afterwards is in prime time a program where nonfiction authors are interviewed by journalists, legislators, and more on their latest books. tonight, cara fitzpatrick on the death of public schools, looking at the future of education in america. she is interviewed by a washington post education reporter. that is at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. go to c-span.org to get the complete schedule. >> weeknights at 9:00 eastern, c-span encore presentation of our 10 part series, books that shape america, c-span partnered with the library of congress to explore key pieces of literature that have had a profound impact

on our country. tonight, we feature the adventures of huckleberry finn. our guest is chairman of the english department at buckler university in indianapolis. watch books that shaped america weeknights at 9:00 eastern on c-span go to c-span.org/books thatshapedamerica. ♪ ♪ visit ncicap.org] >> in partnership with the library of congress, c-span brings you books that shaped america. our series explores key works of literature that had a profound impact on the country.

in this >> in this program, the the common law, written by all of junior. oliver holmes junior group influenced by writers and thinkers such as wall front of emerson. when the civil war began, holmes joined the massachusetts infantry at the age of 20. he was wounded several times but rose to the rank of colonel. at the end of the war, he enrolled in law school. in 1881, 80 summary of lectures he gave was published as the the common law. homes advocated for new ways to view the law for the emerging modern era. he later served on the u.s. supreme court and is remembered for his jurisprudence. in -- since 1881, the common law has remained in print, continues to be signed, yet remains

controversial. welcome to books that shaped america, our c-span series that looks at how books throughout our history have influenced who we are today. in partnership with the library of congress, this 10 week series looks at different eras, topics, and viewpoints. we are glad you are joining us. so far in this series, we have explored america's expansion and we've looked at the issue of slavery. tonight, it's a look at the development of american law through the eyes of oliver wendell holmes junior and his book, "the common law." written in 1881, it was unique for its time and controversial. he would later go on to serve on the u.s. supreme court for three decades and his words continue to influence the legal world and our lives today. our guest tonight, to help us learn why the common-law is a

book that shaped america is jeffrey rosen, president and ceo of the national constitution center. mr. rosen is also an author and writer and clerk for a federal appeals court judge. jeff, welcome back to c-span. what was holmes'objective in writing the common-law? >> he had come back from the civil war where he was wounded three times. he believed in abolitionism and equality, and seeing the carnage at antietam where he almost died in the bloodiest day in american history, he lost all his ideals and almost seized nihilism in despair. he looked to systematize the law to come up with some way of

understanding that would give him meaning. he tried it a bunch of different ways, and found it goes back to english law and german law and roman law. he had thought there was a logic to the law that developed, but he discovered that was only part of its development. he discovered the historical purpose of the law was balanced against its contemporary relevance, how did it serve society? the complexity and brilliance of the insight that might be adopted for one reason hundreds of years ago but retain for another reason today. >> and probably the most famous quote from "the common law." the life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience. almost a radical thought for a

generation that had been raised on legal formalism, that had been taught to believe that simply by applying certain categories of law could judges act without the intervention of policy considerations, empirical study, and the like. holmes is describing the way the law actually is, and the specificity and precision of his examples stick in the mind. let's just put one on the table because it is so striking. he says, why is it that a neighbor, when he buys a piece of land that has an easement on and which allows you to cross the property even if you don't own it, get to keep that easement even if the original easement owner took it without proper property rights? holmes says surprisingly the reason for keeping an easement,

the land was personified come of the way they used to personify actors when a crime took place. nowadays, he said the reason it allowed the easement to run, otello would be much more complicated if you bought a piece of land and were not sure if you get to keep the easement. the original personification has given way to the public policy. >> the constitution at this point, in 1881, 94 years old. how sophisticated was our body of law? >> constitutional law was not very well developed. the famous marbury versus madison and dred scott cases, and he had decided not to apply the bill of rights to states after the civil war and would take almost 100 years to do that. so as a result, the constitution

wasn't fully worked out. however, this is a period when the supreme court begins to invoke the constitution to strike down economic regulations. maximum wage and minimum our laws, and there is a big debate brewing about whether or not the judges are sustaining their own policy prejudices. host: our partner in this series is the library of congress. the library of congress in 2013 developed a list of 100 books that shaped america, and from that list, these are not the best written, they are not classics, but they are books found on public policy and that's why tonight we are looking at the common law.

the original 1881 version of the common-law, the library rights that this book is acknowledged as a classic of american jurisprudence, a concept, the law developed and is interpreted not based on what is written legislation, but also based on practice and post experience. jeffrey: absolutely, and that reminds us that the common-law law gave rise to what we call illegal pragmatism, the idea that the law should serve the practical purposes of society that current majorities actually embrace. and of course pragmatism embodied today on the supreme court by former justice stephen breyer is the opposite of formalism embodied by justice like justice neil gorsuch.

in that sense, holmes was at the center of the debate that continues to this day. host: what was the reaction in 1881 when the common-law was published? jeffrey: i think we could call it respectful to weldment. -- bewilderment. it was delivered as a series of lectures and everyone acknowledged that holmes gave a deep and real contribution to systematizing the common-law and from the beginning, many people found it tough reading and therefore-- host: jeff rosen, is the common-law still taught in law school? >> i had it assigned in law school. i still rember the copy i had, a brown paperback cover with a gavel on it.

i must've tried to make my way through it, but i don't remember a word of it. it wasn't until you gave me the homework assignment of talking about the common-law, that i set out to read read -- reread it. i found it as arduous as many people have before. so therefore deafening took some close reading, but i think it is just an example of the fact that it is a book that is much respected but is not well studied. host: why is it arduous reading? jeffrey: it is beautifully written and it has pithy aphorisms which live in the mind. it is arduous because of the nuance and specificity of its parsing of history and public policy. and also because it is essentially a book of private law, torts and contracts and bailment's. many of these causes of action which have been lost to history,

and which are very fact specific. and although holmes describes general principles, he doesn't do so in a way that is heavy-handed or designed to stick in the mind. even in answering your question, i think it is completely unique in its common nation of clarity and opacity. host: does it hold up today? jeffrey: it is said that law has been shaped more by public policy and pragmatic concerns than by more formal rules. descriptively seems correct as a matter of much of legal history, and in fact, the book went on to influence the legal school of the 20th century which agreed with holmes that judges are essentially balancing policy

considerations, rather than just being grounded by formal rules. a leader of that movement held up holmes as a hero, one of my teachers in law school also embraced it. at the same time, it is hotly contested, and as i said, the supreme court right now has a majority of formalists, of strict constructionist who would entirely reject holmes' principles. he thought it was policy soaked, and in addition, the holmes approach to the constitution, he thought that judges should almost never strike down laws unless people with different perspectives overwhelmingly would agree that the law was not constitutional. it came from his profound skepticism and his desire to not

impose his own views upon the country. that deference doesn't have much of a consistency among liberals or conservatives on the court today. so once again, tremendously influential, but not always foll host: oliver wendell holmes wrote in the common-law, cannot be dealtas lipid -- as if it contained the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. our history is the story of our development, but the changes and historical purposes changed, and the law lives. jeffrey: he was not a believer in the dead hand of the past. he said history is a living thing, and therefore you can't understand law by just looking at the axioms, you have to look at what actually happened. host: so the in tipperary argument that the constitution is a living document, etc.?

