>> well, whoever the nominee by definition will be a beneficiary of the tea party movement. i'm just -- i mean, this doesn't happen very often on the republican side. on the democratic side, any political consultant you buy a couple drinks wang is added and say his party is impossible to deal with and all the different activist groups, you know, all the members of the democratic coalition focused on their own agenda. it's not a hierarchal party. the republican party is. the republican party tends to nominate people who have been around a while, who have lost before. the democratic side if you lose

an election. your exiled to eastern massachusetts state technical nursing college. you're not even allowed a hardball after you lose the democratic side. [laughter] on the republican side come in the second you lose, barry goldwater gets fewer than 100 electoral votes with the movement. it's like that is proof that you are genuine on the republican side. busier, there's just not an obvious -- it's not obvious to get there. i think mitt romney will have a tough time fundamentally of obamacare. he would be the natural in any other year. so totally wide open. i mean, i personally think the governor new jersey, is the name i hear most. i was on the train to new york the day before yesterday and sat next to one of his advisers who is feeling very candidly and said there's no way he's running. but i don't believe that. as of today, there's no way he's

running. i bet chris christie, but what do i know. if i had to bet money, and i typically do that money -- [laughter] >> kate zernike, what names do you hear bandied about? >> i hear chris christie, mitch daniels. i don't actually hear sir paley. tea party supporters are no more likely to think she is qualified to be president and other americans. which is not very many. so you're mitch daniels. i hear chris christie. i don't hear romney. i hear that if i hope huckabee doesn't run. he's a disaster it is fiscally irresponsible. i guess tim polanski is another one. >> this member of the audience states and asks -- and this will be a general question for anyone on the panel. debate is a rich tradition. how will passion and brimstone translate into thoughtful policies? i came to d.c. in the 60's and

there is less thoughtful due process in today's politics than ever before. how do words and trashing translate into bipartisan collaboration? debate is healthy, but angry words don't do it. respond. >> come on. i'm not just saying this because i host a crossword. >> i'm sorry, >> very, very quickly. >> i want to know who paid for that. >> i did not. no, certainly in the last 100 years of moment where there's little debate would make remarkably poor decisions. right? i mean, the moments when we debate is finally in over long periods of time that we're more likely to wind up with a wise result, which i think was one -- i will refer to the harvard professor, which is by definition right. americans by the way have never been comfortable with debate. it always makes people

uncomfortable. it's like watching her parents argue. you and from along h. and that doesn't change when you reach adulthood. people don't like to be. look at the primetime cable lineup now. there are no more shows for you have equally matched posts with opposing points of view. you haven't set the model for the last 10 years has been one his point of view and everyone else's point of view. i don't think americans like to be. i think it's necessary for good government. >> no, no, ladies first. >> thank you. i guess i want to remark on "newsweek" in 1970's for its july 4th issue to us accessories what they fear. big marker of the distance between 1970's would be consulted on such a venue. to be a harvard professor is a badge of dishonor lately. one of the most powerful things about those six historians were all serious scholars who are very thoughtful in their answers and i think were troubled.

everyone is a couple months after the shooting and it can stay. deep, powerful strategy. and soberly considered what ails the american spirit and a range of views and historians who represent different political positions i suppose. but one of the most moving to me with the answer that richard hostetter gave, colombian historian won the pulitzer prize, he died four months after he said this. he said the problem with american politics at this moment is given the secular nature of american life, young people in particular are bringing basically a religious feel into politics and looking for existential meaning in political debate. the meaning of why are we here? why are we here on earth? what is good about what is evil? what happens when we die? these do not belong in politics. he believed they were brought in by people on the left who are secular if andrew brought this

kind of fervor into american politics. the problem with that and he says this is going to lead to a reaction and it's going to -- request of a political culture that sees this and becomes unyielding, wherein if what we are debating on the floor of congress are existential matters, how can we actually -- you can yield in such a consideration? >> i think one of the things that i have most distressed is in the administration of the law, there's a thing called due process. and the creation of the law there's a thing called parliamentary process. and i am just appalled at how we -- i mean, our families went through our constitution, the rules of vows, institutional structures that we have inherited that are such acts of genius that we circumvent the principles by which you make good legislation carryout project if debate in the

process. sometimes it laborious. it's oftentimes boring to hold the hearings and walk-through. and we end up with a lot of work but never gets done because they just don't have the will and the discipline to carry through that legislative process. did they miss their budget year, missed the appropriations bills. now they're facing the possible missing of the reauthorization, even of our defense. and yet on a legislative panic as they saw something in the headline or read something in "the wall street journal" editorial page that morning, they can do a $700 billion bill overnight without debating or thinking about or holding a hearing on it. so this completely chaotic lack of discipline in the legislative process that spends billions and billions of dollars of our money is something i think is extremely distrustful, even to the casual observer.

