the tea party people are not behind ron paul. so for me, it is ron paul or no one. that is my comment. >> host: thanks so much. >> guest: ron paul and tea party. and the polling data early on he was getting a third of tea party support. that's dropped off over time. one of the reasons is one of the principles is unapologetic sovereignty. mr. paul has sort of interesting views u.s. sovereignty. they don't align very well believe it or not what the tea party and makes them different from his son, randy paul on that. so it's not going to be the darling of the tea party. we should expect anyone. mr. paul al-aqsa tea party support, but over time he's not going to be the candidate. they are looking for someone else who might be electable. >> host: so as far as you can tell, the tea parties hereto say? >> guest: they will show up in november and will be part of our political scene well beyond 2012. >> host: the book we talk about, elizabeth foley's book is "the tea party: three principles" available wherever you buy your books. thank you so much for wrapping up our coverage of the los angeles times festival of books. and for being with us this weekend. great to be in los angeles for two days every year. if you miss coverage, panels and authors are all available on the c-span video library. have a good rest of your day. >> up next, guy gugliotta recounts the social and political landscape of the time. this is about an hour. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. thank you are coming out today. my name is donald cannon, vice president of the u.s. capitol historical society, where i oversee our scholarship and educational programs. my pleasure to welcome you to today's brownbag book lecture. i would like to invite you back again on thursday when we will have our second mark brown bag lecture featuring a book is joseph wilkins, an historical novel. the first time at a book discussion of a historical novel. it is about speaker thomas bracken read and a contentious 51st congress. if you have had a chance to read it, you'll enjoy meeting the author. if you haven't, come anyway and listen to him talk about the book. and his research and doing it and may be get some pointers. i don't know, would probably have some budding authors in our audience, either here or on cease and. let me just briefly introduce today's authors so we can get right into the program. i would mention that there is an article by your speaker, guy gugliotta come and our current edition of our capital film magazine. there are copies of the in the back. please pick one up on your way out. it is also available online in an interactive version on the historical society's website, www.u.s. chs.org. as i mentioned her speaker today is guy gugliotta. after commanding a swift boat in south vietnam he became a journalist who has covered latin america, served 16 years as a national reporter for the washington post and has written extensively on science and policy issues for a variety of publications in "the new york times," "national geographic," wired and the smithsonian. he is here today to discuss his recent book, friedman's cap, the united states capitol in coming of the civil war. a book that explores one of the most interesting periods in the history of the capital in congress and several of the most interesting personalities that have graced the united states capitol building. so guys, the podium is yours. >> thanks, dawn. can everyone hear me okay? i am pleased to be here and the last time i was here was to ask don for money and the capitol historical society provided me with two very nice grant to help you with the on this book. i came to this project in 1998. i was covering the congress for the "washington post" at that time. it was the middle of president clinton's impeachment troubles. he had troubles with monica lewinsky, newt gingrich had troubles with the second wife. it was an interesting problem. i was covering the house judiciary committee and he was chairman henry hyde and the committee's effort to reach to arrive at an indictment against president clinton. we have been working for me the 16 days straight. it was 1998 was like that. and finally, the press secretary for representative hyde, a guy named sam stratman who is a capital bus said forget about this. we are not covering this anymore today. but take a tour of the u.s. capitol and i will show you around. so the first thing that we did was climb the staircase between the inner down and outer dome to the catwalk that goes around the rotunda on the inside. after i had my death grip on the rail and opened my eyes and looked down, i got to myself, my god, this is an incredible view. i didn't know you could do this. capital was the place i worked, not a place that i noticed at all. of course you know what the capitalists, but you never think about it as a building. next, stamp took us out to the subtle -- and sorry. that little catwalk there and after i had my death grip around the rails up there and looked down 300 feet full text my god, this is really some pain. and during the process of this little tour, i found out that the modern u.s. capitol, that is to say the two wings and the dome were built between eight teen safety and 1865. this was to an incredible thing because i need the u.s. capitalists are at the iconic image of republican democracy throughout the world ended absolutely amazed me that this building had been created, had been made into its modern image during a time when the greatest republic, greatest democratic republic in the world was pretty much going down the tubes and stayed there. so that is how i got into the project. so what we are going to talk about is getting to hear from here. this is the original capital. it is now the center section. i'm sure you recognize it. you cannot see too well, but there is lovely grounds here in the front. nice approach, beautiful rotunda. the capital is magnificent tour attraction like it is now and people could wander the stairs, talk to senators and congressmen and everybody sort of england happily and bought sandwiches from paddlers that were walking around in my. here are a couple of things, actually several things wrong with the capital however. this is the senate, an intimate room, very good to watch speeches from. it was not good for spectators. charles bulfinch, and in german patrolled designed and put it this balcony to rose, but it is semipermanent can only accommodate a few people. this is interesting because the senate and senators for the rock stars of the 1850s. they were taken down and verbatim and at that time the congressional globe was