jeffrey: yes. of course with holmes, it is always complicated. by saying the law is a living document, he didn't by any means say it was up to judges to just make up whatever they thought was good policy and do that. he was really attentive to who was best equipped to ensure that the law lived. we just have to keep returning to what was so profoundly true, the constitution was made for people of fundamentally different points of view. isn't that a beautiful sentiment in these polarized times when people are so convinced, my way or the highway. but he saw the constitution as of framework for peacefully resolving disagreements. if -- she thought if you didn't allow the law to solve those disagreements, open war would ensue.

legislators generally should take the first crack at it, and that's why he can't be caricatured as just a dead hand guy or a living constitution guy. host: oliver wendell holmes junior was born in 1841 in boston. he graduated harvard in 1861. the civil war started 1861-1865. he wrote the common-law in 1881, and he was chief justice ofhe massachusetts supreme court for three years prior to being appointed i teddy roosevelt to the supreme court, where he served for 30 years, and he died three years after his supreme court service ended in 1934. a biographer of oliver wendell holmes junior, talking about his

importance in american jurisprudence. >> he was buried at arlington cemetery in march 1935 on the day that would've been his 94th birthday. not only that, he did enough in those 94 years to feel four or five normal people's lives. as a young union officer in the civil war right out of harvard, he saw almost every major battle that the army of the potomac bought in the first three years of the war. he was wounded seriously three times, twice, nearly fatally. as a pioneering legal scholar, he wrote what is still considered one of the most important and significant books in the history of legal scholarship, "the common law." and it wasn't only a milestone in legal scholarship. it was one of the most important intellectual achievements in any field by an american in the 19th

century. it really helped put american scholarship on the map. it earned the great respect of british scholars, who said america is beginning to surpass britain. host: that's a biographer of oliver wendell holmes. if you'd like to learn more about the life of oliver wendell holmes, our companion podcast of this program, you can see the little qr code on the screen right now. go ahead and get your phone out, we will leave it up long enough that you can get your phone out and click that and you can listen to the companion podcast. jeff rosen, he talked about the importance of this book, a book that -- was it a book that had a delayed reaction and a delayed influence in american history? host: i think it was -- jeffrey: i think it was, and i want to say right off that his biography

is just wonderful, it is vivid and true. if listeners are not quite ready to jump into the common-law, which they should read as well, it did have a delayed reaction, and he is correct that english legal scholars acclaimed it, and boston lawyers, but it wasn't until after holmes joined the supreme coat -- supreme court and became such a revered figure and had a constituency that was rooted in the new republic magazine, with people like felix frankfurter and learned hand. he became not just a legal scholar or a myth, the yankee from olympus, and then his book became more interesting and

found its greatest audience then. host: tonight it is the common-law bought oliver wendell holmes junior. we want to hear from you, get your questions and comments ready for jeffrey rosen, president and ceo of the national constitution center. if you want to send a text message, please include your first name and your city of origin and send it to this number. we will begin taking those in just a few minutes. jeff rosen, we mentioned that you are also an author and you just finished your eighth book. what is it? jeffrey: i'm so excited to share with you, it's called the pursuit of happiness writers inspired the lives of the founders and defined america.

over covid, i decided to read the books on thomas jefferson's reading list that he said inspired his understanding of the pursuit of happyness. these are books like seneca and marcus are really us, john martin and french's hutcheson. -- francis hutchinson. what i read was a revelation. happiness wasn't feeling good, it was the pursuit of virtue, not the pursuit of pleasure. i set out to see how they applied this in their lives. they thought constantly about their efforts to achieve mental self-mastery, tranquility, to use their powers of reason to overcome their passions and emotions so they could be their best self and serve others. it was a wonderful opportunity to try to travel into the minds of the framers, and i'm so excited to share it. host: is it accessible to the average reader like myself? jeffrey: i hope so, that was the

goal. the idea was to share -- it was an unusual practice to wake up every morning before sunrise and read his books of moral philosophy that i had never encountered. i have been so privileged to learn from great teachers at great universities. moral philosophy at the core of reading of kids and adults throughout the 19th and early 20th century fell out of the curriculum when i was in college. they are so illuminating and changed about thought about the founders and about how to live. the goal of the book is to share the light with others and hope that other people will be inspired to read them too. host: did the title come first, or did the title follow the writing? jeffrey: the goal of the book is

to figure out what exactly did the founders mean by that famous phrase? to my great surprise, there was not that much writing about this. jefferson -- property was considered an inalienable right, but the idea of the pursuit of happyness as the pursuit of virtue, which the founders talked about constantly, and the sources they drew on talked about it constantly. they include not only those philosophers but legal writers like like stone, or religious writers, constantly all these people use the phrase "the pursuit of happyness." there always talking about it as a quest for emotional self-mastery. a combination of figuring out where the phrase came from but

most importantly, how it applied in the founders mine, how they lived up to its ideals are not, how they would talk about it and chastise themselves for not being virtuous enough. host: we look forward to seeing that in february of 24, the pursuit of happyness. in 1881, the common-law and oliver wenll holmes junior, that's give you a snapshot of what america was like in 1881. there were three presidents that year. rutherford b hayes, james garfield, and chester arthur. the population a little bi more than 50 million people. at least 2law schools were in operation. the fst women's practice law, 1869, and reconstruction was going on at that time. did that affect his career, the civil war service, did it affect his career throughout his life and reconstruction? jeffrey: this of course is a

central development in american in constitutional law. holmes' colleague was affected by his civil war experience. he wrote the dissenting inion in plessy versus ferguson, and also objected to the courts efforts to strike down landmarks of reconstruction, including the civil rights act of 1875. by the time holmes joined the court, troops had been withdrawn from the south. holmes didn't have the opportunity to pass on the central landmarks of the reconstruction, but he did in his service acquiesce in some very shameful opinions that poured into the goals of reconstruction, allowing alabama to disenfranchise all black people simply by using literacy tests and full taxes.

this is an example of its darker side, holmes said if alabama is perpetrating a fraud on black voters, we don't want to be a party to the fraud by trying to stop it, but then he said more directly, it's going to have to come from the political branches because we judges are powerless to change it. that reminds us that holmes, in his great devotion to deference into allowing majorities to work their will in the political process, was not a vigorous enforcer of constitutional rights for most of his service, until he came to the first amendment, and we can talk about what changed his mind when it came to free speech and let him later in his career to write some of the greatest and most shining peons to great expression. but much of it was deferential. host: we will get to those

positions later in the program. we want to hear from carol in texas first. >> thank you for taking my call and thank you for the program. really enjoyable, oliver wendell holmes junior was a guy who fought in the civil war and fought for the country and turned out to be a great justice. i wanted to ask two questions. supposedly holmes was so rude that he would find the decision that he thought was correct and then he would go back and find the legal basis to support his decision. and he was very good at doing that. i wanted your opinion on that. the second thing is, you're talking about other decisns he made. in your opinion, was his first decision but v bell? host: let me ask you a question first, are you a lawyer?

