descendants and any others that they can [laughter] the question is who should be part of it, what was controversial during washingtons own life and everything caused controversy back then so in some sensing in really has changed. This is a great question on the New York Times sponsored 1619 project. Thats a fabulous question. And i guess what i would say about that and so much of the question comes back to do you believe the American Revolution was fought for the cause of slavery which sort of seems to be the thesis of the project. I have to admit im not an expert in the project and i havent read it well enough exactly to comment on it but i happened to believe that then Founding Fathers certainly hoped that that slavery you cant speak for all the Founding Fathers, George Washington hoped rythat slavery itself would be t on the path to extinction and the person who believed in that the most was abraham lincoln. Abraham lincoln believed that our Founding Fathers, they didnt know how to get there but did hope eventually that slavery would eventually be put on the path to extinction. If he lived another 10 years, what were his plans for mount vernon . Thats a great question and George Washington actually hoped to best able to rent out some of the farms here in mount vernon, he wanted to live on a fixed faincome and the best way to do that was to sort of break up the estate and i guess its important to understand that mount vernon was vastly larger than it looks today. It was 5 separate farms including the farm around the Mansion House and he wanted to rent out for outline farms, but it turned out, it was pretty difficult for him to find someone to rent the farms to because he had pretty strict criteria for who he wanted. He didnt want virginians because they thought virginians were bad farmers and who does he want to come in and run farms in mount vernon . The british. [laughter] he thinks they the best farmers in the world and thats who is looking to come run his farms and in some sense you can really see it in the way he operatings his own estate, really difficult for George Washington to give up control. He has an estate manager running the estate and estate manager threatening to quit because he doesnt like the fact that washington is micro managing. Washington says how can i be in my own estate and have an opinion on how youre running the place . That tension is there and he is looking for different ways to run the estate and actually right before his death hes putting together a new plan for the way he hopes mount vernon will be run, so that gives you a sense that he did not expect it to end when it finally did come in december 1799. Was washington active as a mason in post presidency . The masons played a big role at George Washingtons funeral. They were here for the funeral rites. Whats interesting about that moment that George Washington particularly in hisen will thate doesnt want any sort of military procession at his funeral at mount vernon but theres no way from stopping it from happening anyway. Its a command that troops in alexandria will not follow and theres military procession at his funeral here in mount vernon. Someone says thank you very much for your time tonight and great book. Thank you. What do you think George Washington would think about the fact that we as a country have many of the same problems he witnessed 240 years ago . Would he despair at the lack of progress . [laughter] lets focus on the positive. [laughter] he would be very impressed i think by how quickly you could get around this country. Back then he was he was hoping that the Potomac River would be the artery for connecting the United States. That didnt exactly turn out that way, but he would be i think pretty impressed by trains by airplanes, dangerous to say what they think of the present. I think it was impressive by the way we would move around in the country and impressed by the progress we have made, again, its difficult to say and the answer definitely should be something you should never say what somebody from the past would think of a president. We cant say what George Washington would think of twitter, for example, but i think you can bet probably not at George Washington twitter account. He was pretty careful about what he liked to say. At real first potus. Always remember churchills great observation that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. [laughter] this hasov been a delightful evening. We do thank you very much for it and much more importantly for a terrific book on a period of washingtons life that has just been completely overlooked by most historians and i know youre still in the book tour phase of this published. It was only published a few weeks ago, i guess. Its doing very, very well. Amazon has it at number 13, in whatever category it is which is quite significant, but its not too soon to ask you what the subject is of your next book. Oh, no. [laughter] i was thinking about this because my wife is asking me what is the subject of your next k ok, what are you doing . This is how he makes his living after all. [laughter] and so i think choosing a topic for a book is a little bit like dating and im not sure metaphor isop original to me but you have to Research Different topics before you make a commitment because youre ultimately going to make a commitment, its a 5year commit rent and you to live with the book for the rest of your life. [laughter] so this is a very delicate way of dodging the question and saying im still in the dating phase of looking for the next book. Fe no subjects for which you are flirting with . All subjects within the range of American History and thats because we have so many stories to tell about our country and its just we are lucky to live in a country with Great Stories to tell. You dont want to come closer to the president . Maybe i will come back to 19th century. Progress. Ive seen enough in 21st century. Lets stick with back then. Jonathan, congratulations on a great book and thanks for a very wonderful conversation. I really appreciate it. [applause] thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] continue the conversation out in the lobby with jonathan signing books. Thank you so much. [inaudible conversations]. Now on after words wore, New York Times reporter generalster steinhauer talk interviewed by first term democratic congresswoman, chrissie houlahan. Im really excited to have the opportunity to have this conversation with you today because i have a not a terribly good memory to be honest and this last year has been kind of a blur