Road to civil war. Joanne freeman, youre going to hate this opening question. Trace the arc of our nations history. From 1783 to 1861, the political history of our nation. Wow, i will use the word hate. Back is a little daunting. Trace the art. Im to do the historian thing and speak generally. I guess it would save your looking an american in politics, from the beginning straight through, we could even go past the civil war, youre talking about paradoxes and conflict and prop. The period that i tend to focus on is the early part of the arc, and its the improvisational nature of the the really fascinates more than anything else. The nation was founded in a world of monarchy. The United States was a republic. What the means was was not clear at the moment and people knew the they were trying to do something the wasnt act. Were not going to be creating monetary and the president isnt going to be a king but beyond the there was open ground. Theres a lot of improv in those early decades about with the nation is and how it functions, the tone of the government, how the station is going to stand up amongst nations of the worlds and other kinds of nations. We mean to be a republican world of monarchy. How is this nation going to get any degree of respect, and equally if not more, what kind of nation is going to be. That is true on every level you can imagine being true. Theres a broad kind of ideological level. There is a groundlevel, how democratic a nation will be, who is going to open the land and how is the land going to literally rest from other people. What kind of rice will some people have and what kinds of rights will other people not have it all. A lot of questions that we are grappling with now, are questions of acuity and equality and race in the lets go back to the beginning of the republic and beyond. As a historian, living in the moment that we are living in now and thinking in the blog, arcing weight, we deal with these pig questions and these pig legacies of undecided things. We are still dealing with them. The goal of the way back. Where we inherently democratic. Student no. [laughter] we were to monetary. Americans had a very strong sense or certainly elite white male americans in a very strong sense of their white. They felt the they were creating a more democratic regime than what had been around before. They were thinking very much about life. Theres a reason why there is a bill of rights attached to the constitution. So in essence, they were very right minded but by no means was a country founded with people thinking everyone will have rights and there will be equality. There were different i dont want to call them parties but certainly two different points of views. Hamilton the republics and jefferson is over simple fight. Because of the two camps. They had a different view and each side how democratic the nation should be. Federalist wanted it to be somewhat los democratic and the republicans more. Even so, pretty limited view of democratics. When i teach about this period, and tell my students there are all kinds of weird you have to think about and meanings of. Democracy is a pig one. You see the word in the founding. It is not mean what it means now. You have to rethink and recalculate what you are talking about when youre looking at the founding people. Now this political buzz. How many points of views where there back then. And since today we are divided democrats and republicans and independents. Was that the case back then . I would say it was more complex than the. They werent thinking in the way that we think about party. We think a party, its an institution right is a structure is an organization and you feel it yourself with one in being yourself back to the mindset of the foundings they were assuming the a National Party like the idea the the nation could get something the over arching the the many people would buy into amongst all of these diverse states the was beyond the, they didnt think the a National Party could seeing the public met lots of viewpoints banging up against each other ultimately some decision or compromise of the the was the. Of the National Center of how the banging of opinions would initially they werent assuming the there should be two or three viewpoints. There were federalist and they were parent publicans but even under i like to call them umbrellas of political thought even under those umbrellas were vast differences. Federalist in massachusetts federalist in South Carolina. The could mean something really different. In more of a spectrum, i would say than categories. In the founding. What were some of the privatizations the did not succeed as amended. Really fun to teach about our for political culture improv. In other words, some of the wonderful things about studying and riding about the founding is they put all of kinds of things in riding that we dont expect them to put in riding. John adams riding to a friend and saying how should an american politician rest. I want to look those sort of british or french european aristocrats. The clothing i have has a lot of lace on it, it it is it too much lace. Could i strip some of the lace away. How many horses with the carriage would seem appropriate in american versus how many in another place. It sounds really goofy in this part of whites abridgment to teach. On the other hand, they are seriously thinking about the back. The stylistic decision on really going to shape the tone and character of the government and the nation and let everything set a precedence. The kind of improv can have a pig impact. On one hand, its almost comical because it seems trivial on the other hand, it really isnt trivial and the in itself is really interesting. We had several hundred white male elites forming this country with their buyin from the three or 4 Million People who live here the time. On the one hand there is a small group of people who have power. On the other hand revolution is a popular revolution and not conducted by a few guys in a room. Its important to remember the whatever is going on in this time. Although the elite have power and are very rude about maintaining power a lot happening around them and part of the challenge for the what i want to call it, maybe the difficulties or challenges of tension of the. Is the American People figuring out how to voice what they want and how to demand what they wa want, how does the system work forum and if it doesnt, at what can they do to make it work forum better. They had the power. The American People understood in a broad kind of a sense the they had rights in some ways and different kinds of peoples had a different understanding with what rights but there was a broader sense of whatever the experiment was going on in this nation, the rights were something the were still being worked out and determined and they could potentially extend it more widely than some of what had come before in europe. What was awake and what did he believe. Joanne im going to talk about moving ahead in time about the wakes. About your earlier question about parties and categories. Particularly now, people like to go back in time and draw state lines between the parties of the present and the parties of the cast. If youre republican, it goes all the way back to jefferson. There are no Straight Lines in history. There are certainly no Straight Lines when it comes to political parties. So parties bounce back and forth in the name change all of the time. So with parties for a while you had the democratic party, which is going thing. And you had what was known more than anything else is the anti jacksonians, it wasnt really a party but it was people who really arent the. [laughter] we dont like jackson and we do like and what they represent. The becomes the whig party and become in the mid 19th century with essentially for a while, two main parties in one of them is jackson and democratics supposedly popular supposedly the common man or the common white man on the one side and then on the other side you have the whigs which are more centralized and more sort of pig National Government. Represent in a way sort of two threads that we can see. Really represented a different. Of view. If you were governor of massachusetts or president of the United States at the time, who held more political power. Joanne at the time, whenever i wanted to be. Okay yes, if you all of the way back, to the real founding moments, thats a good question. There were people like housing in the federalists who assumed that the bulk of the power was with the state. Not with the National Government which was new and who knew what it encompassed beyond the very skeletal constitution. Our constitution is really brief for what it does. The governor of massachusetts probably on paper might say the president has a lot of power, the fact of the matter is the for the people, their loyalties and their sense of belongingness and their understanding of powers is pretty much going to be grounded in their state. Over time the shifts but in the 19th century, certainly, the first half if you were to pick up a newspaper, are met. Congress would be getting a lot more attention than the president at the. Again we assume now that the president is allpowerful and the president is at the center of the news and thats not an early american way of really thinking about it. Reading your books, and i dont know if this is purposeful or if i missed it, the president doesnt play the large rule that the present place today in our world. Joanne right. I would say thats partly deliberate and partly reflects my interest. But it is true the throughout this. Although clearly the americans understood that the president was significant, in the early founding. They were trying to figure out what the means. Congress as the peoples understand that the congress is really where the nation is being worked out in a groundlevel and white and people felt the they had a direct connection with their member of congress and when members of congress set up and spoke, particularly when the you get into the 1840s and 50s, they assumed they were speaking to their can stick stitch with spin the in the press was creating the conversation back and forth. Congress matter tremendously. Nowadays were more focused on congress for Different Reasons but i think the 20th century we can focus on president and the was not necessarily the case much in the 19 hundreds. When we recognize Congress Today as it was back then in the early republic. One in the early republic. Joanne i dont think so. Maybe supposedly in some ways. It might be what we seem like it would look like. Somewhat tamer. It is a group of men, white men