>> so following on your critique of how government works or does not work in its current form, and the fact that these problems seem to be perennial, such complaints about the united states government have gone as long as there's been any united states government. should the tea party gain greater political clout in terms of electoral resorts? should there be republican turnover into the house and senate after 2010 to republican house republican senate. let's say there's a republican president in 2013. because of how government works and the fact there's going to be a democratic party that has different points of view, it is this a movement that is destined to be disappointed? after all, it was disappointed with the class of 94 that helped the democrats seats in 2006 in 2008. >> every political movement disappointed at the end. it's not the answer to life's problems actually.

sorry, it's something i admire in a lot of ways. every movement in the end is disappointing and a disappointment to its core members because people overinvest in every movement. they think that the politics is going to solve the basic quantities of life and it never will, ever. >> i'm counting on this movement been somewhat different in its long-term impact on the country. we did a republican takeover in 94. it was an inside job that was really the product of a handful of 10 or fewer legislative entrepreneurs ended staying party wasn't very long before four years and a democrat senator being the bitter disappointment and by and large gave birth to this movement. this movement i think is accepting. there's two things about it. one, almost without exception, these folks are holding themselves accountable before the member of congress. say our government has fallen

into a non-disappointed meth because we haven't been doing our job as citizens. and so, when they do that, and they give themselves the moral authority to say all right, i will do what i can to create a new congress with new personnel, new leadership in a new sense of discipline and what dublin called spirit of workmanship. again, i think these folks are saying look, if these guys don't go to washington can attempt there to defend jobs as mature adults, will probably remind them in the next election cycle that they're not going to be rehired because they're not doing their job. and i think this may be the first movement that congeals and remains is a disciplining influence over the behavior of officeholders, a fantastic thing. >> jill lepore, have we heard this before? >> that this movement -- this

particular speech before? >> in terms of a political movement that hopes to make a permanent revision of the system? >> now, and i think i would be healthy for democracy. i mean, we live in a society in which we are undergoing great change. one of the things that obviously is a touchstone for many people in the movement and everything about sarah palin's line, we will keep our constitution, guns and religion and you can keep the change. i think a lot of the rhetoric of the movement, at least from her point of view -- i didn't weigh in on who my top three, i have no idea. bobby franklin wondering whether hamilton citizenship is a problem. we still haven't talked about che is a rebellion. but i guess the people i spoke to in boston were uniformly opposed to palin, had very anti-palin views, matched only by their yields to test station of mitt romney.

which is quite interesting as the person who sent my whole life in massachusetts. so i guess a lot of the rhetoric of the movement has actually been an aversion to change and let's go back to what the founders says. he can turn back the clock and we need to return, that it actually in some ways, the rhetoric and i would certainly suggest that for most people within the movement the feeling is different, but the rhetoric is very backward. we cannot go backwards. >> this next question: from the long term towards more of the near-term and i think actually mr. armey you've answered this question already, but still the free teacher and another panels as well. this member asked i welcome the panels predictions of the impact of the midterm elections on the tea party. if democrats lose seats is expected to mold the tea party movements the energizer mollified?

will success breed more success or more infighting? >> now come i think the tea party would rejoice. i don't think anyone will be disappointed if they knock out democrats. and i don't think they're going to stop. i think that's going to motivate them even more. what's been interesting to me about the movement as we saw in the special election in upstate new york last year in new york's 23rd district of tea party campaign very heavily for doug kaufman. he lost in the only thing it did was energize it more and make them more determined to win the next time. the next time a scott brown and they went out there in massachusetts in january, it's cold and they were determined to end and nobody thought they would win the election in a day. i think if we see them analyze the selection and they're just going to be more energized. the opposite question is what happens if they don't do this? what happens if grandpa loses. republicans are likely to say we went with the conservatives, they can't win. we have to move the party back to the middle. i think that question. >> first of all, tea party

activists do not have candidates randy paul is the republican nominee. what they want to do is improve the quality of service from the person who is privileged to hold the office. and i think they party does not. they think they do not principally, made their most visible impact on the senate right now. where they largely to their average, to study some others have lost their test to be renominated by their party. the tea party did not fail to nominate either one of these. the republican party failed to nominate them. they ran as members of the republican party. they put their case before the republican party. people who share the values of the tea party movements were active in the republican party, presented themselves and made the determination of that outcome. and so, folks active in this movement is very hard to grasp is that they know they're there. there's nobody in charge. there is no institution

