Wonderful letter. But its a letter which is here in the library. He wrote from never about to go and take command at cambridge. But he was worried that she would be lonely and that, and he was worried that he would be worrying about her being lonely. Well, as it turned out, he was lonely. And they never thought at the beginning of the war that she would be going to him, but he was who sent for her. And i think the war changed their relationship as wars do change relationships. But i think that was when he really realized, and that was when he said during the war, he said to Benjamin Franklins daughter, mrs. Batch, im not sure which is right, he said dancing at a ball during the war he said ive been, today it was 12 night, it was epiphany, january the 6th, and he said this is the day 20 years ago i was married to mrs. Washington. And much later he told marthas wayward granddaughter, eliza custis who i rather love, he said to her that marriage is the foundation, most Important Foundation of life. And it was his marriage to martha that made him think that. I dont think i mean, marriage is the most Important Foundation of etchs life, but of everyones life, but for washingtons, i do think it was. He was married to the right person. One more. Yep. Did Martha Washington keep a diary [inaudible] if she did, she burned it, unfortunately. But we, we do have her letters. I find her letters extremely vivid. And as doug said, the Martha Washington papers project is underway. And i, theres, you know, who knows where there may not be Martha Washington letters that were not published in the edition of her papers by joseph fields. Its going to be very exciting over the next four or five years. I think it will go online and be published as well in about four years. So im, i have to say its one of the few times that im looking forward to revising my book. [laughter] because then i can read all marthas, all the new letters that i hope will come out. Because, you know, americas a treasuretrove of 18th century papers in the different historical societies, and people travel so much in america like marthas great granddaughters in her papers are in louisiana. And so its, hopefully, everyones going to come forward with new martha letters which would be exciting. And there might be a diary. That will be too exciting for words. [laughter] [applause] so, flora, thank you very much. You will all be delighted to know that flora fraser will be outside to sign books. I invite you all out for a cocktail reception, and i want to thank you all for being here, so thank you very much. Thank you. [applaus this is about an hour. Professor Timothy Breen is currently the james marsh professor at large at the university of vermont, a guggenheim fellow, professor breen has also taught classes at oxford, cambridge, yale, the university of chicago and also Northwestern University which he just retired from. He has written several awardwinning books on Early American History on subjects raking from the tobacco ranging from the Tobacco Culture of early tidewater planters to the consumer politics of the American Revolution. His new book tells the story about a series of journeys that George Washington took to all of the original 13 states during his first term in office. Through his detailed account of the president s travels, professor breen demonstrates the vital importance of washingtons ambitious trip, vealing the role that it plays revealing the role that it played in helping unify a scattered nation. Renowned historian gordon wood notes, quote it is hard to think that anything new could be said about George Washington. But breen has done it in clear and accessible prose. He has given us new insights into the acute political skills of our first president and the state of the country in the 1790s. End quote. Please join me in welcoming professor Timothy Breen. [applause] thank you very much for coming out on this cold, coming from vermont i need not apologize about the cold, but i gather a little snow down here is pretty lethal business. [laughter] i would be happy to answer questions at the end of my remarks. The remarks are somewhat truncated so that there will be time for discussion. Washingtons, George Washingtons journey, i should say unabashedly, was the most fun book ive ever written or researched because i followed the road that the president took during his first term of office, drove the same well, not exactly the same roads because theyre now paved, but washington took a trip to america, all 13 original states, a journey of well over 2,000 miles. It was in several segments, the longest and most difficult by far was from the thencapital, philadelphia, to savannah and augusta and around into the back country on roads that were extremely difficult. He had a very heavy coach and took with him 13 horses not because that was the number of states [laughter] but he was, he was very proud. This one . Yeah. Hello. Thank you. He was very proud that not one single animal died, which is really amazing. What is also equally almost providential is that twice on washingtons journey to the American People he almost had, he had near fatal accidents, both of them crossing water, once in the Chesapeake Bay and one a river in northern virginia. And one can only imagine what the country, the new republic would have been like if the most popular, the strongest figure in American History had been killed in the first few months of office. But as he was not shot during the American Revolution, he didnt die on the journey. My book is not what i would call a founding father book. We have plenty of those. You can find everything both praiseworthy and salacious about every founding father. We probably know what they ate and who they loved and to on. But this is and so on. But this is not that kind of book. Its a book about a critical moment in our nations political