in the room, above and beyond the, there are debating and making decisions and passing legislation than those of things we see in congress. Over time the United States becomes a lot more violent and congress is a representative body. They become a lot more violent and in the case it begins to look like maybe not necessarily the. Tobacco use of, yes there were soaring yes the reunions shaking decisions being made underneath the speechifying and politicking, was a spit and spatter drug and Antebellum Congress had its admirable moments but it wasnt an assembly of demigods it was a Human Institution, with very human failing. Joanne the was an important. For me to make in the early part of my book. My function the what most people think particularly about congress in the side. , clay and webster and sort of reach man is congress was a bunch of people in boxes the were being waspy. Lofty. Its very important for me right off the cuff to say no. This is a really Human Institution number one and number two it is a unruly institution. Its a different world than you assumed. The book really is about this union Human Institution and how it functioned and shaped not just the nations politics but americans understanding of the nation. What is an affair of honor. Joanne thats another fundamental thing in the early part of my book that i talk about. People think about an allencompassing term, a dual, people assume the thats all there was to men on a field and shooting each other. Part of the. That i make in the first book, is an affair of honor was bigger than the. The. Of an affair of honor or even a dual is very counterintuitive read if you have to come in on a field and face each other and to someone. Youre going to kill someone. One of my early points is an affair of honor or a dual is to prove the you are willing to die for your honor. It means it is a long sort of ritualized series of whether exchanges and negotiations very often can take place in two men can redeem their names and honor and you dont even have to make it out to a dueling ground. An affair of honor includes all of the ritualized dual. Even at the. , the. Is the performance of it. If you think about it, this terrifying thing to stand out of the ground and pay someone with a cap gun. Instead there to allow someone to shoot at you. Thats the. Of it is to prove the you are the kind of man and thus leader who is willing to die for your name and reputation. It makes no sense to us now but clearly made so much sense to them the time. Hundreds and hundreds of people ended up working through those customers. Why are we taught at the beginning of us history about the bert hamilton duel of 1804. Joanne army because sometimes histories about good stories the seem to sum things up. You jefferson versus hamilton, the dual, the paintings, dramatic stories, the people sort of moved to encapsulate the thoughts of things. I think people teach the. The teacher first of all as one and only instance. Is a sign of this great unity of these two men and it somehow is typical of the period. Inmates were so fierce. Dramatic characters, it does a lot of storytelling work but not until recently has the been taught as a way of getting deeper and kind of understanding something about the guts of politics. How they really work in the time. What happened in 1804 and why did it happen. Joanne Vernon Hamilton certainly have been opponents for a long time. Hamilton was largely the fuel behind much of the opposition. He really deceptive or any thought of him as something of a demigod. Because he was somebody who came from the equivalent of royalty, his family was an opportunity this, early on in a relationship of sort. Back in 1792, pretty much a direct quote, i consider it my religious duty to oppose his career. Thats some serious opposition the you have going there. So he is pretty bound and determined to squash birds career and the goes on for quite some time. In the election of 1800, when it ends up being a tie between two candidates from the same party, jefferson and hamilton steps forward and doesnt eat everything he can do to squash his chances. This does not make her happy. It got moved over four years later, brett is running for governor of new york hamilton once again steps forward to do everything he can do to stop the from happening. As luck would have it, someone stepped forward after the and said have you seen there is a report of what hamilton said about you and a dinner party and hamza stupor. And brent this. Needs to prove the he is a man and a leader and he keeps contest after contest. He needs to redeem his name and honor. He acts on the and it happens to be hamiltons words. So you end up with bert being handed something the in his mind is dual worthy and so he commences an affair of honor with hamilton. The exchange these ritualized letters. Neither one, doesnt go swimmingly. Persons a letter, its kind of normal things in the letters. I heard you said this about me is it true or false. Validate or deny this. I deserve this Immediate Response as a man of honor. If you got a letter like this, you knew you were in trouble. You had to think very hard about how you responded. Hamiltons response is not a deal. He uses a very lengthy response in which he talks about he supposedly called something more despicable. Flaming despicable and hamilton gives this rather grammar lesson when shes talking about what is the meaning of despicable. Is the a bad word. [laughter] if youre a person at the end of the letter, to show the he is not afraid. Hamilton then said by the way, i always stand behind all of my words. Not an exception to the now. I am willing to fight for any words that i enter. Thats a not a strategically smart thing to send the kind of letter. Its offensive in two ways. My guess is the and is offended. Basically forms by saying, you are not behaving like a gentleman. This is not a gentlemanly thing to do. Now they are both offended. You can kind of see how things spiral to avoid the a trip to the dueling ground is the outcome. Dueling is not legal. State had its anti dueling regulations. A challenge might be against the law the dueling in self might be against the law, the punishment was different. In massachusetts you could be publicly humiliated in some way. Some places have a fine. If you in massachusetts anywhere prefer to go to another place, you could pay a fine a lot los daunting. But it was legal but it was largely the lawmakers. The people making the law were the people breaking the law which the lead in this. In how they do this. Duly spent too much much time talking about the actual duels and the set up to this rather than or does it a microcosm of what is going on in the country the time. The one people tend to focus on the story. There was a lot of dueling. The practice of dueling is worth looking at because it does tell you a lot about elite politics. Being a politician or political approach or at the time. I can tell you a lot about the emotional guts of some of the politics of the. But the pre shouldnt and its just dramatic. The Vice President of the United States killed the former secretary of the treasury and its a pretty dramatic story. If youre going to focus on one dual, it makes sense but if for too long it stood in for a lot of other things and hard with studying as well. We should note the he did not get elected at new york. Very effective to help smash various aspects of her career. I dont think burke wanted to kill hamilton. I dont think the was his purpose. First almost duels unless maybe youre andrew jackson, most dont go to a dueling ground where you are wanting to kill. I dont think burke did. Sometime before the dual is asked about a dr. , what doctor emer says something along the lines of you dont need dodgers, lets just get it over with. I think he assumed it would be in a typical dual. You shoot at each other you prove youre a man of honor at the nearly. But tragically, it has become the sort of villain of American History for killing hamilton. I dont think the was his aim. There are to be fun words in the english language. I dont think the was his purpose in going to the dueling ground. What was his life like after the. Joanne not easy. He flayed because at the the. Although dueling is common enough, all of his enemies essentially gang up after his killing of hamilton. He is vulnerable. People didnt try to kill people duels, you become vulnerable or having murdered someone which what happened to him. Various politics joining together and try to squash him. He is friends and his newspaper editor who run across to the dueling grounds please new york. He had self in South Carolina where he hides out for a while. I was a good place to be. He ultimately is Vice President and he goes back to washington, he finishes his vice presidency. He was a bad Vice President. He finishes his vice presidency and he is clearly not going to stick around for the second term though he ends up kind of going out west and its unclear what he is doing out west, he appears to be marching around with young man with guns. I think he thought something was going to happen in the vicinity of mexico and he was there with men the somehow or other he could see the west is literally a frontier where he might be able to have a different kind of power. Were still not entirely sure what he is doing but he did get tried for treason. Hes equated red but now is pretty much, what frontier is lyft for her. He is pretty much local and national politics. He ends up basically enrolling himself in europe. Ray hangs out with William Godwin and mary ann has is very interesting exile bizarre kind of life in europe hanging out with intellectuals. Then he comes back, to new york. These kind of a tourist attraction. People like to go back there for entertainment. He would go back to the law office. He kind of attempted to get snubbed in the streets. Its kind of a fad ending or sad ending. He does not have an easy time of it. Actually, there are lots of accounts of members of congress who seen him. He comes back to finish the vice presidency and what they say about him as you can see the fatigue and the anxiety of dealing with what he is dealing with the you can see it about him. Probably he doesnt have an easy end of life. Older years, difficult years for him. His one on only two politicians in this. I have seen ever describe politics using the word fun. He actually says the president engage in politics for fun and honor and profit. Which is pretty blunt. [laughter] is pretty direct when he acknowledges the. He acknowledges the. You get the from him but he is enjoying the game. He is just more honest about the fact the