caller: no sir, i am a mechanic. i read a book called the metaphysical club and they talked a great deal, he is one of the four main characters in the book. host: call again, we really appreciate it. we will hear from jeff rosen now. jeffrey: i'm so glad you were inspired to learn more about holmes. did he come up with the result and reason backwards? i don't think that is quite fair to him. check it out, it is the lochner case. he is defending the court's decision to strike down maximum hour laws in new york. he says famously, the constitution does not enact is to herbert spencer's social status, by which he means this arresting citation ocial darwinist who thinks that

correct, but holmes says the constitution is not meant to embody my idea of economics or any particular judge's, is made for people with fundamentally different points of view, and therefore i think his basic instinct was to defer as long as he thought a reasonable person could embrace the result. so in lochner, he says i may not agree with these maximum power laws, but because a reasonable legislator could believe that, then he would uphold it. in fact, holmes was not a jeffersonian majoritarian, in the sense that he didn't think the majority came up with good results. he famously said to his sister, if my fellow citizens want to go to hell, i will help them, it's my job, even as he went on with one point i loathed the disfavored clowns, but he said

the alternative was violence. so trying to answer your really important question, generally he thought i'm not going to do what i thing is the right answer, i will defer to the rsonable person. he had another test which is memorable, i will uphold a law unless it makes me puke. it kind of sums up, there were certain can't helps, as he put it. that leads to buck v bell, which as you suggest was an infamous decision, upholding mandatory sterilization laws, eugenics laws, mandating the sterilization of so-called imbeciles. and she was sterilized without her consent.

the supreme court in a decision written by holmes, a single to center it was an eight to one decision, the only dissenter was justice butler a conservative catholic who found these laws offended his sense of morality. what is so striking and jarring about homes decision is that not only did he uphold the law because he disagreed with it, in this case he actually agreed with the law. he wrote to his friend harold the next day, this morning i upheld the law mandating the sterilization of imbeciles. nothing i have done all week has given me such pleasure. what he said in those memorable infamous words was that it is better for all of the world that instead of propagating their kind we cut the fallopian tubes, three generations of imbeciles was enough. something that was shocking. he himself was an enthusiastic eugenicist. i will say one more thing. in those days eugenics was popular among many progressives of all stripes including

progressive religious denominations it was a techno positivism of its day. a good reminder that our beliefs about perfectibility through technology often lead to results that a few generations later find it shocking. but holmes was a eugenicist and upheld those laws and the only thing to say in his defense, he upheld laws and he liked eugenics laws and he hated protections for communists because of his general commitment to radical deafness. peter: our partner in books that shaped america is the library of congress and in fact they have a holmes library room over at the library. he here is a brief tour. >> hello my name is ryan, i am a historian at the library of congress. were i oversee collections printed in 20th and 21st century domestic policy and politics which includes law and includes our collections of federal judges and supreme court justices. while we do not have the papers

of oliver wendell holmes, we are standing in his library right now which is located in the library of congress but originally from his washington dc home. it contains 12,000 books. he had another library at his home in massachusetts but this is the largest of the tomb. but oliver wendell holmes was possibly one of the most controversial jurists in the 20th century serving from 1902 to 19 the book common law on display here. the common law was published in 1880 one and was a product of his intellectual thought, back when he served in the civil war finished at harvard and lectured at harvard for years. the main item on display here is his black book. what this is is a compendium of every book he read it from 1881 to his death in 1935, and it connects to all these items on the table in that it kind of gets to the intellectual world that oliver wendell holmes created when he wrote the common law. which at its heart basically

says that judges, it is a judicial text that says more or less judges and policymakers must find a way to balance precedence that may not have proved durable over time with law that sometimes in its creation it was not transparent and was somewhat opaque in that good men and women had to find a way to take both precedent from the past and modern policy and mend them together to make a law that worked for the nation and people on a regular basis and was rational. what is interesting about this page and the black book is you see agatha christie is on here three times, you see dashiell hammett and even virginia woolf. i only mention that because in this account by lockwood his final paragraph he talks about how he had been reading leslie stephen's letters of the time and how the justice used to describe alpine trips with stephen in the talk of others. why i say that is because leslie

stephen's was virginia woolf's father and oliver wendell holmes when he produces common law is in a world in which he knows henry james, he knows leslie stevens, he knows all of these folks who are engaged in this thought in transforming the 19th century into the 20th. i just finish this with a letter from his nephew, oliver holmes never had children. some historians may think because of the horror of the civil war kind of put him off of bringing life into this world. he obviously thought it was flawed. in this letter edward, his nephew, has been bequeathed in the will in 1935 100 books from this library we are standing in now and he writes to tommy one of the individuals who stayed close with homes in his life. he says i have under his will the right to choose 100 books. i want to choose the books that touched his mind and his heart and i don't think anyone knew him better than you. so again even in death people

are thinking about what he thought about, the books he read, the ideas he promoted and the thoughts he put forth into american life and law. peter: that was the holmes library at the library of congress, jeff rosen you and i were reading names off of that list. jeff: so exciting to see 1933 two years before he died he is still learning and growing. that is the most impressive and inspiring things about him. he would have his clerks read to him, he would choose between murder mysteries from agatha christie and things that would improve his mind like aristotle. some days he would say let's just have a little murder he liked entertainment as much as anyone. the constantly stretching himself, he thought it was his duty. ever since he began as a law student where he was most distinguished for his incredible work ethic and ability to focus and read, he kept at it throughout his life and look at that inspiring results. peter: charles and brooklyn

texan, anyone who follows the court today knows about judicial philosophies originalist, textualist, etc.. did anyone think in terms of judicial philosophy and holmes era and if so how would he be characterized? jeff: great question. they certainly did not think about it in a systematic way as we do now and judges were not appointed based on their judicial philosophies in the same way. our modern phrase for him would be about a pragmatist, a relativist and justice breyer as i said would be his heir. there were strict constructionists back then who he was strongly opposed to. like james mcreynolds who thought that the text of a statute should be read regardless of its consequences, so he anticipates current debates. the debate about whether judges should be deferential to

legislators or second-guess them was incredibly hot and became the center of the progressive era debates about the role of the court. it defined the debates during the presidencies of taft and wilson. of course culminated in the court packing efforts of the new deal and at that point holmes pragmatic deference was embraced by justices like felix frankfurter and hugo black and the fdr appointees who saw holmes as their patron saint for opposing the judicial invalidation of economic legislation. that is a long way of saying gh the categories of the methodologies were not as clear as they are now they were definitely strong debates about how to interpret the constitution and holmes was at the center of them. peter: another quote, state interference is an evil where it cannot be shown to be a good. jeff: there is nothing simplistic about his aphorisms. it is wonderful. it is almost like a legal