structural framework. there is a hodgepodge of entrepreneurial efforts. but as you travel the country, the grassroots small government grassroots activist that you know is the tea party are already make in their senate republican primary plans for next year. and there's a couple of states that i could mention because i've been there recently and i've heard about the activists in their state. i could identify a couple senators who want to be looking over their shoulder because somebody is gaining on them. cannot plan is is set for next election cycle. i won't identify them because i don't want to tip them off. [laughter] >> i think olympia snowe you might want to get the chance. >> really, feel free, speak out. this is an open forum. were happy to make news. >> i hear from citizen voters in their state with the set of

principles will intent to influence the outcome of the republican party primary. >> following on that question from the audience, what is the concern within our political culture/political hierarchy about the emergence of a third political party with tea party backing? >> i think people in the tea party will fight talk to think are parties to work. it takes to learn to organize. we have a two-party structure that is so ingrained, >> translator: hover you what went to you describe it for so long. they look at the example of ross perot in the unit itself -- i think they're a patient to a certain degree. they think they can have the most end up with a republican party which is ideologically closest to them. the most of all they just don't think a third party can work. >> and their wife. third parties are like bees. this thing once and die. and inject one of the main parties usually a single idea and they do it pretty effectively. that's kind of the cores are typically follows i think that's a good name. multiparty systems are by definition less moderate.

people are frustrated with the two parties because they don't represent individuals in politics precisely. nobody is represented by either party and let the good thing. in the multiparty system, they have the effect of empowering moderate parties of people with intensely held views. imagine the pressure group in washington you hate most, whether it's the nra or wherever you're coming from. multiparty system that would be the focal party they would hold all the power. so i think it's my view, why have people recognize this kind of membrane, clumsy, not a representative of a system we have is the key to motivation and wise and peaceful happy situation where politics don't matter that much? >> question for the general panel. our freeze at slightly different for you, mr. armey. mr. armey, what is your biggest

worry for the tea party movement? >> i have no worry whatsoever because one thing this movement shows us -- i look back in my adult lifetime i've seen this movement rise and make an impact on the outcome of elections on six different occasions. i could enumerate them for you. there've been certainly those before we talk about shays rebellion, w-whiskey rebellion, the original tea party. what we knew as the sons and daughters of liberty are always with us. there were people in america will always be that person who says i take it upon myself to be the guardian of the blessings of liberty for myself and my prosperity and to require a government that serves that purpose. those people will always be among us in the establishment is always going to see her every some found. >> and for the other panels, by the way up and up front we have front we have 10 more minutes on this.

so if you're a member of the advance and have any final questions, please bring them up shortly. four other three panelists, what would be the biggest of the tea party movement may face as it seeks political influence? >> i think the big question is that these candidates who are backed by tea parties court and shared tea party ideology when, can they get into office and actually enact what they've been talking about, which are things like reducing deficits, reducing the debt. you can't do that as we talked about before without reducing military spending. those are unpopular things. no one has been able to do that. ronald reagan came and attacked by doing it and didn't do it. that's the biggest question for the tea party is not so much can they win elections, but what happens when they do? what happens once they're in office? >> the biggest temptation for the tea party or any movement is become aligned -- directly aligned with one of the major

parties. in this case the republican party, to become co-opted by washington republicans as happened to a lot of conservative groups in washington, which are nominally nonpartisan, but are in fact auxiliaries of the republican party. certainly on the left to almost see it as universal. and there's something by definition is correcting. it is corrupting. and i hope that doesn't happen to someone who values by their conversation about ideas. i think that's what the tea party at the multisyllabic they come a further republican party. >> i guess my worry would be -- this is a worry question, not the pitfall question. given that the movement is partly mercia frustration with vertical impacts and the way in which so many issues are bogged up when i discussed by politicians. but my concern would be with the tea party could make things

worse by bring in a kind ideological intensity to debates that ask us to consider certain elements of our political culture is incontrovertible and beyond debate and to be revered and not to be questioned and interrogated, so if we are asked to have a kind of almost fundamentalist view of the founding documents, with that kind of reference to religious fundamentalists have i think is quite damaging to yielding political culture. >> looking back. it's 2010 now. looking back with the vision that will be 2020, what will be the story people will tell 10 years from now about the tea party? will they be talking and present or past tense? till with us.ing you know, those you remember them?

haviland saved america in 2010. [applause] [laughter] >> iop but we'll be talking about me in the present tense tenure for now. so my hopes are fairly narrow in their scope. you know, i have miscalled -- i remember i actually wrote the story about clinton in 1998, gone by friday. president gore by friday, so i'm not good at guessing the future. but i do think it's an important moment. two smart people at this table have just written books about it. i've seen a lot of small and passing fads blown up into something bigger than they should've been, the wacko with the koran for instance will not be remembered a year from now. the tea party very much more significant movement than most.