he is enjoying it. I think at some place in his later years, they are not some fun. Was the other one. Joanne charles from South Carolina who considers politics fun. There might be others floating around about there. I dont think ive come across it more than those two times. Professor freeman you are a hamiltonian. Joanne i guess it means that i am someone who finds him and ive always found him fascinating. So hamiltonian in the sense that i really have spent a lot of time and energy really trying to understand him and why he did what he did and what he did. I have been telling and scholar because i really think the many scholars find question or the person of problem the sort of grabs them. And there are many the grammy. But he is someone who grammy at an early. So in hamilton curious scholar. Besides a 10dollar bill and a relatively wellknown mystical, what is his legacy. Joanne one of the things the he was known for, and makes legacy, he was someone in really early early. Who firmly believed that the National Government need to be strengthened. And the was at a. It really wasnt strong. That refers to a document i found at the New York Historical society about the doctor turning his back so we can have deniability and when that line appeared, might i turned to my friend and i said thats my document. I know that document, thats my document so when i got to lynn manwell miranda, i said is that based on that topic . Of course it is. I get to have my document sung in what i hit Broadway Musical so that was a mind blowing experience how accurate is the musical . For sure, its a piece of musical theater so it did a lot of work to make people aware of people and a period that a lot of people werent aware of and it does things that as a historian i think are wonderful things to do. It reminds people about the contingency of that moment. People look at the founding and they see it as a series of courses but of course we won the revolution and of course constitution, blah blah and there are no courses when youre in that moment, there are no recourses and thats how the republic defined that period so the play reminds people about that contingency and also talks people maybe who hadnt thought about it before that these were real people and thats an important thing, what youre looking at are real people going through a process, not a bunch of rattle rousersmaking great decisions about great things. That said there are many things that are historically inaccurate about what is presented in the play. There are many things that are not discussed in the play in any major way like the institution of slavery, its mentioned, its not really discussed. To me going to see a piece of musical theater, my response was more theres a lot of history in there, more than i would expect there to be. Its got a lot thats wrong in it, to me, that has made this the profoundly wonderful moment because i think so many people and particularly young people become interested in the time period and as a teacher, we can grab hold of that and you can say i know youre interested in that, let me teach you about what really happened in that time period, let me take teach you the reality about everything that happened around this or that happened in ways that arent shown in the play so in a sense by being wrong in some ways its created a great teaching opportunity. In a tweet that you sent out a couple days ago, you do tweet a lot. I do tweet a lot. Its interesting in my hamilton and jefferson, are i asked how many had seen hamilton or knew the music, to judge hamilton mania, feels like it. Then i read applications for the course majority mention the musical, maybe adding but its had an impact. I did thats what happened. First i want to say all my code tweeters, look what they can do. Its on tv but it is true, i had my first meeting of my seminar and i do tend to ask what brought people to the class. And in this case i actually explicitly said im judging hamilton mania and i said i think its adding and they nodded, were not crazy about it anymore they, the classroom limited in size so even the ones who already preregistered, im curious what brings you to the course , a lot of people said well, almost sheepishly, i really liked the hamilton musical and it led me to want to know more. Thats a wonderful thing and the course, its great. First of all, i guess its not really advertising but its a course i love to teach about the age of hamilton and jefferson, except for the first two weeks you read the biographies, after the first two its all taught with papers and writing, theres no other history books that brought in and we look at for the first about what america was, look at revolution, look at them as Party Politics but its all primary courses and its very explicitly doesnt take sides and doesnt say that one is right and what is wrong but hand the raw evidence to the students and we grapple with it and whats fun for me in teaching it is different every time i teach it because it depends entirely on what the students find and focus on in those letters teaching since the 22nd or 23rd yearteaching this course, its different every time. Its fun and i learned things , i clearly have read those letters times but you can always learn things depending on the questions we bring when you look at them so its a fun class. On that same day, in response to a former student you tweeted out that about David Mcculloughs john adams book. Yes, mcculloughs john adams biography was the same thing that sends more people into my seminars and anythingelse. For years. And you know, i give students full permission to say whatever they want. I very explicitly i said this time, why are you in the course and the answer isnt because republicanism has always been meaningful to me, i dont want a gale answer. It was an old asset street that i was serious about or my dad loves this stuff and now im curious about it or i will a movie or i read a book or i just never study early america but i give them full permission to say whatever they want and for a while, it was well, theres this john adamsbiography that David Mccullough wrote or i read part of it. And im curious now. Was the thing, then the hbo miniseries, sometimes people say this miniseries i was curious about, now i want to know about the time period. Thats the part that became the musical for a time but this time i asked because it wasnt necessarily something that initially in conversation s were bringing up. Sometimes someone said on twitter maybe its a point because younger people are interested in the musical that the older students dont want to be, saying they love the musical but there back in public because the younger people are more focused on it, i dont know but the fact of the matter is that about 30 people trying to get into the course and a lot of those are selfinterest and in one way or another, one person said i didnt like the musical and im here because i want to learn more aboutthe time it is great. Its an excellent reason and thats excellent teaching, love it, hate it, ask questions about it. Once a month we invite an author to talk about his or her body of work. This month is yale professor historian and author joanne friedman. She is the author of a affairs of honor which came out in 2001. Alexander hamilton writing, she has edited thatthe essential hamilton i should say is what she has edited. And the field of blood is her most recent book, came out last Year Congress and the road to civil war. Shell be with usfor another hour and a half. Its your chance to take time, to take a question, giveher a question. Theres the numbers, were going to put those on the screen. Participate in our conversation this afternoon, 202 is the area code, 7428400 for human time zones, 488201. If you live in the mountain and this time zones, we can also take your comments via social media, were going to scroll through our different only addresses. Facebook, twitter, etc. Remember book tv is the essential part of that if you want to get a comment to us. How did you get interested in this mark. Probably the bicentennial. Partly the bicentennial. It was everywhere. If youre old enough to remember the bicentennial, this time, it was very everywhere. Bicentennial minutes, bicentennial tv commercials, was a every day in the local reporter dispatch of your Yorktown Heights at a bicentennial moment and i was cutting out all the newspaper articles. I was just absorbed. Also, the musical 1776. At that time it grabbed me as well and i think all that came together to make that time to me. I think in some ways it was what hamilton has done is its given to me, it was real. These are real people. It didnt seem like a boring bunch of statues, debating great ideas, it seemed like people on the ground trying to figure things out which grabbed me and i was 13 or 14, maybe 14 years old but i started reading biographies and i actually think i sort of just went, i went to reading really early. A biography of john irons, i think i read those who love i think, maybe even which is not a biography per se but its historical, i started reading and i started with a and at some point i got to hamilton at a very early point and i stopped because he was praying in comparison with the other people ive been reading about. Not a lot of people had written about him. He had this weird beginning of his life, was born relatively poor and legitimate in the caribbean, he died of a dual, both of those things were intriguing to me. I know that as a young person you want, was great things and i think on some level i probably identified the young person but wanted to go on to have an exciting life so i read a biography, im not going to tell you which one it was because i didnt like it and i didnt believe it and i wish i could reconstruct what in my 14yearold lorraine read a biography. And i said that doesnt sound convincing but somehow i did so i went to the library and i asked the librarian what this writer had read that gave him the right to say what he said in the book. And she pointed me to the 27 volumes of the hamiltonpapers. And i pulled down the volume and looked at them and rented , it was not always the easiest thing to read but to me, that was the real stuff that wasnt someone telling me about history. That was the history, that was someone putting on paper what they were thinking so to me, that was the most exciting thing ever. It was like, i want someone to tell me what they think, i want to read the stuff so i started reading hamilton papers, starting with volume 1 and i went through and started again and i did that for years and years and i didnt know that there, i never occurred to me, i