but even more to foster harmony and peace among the peoples of the world. ♪ >> weeknights at 9:00 eastern sea's encore presentation of our 10 part series books that shaped america. c-span partnered with the library of congress to explore literature that had a profound impact. thursday night will feature free to choose. our guest is len, guest lecturer from university of california. watch c-span's encore presentation of books that shaped america weeknights at 9:00 eastern on c-span or c-span.org/books that shaped america. learn more about each book featured. ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered

view of government funded by these television companies and more including wow! >> today at a fast reliable internet connection is something no one can live without so we are therefore customers with speed, value and choice. now more than ever it starts with great internet. >> wow support c-span is a puic service along with these television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. for the next hour we are going to continue one in the series we've been doing your washington journal. we feature top writers from a variety of political spectrums and talk about policy and political topics. joining us today, michael malone, a senior political law -- and his latest book is called " mental maps of the founders: how geographical imagination guided america's

revolutionary leaders." thank you for your time once again. guest: thank you for having me, i appreciate it very much. host: so many books about the founders of the decades, but your approach is much different. what guided this? guest: i have read many of the wonderful books that have been written by academic it nonacademic historians, some of the bestsellers, many scholarly breakthroughs, and i wanted to learn more about it. as my friend lou cannon once told me, if you want to learn more about a subject, write a book about it. so i thought what can i contribute to the study of the founding fathers? i decided that it was their geographical orientation, their maps. we all carry with an airhead mental maps of where we go, how we get to the shopping mall, how

we get to work, where america's position is north america, so forth. different people have different mental maps. and so i explored the works about and by the founding fathers with a view toward trying to write essays, six essays as it turned out on what each of six founding fathers geographical orientation, their mental maps. because remember, in the 18th century and early 19th century when they were forming the american revolution, they didn't know what the new country would be like. they didn't know that it would be 13 colonies which would become 13 states. they didn't have accurate maps of the great expanse of north america. they had to indulge their geographical imagination to some extent, and their geographical scholarship.

and what we see in these different founding fathers is they have different maps, mental maps. they have different geographic orientations just as each of us has different geographical orientation for friends that we know, relatives and so forth. and so this book mental maps of the founders is an attempt guide this and the historian gordon wood, one of the last of the great generation of colonial academic historians said nobody else has taken this particular approach to the founders. so i hope i was able to contribute something in the way of original thought and perspective. host: yd the maps in traditionaoric a show marking palooka sovereignty in north america. they convey certainty and

settlement. the essays that comprise this book are attempts to understand what these extraordinary individual mental maps looked like, how they changed in response to events, and circumstances, actions and responses. we will talk about specific founders but when you look at the mental maps, what tends to shape the most? location, geography, economics? guest: i think what shapes the maps often because their own personal interests and experiences. my first essay on the founders is on benjamin franklin, who set up a printing business in philadelphia and printed richard's almanac which i think first came out in the 1720's. and he was selling it up and down to the different colonies. most of the colonial americans

stayed put in one colony or another or went back and forth from one colony to great britain. franklin had been to many. he grew up in massachusetts, made his way to philadelphia. his professional career in philadelphia. but he sold his almanac to english speakers of it down the british coastal colonies, and even in the west indies. he franchised other printers for a share of the profits. in multiple colonies. so he was doing business, and very successfully doing business in a number of the different colonies. and when war was looming with france in 1755, he printed what may happen pretty political cartoon in north america, a picture of a snake cut into segments with each segment labeled with the abbreviation of a different colony. in the legend underneath it was

unite or die. the british colonies were going to fight france, they had to unite. this was the beginning of an idea, the germination of an idea that would flower at the united states of america. the idea that the colonies rate unity rather than separate colonies founded by separate proprietors and people with separate religions. host: if you want to ask them about his book, republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8002. if you want the texas her thoughts, (202) 748-8003. as you are researching each of these founders, what materials do you go to to get an inkling of what those maps consist of? >> you go to the source, you read biographies, of course, and

narratives of the course of the american revolution and the early republic. you naturally read some of the writings of the founders themselves, washington's farewell address, which is adapted from a draft by alexander hamilton with some adaptation from an earlier draft by james madison. i read jefferson's notes on virginia, a book that i had not read before. i read through all of the federalist papers, reading separately first the federalist papers written by alexander hamilton or attributed to him, and then the one attributed to james madison. the five papers attributed to john jay with a view toward understanding the different perspectives of hamilton on the one hand and madison on the other. so using original documents, and