>> i think a lot depends on what happens in the midterms, but i think we will see this as a rebellion we in the republican party. that's true, but what is really changing its the republican party. we talked about this a little bit, where they had their impact is in the primaries so far. is fair to say they have not had the impact in the democratic party as much as a republican. [inaudible] [laughter] >> well, historians speak of prophecy, so i have to defer. i will say is this question will change. we will all be proven wrong. >> well, certainly an interesting topic and we had an interesting discussion. i like to give our panelists a round of applause [applause] >> would also -- would also like to -- somebody may have noticed the director of the eric reid

national library, which is our professional development gave me these various cups. and if we can pass them down. these are the national press club commemorative mugs, which is the highest valued item we will give someone as an organization of journalists. each of you are entitled to one. i think mr. armey has had one before. he spoke earlier this year, so now you and your wife, whoever she may react to that day. [laughter] -- can make peace over a good cup of joe. so thank you very much -- >> my wife says they're great for target this. hold it like this, dear. [laughter] >> thank you for your time. it will be booksignings after an insurer or speakers will be willing to stay around and continue. thank you for coming to the national press club. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> dick armey is a former house majority leader and congressman from texas. he was co-author of the contract with america. mr. armey is currently the chairman of freedom works. kate zernike is a national correspondent for "the new york times" was reported on education, national elections and congress. kate zernike is the author of the name of four, the recipient of the bancroft prize in new york burning which was a finalist for the pulitzer prize. she's a staff writer for "the new yorker" in american history professor at harvard university. tucker carlson is editor-in-chief of the website, daily collar and a former political analyst for cnn. the national press club hosted the event. for more information, visit press.org.

>> history, biography and public affairs. you're watching booktv on c-span 2. next on booktv, former secretary of state, condoleezza rice sat down at the tv to talk about growing up in birmingham, alabama in the 60's.

>> condoleezza rice, who are the extraordinary ordinary people you write in her memoir? >> i read about my parents, john and angelina rice and their parents and our community in birmingham, alabama. but it's really the story of my parents are ordinary people. my father was a high school presbytery administrator, later administrator. my mother was a schoolteacher. and so, i doubt they ever made

$60,000 between them. but they were extraordinary and the circumstances in which they lived. jim crow, birmingham, alabama. and also in the way they responded to those circumstances with perseverance and toughness and having their little girl know that she could just get education, she could do just about everything. >> host: what was the background? >> guest: my mom came from a family -- her father was a coal mining engineer and build houses on the weekend. he was a real entrepreneur. there's a picture in the book of his truck, albert reagan sons. and so, he went around just kind of fixing everything. and my grandmother was a homemaker, deeply religious devout woman, who played the piano and taught piano lessons for 25 cents a lesson. and it's thanks to her that i actually learned to play the piano because i stayed at her

house during the day while my parents worked and she taught me pml. on the other side -- and they were by the way my mother's parents, landowning, proudly landowning and built their own house with their own hands. on the other side, my grandparents were john and teresa rice. john wesley reisinger was a particularly interesting man. he married may have creole grandmother when she was 16 and took her off on a mission of evangelism all over louisiana and alabama and mississippi. so they were born to this dignity and pride that their parents have exhibited. >> you were born in november 1954, grew up in segregated birmingham alabama. what was life like in the late 60's,? >> birmingham is the most segregated in america.

you can kind of parallel societies. we didn't really know why people. i say in the book that we just called him the white man. it was a kind of depersonalize down. and i lived in a very nice, black middle-class community called tennis bill, suburb of birmingham. almost everybody in my community to school. there was one lawyer, one doctor. everybody else taught school. you are faithful to the church. that's where you had to be every sunday. you are faithful to family. and the parents of that community were determined that their kids to be well-educated as a kind of armor against segregation because you couldn't go to a restaurant. he couldn't go to an amusement park. you couldn't go to a theater. and even though we couldn't have a hamburger, my parents had me being president of the united states i wanted to be. >> host: september 15, 1963, what happened? >> guest: birmingham, before

1963, was segregated and the civil rights movement was percolating. but in 1963, birmingham became known as bombings and because bombs are going off in neighborhoods all the time. one went off in our neighborhood a few doors down. and then on september 15, 1963 at the 16th street baptist church, homegrown terrorist that a bomb in the bathroom in the basement and four little girls were killed better, just on their way to sunday school. and i can remember so well that day that it happened because my father was of course the minister. and so, we had gone up to the church. my mother was a choirmaster. and so, we come up to the church to get ready for the service and all the sudden there was this loud side. and we knew a bomb had gone off.

you just do that in birmingham in those states. we thought maybe in our community. and within a little while, mrs. lawrence brise, she was my father's cousin by marriage. she came in said 16th street church had been bombed. a few little while later, we need the names of the little girls who had been killed and jimmy smits near, who was one of those little girls would've been a kindergarten friend, there's a picture in the book of my father giving her her graduation diplomacy for kindergarten. so it was a very sad and in many ways terrifying day for a community. >> what were some of the daily reminders before 1964, 1965, growing up there with a segregated town and you are african-american? >> guest: couldn't go any place as a public accommodation, including we move to denver when i was 12 years old.