confucius. i recognize this paradox. it also captures this profound truth worried it might be seen to be an evil and historically was seen to be an evil and less society at the moment decides there might be some justification for it. which reminds us to reject moral absolutes. holmes did not believe that the law was a brooding omnipresence in the sky as he put it. that embodied absolute moral principles. he thought its needs changed based on the needs of society and that is why one of the central debates of common law was whether or not you then need to be morally blameworthy before you could be punished and holmes said no. it was more important to punish people based on whether or not society as a whole would benefit regardless of whether they were morally blameworthy and all of those reflections were captured by that one aphorism. suddenly i am understanding why i was having trouble articulating the combination of this incredible pithy memorable

phrases and the passing obscurity. they really are like little prayers of law and little aphoristic sayings. like something about the buddha, that encapsulate truth in these compressed poetic form. that are so much deeper than they appear at first. peter: tom is in minneapolis, you are on c-span our guest is jeff rosen of the national constitution center. caller: hi thank you for having the program. professor abbott ashley wrote a book called law without values and it attacks holmes saying that basically holmes was wrong to argue the morality of law should be kept separate. he is not the only legal scholar that said that. and bug versus belt was probably the best example where he said three generations of imbeciles are not it -- are enough and

ruled in favor of sterilization of the mentally impaired woman. so like your comments -- i would like your comments on the criticism of holmes where he tries to keep morality and law separate. jeff great reference to that author law without values, i think i reviewed that book for the new york times many years ago when it came out. i remember how struck i was by his thesis that you perfectly summarized. that holmes was a nihilist who did not believe in law at all and it was ashlar who taught me far from reluctantly upholding the buck the bell laws, holmes s enthusiastic about it. that quote that i was remembering about holmes saying nothing gave me so much pleasure is from ashlar and he further describes how radically the war deprived homes. not only of faith and abolitionist values but any values whatsoever. he became according to ashlar a court -- a sort of niche in

nihilist to look down on the masses with aristocratic disdain and thought they had to be deferred to open violence would result. i have to say that although i found his thesis striking or jarring really when i first read it, there is much to be said for it. that was not all of homes. he was not purely cynical and his humility, his skepticism, his openness to lifelong learning and ultimately his refusal to believe he was god as he put it so memorably. one thing i learned, he told one of his law clerks that i am not god. all makes them far more than simply the nihilist who would uphold the sterilization laws. but ashlar captures an important part of his legacy. peter: here is the biographer stephen boody an on oliver wendell holmes again. stephen: as often noted as the

justices mental and physical vigor, was his extraordinary embodiment of the sweep of history. as a union officer in the civil war he had barely escaped death at paul's bluff in antietam when musket balls tore through his chest and neck missing heart, spine and carotid artery by an eighth of an inch. he had spoken to grant and shaken hands with meat at the battle of spotsylvania, he had seen lincoln dodge enemy fire at fort stevens during the raid on washington. as a boy he knew ralph waldo emerson, as a family friend ended -- remembered hermann melville. a summer neighbor as a gruff taciturn man. traveling europe after the war he climbed to the alps with leslie stephen, better known to later generations as the father of virginia woolf. while in law school he became fast friends with henry james and his brother william, soon to become respectively the novelist and philosopher of a generation. two homes they were harry and

bill. on visits to england he met john stuart mill, the young winston churchill and the old anthony trollope. in washington burgeoning russell stopped by more than once to talk philosophy. a quiz show in the 1960's posed the question which american met during his lifetime both john quincy adams and alger hiss? the answer of course was holmes who had met the sixth president of the united states, another family friend of his boston boyhood when he was five years old. and who had employed the future soviet spy as one of his last law secretaries in 1929. it was the civil war that was his touchstone. i hate to read about those days, he told friends. he had no interest in reliving the worst squalid preliminaries or blunders and worst of the battles. peter: jeff rosen when we were

talking earlier i think i used the phrase you do not come any waspier then oliver wendell holmes. is that a correct sum up? jeff: i think he sets the standard. we heard about his incredible friends, as boston blueblood as you can imagine. william james who is discussed in the metaphysical -- we were talking about earlier had an amazing line about oliver holmes. he was like a machine planing a deep and self beneficial group through life. was william james's take on him. his father was oliver wendell holmes senior, the autocrat of the breakfast table. a writer for the atlantic. it kind of jerry seinfeld of his day. he would write these amusing entertaining essays about daily life that were the core of boston brahman society and were widely read throughout america in this new atlantic magazine. the father, kind of embarrassed

holmes when he got older, holmes was a deep and serious intellectual. he thought there was something frivolous about his dad poetry which was widely read in his day and was also kind of amusing essays. significantly we were talking about the civil war, holmes was thrice wounded. he was left for dead nearly three times. but his father pledged to write about him for the atlantic so he takes off of the battlefield and is writing articles hawking his journey to go find his son while wendell is dying in the hospital and the sun but the father was exploiting him to get good atlantic pieces out of it. it is just a fascinating -- he also respected his father and so forth but the combination of competition and also the new media technology clashing with homes desire to transform the law were all played out in this

really interesting waspy conflict. peter: steve in st. louis, good evening. caller: good evening great show. i am learning so much. i was going to ask mr. rosen when your book comes out next winter will it be available on amazon and easy to obtain? jeff: thank you for asking and thank you for letting me plug it. yes indeed you can preorder it on amazon right now. it will be on audible and on all platforms. please check it out i would love to share it with you. peter: the pursuit of happyness it is called. steve did you have a follow-up question? caller: i do my great great grandfather fought in the civil war in the army of tennessee. he became a lawyer after the war and became a prosecuting attorney.

i don't know if there is some kind of correlation with that. a lot of veterans went on to appreciate the law and i'm struggling how to put this. peter: i think i got it, thank you for that. jeff did you get what he was talking about? jeff: completely first of all what an honor to remember your grandfather's service. for homes -- holmes the war was what crystallized his belief that the law was the only thing that separated us from barbarism. at the carnage was so overwhelming from those -- for those that experienced it that he felt that unless we have held the rule of law people would destroy each other. it very profoundly influenced his sensibility. i can well see how it would lead

someone to want to be a prosecutor and to enforce the law. the other thing that the war did for holmes was make him a complete devotee of the union. he was a fierce partisan of the united states of america. he would put on his civil war uniform once a year almost until he died. he fit into it and on the anniversary of the battle would dress up in his uniform which still had his blood marks on it. and when he died he gave all of his money or most of it to the united states because he thought that was his patriotic duty. and the holmes devises a series they the library of congress publishes today with the money because he was so devoted to the union and to make things more timely the latest volume is just about to be published by the great robert post. a yale law professor. we are going to have a book talk with robert post for his volume of the homes --holmes devise.