history when a president who, i argue, was one of the most astute political leaders, a man who knew how to read a political situation as well as, well, lets think lincoln, fdr, our great, great president s, he stands with them as a political figure. Interacted on this journey with the American People at a time when no one, including the president , was quite certain what the future of a republic republics were historically very fragile, they usually ended in revolutions or coups. And at the time that washington took this, these segmented tours, 1789 and then the long tour to the south in 1791, he was none too sure that the country was table. He worried a lot about faction and regionalism and states pulling away maybe in the name of slavery or in new england the name of perhaps different commercial situations. But he felt very much that the country was imperilled even after the ratification of the constitution. And as i argue, we should see washington at this moment in his life as perhaps we see other great revolutionary leaders such as gandhi or mandela as a person who recognized that a revolution is not over when the last battle is fought. Revolutions must lead to stability of the regime, a security of property and a political process that you can count on x. So that washington and so that washington as president was trying to fulfill the goals of the American Revolution. He wasnt looking forward to us, he was trying to cement what he felt was a wonderful and grandly promising new republic. And i emphasize that on the road at this time in order to seal this countrys future he brought a positive message thats so important. I think even in these political times which i shall not comment on, when you hear so much negativity about our country and about our people, washington was smart enough to realize that the message he had to take to georgia and to New Hampshire and to the middle colonies was one of positive possibilities. If the country would simply unite and support a union, they would become more prosperous, prosperous in a way that no state could guarantee because the projects were larger than simple states. That a strong union would guarantee security. There were still many countries Great Britain one of them, but youll say france and spain that would have loved to have taken one of our states and incorporated it into their own empires. He knew that. And no state could defend the country, but the country as a unit could stand strong. And and as i also argue in the book, washington had a strong sense of what we might call human rights. Maybe thats stronger or than it should be, but he understood that People Living in small communities, small communities are easily marginalized and denied their rightings. And if there is no a force Strong Enough to guarantee those rights, to protect those rights, then there are no rights at all. And so he saw a large federal union as the guarantor of the basis of our constitutional rights. And that was the message he took to the people. If you let the revolution go, if you do not fulfill your own revolution, if you let the future slide away, its your own fault. But we can pull together. And the idea of the trip, which was formulated in the very first months of his presidency he was inaugurated in 1789 in the thencapital, new york city the idea of a trip, a journey to the American People was entirely his own. And i might add that almost all the books that you can read about the Founding Fathers, you know the names, theyre like celebrity ball players, jefferson and also also and madison and now hiphop hamilton. [laughter] you know who they are. They did fine things, and im not going to demean their stature. But washington usually is put in the background as sort of the friendly, wellmeaning uncle that didnt quite get the jokes and you hope didnt embarrass you at dinner. Washington doesnt, is not seen as a bold or creative political figure. In my research and my many, many, many hours of driving the roads with George Washington, i found him to be of equal stature. He was a man who did not write noble documents that we read in school. He was a man of action. He was a pragmatic figure. And when he saw a problem, he tried to solve it immediately, and that problem was, of course, as ive indicated, the unity of the new nation. And so on his own, he decided that a man elected by the people who owed his office to the people must be in some way accessible to those very people. This was a republic. We had put down monarchy. No one had stature simply because their fathers or mothers had proper bloodlines. It was a new republican world. As washington said, i walk on untrodden ground. Everything he did was a new precedent, an experiment in republican government, government of us, of us all the time. And he realized that by taking a trip to places like charleston and savannah and augusta or boston, salem, portsmouth, to all the little cities in between that he was by his very person bringing a greater sense of emotional bonding to the country. We might call it patriotism. Maybe we would call it nationalism. But he was giving a sense of this emotional identity to a larger, new republic. But i also found and what you will see when you look at my book, and that is washington was a master of political theater in a way that really surprised me as an author. He understood how to make the right move, the right gesture at the time. I suppose thats what all great politicians do, but he was a master of it. Let me give you an example. He had a really extraordinary coach which impressed people. And behind the coach as he went around the country was a smaller baggage wagon in which there were tough, you know, baggage. And when he got to the area outside of a town, hed call a halt and go to the baggage wagon and put on his full regalia as the commander in chief of the continental army, the