but there were sometimes little spikes. for instance, we went to visit santa claus. you know how it is. i'll go to visit santa claus. you go to the department store, stand in line and then he told santa claus what you want. and as i was approaching the line, that particular day was taken away kids and putting him on this and taken the black kids and holding them out here. and i heard him say to my mother, angelina, if he does that to condoleezza, i'm going to pull all that stuff off of him and show him just a cracker he is. and your little girl is going for with trepidation. is daddy going to go off? is santa claus going to go off? and so here we have this racial involving santa claus. it was also a constant reminder in everything from what was on television. the only black people on television were amos and andy with their butchered english. and it was a constant reminder

because my parents who never failed to tell me the stories of segregation and related those stories, like the one when my father and mother went to get registered to vote. and my mother was very fair skinned and very pretty and she was told by the pool tester, because an dixiecrat, alabama the report testers for blacks. he looked at her and said so, your schoolteacher? and she said yes. and you probably know the first president of the united states was. she said yes, george washington. fine, go vote -- or to register. and that my father, dark skinned man with a lot of intimidating girth. i said to my father, how many beans are in that jar? and there's hundreds of beans. my father had no idea if he felt very bad and went back to his church and looked at frank hunger, said to the old man in

the church, don't worry referent, and i.d. register to vote. there's a clerk down there and she's a republican shall register anybody who will say they're republican because in those days in birmingham, democrats ruled. so my father down. he said he was a republican. he registered to vote anyways to the end of his life a committed republican. but that just demonstrated how hard it was in birmingham, alabama for a pixel density in our country, for blacks to exercise their very simple way to go. >> host: traveling while black. >> host: traveling while black. well, you got any car, really, really early in the morning, hoping to get out of the deep south if you are going as you were, hoping to get out of the deep south before it got too dark because he didn't want to be on the back roads of mississippi or georgia in the dark. and he packed that morning the picnic lunches my mom called it,

chicken and pork chops and potato chips, things i wouldn't spoil because you had to make it another way to washington d.c. before you could stop at a restaurant. of course you didn't see in a hotel, so you slept overnight in the car. and most problematic was the bathrooms, which were segregated four-color and for white the colored bathroom was always pretty filthy. as i say in the book, if you had to go, you just went in nature because it was really a trial. and later on of course you could stay in those new place is called holiday in the were really special. but traveling in the south before 1964 if you're a black family was pretty tough. >> host: your first experience before signing a civil rights legislation in 1964? >> guest: i always watch the evening news and my favorite was huntley brinkley report. they were great. we watched every single night the huntley brinkley report.

as a matter fact, they were in education and politics and history of the way through my life and child. and that particular night in july 1964, they reported the civil rights have been -- civil rights act of signed by president johnson. and then the local anchor came on after that the so-called civil rights had just passed. so my parents and i couple days later decided we were going to go out and test the new civil rights act. so what we restaurant in a hotel nearby. and the people looked up. we walked in and it was like something out of the movie. they looked up and stopped eating. >> host: you were the only black family? gusto were the only black family. but the person seated sma kind of went back to reading and i always thought at that moment, people who know that the laws changed -- people used to say is an important change legal structure even if people don't believe in that normatively, it

is important to change the legal structure. because for those people, four days before we couldn't go into that restaurant. on that day because they had to learn to accept it. nonetheless, a few days after that, we went through a drive-in hamburger stand of jack's hamburgers. and it was my time. as we drove away a bit into my hamburger and i said to my parents, something tastes funny. my father turned on the light ended with onions just onions. >> host: how do you think growing up in that way affected your worldview later? >> guest: most probably it affected my worldview because my parents were such fierce defenders of the proposition that you might not be able to control your circumstances that you could control how you responded to them. and in my community, you never ever thought of yourself as a bit. no matter how the circumstances you could find a way out.

so anything that tends to ignore or to undervalue the individual and the individual's responsibility is to do something about their own lives tended to be on the wrong side for me. my parents also believed in the bedrock power of education, transforming power of education. and so, i've been a very dedicated to leave for an education reform and i'm very worried about the fact that i can look at their zip code today and tell whether or not you're going to get a good education. and something is wrong and our country when that's the case. because in my community, immigrants communities around the country -- poor communities around the country. the american belief has always been it doesn't matter where you came from. it matters where you're going. you can do great things. in the key to that has always

been education. and so, it's probably led me to value education as a core principle, maybe the core principle of our democracy. >> host: how to set thoughts affect you in palo, alto california today? >> guest: when i joined george h.w. bush to palo alto, my father would move to palo alto after my mother had died and therefore living for three or four years, i learned that he had befriended the superintendent of the ravenswood school district, which is a poor school district, 99% minority school district, literally across the railroad tracks at stanford university. and she asked if i would speak at a graduation. it's a middle-school graduation because they had no high school. they said to her, i said this is an awfully elaborate graduation for middle-school.