all of this is bringing home that your grandfather very well may have taken from his service a devotion to the union and the law as holmes did. peter: one of the things we like to do is show you teachers who are teaching about the books we are talking about in the series. if you go to our website c-span.org/books that shaped america you will see up there a tag that says teacher resources. if you gone that tabby will get lesson plans, you will see videos, etc.. about each of the books that we are looking at. one of the teachers who teaches about oliver wendell holmes and the common law is effie guerra who teaches at the university of central florida. >> how can you make the common law, how can you make oliver wendell holmes book relevant today? consider some of the most cutting edge technologies today.

consider for example generative ai systems, or autonomous vehicles or unmanned aerial vehicles as well, 3d printing. when i discuss these areas with my students often times students say wow, there needs to be federal regulation. on the case of ai, ideally it would be great if there were an international treaty the world could get behind and we could create safeguards. but what happens when there is no federal regulation of a specific activity or industry or area of life? what happens when there is no international treaty? this is where the common law comes into play. the comm provides these default rules that apply to any individual, any business. any activity in the absence of a specific federal regulation or international convention whether it be property rights, contracts or ports and injuries caused by

the activity. this is one of the reasons it is so important and relevant and worth reading today. that said, common law of the book by oliver wendell holmes and the common law itself is a real difficult subject. it can take a lifetime to master. to give you an example, in law school, contracts is usually a two semester course. torts is usually a two semester course. product liability, three semesters if you include upper level. property is generally one semester but it could be multiple semesters if you include intellectual property rights. so how can we distill all of this? one way is reading oliver wendell holmes's book. sometimes the concepts are difficult and one of the most difficult concepts is for example the concept of negligence. which is a concept developed in the area of tort law, injury law. why is negligence so important? because it is a legal theory that applies in most cases to answer the question, when are

you or a business firm legally responsible for someone else's injury? common law is developed over the years, over centuries as sort of a general rule. a general standard saying everyone generally speaking has a legal duty. i will put this in plain english. a legal duty to take reasonable precautions to avoid foreseeable harms. what is a foreseeable harm? what is a reasonable precaution? that is why you go to law school and that is why you study oliver wendell holmes. one of the great contributions of oliver wendell holmes is to note that over the centuries the common law judges have the so-called objective test in determining for example, what is a foreseeable harm or a reasonable precaution to avoid a foreseeable harm. peter: that was f. e. guerra at the university of central florida talking about teaching the common law.

202 is the area code 748 8920 if you live in central time zones 202748 9921 for mountain and pacific time zones and if you cannot get through on phone lines and still want to, try our text number. (202) 748-8003 please include your first name and city. it lets from david in new york city. caller: hi, mr. rosen how do you think the judge holmes would say on the abortion issue decided recently? peter: david how do you think he would have decided on the abortion issue? caller: i am not sure sir. jeff: you have asked the toughest of all questions and i don't know either but let me try to reason it through like homes. --holmes. when it comes to roe v. wade as an initial matter he

is very keen to deference on democratic legislators so he might have been moved by the argument that unless reasonable people of different perspectives think that a right is deeply rooted in tradition, that legislators should rule. however, as we have been talking about he also cared a lot about president and thought the law was not just pure logic but the accumulation of decisions that judges had made over time and also that society had come to accept. there is a big debate on the supreme court right now about when you look at history and tradition should you just look backward as the court did in overturning roe and saying that the right to abortion was not deeply rooted in tradition for most of american history order you also look forward and ask what you people today think of early term abortions for example. and just making this up but he might have been moved by evidence today that most people in most states don't restrict

abortions before fetal quickening as it is called or at least a certain point in pregnancy. and all of these considerations which combine history, tradition, law, pragmatism and imperial evidence that possibly have gone into his complicated deliberations. peter: some of the issues that oliver wendell holmes worked on when he was on the supreme court included labor rights, fre speech, i.e. fire in a crowded theater statemt which we will get to, illegal searches and the espionage act. let's go to free speech mr. rosen. jeff: dear c-span friends watching. give yourself a treat and after the show is over because we have to finish the conversation, read holmes great opinion in the abrams case. it is just a paragraph or two of constitutional poetry, so beautifully expressed. he says time has upset many

fighting face and wh men have come to believe mo stron their own principles that a particular principal has to be embraced, only then they will realize that we must protect the thought we hate. and i am mashing up a few speech -- great free-speech opinions but that astonishing inspiring idea. that it is mostly speech that we disagree with that has to be protected because men as he puts it will come to realize that the best test of truth is its ability to get itself accepted in the free marketplace of ideas. that is his metaphor of the marketplace of ideas which relies on people who fundamentally disagree being able to make arguments in the best test of truth is the best idea and only by having a fair fight can you allow truth to emerge. he is writing this at a time when the court is upholding the

prosecution of people for sedition, which means criticizing the government. including eugene v debs. the socialist candidate for president in 1920 who is running from a jail cell because he has been in prison for basically standing up on a soapbox and saying this they were for capitalists. we would consider it the mildest kind of protest today but he is imprisoned under this extraordinarily illiberal law which is not the biggest part of it but the other at the center -- document prosecutions about president trump but the law allowed you to be imprisoned if you said any speech that might have a bad tendency to obstruct recruitment. so you do not have to tell people don't enlist or get shot simply by saying this is a bad war, it might lead some people not to enlist. and the court uphold these

prosecutions on the idea that any speech that could have a bad tendency should be suppressed. holmes initially joined those decisions and in fact upheld the decision of some of these antiwar critics but over the summer in the early 1920's he reads and he thinks in his particular moved by a law review article that the great law professor zachariah chafee wrote. where chafee quotes against homes some of his earlier and pinions including that famous fire -- the most stringent protection for free speech would not justify allowing a man to cry fire in a crowded theater. and convinces him that what he had been using to justify prosecution should be used to prevent them and he changes his mind. the remarkable ability of his growth and open-mindedness and willingness to rethink his first premises. and at the same time make this amazing story even more exciting. so this is great colleague louis

brandeis who also comes to believe that the espionage act prosecutions are unconstitutional. and both holmes and brandeis wrote the greatest free-speech opinions of the 20th century. for holmes's the abrams dissent in brandeis it's this glorious opinion in whitney versus california, which we just introduced at the national constitution center in a new first amendment exhibit. we have brandeis handwritten notes on the whitney case loaned by harvard law school. it is so exciting. but back to holmes. brandeis has a different reason for protecting free speech. he and provide -- emphasizes its contribution to democratic self-government and the importance of people fulfilling themselves as citizens through deliberation. holmes is focused on the marketplace of ideas. but that is his evolution, it is spectacularly expressed and his greatness must be centrally involved with his ability to distill in a few phrases of