didnt know there was a secession called historian and i had no outcome in mind. It was just the thing i like to do and so it was like decade later that i realized i had an interesting database in my head. Ive gotten to know hamilton in a way that has not been told. When you put together writings, how did you compile that and what did you compile in them . Thats an interesting story. It was when i was a grad student at uva and i was a teaching assistant with my wonderful graduate advisor. He was doing a course basically at jefferson hamilton course and it was nominally the age of jefferson, he made it jefferson in honor of my being but it was a library of america, wonderful body of jeffersons writings and there was no equivalent. And this is only going to be believable because of what i just said. In a weekend i pulled together a ruler at kinkos or whatever the place was, we photocopied the letters and put them together and it was a glossary of names and things to go along with the library of america volume but it was like well, this is this. And we used it in the course. It was a huge mass of this thing that fell apart because it was so big that works wonderfully, was made to go along with the jefferson volumes and a fewyears later , it occurred to me that i had already edited what could have been a library of america addition of hamiltons writings though at that point i went to the library of america and said id created a volume which i would like to do with you guys and the library of america on their board is a wonderful Nonprofit Organization just about putting american writing or letters in print and keeping it in print forever. So its near and dear to my heart because its what i love and if the actual stuff of history so they created that volume based on this thing i pulled together as a grad student. Its a collection, its not, it includes i guess what you would call who would report on manufacturers on public credit but it includes a lot of personal letters that i selected sometime because they showed something about hamilton as a person, sometimes because they expose something about his politics, sometimes because they showed something negative about him as a person or a politician. Its meant to be a spectrum of writings that show you about his thinking and who he is as a person. I included memos in there, things he neverintended anybody to see sometimes thats the most revealing kind of stuff. Soa favorite one i like to teach with , he wrote a few days within a week of the Constitutional Convention, very loyal thinker, released the Constitutional Convention, he sits down and on a piece ofpaper he says what is going to happen next . Let me think about this. Okay, constitution is going to be ratified, probably washington will be chosen president , that will be good. People trust washington and because they trust washington theyre going to trust people who he appoints the office so all of that bodes well. However, maybe you want to be made president somehow. Maybe that wont happen. Maybe other countries will sleep in and try and take over states. Maybe the states will turn against each other, maybe there will be separate federations and he draws this image of chaos. The downfall, the government collapsing, foreign nations sleeping in. Its fascinating to read. The kicker of this, and this is gods been pushing for this Constitutional Convention and a stronger government forever. I havent has beencreated and at the end ofthis memo he says having created this apocalyptic account of everything falling apart, he says thats not likely whats going to happen. At fascinating. He had grateful , but hes perfectly willing to assume that at that point kind assuming the experiments probably notgoing to work. Probably was not going to function the way. It would function, americans will be willing in his mind to invest in this new government for its work well and its probably all goingto collapse. At fascinating and its great to see because it in capsules all the other courses but his guidance is that convention and you leave basically, i dont think its going to work. Its not what you would expect that moment and certainly not what you expect of his life. Joanne friedman, before we get into calls around the library 14 being hamilton. Were your parents rebuffs . They were not. My grandfather, i dont think i knew that. He was a civil war buff. And i know he had these civil war books that use to read, but i didnt really know anybody who was really interested in history so i was lost on my own planet doing my own thing and i thought it was a weird thing to do. I never talked to anybody about it. I had the books under my bed because i was kind of embarrassed. Sometimes dad would make fun of me for reading these books and so other people had comic books under their bed and i had volumes of the hamilton papers. So no, i was off in dreamland doing whatever i was doing. It was decades later that i discovered what i had been doing. Where you raise and what didyour folks to . I was born in queens, raised in Westchester County new york. My mom initially was a kindergarten teacher, went on to do some work in interior design. My dad was a marketresearcher. Worked for foods and went on to do marketing in the industry and it was a really early person applying Market Market Research techniques so i grew up like sitting, watching focusgroups talk about movies or sorting questionnaires. You give my brothers a dollar and its interesting, i grew up watching research sorting through this Creative Process to come up with something that finds a way to appeal to the public in some way so in some way or another you might not have been reminded but he was research minded so maybe some of that runoff in some way. Lets hear from our colors, begin with david, youre on with historian joanne friedman. Caller you. I want to say to professor friedman and i love affairs of other and i briefly want to jump out and say you are the greatest, youd be the greatest teacher. Ive seen you on cspan many times and what i love about it is you get the excitement and the love and the interest going and i wish all teachers , i school, college had the same enthusiasm and thrill to get their students as you do. Thats very nice of you to say. What was it about the affairs of honor that caught you . I first heard about it when i saw professor friedman possibly on brian lambs show and it just, the idea of it. I have some friends that are on the conservative side and i said i belong to a History Group and i said theres this book that talks about the Early Congress and all these Congress Allegations are trying to kill each other. They all thought this was a most wonderful idea. Baby that wasnt initially what i had in mind. Quickly may i ask some questions. You got into hamiltons head better than anybody else in thecountry today. Hamilton is the founding father. He was ambitious and the first four president s of this country were Founding Fathers and hamilton goes in the Constitutional Convention and he knows that the rule is because hes foreignborn, he cant be president. You think he would have liked to be president and what did power really mean to him, thank you very much. Thank you for the nice things he said. Part answer. First of all there is an exemption clause in the constitution that if you were an american citizen at the time the constitution was ratified you were, you would have been able to be president so he wasnt exempt. He could have been elected president but the second half of my answer is i dont think he ever really knew that. He knew very well it was not very popular. There are various points in which he was very blunt in stepping forward and saying i will be problematic. For a while washington considers tending to england and ultimately john day is sent in to negotiate, hamilton steps forward and says dont do that. Im not popular. That will create problems for you though i dont think he assumed he would be president ever. I think he understood that and ill go even beyond that and say he kind of liked the idea that he was unpopular because i think in his mind it meant he was being very virtuous and promoting ideas not because it would get popular appeal because he thought they were the right things to promote so honest seems for someone who understood power, was interested in empowering this new National Government i dont think you wanted that or assume it would have that kind of power for himself. Rochelle is calling infrom the bronx. Thank you for taking my call. Quick comment, as a retired right librarian im so please to hear your kudos to the library and i have two quick questions. You referred to the fact that the earlier Republican Party and so forth were not the same as they are today and todays republicans constantly refer to them as the party themselves as the party of lincoln. Is this accurate and number two, i went to a presentation at the New York Historical society year ago. A professor, i dont remember his name in oklahoma is writing a book pursuing the thesis hamilton was jewish. Any credibility to this . Very much. So the first question ive already forgotten, the Republican Party. A problem with drawing that kind of a Straight Line is if you look, and there are wonderful 20thcentury lyrical historians have done this track work is that if you look at what the parties represent, what they stand for, what their policies are, a change dramatically over time you can track the use of the word like republican but you cant consistently say what the party stood for in the 1850s or 1870s compared to what the party stands for now. Politicians have all kinds of reasons to want to draw the kind of Straight Lines in the past as a political historian, i think of any historian, the first thing you think is all the ways in which thats not true so rhetorically speaking that has influence but that usually doesnt reflect a reality. As far as the book thats going to be coming out, im not sure when, i think its through University Press on hamilton being jewish, i havent seen the manuscript. Ive heard about it. Ive spoken with some about it so i cant judge the credibility of it or not. I know that the scholars have been working on it, its done a lot of research. Im intrigued to see it. I dont think you can rule anything out until youve seen the evidence and gotten a sense of what leads to the conclusions so im certainly not going to say its not possible. The interesting thing, hamilton is an interesting founder for this reason. There are a lot of records from his youth and you have to do some Research Like a few others have done as well to find things out about his youth because of that, there