and she said that's because 70% of these kids, this is the last graduation. they're never going to finish high school. and i thought my goodness, that's really awful. and then i felt somewhat embarrassed i'd been at stanford all of those years and it really never been involved in these issues. if palo alto was a place he just avoided because it was a place of drive-by shootings and a so i went back and some friends and i form something called the center for generation. a woman named susan ford and i for a mess. we put together a group of donors and he became an educational enrichment program for kids, not a remedial program. not from the talented 10th. we wanted any kid -- he wanted to select kids who had a c. or so average in that teachers would recommend them, to give them the kind of opportunities i had in birmingham, 12 instrument of music lessons and have hands-on math science and excite

them about being educated in a way that was different than what they were doing in the classroom. there's now five of them and they still exist to this day. in a programs of the boys and girls club in their heavily hispanic redwing city and the bay area now as well as in east palo alto. and i'm now working with the boys and girls club's nationally to see if we can do more extended learning activities for kids because the boys and girls club's are wonderful places for kids to be safe. increasingly, they want to be and should be places for kids to be safe and learning. >> host: how did your childhood affect your view on the second amendment? >> guest: i shot that made me a fierce defender of the second amendment because my father in the neighborhood men formed a watch, what probably the founders called a well regulated militia in order to protect the community from knight riders who would come through.

i've always felt that if eugene o'connor, who is the police commissioner, the notorious public safety commissioner he was called, had he had a registration on all those guns, i'm quite sure they would've been rounded up. if not the people, at least the guns. and i've always believed in the rights of americans to defend themselves. that doesn't mean i'm an absolutist and think you have to have assault weapons in the cities. but i've never quite understood why the first amendment is important, but the second ascent. the founding fathers put together right state.or important to regulating the relationship between citizens and their government. and the second amendment is a part of that. >> host: how did stokely carmichael become a family friend? >> guest: my father, who was a quite conservative demand that

republicans come a presbyterian minister. love this country beyond everything. but he loves to stir the pot and he loved the ideas. and so he invited the firebrand student nonviolent coordinating had stokely carmichael to speak there. it was initially called a scandal in tuscaloosa because the police are worried there'd be some kind of riot and they spoke about it at stillman college. my father moved on to become assistant dean to the university of denver, he started a course called the black experience in america, which had a decidedly radical edge. and he invited stokely carmichael to speak each year. gregory spoke there, lewis spoke better, as well as the civil rights commissions, father ted hesburgh, but my father was attracted to the whole range of black politics. i never thought of panthers were terrorists or nation of islam was somehow traitorous.

i was taught to take these as all serious alternatives in a sense. and i think it became because my father navigated quite well was quite conservative himself was a little bit attracted to those who confronted racism in an aggressive way, rather than in the kind of sublimation and the subservience of what he saw in the civil rights movement that meant violence with nonviolence. he told my mother at the time, that dr. king was marching. mfb be clear, my father i lysergic the king. he told my mother, i'm not going up there because if somebody tries to hit me with the billy club, meaning the police, i'm going to fight back and try to kill them. and then my daughter's going to grow up an orphan.

and i think that view of politics may be explained a little bit of his attraction to some of the black radicals at the time. >> host: condoleezza rice, you say you were taught the black panthers were necessarily terrorists, et cetera. how did that affect your worldview as secretary of state in the bush administration? >> guest: as you get older, you recognize impact this was -- people were engaging in terrorism within their own borders and i now recognize that. but i think what i learned from this whole experience in birmingham and the fact that this could've happened when i was a child of nine or 10 years old anja several decades later and secretary of state is that exchange and history has a long art sometimes and you can't tell in the moment how history is going to evolve. and it's maybe much more patient with these young democracies out there, but are struggling to find their way. yes, it's really hard sometimes to watch the iraqis struggling to form a government.