the sources of biographies, and trying to use a certain amount of mental imagination myself. naturally over the course of the years i revisited the homes of the founding fathers that are preserved, for the most part, pretty wonderful ways. visited some of the places that they traveled to and they are distant places. not only jefferson's monticello, but the second home they built in poplar forest near present-day lynchburg, virginia, 100 miles away. tried to get a sense of my imagination of the world that they were seeing. when some of that world is preserved pretty well, like some of the red-brick street in alexandria, virginia, old town

alexandria was laid out by a young surveyor named george washington who lived in the area , and others we have to simply use our imagination to try to imagine what manhattan island and brooklyn were like when washington was leaving american troops in what turned out to be a retreat from new york city. post: we will talk about washington in a bit, but let's hear from clarence from florida. you are on with our guest michael barone. florida, go ahead, you are first up. caller: good morning. i'm very much enjoying the segment. i wanted to ask a few questions about thomas jefferson because i admire the personal qualities of jefferson, but i'm critical on him on a few issues. a couple things when he was serving as minister france in the 1780's, i thought that

jefferson was naive about the french revolution. he was actually one of the turley architects, and i don't think he recognized that it was different from the american revolution. and of course, by the time to the rate of terror, he is the united states the secretary of state. i thought he was naive about that i also find was naive about shay's rebellion he didn't recognize that we needed a stronger central government. i know he kind of dismissed it, but i don't think he recognized that the articles weren't adequate. i have a couple of criticisms of his presidency. you've course placed the embargo act, which banned trade with all countries in response to britain and france by letting american neutral shipping rights which they trade with all countries, and this devastated the united

states and led us into a depression. and then he changed it in the last days of his presidency which only banned trade with --. why didn't he do that in the beginning? why didn't he do that in 1807? host: a lot of aspects about jefferson, we will just respond. guest: well, i guess i would agree with many of the judgments that the caller is making about thomas jefferson. he is sometimes a kind of maddening figure. and i think we all have a tendency when we read histo o the early republic to see battles between the federalists and republicans, as jefferson called group. we tend to take a side on that. the fact is they were grappling with very difficult matters. the founders also they hated political parties and the whole idea of political parties,

unlike edmund burke in england who had defended that concept, but they quickly gave political parties over substantial issues. hamilton's financial program is very serious and very successful in my view. they were principled objections to it from james madison, thomas jefferson among others. and they were facing what turned out to be a 22 year world war between revolutionary france and mercantile britain. france had been our revolutionary war ally. britain we shared certain cultural ties and also our main commercial ties, and so it was sort of natural americans would dispute about what side they should be on in that war, and jefferson's embargo was not very successful, as the caller says, and one thing i thought, thomas

jefferson's mental map. what was his view of the continent? and a couple very interesting things when i did my reading. number one, thomas jefferson actually didn't travel very much. george washington when he went over the blue ridge and appalachia rydges pittsburgh as a young man with the british army, general braddock's, but even before that as a surveyor was following in map made in 1751 by two surveyor's name joshua fry and peter jefferson. peter jefferson was thomas jefferson's father, the map came out when thomas jefferson w eight years old. his father had range well beyond the blue rge to finth source of the potomac a getting the boundariesf e grant of land that went from the cheseakeay to the source of

what is now west virginia.s of thomas jefferson never went that far we. he was a man who like to contemplate the world in larg part from this study, from the house that he felt, the little house on the top of the mountain, monticello, where he arraed erying and rearranged it, and rearranged. was constantly rebuilding it when he brghhis new wife up to monticello. they only had one room with a roof on it. he was in the process of rebuilding it by further activity. the monticello that bc when we visit today is one of the later iterations of it. by indian artifacts that lewis and clark brought back from their expeditions over the rockies to the pacific, and expedition thomas jefferson set them out on. to go beyond the u.s. territory

of louisiana, all the way to the pacific, so he had his eyes on the west, but he didn't actually spend much time going very far west. he went beyond the blue ridge, which is visible from his vicinity in charlottesville virginia. only rarely in his life. p traveled only once across the ocean to france where he dressed very elaborately in expensive clothes and contemplated the contrast to his predecessor, benjamin franklin, dressed as a woodsman purposefully to present the french with an image of an american who was a primitive country, not a scientist and so forth. but jefferson basically was not a military man. he was not an orator.