are a lot of blank spaces regarding hamiltons youth and people like to project different things. For a while people talk about him in him how or other illegitimate son of Port Washington and all kinds of other stories and things people have applied to hamilton. Some ofthem might be true but the fact is you need to get to this , the evidence so im looking forward to seeing that book because i want to see that the stuff that filled the argument, it will be fascinating if its true. What do we know abouthis life on the island of nevis and why was he born there . smother was named rachel percent. Her parents were supposedly french cannot who were on leave done research on regis, at some point this is the ultimate vacation. Ill see what i can find in a way and this is the perfect vacation so it was in the Morning Hours i was researching the archives and in the afternoon i would lie on the beach and that was nirvana for me but his mother was there and his father was the fourth son of a scotsman of somewhat noble birth, but the first one inherits everything, the fourth one doesnt inherit much so he went out into the world and he thought he would get rich quick in the caribbean which is one of the things people try to do their area hes born legitimately to james hamilton, his father at a certain point they moved to the island ofst. Croix. His father leaves the family at some point, doesnt come back. His mother runs a general store and theyre not particularly lost, he dies when hes at a relatively young age so hes not well off, doesnt have much money, doesnt have any connections and on thisisland , he gets off the island and ultimately ends up in north america and feeds into what becomes the American Revolution cause hes so clearly gifted, hes a great writer and people put together a Charitable Fund so he can get an education and thats how you he ends up ultimately in new york. How would you in a short way described his relationship with George Washington . A very short way would be conflicted. Thats a crucial relationship for him and a very important way, he of course knows during the revolution that George Washington is going to end up being the president and how important he is but by looking with him at that early point, he puts himself in his close relationship with the nations first man as he calls in at the time. It was one of very few americans at that time that had a worldwide reputation because of the war. Fighting and winning the revolution. Thats crucial that hamilton ends up being in contact with him and ultimately trusted by him and given power by him. That, in a sense, makes hamiltons career. It added to the fact that hamilton is someone who, a strong thinker. Is aggressive. Never doubts what he thinks or has to say. Is always shoving himself into situations. Putting his thoughts in front of people. The washington relationship is key. Without it, its hard to imagine where he would have gone without it. With it, he puts himself in a sphere that allows him to have dental and certainly he wanted to have. But its conflicted because hes not really good with authority figures. Any kind of taste a little bit. During the revolution, washington makes it clear that hamilton is a favorite. Doesnt want to be everyones favorite. He wants to be promoted or appreciated for his merits and he kinda doesnt like the fact that people see him as a favorite. During the wars, he and washington had kind of a spat. At a point where they are both clearly fatigued. Have been up working with washington. He spent a lot of time at a desk writing things. Either listening to washington tell him what to write or writing and correcting them. So there were clearly at this late point in the war. Tired. And hamilton leaves his side and runs down a staircase to deliver a letter. Gets stopped at the foot of the stairway. Lafayette had a way of grabbing a hold of your lapel and talking with you in a very engaged manner. He does that with hamilton for a few minutes. Hamilton looks up at the top of the stairway is washington, glaring down. He said something along the lines of, youve kept me waiting these 10 minutes. You treat me with disrespect server. Hamilton went this point is tired of being an aide and would much rather be on the battlefield. He says im not aware of that, but if you believe that, then we part. And he storms off and basically surrenders his position. Washington found someone to apologize. He refuses to take the apology. Wait until he can be replaced and leaves. He writes these two letters. 1 to his fatherinlaw in which he says Something Like, i need to tell you what happened. I need to explain to you why it happened. Please understand, dont think that badly of me as you might. Then he says something again. Pretty close to a direct quote. The direct man and i great man and i have come to a rupture. He sees himself as put upon parents that tells you a lot about that relationship and hamiltons almost, resentment. That he needed him though so much in that way. And he doesnt necessarily contain himself in ways that would have been useful. And washington is very patient with hamilton and comes back again and again and allows him back in her circle. From arkansas. Please go ahead. Hello and thank you. I have a comment and a question. My understanding is that james somerset, an american slave working for his master in england sued for his freedom in 1772. And won his case. Freeing himself and about 15,000 other slaves in england. The case was widely reported. And follow it and the american colonies. And there was widespread concern among the slave masters that that might soon lose their socalled property. Their slaves, on which their wealth was based. A very good book on this subject is, slave nation from 2005 by alfred and to professors at rutgers. So i believe that the somerset case in england in 1772 was one of the real causes of the American Revolution. Mostly its not acknowledged as such. But my question is, what are your thoughts on this and thank you so very much. Im assuming what youre touching on as a point thats true throughout this period and beyond. Several points. Number one, in england, there was some antislavery going on initially than what was going on in the colonies in the early United States. That had an impact. But also obviously, the institution of slavery was a longstanding third rail. Particularly if you were a southerner. It affected your political decisions. Your understanding of what power you had and how you needed or wanted to maintain it. Certainly you can say the institution of slavery in and of itself even before the constitution but throughout colonial and early america plays a major role in shaping everything. It was something, as you put it, people that owned property of that kind with that first and foremost. And institutions of government are about among other things, property rights. Thats part of the mix of things that constantly front and center in American History. Some of what we are seeing in recent years is people being aggressive about restoring that part of the story is how we understand who we are as a nation. Next call from tom in chicago. Hi professor freeman. Thank you very much. Several years ago when the movie lincoln came out. I became fascinated with thaddeus stevens. Tommy lee jones played him brilliantly in the movie and he seems like an interesting character and probably an admirable one as well. What im wondering is, the violence on the floor of congress you write about in your latest book, given how easily provoked some of these other congressmen were. Especially ones of the other party, and given how provocative stevens was in a brutally rhetorical way. Did anyone ever pull a knife on him or challenge to a duel. Was he on the receiving end of this violence . Thats an interesting question. And that he is stevens a real character. Was a really fighting, driver dry wit. I am not aware of anyone cleaning him but what was interesting, this is not surprising given everything you just said. He was really effective at speaking up and smacking at any southerner who made any gesture in that direction. For example, the actor, right in the later years of the civil war when southerners are tried to find their way back into the union. Louisiana. That is stevens says Something Like not a lot of you were here in the 1850s, i was, do you remember these guys . I dont remember these guys there do we want to let them back in . I dont know it was the first to step up and say that. I think theres one moment where someone threatens and and afterward, he referred to it as a momentary breeze and everyone laughed. But he someone whos never afraid to speak his mind in the midst of it. Theres a moment when theres discussion where theres voting on what ultimately becomes the future slave act. A lot of congressmen go hide in the library, the Congressional Library so they dont have to vote on the issues. And when its done, stevens says out loud in the congressional record, you can send someone to the library and tell everybody to come back. Its safe. Hes that guy. As far as i know, isnt physically attacked. Lets go to may 22, i believe it was. 1856. A name thats relatively lost to history and it wasnt until i reread field of blood, Preston Brooks. It took me a long time to write the field of blood. Ultimately, 17 years. But one thing i will say about that chunk of time is when im writing about physical violence in the congress. Most people would Say Something along the lines of, there was that guy. But people have a sense there was at least one violent incident in congress. Charles sumner is the massachusetts abolitionist senator. Who was by Preston Brooks, a congressman in the house. Comes across to the senate. Sumner had stood up and made a very aggressive antislavery speech and and it he had invoked South Carolina and a kinsman of brooks. So brooks comes into the senate and basically says to sumner seating at his desk. Youve insulted my state of the union, my kinsman and threatened to punish him for it. And violently caned him. Sumner innocence is trapped seated at that that spirit and his anxiety to get away, launches the desk from the ground but but he continues until the cane breaks. There are a number of interesting things about the caning. Deliberate attacks like that are supposed to take place in the streets. Violence erupts over time, particularly in the house. If you want to stage an attack in that way, supposed to have been in the street. Brooks for two days tries to catch sumner on the capitol grounds. But because thats the proper way to beat a congressman. Why . You can see why it is when he confronts him in the senate chamber. A southerner confronting a northerner, and abolitionist, in the chamber and beating him to the ground. That becomes the south beating the north into submission in a deeply symbolic kind of way that has national repercussions. In a way there would have been repercussions of it happened outside but the symbolism of that. The power of that happens in the senate, takes it off the charts. There was someone else, a cohort of brooks protecting, or making sure people didnt come to sumners help collects correct. Another South Carolina in was there keeping anyone who wanted to interfere, away. The fact of the matter is, people were yelling, dont kill him. Heres the interesting thing about some of the congressional violence its kind of counterintuitive. There was a lot of violence throughout this period. 