constitutional poetry these immortal truths that continue to inspire us today. and there is really nothing more inspiring that you can do for the first amendment then read his dissent in abrams. were saying you are talking about some cases in the air early 1920's? >> he served on the supreme court from 1902 to 1932. his supreme court service jibed with what he wrote in the kamala -- the common law. because the common law was complicated his jurisprudence was complicated. you can't reduce the influence to a bumper sticker. however, he did, in opinions at the end of his life, invoke -- invoke the fact that the common law group -- refused to impose liability. it allowed liability in the

central pieces of the book. in the two central influences of the common law that they really identify our first feeding the skepticism and the humility that holmes had that led him not to want to impose his own views on the court. always an attempt to the pragmatic consequences of decisions. not necessarily to impose that as a judge, but to be alert about whether or not those practical consequences might lead legislators reasonably to embrace the results. so, that is the connection between his -- two different subjects. one is, how did judges make laws in ancient times in the second is how should judges interpret the constitution today and that was the connection. peter: the 1950's a movie came out called the "magnificent yankee" about oliver wendell

holmes junior. here is a portion. >> magnificent is the word for oliver wendell holmes, and for the motion picture that bears the heroic title "the magnificent yankee." here is a story as patriotic as the red white and blue. as inspiring as the fourth of july, a story with dignity that comes on with real distinction. who among us cannot but be thrilled as we hear the wit and the wisdom of the great dissenter as his voice comes echoing out of the dramatic past. >> that's not the way i read the law. this is an injustice of the supreme court. i have sense enough not to hit back and so should he. he should keep his flap shut. >> you might as well face it, some men haven't and some men don't, you are no good without it. do you understand? fire in the belly. >> yes, sir. >> i'm sorry, sir, no matter how

i figure it, i can't get your income tax any lower. >> i don't mind paying taxes, that's the way i buy civilization. >> let me take a look at you. you are ancient. you must be all of 75. do you know what i think when i see a pretty girl? >> no, what? >> oh to b 80 again. >> -- peter: was he well known enough in 1950 to make a movie about him? >> i can't wait to go see the streaming version. isn't it amazing, making a major biopic about a supreme court justice, and having him be so well-known that you can call him the magnificent yankee. that book is jumping off the famous book "olympus."

which was a national bestseller. he was lionized in literature, but it's pretty amazing and kind of wonderful to see our justices be a central part of popular culture. peter: contemporary justices, ruth bader ginsburg, well-known, antonin scalia a, well known. fair? >> absolutely. they gave rise to the great scalia-ginsberg opera and much more. and justice ginsburg did have that great movie made after her, so maybe we are continuing in that great tradition. peter: let's hear from jack from davenport, iowa. go ahead with your question. >> what would holmes think about the internet, where people are looking for rooms full of people so they can get them all stirred up, and then they yell fire to stir up a lot of anger?

beck's great question, so important, the question gets to the heart of homes incitement test. in the abrams decision he not only said that speech had to be strongly protected, but he endorsed a veron and it was articulated that speech could only be restricted if it's innded to and likely to cause imminent violence. so it's not enough to say something that someone m b possibly in the future might react badly to, it has to be intended to create imminent violence in the violence has to be imminent and serious. the supreme court embraced that in the brandenburg case in 1969, decades after holmes articulated it. but he really identify that as a central challenge of the internet age. how could you measure whether a speech, spoken in one place, is both independent and likely to cause violence somewhere else?

is the likelihood of incitement ripening into violence greater in a virtual age? and also, what should the constitution do about technology? holmes had an amazing opinion that we haven't talked about. in the olmsted case where the supreme court upholds the use of wiretapping on the grounds of you need a physical trespass to trigger the fourth amendment and you can tap someone's phone about trespassing in their homes. holmes looks forward to the age of the electronic wires and insists that the constitution shouldn't be frozen with a particular technology. he also says it's very uncivilized for the government to spy o citizens and the fr would not have liked it regardlesschnology. he definitely would've been very open to the challenge of translating the constitution into an internet age and what he would've made of the incitement age remains to be seen. peter: we will texture

knowledge, holmes does not seem to be deferential in the ruling on the shank case. please comment on holmes argument in his position on shank v u.s. 1990. >> crucial question. i was it at the end of his life after having spent his decades essentially upholding laws that he liked and didn't like and almost never striking down anything and a reasonable person could disagree, he writes at the end of his life, the libertarian free speech decisions that are among the greatest efforts to restrict government in all of american history. the reason he gives is the marketplace of ideas. ordinarily, you assume that legislators have to have their role because the majorities can wreak their desires into law open violence will result. the exception comes in cases where the channels of democracy themselves are threatened to be choked off.

and if it possible for a dominant majority to refuse to admit into the public square, certain evidence, you can't have a properly functioning free marketplace of ideas. you can't be confident that good ideas will triumph over bad ones and people aren't able to hear all sides and make up their own minds. there isn't philosophical and constitutional consistency does lack of deference and first amendment cases even though he's more deferential in almost every other case. peter: we heard louis cal hearn imitating oliver wendell holmes junior. here is oliver wendell holmes junior in his own voice speaking at harvard in 1931, four years before his death. [video clip] >> he sits in silence. the feelings of the end drawing near is to intimate a task.

it comes as a listener. the writers in the race do not stop short when they reach the goal there's a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill hearing the kind voice of friend and to say to oneself, the work is done. but the answer comes in the race is over in the work remains. it brings you to a standstill need not coming to a rest and it is to function. that is all there is. and so i end with a line, was it the message more than 1500 years

ago, death, death plucked my ear and said, live. i'm coming. [end of video clip] peter: oliver wendell holmes junior at the end -- age of 90. we talked a little bit about mr. holmes in popular culture. there's a new play being developed here in washington, d.c. washington, d.c. about mr. holmes. claire krishna is the producer of holmes and kevin reese will portray oliver wendell holmes junior. where did the idea for doing the play about all come from? >> it might seem strange for us to be producing a play about a play about adjusters who has been dead for almost a century, but it came to us via todd peppers, who is a legal historian and a holmes super fan. and it has spent quite of times

reading his letters and correspondence and said to himself, the world really needs holmes and we need to get him out there, and we need people to know about him and hear his words. and so he brought a script to us at the journal society, and we said, why not, let's do this play, what better way for people to understand about the history of the court in this extraordinary man. it wasn't tied to any particular anniversary, it was just, there is no better time to have holmes on stage that now. peter: kevin reese, as the potrero oliver wendell holmes junior, what did you learn about him? kevin: i did not know a lot about him when i first read the script, but he is a fascinating human being. there's a life leading up to his work as a supreme court justice is just as extraordinary and harrowing as his work as a justice. being as was mentioned before,

being involved in the war, being wounded three times, having dysentery, almost dying, he lived a life that was extraordinary, even up to the point at which he became a justice. it's a real honor to look at his work, and the fact that this play, written by todd peppers, is so much of his writings, his essays, his letters, his decisions are in the play. that most of what is in the play is oliver wendell holmes word. that's an extraordinary thing. again, as an actor, it's an honor to be able to share this with the world. peter: my understanding is as this will be shown one time, is that correct? >> yes. the world premiere will take place at arena stage on october 30, but the performances going to be filmed and we will taking that film on the road and screening it. so if anyone is interested, let

me know. peter: can anyone attend that performance, is it sold out yet, october 30 at the arena? x yes, it has been sold out for a while. peter: congratulations to you. claire is the producer and kevin is the protray are. the play is called homes. thank you for spending a few minutes with us, we appreciate it. quite a bit of popular culture around oliver wendell holmes junior. again, you cannot forget greenacres with oliver wendell douglas, the head of that show. >> it's so exciting. how wonderful that claire and todd are doing that play, and i can't wait to see it and learn about it. so great that it's rooted in his own words. i just have to pause to say, weren't his words memorable and magnificent and so deep.