he was most at ease in a small company of people that he dominated. so jefferson's view of the world was -- his mental maps definitely went to the west, but they were theoretical. so his notes on virginia, he presents at the beginning of the book a map based on the one drawn by his father, peter jefferson and joshua fry, adapted with later discoveries. he describes much of not only vi, buwestward territory. he is writing inhe 1780's, when the mississippi river is the theoretical western fabric united states, he starts describing the missouri river to the west, and he tells you how many miles it is from santa fe to mexico city, and pretty accurately, as a matter of fact, but missing from that book is almost entirely the atlantic coast. missing from entirely, although

he goes beyond the boundaries of virginia and some of the other states, missing from entirely is new england and the american shipping industry and the commercial industry that was so important to some of the other founding fathers. so jefferson's mental map is one that is looking west, bidding others to go west. but he is staying put in his study where he is bringing the world in toward his viewpoint that is centered on himself. host: dominic in canada, democrat line, go ahead. caller: i've got a big question because you are missing a whole gap of history that depends on you ignoring history. that is my problem right now is that you are ignoring a whole bunch of history and how you

work in this world. and it doesn't jive with me. like, i don't like it. and i see you as an enemy. and somebody that i may be -- host: if you have an issue, then what is the question you would like to address to the guest? caller: this boy, he is old as dirt. host: ok. let's go on to montana, independent line, you are next up. caller: i have a couple questions. one, does your book go into ben franklin's germans, and how did each one of the founders view the constitution? if they were alive today what do you think they would think about social security? you know? you know, those are my questions. you have a good day but i just really hope you get into the ben franklin's germans. guest: will benjamin franklin,

he didn't like the germans. they were heavy on the ground in his home state of pennsylvania most of his life. he took a political part in pennsylvania where the original proprietor of pennsylvania, william penn was a quaker and he recruited pacifists settlers. he sent people to recruiters and down the rhine in german-speaking territories to attract members of the mennonite and other sects that believed in pacifism, who settled in pennsylvania. franklin expressed concern that these people would not be assimilated into the english-speaking colonies. of course, that turned out to be generally speaking not true.

you still of course can see the amish, whose population numbers are increasing in pennsylvania, part of ohio, indiana, who have distinctive lives, but they also artistically american. and among the products of the mennonite and other pacifist immigration to colonial pennsylvania as general and president dwight d. eisenhower, whose mother was a pacifist and a little dismayed that he went to west point. one of the things franklin gave us was a demographic picture of the future of the 13 colonies. he made calculations about the high birth rate in a relatively long lifespan and healthy conditions and high calorie counts of colonial americans,

and he predicted that in 100 years, the american colonies would have more english-speaking inhabitants of the british isles. he turned out to be right. just about on the nose. thomas jefferson made similar demographic predictions, and his efforts were to try to unify the colonies. he spent much of the time between the british wars with french in the 1750's, which the british side was largely successful, and the revolutionary period to try to persuade the british, and he was living in london most of this time, to provide a separate government for the north american colonies, to provide something like what would become the dominion status that canada achieved in the 19th century and australia and new zealand, south

africa later in the 19th, early 20th century. he wasn't successful in that and he returned to philadelphia and was one of the signers of the declaration of independence. but one of the key things about franklin's mental map with that he saw the colonies as a unit. he was selling poor richard's almanac up and down the atlantic seacoast. he was promoting the evangelical preacher going up and down the colonies. and as a commercial proposition, despite the fact that he was not deeply religious, became a friend of the evangelical preacher in what historians have called the first great awakening , and he published his journals and sold them for a price.

but he had a sense of the unity of the colonies, which was not inevitable. remember that they had different origins. they had different religious origins in particular, at a time when british-speaking english speakers were very much used to a history of violent religious warfare for 100, 150 years. and so you would have calvinist new england, anglicans created virginia, the carolinas. you had a quaker proprietor of pennsylvania, a catholic proprietor of maryland, and you had the dutch starting new york and having religious tolerance with all kinds of people. so franklin, like the others, recognized the cultural variety of the colonies. one of the things that struck me while i was writing this book is

that they did not share the view that the colonies were culturally uniformed. many people today say well, america just became culturally diverse just a few years ago. we've got to celebrate our diversity because we were never diverse before. the answer is we were diverse in colonial periods, culturally diverse, and the founding fathers dealt with that, recognize that. washington recognized it that handling new lynn troops was different from handling virginia troops. the founders when they were writing the constitution, the first amendment recognized that you needed religious toleration and religious neutrality on the part of the federal government. not favoring or disfavoring the religious establishments that you had in different states or the disestablishment of religion in virginia, for example.