reprinted in their debates were reprinted in their entirety in newspapers up and down the eastern seaboard and deep into st. louis at that point. this was no surprise. after andrew jackson, all of the president is served up to 1850 were one termers and several of them really chock-full. the two that i am particularly involved with in freedom's cap, franklin pearce and james buchanan were really good though. so most of the action took place in the senate, where you could see henry clay, john c. calhoun, daniel webster, thomas hart bandstand, stephena douglas, jefferson davis, sam houston, the names everybody knew. not only did everybody know them, but they stayed and were in washington all time. they came and went. but the senators were forever and they were the stars. people love to be able to get seats in the gallery there and watch the debate. there is another thing that was wrong and besides having not too much space, with the senate was very hot in the summer, very cold in the winter. there were 20 that fat he hind the vice president's chair because the vice president was actually served as the president of the senate. senator walked behind the president of the senate in these old guys with hands on behind walking around and standing in front of this does, warming their hands. when they were doing that, they were sitting in chairs wrapped in buffalo robes and wrapped in link tags. sam houston were mexican poncho and it picks embraer wrote and leaned back and carved little hearts and handed them off to the ladies in the gallery during debate. so that is what it was like. the second type thing about it was that everybody in the house and senate shoot plug tobacco or took snuff. this is not remarked upon in any newspapers or any contemporary accounts from american authors, but every single foreigner that i ever encountered their pro-memoirs are wrote stories about this was one of the first things they commented on. charles dickens said when you go to the senate it's a lovely room. but if you drop some names, make sure you don't reach for it without a pair of gloves. and so, the place was sort of a mass and needed a little help and a little expansion. this is the house of representatives, currently has most of you ensure in this room know, statuary hall. there is one good thing to say about the house of representatives. it was generally regarded and still is regarded today as an absolutely beautiful room. there was one really bad thing to say about the house of representatives and that is no one could hear anything. as you see here, the ceiling is curved and away the room is structured, somebody is standing in the well here could be giving a speech in somebody out here could feel see that person perfectly. someone appear couldn't see a perfect thing. it was all white noise. it was total divebomb in the house was known for that and demand for that for some time. i'm one of the stars of the house of representatives in 1850 was a tiny, tiny congressman from georgia, alexander stephens who later became vice president of the confederacy. his most prominent real estate, even though he weighed less than 100 pounds, he had a voice that could cut through the atmosphere in the house like a phaser. so he could be heard by everybody. so the power rested with the man with the loudest voice and that was alexander stephens. but the thing that the capital really needed more than anything was more space. the united states had just won a huge tract of land from the mexican war and 1848. a year later, it'd been discovered in california. 97,000 people in 1850. california needed to become a state. more senators would be coming, and many more representatives. there was in fact no room. but it was this man, oddly enough and this is the second big surprise that i had it doing the research for this book, that played the largest political role in enlarging the capital. since jefferson davis and senator from mississippi, southern democrat, outspoken states right and per se we advocate. during the teen safety debate that resulted in the great compromise to place and nobody did more to polarize the debate and nobody threatened secession didn't. nobody cried foul more often than just as an avis. he was one of the leading advocate then became over time probably the leading advocate of four states right incongruous. at the same time, however, it is jefferson davis at a time when all politics were really local, when almost all politicians, whether democrats were waves, whether northern or south africa or the federal government has an absolutely inconvenient institution, good mostly for waging war for setting tariffs. jefferson davis put forth the idea that a great nation he did a great seat of government. was it just that the united states is getting bigger. the united states was becoming more important. and he saw a fascia division of the united states is a nation at a time when very few people did. during debate on gaining an appropriation to begin expansion in the capital, somebody said he wanted $100,000 somebody said well, hundred thousand dollars, that's not going to get you anything. and this was true. the then as now, the whole idea is to get the program started. he started the program and then it is really easy to add to it and it's real hard to kill any program. so davis do this because he was a very skilled bureaucrat, something people didn't know about him. the theme was what hundred thousand dollars wasn't going to to be enough. his reply was your absolutely right. $100,000 isn't going to do it. no matter how much money you gave me today, it is not going to be enough. this nation is going to be so big that there is no building we can do on the present site of the capital that is going to hold everything we need. and the future we are going to have buildings all over this. and he was right. you didn't have to see it, that is absolutely right. he was one of the few people that understood this. one of the questions that i tried to ask and try to answer in "freedom's cap" was how effective david come to this viewpoint? i have come to the conclusion that the main reason was that he was a graduate of west point and like many west point graduates during this time, he was very well-traveled. he'd been well-traveled as a child and an economy of course he was sent out to build forts in the middle of nowhere to write back and forth with calgary in oklahoma and he knew washington, new york, east, west, north. he knew the country. he could see -- she could see the extent of the nation and understand that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. now, he never