he said at the very end of his life, to live is to function, that is all there is. that really was his ultimate philosophy. far from extract ideals indicating or giving purpose to life, it was simple industry and continuing to do the work that gave life meaning. in that amazing metaphor of how the horse at the end of the race comes to a little canter before stopping. that was his canter, and then the mind blowing quotation about the laughing poet, death calls and i'm coming. all of that amazing accent. cap wait to see the play. peter: timothy, good evening to you. timothy: i have a question. i was a former college teacher and i was part-time for such a long time mainly because part-timers cannot unionize collective bargaining. i guess it assumes there is an equal relationship between employer and employee, which i

don't think that's the case because an employer can fire an employee at any moment. at least in the colleges, for no reason, really. it's just not fair because you become a full-time part timer. i call it the walmart syndrome. in colleges now, today, a lot of part-timers. it's really sad because really good people who should be full-time cannot be full-time because they -- there is no promotional track. they are just destined to be part-timers. peter: let's let him respond to the first part of your question. employers, employees. >> a crucial, central question. i'm so glad you raise this question, which is labor rights. this is a time when the task court is vigorously antilabor and is upholding things like injunctions against strikes and efforts to curb the pf the

new labor movement on the grounds that it violates the liberty and property rights protected by the 14th amendment. chief justice taft is a vote of labor rights. and holmes and brandeis dissent. holmes is more pragmatic about this than he is everything. far from excepting formalistic ideas about inequality of bargaining between labor and capital, things any combination of people is entitled to organize and entitled to try to defend their interest in a fair fight and wants to uphold the rights to strike down injunctions that prevent them from organizing. he's on the losing side of many of those cases, but his dissent's are vindicated by the new deal decades later. peter: a message from seth in minneapolis, did holmes ever express any internal conflict about his attempts to square a pragmatic interpretation of the law with deference to laws instituted by the majority when

clearly they're lines of reasoning he didn't support, let alone were predicted on morally or ethically? a lot there, jeff rosen. jeff: the answer is, yes, he almost took a perverse pleasure in upholding laws that he did not like. we talked about those free-speech cases where he was so contemptuous of the puny, foolish simpletons who misguided lee embrace communists, which he very much repudiated. or the loeffler case was also a perverse irony. he said the 14th amendment doesn't enact the s status, but he himself is in enthusiastic social darwinist who has contempt for the minimum wage laws, which he thinks are meant to protect the interest of

labor, but unlikely to be effective. in that sense, it's such a good question because it raises the question of pragmatists, as the question suggests. might suggest what he thought the right answer was in every case based on good policy. but for homes, pragmatism led him not to do that. basically to say that was a decision for other people unless the legislators are transgressing, clearly articulating constitutional rights that everyone would embrace and it would uphold a whole lotta laws that he didn't like. he basically uphold everything until he got to the first amendment. that was the way he reconciled it. peter: good evening. patricia, phoenix, good evening. go ahead, please. please, go ahead. >> oh, well. peter: are you here, make your question.

patricia, we are going to hang up on you now. the appreciate you calling in. i apologize we weren't able to connect functionally. well, 1880 one is when the common laws came out. but there are other books on the library of congresli of 100 books that shaped america during thisra of 1850 to 1900, roughly. here are some of those books. >> henry david thorough wrote about nature and solidity in 1854 with his book. in 1855, the firstdion of walt whitman's leaves of grass was published. little women, the novel about four sisters living in massachusetts was published in 1868, horatio out your junior mark the match boy released in 1859. sisters catherine and harriet beecher stowe released a

domestic guide with the american woman som in 1869. here are more books from the library of congress list of 100 books that shaped america. mark twain's novel huck finn was published in 1880 four. poems by emily dickinson was published in 1890. frederick jackson turner's the frontier in american history was published in 1893. the red badge of courage by stephen crane was released in 1895. it was there during thcivil war. peter: all of those books are available on the website, c-span.org/books thashed america. you can see the entire list at the library of congress -- that the library of congress came up with there. next call is stephen in west palm beach, florida. stephen, go ahead. >> can you hear me? peter: we are listening. >> mr. rosen, which you are calling, and i'm sure many

lawyers called his pragmatism is what i called sedition. i'm wondering, for example, and it doesn't surprise me, i didn't realize until now, i have forgotten that theodore roosevelt was the one that appointed him to supreme court because mr. roosevelt didn't seem to have too much concern about the constitution either. and i'm sure you know what i mean. i was saying that one of the things i was thinking, there are other people in the modern-day supreme court who have similar types of approaches. in two of the most recent ones were, number one, anthony kennedy, and number two, david souter. i'm wondering how mr. holmes would feel about the jewish prudence of those justices, and just as an aside one other one that might come to bear in mind, because i've been learning a lot about the liberal world order, liberalism in general, how would

mr. holmes feel about the jurisprudence of the german jurors during the nazi time, carl schmidt. peter: thank you, stephen, in west palm beach. pragmatism, sedition, anthony kennedy, david souter? jeff: it's an important question. i take it from your question you are voicing an objection that many conservative constitutionalists would have a pragmatic approach. and you are quite right that theodore roosevelt was not a believer in the checks and balances in separation of powers of the founders constitution. he found -- he called for judicial decisions to be overturned i majority vote. he viewed the president of a steward of the people who gentle popular impulses as opposed to william howard taft, who is a more constrained hamiltonian

president. and, in all these respects, neither roosevelt nor holmes believed in strict construction of the text of the constitution in any formalistic ways. so you raised an important point. i think justice kennedy and justice souter had different approaches. justice kennedy was more of a fan of the natural law approach that holmes rejected. justice kennedy believe there was a certain basic ways, a right to define one's conception of meaning of the universe and the mystery of human life as kennedy upholding roe v. wade. that was the argument about self evident natural white -- natural rights that come from nature that holmes was not a fan of. but justice souter was an analog because he was a common-law constitutionalist. he did believe that precedent was the most important way of restraining judges. he thought judges should take measured motions and not broad