you had to accommodate the cultural variety of the country and provide a loose federal structure in some respects so that this unity of colonies, which was not inevitable, could take effect and effective. host: georgia, independent line. caller: yes, good morning, and thank you to c-span as we close out this year for allowing the mental voice maps of the constituencies and citizens of our country to come forward. i really love the mental map phrasing, a longtime commentator and writer that i have followed and listen to because he has been a part of the nation voices. i think that the previous question is a wonderful segue to this, because we are now facing cultural -- we live in a multicultural society.

cultural variety, religious neutrality of states. it brings to mind that we are we have full immigration, full cultural variety that we live in. we have full religious differences in terms of different states that now are operating as large structures of the constructs that when people have the mental map, which is cultural, educational, roaches specific, which is social, which is religious. so many people, the previous question intersects with his mental map. i just came out of charleston with the preservation society.

charleston being one of the 13 colonies, settlements, and also visiting williamsburg where you're talking about the mental maps. the structural maps. so i'm very familiar with this and i have been fascinated for years how new york and boston and particularly charleston. also, the international slavery museum with wreckage from slave ship the wreckage from barbados slave ships, the wreckage -- host: i don't mean to interrupt for the sake of time, what would you like to address specifically? caller: now, around the fullness of our founders couldn't imagine

the creation, the diversity of immigration, the diversity of religion, technological innovative advancements and how it is that the previous caller was so, it seems to me, forlorn into seeing a bright future. they are going -- host: ok, thank you very much for the question. did the mental maps change when it comes to matters of diversity, or matters of inclusion of the various parts of the united states? >> i think the mental maps of the founders included the idea that you did have religious and cultural diversity and it was a big contrast with the european traditions that were part of their heritage and provided the examples of what they knew. most of the continent of europe with the exception of the netherlands and a few odd places , you had the religion of the

ruler and that was the religion of the people, and there was one religion in those particular states. britain had a tradition of toleration of more religions. you had a state religion and you had to belong to that state religion if you wanted to be a justice of the peace or a colonel in a regiment or a member of parliament. the founders created a nation where they purposefully put in the constitution we do not have a religious test for office. there was a religious test in england, you had to be a member of the church in england. the founders took another view. you do not have to have a religious test. george washington on his tour of the northern states that he took as president when he went to newport, rhode island went to a jewish congregation, a synagogue , a tour of a synagogue where he gave an address where he said that it is no more that toleration is spoken of, it is

one dominant group tolerating a religious minority, but in fact everybody is equal here. all peaceable citizens are equal in whatever their religion, sit under their figtree in peace. that is an important statement. he also visited ultimately the jewish congregation in charleston, which the caller made reference to. so did the founders expect a massive immigration from eastern and southern europe of the sort we had in 1892-1914, the ellis island years? well, i think they might have had some idea that something was going on. among the other people who came to aid washington's army were lafayette from france, baron von choi the -- a drilled in from germany who is probably gay as a

matter of fact. in polasky, the polish patriots who came even as poland was being divided by the surrounding empire and came to aid the american revolution. and you will see their names on places of colonies and cities and towns throughout much of the united states, north and south. so they had some contemplation that people might -- from backgrounds that were then unusual in the colonies might come over. benjamin franklin as one of the earlier callers noted, had some qualms about german speakers coming over, adding that a different language culture growing up in the country, the thomas jefferson when he approved the purchase of louisiana in 18 of three was a little lynneice by the fact that

you had a lot of french speakers there. louisiana set up a system of law which is based not on the english common law as the other urgent states had laws based on that. but on the code of law that ultimately becomes the code napoleon of europe which most of continental european law is based on. so they had some concerns about diversity and how to accommodate it. but they also set up a framework to accommodate it, and i think that is worth keeping in mind. in my view, one of the arguments for limiting government and to the wary of expanding government powers is that in a diverse nation, you are in danger of, to using metaphor, stepping on some people's toes when you do that. the framework of the