you think just do it, just from the government. but then you realize they're trying to overcome in some cases centuries of animosity between the shia and sunni and kurds and they're trying to do it with a new democratic institution. so you see the afghans and you see the afghan zanussi the levels of corruption and nec the back-and-forth about women's rights. and you get frustrated with them and want to say get on with it. but then i say to myself, now in 1963, my father and my mother could not be guaranteed the right to vote in their hometown of birmingham, alabama. how dare we be impatient with people that are struggling tunic democracy work? >> host: what about negotiating with the taliban in afghanistan? >> guest: well, the taliban is of course made up of lots of

soldiers and a lot of hard-core terrorists who are never going to be brought into the tent. i don't know the details of how they are setting up the negotiations and how karzai wants to do. i know him and i know he has to heal the risks of afghan society at some point for the violence to stop. but the one thing i hope it's not on the table is to go backwards on the rights of individuals, in particular the rights of women. the afghan constitution guarantees women's rights, puts women in the parliament. it is the piece of paper in the set of institutions that would guarantee afghanistan would never go back to a place where as they were under the taliban and, women would be beaten in soccer stadiums or girls would be refused the opportunity to go to school. and i know that is a very conservative society -- traditional society. and i know that people say well, those rights in the constitution

are not actually being granted to women. they're struggling for those rights. but it matters that the constitution says what it says. in our own struggle in the united states, rosa parks or martin luther king or frederick douglas never had to appeal to the united states to be something different. they only had to appeal the united states to be what it said it was. those rights that are enshrined in constitutions matter because eventually they gain a kind of normative legitimacy, too. and so, whatever happens, i hope that the constitution of afghanistan, which protects the rights of the citizens is off the table any changes in that. >> host: condoleezza rice come i want to go back to something you said. he talked about sure father been able at navigating the white

world. was that important? >> guest: of course. had he not navigated the white world, he would've been successful. i wouldn't have been successful. i wouldn't be doing what i'm doing. and frankly, america wouldn't move forward. i think about my parents did, both of them, and their parents before them, we are the generation -- those generations incredible gratitude for what they achieved because they found a way in circumstances that should have been crushing two triumph over the circumstances to the back device, to pass on education and opportunities to their kids so that i'm not even -- i'm not even a first phd in my family. my father sister was a phd in victorian literature. and in my community, is not only me, but friedman grabowski who is the president of universal at baltimore. sheryl mccarthy who was an

award-winning journalist. these were the people that that little town produced. and it wouldn't have happened had my parents and others that don't how both to navigate the white world and to make within this little segregated world a safe, to the degree that they could, a safe and nurturing cocoon that challenged their kids to be the best, but gave them every opportunity to do so. >> host: what is that like today? >> guest: titusville has changed in some respects as the middle class is largely moved out. there's a few people still there. my friend, vanessa hunter, her mother still lives there and some of the folks are still in the community. but it's taken the brunt of economic recession. they are boarded up businesses all over titusville now.

it's not as it was at the time, the center of the black community because increasingly the black community has moved out to the suburbs. and, my mother sister, my aunt g now lives in a community in birmingham called gravestone of a golf course, where we couldn't even think to go when i was a child. so birmingham is changing. and maybe one little story that sums it up for me as i went to a party might thank it for me in birmingham and i looked around and all the guests were black because they were my friends from school and the caterers are way. i said to her, how did that happen? she said a little girl my classroom, her mother at a catering service and i thought i'd give a chance. i thought how absolutely normal, but creepy out of line for the birmingham that i knew in the and 62. >> host: do we talk about race too much in this country? too little, et cetera? >> guest: i think we talk

about it too badly. we need to turn on the volume about it. we have to talk about it. this country was born with a birth defect of slavery, deep wounds of segregation. and still, not for people like me, but for poor people who are black, the worst possible circumstances, the view of races property. so we have to talk about it. but we need to talk in a way that is not accusatory and doesn't vote easily to the fact that explanation but that person must be a racist. i've heard it too much thrown around as an epithet for all kinds of people. it's really to my mind the worst thing you can say about somebody and you better be sure it's their motivation, not something else. i've also come in and out, president bush be called a racist because of katrina. at that to myself, how dare the

people of the president of the united states not react because they're black people and how dare somebody say that and not be challenged on it? so we have to talk about it. but we have to talk about its more modern incarnation, which isn't that people can't go into restaurants. it isn't even that black people who are well-to-do can't find a way to send their kids to the best schools and have them end up in places like stanford. it is, nonetheless that in an economy that is this challenged and in a place where, as i said i cannot get your your zip code and no whether you or not you can get a good education, that dare we are failing the kids who need us most. >> host: how close did you come to be in california senator in the 1990's? >> guest: i don't know. apparently pretty close. i am a great fan and friend of pete wilson to this day. and i think he made the decision

based on at the time the experience of john seymour and his ability to get out there and raise money and there's a lot because it's a big state. in my life turned out just fine. >> host: you were interviewed for it. >> guest: i was. i was by governor wilson when he became governor had to appoint to his feet. the fact of the matter is that i cannot would've never been secretary of state and i'm also glad i got to be secretary of state. >> host: condoleezza rice, we write when you're talking about the people, fire in the belly. did you have to? do you have a? >> guest: i didn't have it and i still don't have it. >> host: could you have it? >> guest: winner asked so many times and obviously the time is it right, time is right. pretty soon you have to say the time isn't going to be right. i see myself as somebody who will be dedicated to public