man who had won the revolution. Then he would get on a special white horse, a charger, a battle horse and ride into town. Can you imagine if you were in a little town like tarboro, North Carolina, newburn or worcester, massachusetts, and youre did you see that . [laughter]. A man on a trip who came to your town and was welcomed by parades and special songs and every window illuminated in these villages. It was a massive outpouring of the sense of the people responding to their leader. Their leader coming with the message of the possibilities if our country would just take the invitation. In a sense, the the people and their leader were crafting what i call a new republican narrative, getting away from the old monarchical rule. Then we have a certain amount of time so instead of talking about George Washington, a man about which i thought i knew a lot until i actually dealt with him. It was a wonderful sense of discovery doing this research, of meeting a person who i thought i respected and then coming to know that i really, really admired this gentleman. This is not true of all the Founding Fathers when you dig into their personal lives. Sometimes you wish you hadnt looked under the rock and the large thing is that he is what he purported to be. Hes an extraordinary person. I dont want to talk about that. I want to talk briefly, before we have questions, about some of the American People. The ordinary people, ordinary people, men and women who encountered George Washington on the road and their encounters with this man must have transformed his their lives in some way. Weve all met famous people or remember some historical moment when they punctuate their lives. The first person i want to introduce is a young teenage woman who lived on a farm in North Carolina a few miles south of southbury. The road runs up from charlotte to the middle of North Carolina. George washington was riding outside of his coach for exercise. It was a hot day. He decided it would be really wonderful to have a drink the water. He came to this farm and he knocked on the door and ms. Betsy brandon answered and she was in a sour mood, and said young lady, what is wrong with you. She said, all my family has gone up to saulsberry to see the president of the united states. [laughter] they left me back here to take care of the animals. I just dont think thats fair. Washington was taken aback. He said young lady, i am the president. You can imagine what her reaction mightve been. Betsy brandon in North Carolina is a figure people still talk about as a young girl who met the president. There was another young girl that was influenced by the president. She lived in salem massachusetts. Washington came there and there was a tremendous reception of people and many, many of the young women and men went. Nancy fisher wasnt invited but when it was over, she asked her friends, her lady friends, what was he like . Was he really handsome . It was sort of like iraq group going through in town and they all told her how washington looked and so on. She wrote a letter that night which is a letter i would say is a start. I would say it was a letter i misread peer i went back to the letter four times to make sure i had not rejected modern values onto the past. Nancy fisher said, many of my friends save that George Washington is a god, hes an angel, he something more than us she said no, he isnt. Hes hes just a man. Hes a human being because if he wasnt, he wouldnt pay any attention to us. Angels dont come to salem that often. But hes a man and i want to tell you theres only one thing that would make me more happy and that would be to discover that George Washington was a woman. This was in 1789. You can see, i read back, no, i have miss read this document, but she could imagine a political situation in which our country would turn to a female leader. He was also an inventor and an oddball. His nickname was crazy rumsey. James rumsey lived out in western virginia and he told washington he had invented about in the late 1780s that, without a motor, could propel itself against the current. This this is remarkable. He built one of these boats and it looked like a goldberg contraption. It worked good unless the current got above a couple knots. Nonetheless, washington went to crazy rumsey because he understood, washington did, washington did, that the future of the 13 original states depended on its ability to incorporate new territory, new states and if kentucky and tennessee and ohio were treated the way they treated massachusetts and virginia, we would have a problem on our own hand. So washington spent a great deal of his journey talking about rivers and canals. A man last night, when i gave a presentation, he said he thought he would like to compare washington to dwight d eisenhower. I said to some extent, for washington, washington, on this journey, canals and rivers were like highways. Our ability to keep ourselves as a union is dependent on our ability to have commerce flow. Crazy rumsey is a figure you will meet in my book and he was a nutter, but a very desirable one. Also, you will meet in one of the most touching scenes of the whole journey, a man who just buys to the state of rhode island. They were reluctant to ratify the constitution and in fact on washingtons first trip to new england, he carefully of avoided setting foot in rhode island as a way of drawing attention that they hadnt joined the union. But when they did, he took a trip and went to newport but when he was in newport, he was very interested in jewish culture. That is something he hadnt had much experience with. He met a very extraordinary man who was the head of the synagogue, one of the oldest and most beautiful synagogues in america. He represented this Jewish Community and they came out in washington and exchanged greetings. Let me read the words of moses and washingt