constitution which provides for a vigorous government that is able to provide military protection for its country and for its national and they are abroad as they work commercially as shippers and salesman and sailors and merchants from the colonial periods, if vigorous government, but one which would also leave some parts of life alone. congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. those are the words to the first amendment. james madison seems to have written prohibiting the free exercise thereof is a phrase that he came up with in the course of being against the established religion and being -- getting rid of the established religion in his home

state of virginia, and then those words find their way into our first amendment. no log regarding an establishment of religion. that means there would be no federal religion. it meant that the states could decide whether to have established religion or not. connecticut maintained one until 1818, massachusetts until 1833 where you pay taxes to the government is for a church. madison and jefferson in virginia abolished the established church. they thought it was a form of tyranny, but they recognize that people in other states may take different views and that it would be dangerous in a diverse country to try to force too much uniformity. how much uniformity is dangerous, how much is helpful? they understood that there would be disputes about that. they didn't have a debate about anything quite like social security at that -- in those

days. but there was a recognition that there would be disputes about the limits, so they construct a constitution as madison did more than anyone else to deal with a convention in defending it in defending the federalist papers, in which different branches of government would have an incentive to check other branches of government. there the conflict between federal government and state government. you would try to contain ambition by ambition. and to provide care about our last -- countervailing powers that you would avoid trying to impose too much can with their recognized was a culturally diverse country. host: our geographic imagination guided america's reactionary leaders, joining us as part of this office we can talk about

it. how to george washington the survey or impact america particularly through his mental maps? >> one of the things that fascinated me as i worked on the research for this book is how important certain contingencies were. things that might easily have gone the other way in setting the course for america. the career of george washington's full of examples. george washington was not one of the rich standing fathers. jefferson, his father died when he was 14 was a rich man for the rest of his life. washington with the son of a second marriage so he didn't inherit very much at all. he was a teenager on land owned by lord fairfax who had taken control of this grant from 1649,

all the land between the rivers from chesapeake bay to their sources of in the mountains. nobody knew where the sources were until jefferson's father peter jefferson went and surveyed them. in washington was hired by lord fairbanks to do surveying. he was hired at age 16 and 17 to accompany surveyors to go out into this wilderness and he went out beyond the blue ridge by age 18. buying his first acreage in the shenandoah valley from money that he made doing surveys for fairfax. he is living with his older half-brother lawrence washington, has married into the fairfax family, extended family and is building a house that he is naming after his commanding admiral, admiral edward vernon.

george washington is out as a surveyor. he knows the frontier country and with the house of burgesses says we want to have somebody to go out and follow the command of king george ii and tell the french not to advance their forces from the great lakes to the forks of the ohio or the allegheny and the 90 rivers, where pittsburgh is today, who are we going to send? and they said we will send this young washington, who knows this frontier. we will send him over there. and he is sent over there at age 21, 22, ultimately with general braddock's troops who suffer braddock's defeat near pittsburgh. he brings the troops back on the retreat. but this gives washington the military experience, the frontier experience and the

actual military command experience that few colonists had. the british army had that experience, they didn't want to have colonists in their ranks. washington himself was reject -- projected from the royal navy. so when the second continental congress meeting was 1775 and they are choosing a commander of the continental army that is operating in massachusetts, john adams in massachusetts get out and says i nominate colonel george washington of virginia, in washington, who had appeared in that continental congress as a delegate wearing his military uniform, blue for the militia, excepts his command, insisting that he is not really qualified for it but that he will do his best, and he takes command. so what if lord fairfax had not perfected his land grant in

northern virginia which he litigated for 11 years in london before he comes back and hires george washington? what if george washington had not had that experience in the frontier? what if we had not had in george washington and military leader who as a general resigned his commission, who obeys the commands of the continent the congress, however difficult they may be, who refuses to march on the continental congress when they want to procreate money to pay the troops, who resigned his commission two days before christmas in 1783 and goes back to his farm, who becomes a president of the united states chosen unanimously and then chooses to retire once again to his farm. crafting his resignation, from thinking george the third to say if he does that, if the greatest man in the world.

he had a respect for the rule of law, he had a respect for civil authority, he had a respect for electives and representatives of government, and he knew that he was setting a precedent. other military leaders had taken over governments and impose their own rule. napoleon does that in the decade after george washington's death in france and much of europe. george washington had a different idea and he set a precedent that was of exceeding importance of the united states, and i would argue also the world. what if we had had a man of different character with different beliefs, without the strength of character that george washington had? if those things had not happened. so lord fairfax's hiring a