sweeping gestures. in that sense, he had a certain pragmatism. but i will say, it's not the case that conservatives on the court are any more devoted to deference to legislators than liberals are. the original justification for the conservative strict constructionist or originalist movement is that law should be made with legislators and not in courts but now both conservative liberal justices are embracing a form of judicial engagement where they are happy to strike down laws that clashes with their vision of the constitution. holmes was different. this is important to put on the table at this point in our discussion. of bipartisan traditional deference which was embraced in the 20th century by acolytes like felix frankfurter or byron white, who was appointed by president kennedy. and even by justice scalia during his early years. doesn't have any advance on the

courts today. so the antithesis between pragmatist and strict constructionism doesn't always point to deference and home -- homes -- holmes was in favor of deference. peter: we have been talking about common-law by oliver wendell holmes junior. if you have a book that you think should b on the books that shaped america list, go to c-span.org/books that shaped america. click at theoptwo easy steps, send us a video, tell us what book you think should be on the list. here are some of the submissions we have received. >> my name is cat and i'm from boston, massachusetts. the giver because i think it's a really good example of how we need to take into consideration the experience of others and the experiences from the past and use it to spread love and kindness, and tried to make a difference for the better. >> my name is todd, i am from

florida. i think the book that shaped america was donald trump's art of the deal. it brought him to stardom, made him a name, and ultimately that celebrity lead to him being one of the best presidents we've ever had. >> the book i'd like to mention is atlas shrugs. it has been out bought -- it has been out for a long time but the author talks about an extreme case of the government coming over and taking over businesses the life of most americans. a very interesting book. >> a book that i think is shaping america is -- and it shaping america because it fills the into bit nature of technology and social media and how it's interfering with our ability to make genuine human

connections with one another. >> i'm from austin, texas. the reason i chose this book is that it delivers a point about -- in america and it shapes america because it tells a tale of human suffering regardless of class or gender. it's something that we can all relate to no matter where we come from. >> i am from philadelphia, pennsylvania. the book i think shaped america is -- the reason i picked this book is becausit lets people know that your friends care about you. peter: if you want to join cordelia and send in your book that shad erica go to c-span.org/books that shaped america, your input right at the top. jeffrey rosen, we have one minute left. we are talking about the common law. what's its impact today? jeff: the central pieces of the

common law that law is not shaped by logic that experience and is a mix of historical traditions and contemporary needs. very much defining debates throughout the 20th and 21st central. it has influenced law and economics. it's at the center of our current debate between pragmatists and strict constructionists on the court today. in addition to all that. this is my take away from the wonderful conversation, holmes inspires all of us to be lifelong learners and readers. the common-law book was produced by his rigorous reading and attempt to synthesize all of american and english legal history. he is doing this until he's in his 90's, learning and growing and adding to his list. that's what this program is doing. c-span viewers, keep it going by continuing to read in his spirit. peter: president and ceo of the

national constitution center and he has been our guest for the last hour and a half books that shaped america. i appreciate your time. thank you for listening in and send ♪ ♪ ♪ >> weeknights at 9:00 eastern, c-span's encore presentation of

our 10 part series, books that shaped america. c-span partnered with the library of congress that explored key pieces of literature that have had a profound impact on us tonight. tonight, mark twain's adventures of huckleberry finn. watch c-span's encore presentation of books that shaped america weeknights at 9:00 eastern on c-span. go to c-span.org/booksthats hapedamerica. ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more. including mediacom. >> we believe that whether you are here or right here or way out in the middle of anywhere, you should have access to fast, reliable internet. that is why we are leading the way.

>> mediacom supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ >> this week, watch washington journal special holiday authors series, spending each morning with a new writer. on tuesday, david pepper discusses his book saving democracy: a user's manual for every american. watch washington journal live tuesday morning starting at 7:00 eastern with our special authors day weekend. ♪ >> king charles iii delivered his christmas address from buckingham palace. he reflects themes of service

and caring for the earth. ♪ >> many of the festivals of the great religions are celebrated

with a special meal, a chance for family and friends to come together across generations. the act of sharing food adding to conviviality and togetherness. for some, faith will be uppermost in their hearts. for others, it will be the joy of fellowship and the giving of presence. it is also a time when we remember those who are no longer with us and those whose work of caring for others continues even on this special day. this care and compassion we show to others is one of the themes of the christmas story, especially when mary and joseph were offered shelter in their hour of need by strangers as they waited for jesus to be born. over this past year, my heart has been warmed by countless examples of the imaginative ways in which people are caring for one another, going the extra

mile to help those around them simply because they know what is the right thing to do. at work and at home, within and across communities. my wife and i were delighted when hundreds of representatives of that selfless army of people, volunteers who serve their communities in so many ways and with such distinction, were able to join us in westminster abbey for the coronation earlier this year. they are any central backbone. -- and he central backbone. their presence mend mode -- so much to us both. above all, a call to all of us to serve one another, to love and care for all. service also lies at the heart of the christmas story. the birth of jesus who came to serve the whole world, showing

us by his own example how to love our neighbor as ourselves. throughout the year, my family have witnessed how people of all ages are making a difference to their communities. this is all the more important at a time of real hardship for many, when we need to build on existing ways to support others less fortunate than ourselves, because out of god's providence we are blessed with much and it is incumbent on us to use this wisely. however, service to others is but one way of honoring creation , which after all is a manifestation of the divine. this is a belief shared by all religions to care for this creation as a responsibility owned by people of all faiths.

we care for the earth for the sake of our children's children. during my lifetime i have been so pleased to see a growing awareness of how we must protect the earth and our natural world as the one home which we all share. i find great inspiration from the way so many people recognize this, as does the christmas story, which tells us that angels brought the message of hope first two shepherds. these were people who lived simply among others of god's creatures. those close to nature were privileged that night. and at a time of increasingly tragic conflict around the world , i pray that we can also do all in our power to protect each other.

the words of jesus see more than ever relevant. due to others as you would have them do to you. such values are universal, drawing together are abraham it family of religions and other belief systems across the commonwealth and wider world. they remind us to imagine ourselves in the shoes of our neighbors and to seek their good as we would our own. so, on this christmas day, my heart and my thanks go to all who are serving one another, all who are caring for our common home, and all who see and seek the good of others. in this way we bring out the best in ourselves. i wish you a christmas of peace on earth and goodwill to all

today and always. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ ♪ [applause] ♪

♪ ♪

>> this week, book tv's afterwords is in prime time. tonight at 8: p.m. eastern, carrot fitzpatrick with her book "the death of public schools." she's interviewed by washington post's education editor. watch all this week in prime time on c-span, also go to c-span.org to get the complete schedule. >> a healthy democracy doesn't just look like this. it looks like this.

where americans can see democracy at work and citizens, a republic thrives. get informed straight from the sources on c-span. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. from the nation's capital to wherever you are. because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. ♪ >> this week, watch washington journal's special holiday authors week series featuring live segments with a new writer. david pepper discusses his book "saving democracy: a user's manual for every american." watch washington journal live tuesday morning with our special holiday authors week series.