1830s1850s. Fighting was kind of a given if it seems fair. By that, i mean there were rules of fighting. If youre going to insult someone. Only insult someone if he was present so he could offend himself. You are only supposed to attack if you are attacking an unarmed man. You yourself are supposed to be unarmed. Fairness was considered important. Theres a from the late 1850s. Where a congressman is writing to his wife and he sees a menacing looking stranger standing in front of his colleague with a clenched fist. His writing, this doesnt look good. I think its going to be a fight. But he looks at the stranger and his colleague and his colleague is a bigger man. He says, itll be fine. But when he thinks he spots a weapon, he thinks the stranger is holding a weapon, he immediately positioned himself behind that stranger, in case people the weapon. He lets the fight happen. But if its fair, if that stranger reached for a weapon. It would have stopped it. Some of whats happening in the case of brooks and summoner, certainly that seemed like an unfair fight in some ways. In the investigation, brooks is asked, did you at least warn sumner that you would do this. That would have made it fair. Brooks clearly did not. Hes reprimanded for not warning him. By congress. What you did was bad, but also, you should have warned him. Which tells you about the culture of congress that somehow it wouldve made it better or be deemed it somehow. Was Preston Brooks reelected . Preston brooks was celebrated in the south. He was sent celebratory canes. He get some kind of a Throat Infection and suffocates and dies, very suddenly. What i write about in my book, much of the aggressive fighters are southerners. People in the period when you look at incoming congress. They tried to break it up into fighting men and noncombatants. Fighting men tended to get reelected because they were doing the ahenry wise of virginia was a fighting man for sure. At one point he is reprimanded. Shame on you. Youve caused 12 fights already. You should be sent home. And he says, do it. You know what, theyre going to reelect me and put me back because im here to do this. I am fighting for their lives. And hes right. To some degree for a period of time, people who fight in that way, southerners willing to fight in that way. Maybe 10 percent of a given house would have been considered fighting men. They are put there because the assumption is they will use that edge to fight to protect their interests. Including the institution of slavery. Next call his mother from atlanta. Professor freeman, you are delightful, thank you. My question was about the conflicted relationship between hamilton and washington. You pretty much answered everything. So if i may, i will ask something else. What do you think were the prospects of hamilton. Had he been i guess tasked a in new york as an attorney. Would he have lived out his life that way . Or would he have tried to get back onto the National Stage . Thats a really good question. We have a little evidence about what he was thinking. First off, by the time the duel happened, hamiltons political career is not doing really well. Even without the duel, he wrote a number of pamphlets he thought were logical. First, he defends himself against charges of using treasury funds and an adulterous affair. That didnt do his reputation favors. Then he writes of pamphlets attacking his own partys president ial candidate, john adams in the election of 1800. That really didnt do him favors. Supporters were backing away with what they call an indiscreet politician. He does not have discretion or control over himself. And hes a danger, liability. His career is suffering. As a whole. The nation is moving in a more democratic direction. On that level too, he has much less power. In one way or another, i dont think he was going to gain political power again. The question is if the duel had happened, what would he have done. He left behind oneto clues about that. I think you might have become a political commentator. He was pondering another collection of essays along the lines of the federalist. He was the initiator of the federalist essays he broke with James Madison, john j. In the later years, he was thinking about doing that again. He approached one friend and colleague and said, would you be willing to write for Something Like that. I think he would have been commenting on american government. He saw himself as someone that would stand back. With that said, he explained why he feels compelled. The last paragraph of that is fascinating. He says something along the lines of, its addressed to posterity if he dies. Some of you may be wondering why i ended up fighting this duel. I dont support the willing. I should have just not agreed to fight this. Heres the thing, at some point in our future, in the case of crises in our Public Affairs which seem likely to happen. He wants to be able to step forward in those crises and be useful. He needed to redeem his reputation so that he could be a public figure if needed again. This is along the lines of the memo i mentioned of things maybe not working and collapsing. I think he consistently thought that the american experiment might not last. And if it didnt, he saw himself as someone who would literately and figuratively ride into that problem and in some way or another save the day. He never comes out and says i think there will be warfare. [indiscernible] i think you wanted to be someone i would be prepared to fight and in some ways i think you meant that literally, as a soldier. Five he thought that duel was to protect and retain his reputation for that. That may come. I read the federalist like a dissenting court. Is that the right way to do it . Collects people tend to use as an objective commentary on the constitution. The fact of the matter is, its an exaggeration but its what i tell my students to think this way. Its kind of a commercial advertisement of the constitution. Heres why you should like them. Basically, the idea behind it was, hamilton and madison and jay thinking about all the ways in which americans were going to distrust this. What might be bad about it. They stepped forward and said, lets explain why this isnt such a bad thing. Not only that, if we dont do this, this might happen, and thats worse. It really isnt intended to be objective. It is certainly intended to look that way. But, its a document with a purpose. A series of documents with a purpose. A series of newspaper essays written to defend and promote this new constitution so that people will trust it and ideally the states will ratify it into existence. Next call from jane in california. Yes sir. Please go ahead. Thank you professor for being there. I am in the midst of a dilemma. I am almost finished with the biography of. [indiscernible]. In the book, he goes into great detail on how terrible, devious, jefferson was. Almost calls to treason. I am having great difficulty trying to calm to peace with this because he did write the beautiful declaration of independence and other papers. But his behavior, lack of integrity and all the terrible things he did is overwhelming me. How do you deal with this . Thats a good question. There is a tendency, particularly when looking at this. To take sides. Nowadays, given that jefferson is getting this promotion. When you look over a long haul, typically when his reputation is doing well, jeffersons isnt. I would say, when you read a book that appears to be very onesided in that way, the best thing to do is to go out and read another book from another point of view. In this case, this book has a strong opinion about marshall and Jefferson Billy detested marshall. I would encourage you to read a biography of jefferson which takes a different point of view. One of the things i do with students in my class. I think students generally come in maybe in ways they havent understood. One of the best things you can do is to really read some of the things these people have written. Personally, i love that primary evidence. But if you read a jefferson biography thats favorable and presenting with evidence, you can then begin to evaluate what you think. You can pick books against each other. I almost wouldnt trust any book that is that onesided without reading another book with a different point of view so that you yourself as a reader can evaluate and decide what you think. Personally, i dont see good guy or bad guy. I dont think its ever that clear. I think the important thing about their existence and others is that no one is absolutely right. The fact of the matter is, is the banging of different ideas against each other that ends up leading to something functional. I think thats a more meaningful way to think about about the period. Whats interesting is the blend of ideas. Politicians and populace find ways to improve on whats, before. We will go back to your twitter feed. Why do you use 1755 . My twitter handle. Okay, so, we dont know what hamilton was born. Either 1755 or 1757. Theres a piece of paper that suggests hamilton was born in 1755. Hamilton appears to have said himself, 1757. I went with 1755 because its a document. Im not strongly invested in 55 or 57, but thats where that comes from. I once had a great 1757er with great disdain say, you are for 1755. Im going to throw an idea into the twitter sphere and see what happens. What if there was a giant history valley with teachers, historians of all kinds, getting together to discuss what we can learn from American History to help us in the present. What was the reaction you got to that . I was very honest in saying im throwing this into the twitter sphere. It was an idea i thought would be useful to have people think about American History. And not take a glossy look at the past. By looking at the ways in which we wrestled with things in the past. I threw that