17-year-old boy as a surveyor which had tremendous consequences for the united states and the world. we are the beneficiaries of that, not because we are such wonderful people, but because washington was such an extraordinary man and circumstances as well as his own character made him one of the leaders of this country. host: we will hear from jason in san diego, democrats line. caller: jason here, merry christmas and happy new year to everybody. i remember when i was in school as a young guy, we studied geography and restudied the map on the sphere sitting in the middle of the room, and it was only of the united states. the one thing in particular that caught me was there was a deep, bold text.

it went about one third of the united states from east to west. it was called the mason-dixon line. and whenever i hear summer lee say something about deep states, the only name that comes to mind to me is those states that are below the mason-dixon line. but who is mason-dixon, and why was this line inscribed on our maps? guest: mason and dixon were surveyors in the colonial period and they were hired, as i recall, by the colonial authorities in the colonies of pennsylvania and maryland to establish a boundary between pennsylvania and maryland. remember, the colonists were very eager to fight and control land, but they also wanted to set up court houses very carefully so they knew whose property was whose and whose

property was into. it still appears on the map, the mason-dixon line is still there. it becomes important in many ways because of the slavery issue. one of the things that was pounded into my head as i was reading about the founding fathers was that they had, and their own personal lives and in their public careers experienced a change in attitude toward slavery. franklin, washington, jefferson at the beginning of their careers took slavery for granted, owned slaves, regarded this as something that was an ordinary part of life. there is no antislavery movement except among some of the quakers who actually owned slaves. but the revolution starts to change that.

and as the historian gordon what has written i think very persuasively, they changed it. british author samuel johnson said why do we hear the cries of liberty from the drivers of negros, from the people who are slaveholders? that made an impact on the founders. they were talking about liberty and they started thinking well, maybe this applies to slaves as well. and they started thinking that slavery was basically wrong. franklin becomes a supporter of the abolition of slavery. george washington takes great trouble in the last years of his life to take advantage of virginia laws that allowed you to free or slaves, and he writes out personally in long hand in his own writing these legal documents, making sure they are legally sound to free his slaves and provide sustenance for the rest of their lives.

the state of pennsylvania legislature in the 1780's, the legislatures of connecticut and rhode island, the courts of massachusetts and new hampshire provide for the abolition of slavery, its gradual abolition. not the way we would write it today. but it is nonetheless a movement in the direction of getting rid of slavery. and that applies ultimately to new york, follows suit under governor john jay in 1799. new jersey kind of a laggard on these things. as a result of this, the movement to abolish slavery does not go farther. in practical terms, in delaware it turns out, 94% of the african-descended residents who stayed in delaware are not slaves anymore. half of the african-descendant

residents of maryland are not slaves by 1860, but that mason-dixon line with the line between pennsylvania and maryland, between a statement abolished the gradual abolition of slavery and a state that did not have legal abolition of slavery. and so it was a boundary and a sense between north and south, between free territory and slave territory, and it is used as a shorthand for that boundary. when you get west of pennsylvania, the ohio river becomes the boundary between slaves and free territory in the pre-civil war period. but it is an interesting instance of power. i should add that the founding father alexander hamilton, who grew up on the island of six roy in the west indies as a young man, tragic upbringing, father deserves the family, mother dies. his guardian commits suicide.

he is working at age 17 for merchants and a shipping merchant in the sugar colony, the merchants go away. hamilton is running the whole shot himself, commanding sea captains to do things. his vision, his mental map of the world is the map of merchant ships crossing the ocean different ways. he's much less interested in the ameran west and more interested in eouraging commerce, shipping, finance and what he considers to be the enrichment of the territory. most people at the time of the founding didn't have the sustained economic growth. he was also always an opponent of slavery, having grown up in a colony where 90% of the people were slaves. he didn't like slavery. he was always against it.

so you had a movement against slavery. so i think that this is an important correction to what some people have presented in american history, a view that american history is all about imposing slavery, that you didn't have any substantial opposition to slavery for a very long time. i think that it is a more complicated proposition than that, and that the american revolution in the context not just of the united states, but really of the world and of the european-dominated world, the world of the european colonies represented a movement in the direction of getting rid of slavery. it's not entirely successful, tragically, but it was what we consider today to have been the right direction.