reconciled this during this whole period that i write about. he never reconciled the two conflicting images of the two conflicting images he had of the united states. one, the great nation. and two, mississippi. and individual state senate race. and eventually caught up to him and eventually had to choose. interestingly enough for the whole time that he was in washington, first as a seminary, then secretary of war and under can, he was the capital extension's greatest political opponent. once he left, as he became confederacy never return to washington and saw completion of this work. so anyway, he got his money, not quite as much as he would've wished, but got the project started. he had a contest for the architects to see who would be building it and went off to mississippi to run for governor. he lost. the job of hiring an architect and designer was left to millard fillmore, the president at that time. fillmore had another contest and in june of 1851, he hired this man. thomas u. walter is his second major character in freedom's cap. a very interesting man, self-made man his father was a bricklayer and he apprenticed his father is the bricklayer and stonemason and enjoined him as a partner. later he went to the franklin institute to study architecture, graduated and became an architect, open up his own office. by the time he was hired to build the large capital, he was 43 years old, probably the most successful architect in the country. was very wealthy, have a whole bunch of kids and a whole bunch of relatives. the vast majority of which he supported in the fire and brimstone back to his tremendously ambitious, tremendous worker and extremely aggressive. he immediately got to work and began to dig foundations and by the end of 1851, there are a lot of progress had been made. but again as if washington today, thomas altered by the end of 1851 probably had about 800 people working for him. most of them guys carrying space, digging trenches, carrying stones and doing manual labor today foundation of the two new wings. they were going to go up on the sides. well, millard fillmore, it was obvious at that point, was a lame duck. so if you got 800 jobs in your working in congress are working right next to congress and the senators in congress see you doing that in your patron is guy who not to get around in 10 or 11 months, you see that and think let's get them out of here. let's put my guy in. and so, congress had two or three investigations of walter for bribery, kicked packs for shoddy workmanship and most of his time in 1852 was involved in sending off these attacks. by that time the fillmore administration ended in 1853, while to attend nothing wrong nevertheless had to start hanging at red. so this is that the capital probably the site in early 1853 when franklin pearce gave his inaugural speech from the eastern frontier. you can see the foundations of the wind starting to come up. you can also see the beautiful blonde that we saw a few friends to go have now disappeared and is replaced by piles of stones, piles of junk and mud. so it really wasn't a particularly attract bids. franklin pearce was the youngest person to ever become president of the united states at that time. i believe he was 44. a recovering alcoholic, very good-looking and gave his speech without notice. other than that, he was pretty much in these two. improved this dramatically during the four years he was president. on the other hand, he westermann this asset for the united states capitol. because the first thing he did for one of the first things he did with the point jefferson davis to be his secretary of war. jefferson davis took over and within two weeks had displaced the secretary of the interior as the officer in charge of the capital project in two weeks after that he appointed this man should be the engineer in charge of the project. this is army captain, montgomery city mad, probably just about the time he was hired as engineer in charge. he is captain in the army corps of engineers, about to be six years old at this time, have absolutely no reputation, no particular distinguishing good restates. he has spent almost all of his career out in the middle of nowhere building for it, dredging harbors and doing what army corps of engineer people do. which is spend as little time in the army as possible, then retired and go build canals, railroads were run mines for the private sector and make a lot of money. west point was, at that time, the only four-year engineering college in the country. its graduates -- it's tough graduates were neither into the army corps of engineers for the army corps topographical engineers. favorite part is as finest, most highly trained schneerson the country. it would've been foolish for them to stay in the army. max made $1800 a year, which even then was not much money. now, they were two things about him that were important. the first is that he answer to jefferson davis. he didn't answer to the president. i'm jefferson davis was not someone you want to mess with. he was known as a ferocious advocate in favor of slavery, but anybody who knew him from congress, either as a senator or house member committee that he was also a vicious insider, very clever bureaucrats and tremendous protectorate turf, hold grudges capable of towering rates. if you've gotten this bad might come you never cut off his right side and need a hair trigger temper and was willing -- which went off at the slightest provocation. so come you go from walter, whose project was millard fillmore, a disappearing wig and would come to montgomery c. nine, 836 or army cap and it says i don't like the way you're doing this. that's fine. talk to my boss. talk to my boss is not a good game, not a fun experience. so did three things when he came in. that was the second thing about montgomery megs. his innovation and energy and skill, coupled with walter's artistic talent and design skill and davis' political clout is what drove this project forward. during the four years at the pearce administration from 1853 tonight 1857, the lions share of the new wings and part of the new dome were built. everything was put in place during this period. mags and did three things immediately. he decided to marble facing for the capital was too late. it needed to be heavier. here are so decided to put into monasteries. when on the senate went to the north and another in the new house swing to the south. the combined effect of these two -- these two changes was to make the capital already by far the largest building in washington, even more massive, as massive as it is today. it dominated the skyline