out there not knowing what would happen. I got a big response. I got a lot of email on it. A lot of organizations and public figures of various sorts contacted me about it. All of them saying, yes. Lets do this. This is something ive spoken with a number of colleagues. This is something im eager to pursue and do ideally in the spring or late summer of next year. I think it would be a wonderful thing to have a day where we can talk about, wrestle with, argue about American History, in all its complexity. Not celebrate things. Not a mythologized view of things but really it talk about the ways and how we struggled in the past and how we. I was so encouraged by the response. That i threw it out into the twitter sphere, expecting nothing and now i think, wouldnt it be a wonderful thing to have a day, in some way or another to create a day in which people on a local level get together to talk about history and some kind of a targeted way. Come back in the next couple months and i will have a better idea. Im a historian. I engage with scholars. I write scholarly history. But i also believe fervently want to communicate with the public but i think scholars and historians are among the people that should be offering this to the public. Some of us do, some of us dont. This sort of feels in that vein. What a great thing to take part in and help create a public conversations about the complexity of American History. So we can get you on record that cspan cameras can be at this event. I would love for cspan to be at the event. Marilyn from kansas. Hi, how are you . I wanted to ask. I didnt come in at the beginning of this talk so perhaps i missed this. But it seems to me that hamiltons greatest contribution was his economic ideas. That he was for banks, for the assumption of the state thats. When so many of the other Founding Fathers distrusted banks, jefferson thought we should all be farmers. It seemed to me that paying our debts from the very beginning made such a huge difference in this country. And in our success. Would you talk about that . Marilyn, what do you do in kansas . I am retired. From . I worked in business insurance. Thank you maam. Which are level of interest in history . Ive always loved history. Always been interested in history. I think the way things are now, when you go back and read history, its comforting for one thing. Thank you maam. Thats a good question. Let me grab a slug of water here. I think youre absolutely right. That hamiltons financial plans, i spoke earlier about hamilton being a powerful nationalist. A vital part of his legacy in a fundamental thing he did was to step in as the first secretary of treasury when there really wasnt a National Structure for finance in any way. And to really create that kind of a structure. He was in some ways the perfect person for that job. This is what i write about him as a person. I talk about the fact that he was in his personal life and as a politician. He was the perfect person to say i will confront this problem. Revolutionary war debt. You are right, he is a threepart plan where he wants the National Government to assume state debt. Those are crucial. Particularly for the precise reason you say. And he said, our debt is the price of liberty. We need to step forward to prove our credit as a nation. He remains in the broadest way possible. To prove we are a nation with credit. That we have reputation. That we are trustworthy and we have financial credit. We need to tend to our debt. He says, i think in his first report about public credit, its an entire thing. Thats a direct quote. By that he means, its not just financial. Its who we are as a nation. Youre absolutely right. As far as a concrete thing he did in his public life. Stepping forward and creating that threepart plan and pushing it for and standing behind it at a point where there were many people. I would say that jefferson were more complex and wanting people to just be farmers. But you are absolutely right that there was an ideal war on one side and a more urban and i suppose you can say, finance oriented ideal on the other side. Hamilton is stepping forward and doing that kind of work on the ground level. Its tempting to look at people and think about them as a sort of, ideologists. Thinking on a broad level. One of the interesting things is how good he is with the nuts and bolts work. For example, he takes office. He doesnt know much at all on a National Level about the nations finances. He creates a sort of questionnaire that he sends out to masters across the country. Asking them to check boxes. Tell me about trade. Only about customs. So he can collect that information and get a National View of finance in some ways is wonderful in a variety of ways and his plan is a part of what he does. Nina is responding via twitter to your history idea. Your history teach and or get together. If held, it must include native american histories and crafters. Absolutely. Absolutely. After this i said yes, lets talk about history. Then it comes to be about how broadly. But you are absolutely right. Nothing given the long arc of American History is about fighting for rights and having rights be taken away. In one way or another, you have to deal with all sides of the equation. Deal with people whose rights are being violated and how these people are fighting for their rights. That has to be at the center of the story among other things. Again, i literally have had two conversations about this so i havent progressed beyond its something i want to do and now i have to figure out how to do it. I am with you. Before the flood out of time, weve got to talk about Benjamin Brown french. Yes. Wherever you are, i thank you. When i was writing one of my recent books, the field of blood. It started about physical violence in congress. I ended up finding roughly 70 physically violent incidents in the house and senate. Each one could be a chapter. Part of my challenge in writing the book was, how do i tell the story and how do i investigate the violence and how do i figure out what it means . Early in the process, i found this minor congressional clerk. Benjamin brown french. Many have used them before when writing about lincoln. He is at being important in the Lincoln White house. He left behind in 11 volume diary. He had a newspaper column. An extensive correspondence. Hes a poet. Hes amazing. Whats wonderful about what he left behind is hes in the circle of congress from 18331870 when he died. What he allows me to do, he kind of acts as a guide. You look through his eyes and confronting the violence in congress. And you see it through his eyes. Whats wonderful about him is he, hes from this small town in new hampshire. Hes a minor clerk. He arrives in washington and his eyes are this big. Wow, im in the Nations Capital but when he comes to congress, everyone likes him. Hes collegial. People of all parties like him. Hes trying very hard to is what was called a dough faced democrat. He starts out as that guy, doing anything it takes to appease southerners to promote his party and protect the union. By the time of the civil war in 1860, he talked about this in his diary thank heavens. He goes out to buy a gun that he will carry on his person at all times in case he needs to shoot southerners that seem threatening. My thoughts in writing the book was, if i can explain how the person who enters washington wanting to appease southerners and the a guy who buys a gun and is ready to shoot them. I call it the emotional logic of the union. How emotionally did that make sense to him and many others . Thats an interesting thread to add to the way we understand the coming of the civil war. Benjamin french allowed me to do that. It took me forever to write the book so i lived with Benjamin Brown french for at least a decade, if not more than that. Whats fascinating about him is that is kind of a forrest gump of the. I write about. When i was making the footnotes, lots of footnotes that say over and over, no really, he was there. If something significant happened, somehow benjamin french was watching it happen. Someone tries to assassinate andrew jackson. French is right there and sees it happen. John quincy has a stroke, not long after, theres French Holding his hand. The gettysburg address, Abraham Lincoln gives the address that was up on the platform standing beside him . Benjamin brown french. The assassination. Whos at the bedside by lincoln the side and standing beside his corpse at the white house after he dies . Benjamin brown french. Hes there for everything. Is this incredible eyewitness was very generous in the way he puts his thoughts and feelings down on paper. He really ends up i think showing to some degree what it felt like to be in that kind of an extreme, polarized climate. And how americans learn to turn on each other to the degree that they did. Where did you find his papers . Theres a published, very abridged version of his papers that came out from the library of Congress Many years ago. People write about lincoln tend to know about him because he adored lincoln. They have these great anecdotes. For example, one of my favorite ones being, someone gave him a pair of socks to give to lincoln that had a Confederate Flag under each foot. I sort of love that anecdote. Or a better anecdote, hes in a room with lincoln in the white house and lincoln says out loud to a room full of people. Anyone in here know how to spell the word missile . And french writes in his diary, what kind of a man is that . What kind of a president is willing to admit he he just love lincoln. People havent done this much work with 11 volumes of a diary. When i was finishing the book, trying to figure out 17 years in. Give me something. Shuffling through papers and agonizing. It was like he smiled down from clerks, and i wrote about sitting in my office, the capital, my home for all these years, a remarkable, remarkably generous in the way he gave me evidence as would have been impossible without him. Host next call for Joanne Freeman from new york, marymac. Guest that is Westchester County. Caller thank you for correcting him on the correct spelling and correct pronunciation of marymac, thank you very much. I want to commend you on your earlier comments but also being an openminded historian. My question is this. What words of wisdom would you give to todays congress, what not to do and things to do to strengthen this nation which is divided and im interested in your comments and i love the idea you want to create a whole new cultural thinking and i will wait for your comments. Guest people look at historians to come up with a solution and that is something i