host: independent line, go ahead. caller: thank you so much for this opportunity. i thought about the multiple mentions of religion and also the reference to the declaration and finally now slavery pops up. i would like to ask you about the entirety of u.s. -- which is on the first page of our personal book in the courthouse library, and that mentions two laws. and according to jefferson and sir william blackstone that instructed jefferson and their founders, there are two laws. and of those, no human laws should be separate to contradict these. and i think because we are violating those two laws, pure contradicting those two laws, we are becoming slaves.

do you know the actual names of the two laws? guest: no, you go ahead and answer the question, sir. caller: it is referred to as creation and the laws of nature's guide, which is the revealed law of the bible. and the reason is the first sentence in the entirety of u.s. law, is it is the other foundation of our law and of those, most human laws should be suffered to contradict creation or the bible. guest: well, it's interesting. that blackstone would publish this commentary on english law i believe in 1765, and it was a document which of the american founders knew very well, in particular the founders who were trained as lawyers, as jefferson

was, as hamilton was. and many others. this was important. the heritage of the english common law continued to be important, and i think one of the things that we see in the constitution just as you saw in the conduct of george washington was a sense that it was important to accept the rule of law and limited government. washington as a general was urged to march on the continental congress and forced into appropriate money to pay the troops as they have promised to do. they have broken their promises. his general said you have a moral right to do that. washington said basically no. we can't do that. that is not our role. we have to accept the command of

the civilian elected authority. and the rule of law is again made reference to in the constitution and in the various amendments to the constitution, some of which concerns specific issues that have been raised in english law. you cannot be forced to incriminate yourself to be a witness against yourself. you have a right to a jury trial. you have a right to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. a right to grand jury indictment. this comes out of a case in 1683 in england. and something that the founders knew very well. they were revolutionaries, but they sought to have a revolution that also observed a rule of law

, that can be depended on. that people would honor even to their own disadvantage. and even when the circumstances seemed really compelling to do something different. and they set an example, which i believe we are lucky that they did set. that we ought to be striving to live up to. and perhaps sometimes fail to do so. host: in writing the book and all the history and research that you've done for it, how has your own mental map changed? guest: my own mental map has changed in part because seeing that is important to have people that have different mental maps. think about hamilton and jefferson. jefferson as a pointed out earlier in the program was always looking west. from out of his beautiful little house on the mountaintop,

monticello, he was looking to the west. hamilton takes a different view. hamilton at one point in his description says if you look at the colonies under left hand, you have new england on the right hand, you have the carolinas in the south. if your left-handers in new england and your right hand is in carolinas, you are looking out over the atlantic ocean. so when it came to financial policy, when it came to foreign policy, hamilton is interested in fostering commerce. international commerce and commerce between states. having a rule of law that does that, setting up in military and a navy in particular to protect american commercial interests abroad when americans are shipping abroad. he is favoring britain, our great commercial partner this

period and so forth. jefferson is looking to the west and who imposes an embargo on congress, absolutely stops foreign commerce for a year and a half, or tries to. wasn't always effective. he's looking west and he sees a different thing. he's against having a bank of the united states. he doesn't understand why you would need a finance system to finance interstate and foreign commerce, as hamilton argues that you do. so there are different ways to see things, and depending on your mental math, you are liable to favor different policies and to have interests which are difficult to reconcile. one of the things you get out of the founding periods of the early republic is that jefferson opposes the bank of the united states and madison opposes it, but madison faced with possibility of war in 1812

thanks we ought to keep the national bank, which they don't keep for a while, but then they reinstitute after the war of 1812. jefferson doesn't initially see much need for a navy. we don't need it, but he sends out the navy against the pirates , and is threatening to use it if the french don't sell us new orleans in1803. -- in 1803. those policies can become reconciled by events, if you will, for by leadersthe virtue's policies while after the time when hamilton left office and what he was killed in a duel. they continued to oppose hamilton. they adopted a lot of his policies. not all but more than they would have originally expected. host: there is more in the book

"mental maps of the founders: how geographic imagination guided america's revolutionary leaders." michael barone, the author, senior clinical analyst for the washington examiner. happy new year to you. guest: thank you very much for having me announcer: this week watch "washington journal" how the the series featuring live segments with a new writer. on thursday morning, a reverend and christopher benson discussed their book a few days of trouble. watch "washington journal" live thursday morning starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern with our special holiday offers series on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. announcer: a healthy democracy does not just look like this.