Your television provider. Ladies and gentlemen of the convention, my fellow citizens, i accept your nomination and your program. [ applause ] and now, my friends, that you have made your decision, i will fight for that office with all my heart and soul. [ cheers and applause [ cheers and applause ] and with your help, i have no doubt that we will win. Help me to do the job in this autumn of conflict and of campaign. Help me to do the job in these years of darkness and doubt and crisis which stretch beyond the horizon of tonights happy vision, and we will justify our glorious past and the loyalty of silent millions who look to us for compassion, for understanding and for honest purpose. Thus we will serve our great tradition greatly. I ask of you all you have. I will give you all i have. That was our contender this week, Adlai Stevenson, accepting the democratic nomination for president in 1952. We are joined by historian Richard Norton smith here in Adlai Stevensons old study in libert
Convention, my fellow citizens, i accept your nomination and your program. [ cheers and applause ] and now my friends that you have made your decision, i will fight to win that office with all my heart and my soul. [ cheers and applause ] and with your help, i have no doubt that we will win. [ cheers and applause ] help me to do the job in this autumn of conflict and of campaign. Help me to do the job in these years of darkness and doubt and crisis which stretch beyond the horizon of tonights happy vision. And we will justify our gorgeous past and the loyalty of silent millions who look to us for compassion, for understanding, and for honest purpose. Thus we will serve our great tradition greatly. I ask of you all you have. I will give you all i have and that was our contender this week, Adlai Stevenson, accepting the democratic nomination for president in 1952. We are joined by historian Richard Norton smith here in Adlai Stevensons hold study in libertyville, illinois. Richard norton
Life, i would have written a book about Andrew Johnson, i would have told them they were crazy. Its not that i dont think hes an interesting person. He really is an interesting person. And not that i didnt know anything about him, but for most of my career as a historian, i have tried to avoid the period of reconstruction. And it sounds strange for someone who writes about slavery, which is a difficult topic to write about. But i find it easier to deal with the 17th century and 18th century and attitudes about race and slavery than i do dealing with reconstruction. Theres something about it that is just maddening to me, and i think what it is is that it was a moment of opportunity. When i think of the people in the 17th and 18th century who have very primitive ideas about many, many things in the world, and you know there are lots of things they dont know, i can not totally forgive them, but its not as irritating to me, exasperating to me as a period of time when you have photographs,
Give a warm welcome to the stage. [applause]. I hope you are having as much fun as i am at this festival. [applause]. I think of students in college a few of you were in college a few years ago as the best thing to do is to take the teacher not the course and here i think of things to take these incredible authors and be in a room with them. Whatever theyre talking about. The only problem is there is someone in every room. That you want to be with. I think you heard from them all at one point or another. They have also done some the other interesting things. American shots. He is the cn and historian. He has a little bit of basement studio and envy of john meacham. Whos got that at msnbc. Of course the great tester in 1919. Just a transformative book that is so important. Many of us know him from his basement with morning joe. The assignment is to talk about who is your favorite historical figure. I want to make that a free and fun thing. Maybe later we would get into other elements. W
For that. Brief comments about Justice Breyer cant begin to do justice to him, so im going to have to be unjust in light of time constraints that im subject to. Justice breyer has always been remarkably generous with his time in supporting society projects. And indeed, in less than two weeks on june 6th, at our annual meeting, hell be delivering the societys 41st annual lecture. And of course, hes doing these extra projects for the society at a tremendously busy time for him and for all of his colleagues on the court. So Justice Breyer, thank you so much. Some background on Justice Breyer. He was born in san francisco. He eventually, after stanford, came east. Farther east. Hes got a ba from Magdalene College at oxford. He earned his law degree at harvard. He went on to clerk for Justice Arthur goldberg this court. He served with great distinction in the justice department. He served as chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary committee at one point and served in other similar roles durin