cant do. What i can say is times in which the government functions best are moments people listen to each other. The idea of debate and compromise and sometimes debate is nasty and we have polarization many times, sometimes extreme polarization, there needs to be willingness to debate however fierce the debate can be, we are in a polarized moment to such an extreme degree, not helping us at all. Easy for me to say that sitting here. I dont have a solution for how to change that. Congress is reflective of a larger popular will. We are talking about congress being representative, congress is in the middle of that. I have no brilliant solution how to promote that atmosphere but the othering, your unamerican and i am american is not a useful way to find our way out of the moment, how we get to beyond that i cant offer you. Host email from stephen. I was wondering if she found readers, also her students of her students believe the Political Violence she described in did with the civil war, because in his research he found 1908 dual and site between the tennessee senator and a political opponents at the state capital. It doesnt happen on the floor of congress the way it did before and you can see that when from louisiana, they tried to get into congress, to get louisiana back in the union, within the capital not long after getting into the union. Unlike before the war you have northerners stepping forward, we want to let them back in, remember what it was like . The power dynamic shifted. As you are suggesting it doesnt mean the violence stops, southerners are no longer effective in deploying congress, they are effective in reconstruction in the south. Certainly violence continues among politicians in a variety of ways. And important point to make. The violence doesnt stop. It just shifts and is tempered in some ways, shifts ground in other ways. American politics has been violence in a variety of ways for a long time. The broader question is what have we done to contain that violence. Another thing i could offer a brilliant solution but i do not have. An important point to make, not as though it ended at any given point. Host glenn in new jersey. Thank you for a Wonderful Program and thank you to Joanne Freeman for your wonderful research and work. I did see you in 2004 giving a presentation of the 200 anniversary of the dual. My question for you, with your field of blood test had you considered david broderick, david carried dual in california given robert was a us senator from california and carry was a Supreme Court justice from california and they fought a duel outside san francisco, broderick was killed and given the context of it being california, slavery, splitting the democratic party, was that something you thought about . You mentioned there are dozens of others, have you thought about that specific one . Host are you an amateur historian or is this part of your profession . Caller i am a professor at john jay college, broderick was a new york city volunteer fire officer who moved to california and gained political power through that and very involved with history and your viewers should know the new Visitor Center at hamilton and patterson open a couple years. I am interested as an amateur historian. Host thanks for that, did not expect that answer. The dual you are describing is a famous one and a dramatic one. What i had to do for the book is testing, once you start broadening beyond washington, the field for violence between people in Congress Becomes financially enormous. To incidents in washington or on the streets of washington when congress was in session. I was interested in how the violence was shaping, what congress was doing and the state of the nation. I had to stop myself from getting beyond that. That is a major one. I could have done. To keep going in that way. What i was really interested in was the mix of people in congress from different parts of the union and how that works and different political viewpoints and interests. What happens when you put those people together to force them to deal with issues . That was one of the initial questions, that happens when you had those populations in a public venue with the National Audience with breaking possibilities, what happens in that climate with that kind of violence. Host john in washington dc. Caller im a fan of american nations, kind of unflattering episode in the story of Alexander Hamilton. During the revolutionary war, soldiers from appalachia in western pennsylvania there was no money to pay them. The Continental Congress gave them a script. For years they used that to pay their taxes to the state of pennsylvania and this guy comes along, Robert Morris, describes him as a protege, Alexander Hamilton is a protege of Robert Morris. Robert morris engineers that people can no longer pay state taxes with congressional script, these ious and they are forced to sell this script for 15 face value. Friends own 50 of the outstanding script and shortly after that Alexander Hamilton and Robert Morris come up with the idea the Us Government is going to pay all the script in fool with 6 interest, gold and silver and these veterans who were forced to pay, forced to sell their script to answer currency so this whiskey rebellion, it is unsavory host we are going to leave it there and hear from Joanne Freeman. Guest excellent point that becomes a controversy, the secretary of the treasury, he says James Madison is one, discriminating between speculators brought up these ious, hoping down the road they will be paid in full for buying them for minimal amounts of money, a way of discriminating between speculators and the veterans who are owed money by the government and hamilton doesnt need to step forward. There is no way to track how each iou, the iou became a form of currency that are worth whatever their immediate value is. His argument is if they are practical in the form of currency, needs to be where they were. That is inherently unfair to people giving ious to begin with, that is a valid thing to say. You can see hamiltons logic and the ways it is unfair. At the time, one of the not the only thing they said, what are you doing that is unfair bias that will benefit speculators, money men you are so eager to please and ask him press, this is unseemly in many ways. There is a logic to that but he had his logic whether we agree with it or not. Host tom in denver, you are on the air. Caller i saw you debate Clay Jenkinson who played Thomas Jefferson and you defend it Alexander Hamilton. I hope i didnt have too much coffee. Guest Clay Jenkinson has done other things but for a time i dont know what to call him. A jefferson reenactor well known for doing that, he has a radio show, did a lot of programs being jefferson. He was my senior thesis advisor at college. He was becoming interested in jefferson my senior year in college and i was interested in hamilton and i remember going into his office my senior year and he was building a model of monticello and i made some snide remark about jefferson and he looked at me and had no idea i was interested in hamilton and i didnt know he was interested in jefferson. We crossed have that moment in which he was beginning his jefferson career and i was well into my hamilton career, then we crossed have later when he was doing jefferson work, we crossed paths again and the National Endowment for the humanities, we had this debate, we had a debate in which i represented hamilton, clay represented jefferson, a public debate, it was filmed, i remember he made a snide comment about hamilton, taken me a lifetime, he got booed and he was very upset at the audience. But somehow or other, must have put in my 0. 02 for hamilton enough that they stood up for him in that moment. I have no idea what your memory of that event was but it was wonderful fun and what an honor to do that with a former teacher of mine and the weirdness of having him end up where he end up, teaching english, i was an english major in college and had nothing to do with it at all. It was a wonderful debate. Somehow i have it on videotape which means i cant play it at all but it was a wonderful event. Host maybe you can reenact it on your podcast. Guest or maybe not. Lean on when is your podcast . Guest American History podcast, four of us historians, what we do is look at history, sometimes you do with the current moments but we look at the deeper pathway so there recently was a show about reparation, black slaves. We recently with labor day we did a show about the history of labor in america but we did cultural shows about the long history of collecting things in america. Very conversational, the four of us have a sense of humor so it is fun to listen to. It is brian balogh, ed ayres, Nathan Connolly and myself. It is selfpromotional but it is a historical thing as well. Host it is called guest back story. Host i want to close with Affairs Affairs of honor and what you are on the method. This book approaches politics in an unusual way. It does not examine political events our personalities in isolation, reduce them to the level of historical anecdote nor does it tackle so broad a theme as siding participants perspective aiming at amid point between broad cultural history, detailed analysis, the political narrative. It uses the Vantage Point of an f no historian. Guest when you are writing about the founders people think of them as great men. What if you think of them as an elite population of men in a particular environment and this is what they do . Looking at behavior of a particular population in a particular place. When you look at the founders in that way how do you understand the difference . I dont want people to think of the founders as great men but individuals in a particular climate being smart and not smart and how to make sense of them. Host yale historian Joanne Freeman has been our guest for the past two hours, thank you for your time. When you read the things that were said about Thomas Jefferson, that he was and in the tell and agent sounds reminiscent, things that were said about Abraham Lincoln, things that were said about fdr, that he wanted to be a dictator so it does come with the territory but in trumps case at least in the modern political era postworld war ii i have never seen anything like it. Sunday september 6th hour live to our conversation with father and faith and Freedom Coalition found around read his books include awakening, act of faith and his most recent for god and country, joining the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets. Watch booktvs in depth at noon eastern on cspan2
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