service. i see myself as somebody who will always advocate on behalf of principles and values on the core of this great country because i love this great country, but i don't see myself in a row. i really don't. >> host: was the picture on the cover of your book taken? your father does not terribly happy. >> guest: i don't know why. it was taken on the launch of the fifth house at the university of denver. and it is after a ceremony in which i had received the award for outstanding senior at the university -- a.k.a. misty you, what was not politically correct to say that. we change it to the outstanding senior women. my father looks very happy. i suspect my father was tired. it was graduation making us associate vice chancellor. he was probably working pretty hard. >> host: who are the polish people? >> guest: well, when i was sent to george h.w. bush administration and i drafted the president's speech or done the

president's speech for his trip to hamtramck, michigan, to celebrate the coming of freedom -- first trip on air force one. i'm so excited. i called my father and said i'm going on air force one. we got to the speech and president george h.w. got up and started his speech. he said i want to say to the polished people and brent scowcroft said to me, did you forget to capitalize the p.? i thought my goodness, in fact had not forgotten to a. c. p., but of course it's always a staffer's poll. it was my fault that he said that. >> host: what is your current relationship with the family? >> guest: they are all of them to your friends. the most wonderful family. unlike my own family which is pretty small, they're big loving family. the president george h.w. and mrs. barbara have just dropped my life sent me the lovely note at the right time. for instance, when my father died, they were so kind. and i know all of the bush

family and how the deepest respect for them. a nice consider them family. >> host: the book ends in 2001. >> guest: ironically, the story about my parents and the beginning of my story here in washington as national security advisor and secretary of state come together because my father died on december 24, 2000. i then left for washington a few days into january. but i say in the book in a while i had always wondered what it would be like to be without my parents -- my mother died in 1985, i suddenly realized that yes, i missed seeing my parents better when president bush was sworn in. i missed seeing them there when i would arrive in a plane behind me said the united states of america. but when you have a relationship with your parents like i did, as

close, unconditional love, it sustains itself even over the chasm of death. and i've been fortunate to feel their presence as much of their absence. >> host: you are quite the three some. you are president of the family. .. when i was born.

medallic, 31. the was pretty old in those days. they put everything into me. one of the moments when i realized that i had not realized their sacrifice is when i talked to one of my father's mentors, at july and told me the story and i called him because this is true. dr. blackburn, who had my father's boss of the university of denver when my dad moved to denver said john, you and angelina should buy a house and my dad said we can't buy a house, we can't afford it. so i realized they sacrificed one was enough. >> host: why are you a cleveland browns fan? >> guest: i am a cleveland browns fan because when i was born i was supposed to be able 83i was going to be named john and be an all-american linebacker. my dad was a football coach and of course i became a girl and was a girl and we watched football every sunday and we couldn't be watching the redskins fans because they wouldn't integrate.

jim brown, paul brown, they were our team, and after i had been through a couple other teams, the bengals so forth, and back to my cleveland browns, just like my father would have wanted me to be. >> host: this book ends in 2000. is there another book? >> guest: i will pick up the story 2001 and coming to washington to become national security adviser and then i hope to write a book that is as candid as any participant can be because i want it to be a wondering of the history. >> host: have you started it? >> guest: i have. i have actually started that book before i started this one. i had wanted to find my voice on this book and sort of see what would be like and i started writing and wanted to finish this book and ivies cited that it was an important pre-lewd because i'm always asked how did you become who you are?

and i always say you had to know john and angelina rice so in this but you get to know john and angelina and then i will read your book. >> host: when will we see the other? >> guest: i hope about a year from now. >> host: will we be surprised by anything? >> guest: we will see. i think there will be supplies is because as you go back and reflect and learn things and at what you did and didn't do and what you wish you had done differently come and i will try to be as candid as possible. >> guest: thank you. it's a pleasure being with you. thank you.

former presidents james madison and thomas jefferson are examined in andrew burnstein and nancy isenberg's new book, "madison and jefferson." thomas jefferson's monticello in charlottesville, virginia, hosts this event. >> good afternoon. my name is andrew. i'm the director of the robert h. center for international studies here at monitcello. it is my pleasure to welcome andrew burnstein and nancy isenberg for the launch of their joint book, "madison and jefferson," published by random house. they are both professors of history at the state university. andrew has written beyond the and early 19th centuries and has done to books on jefferson, jefferson's secrets which is published in 2005, and in eight

jefferson published in 1995. nancy most recently did a biography of aaron burr and published on the origins of the women's rights movement in america in a book called sex and citizenship and antebellum america. andrew and nancy are all the time friends of the thomas jefferson foundation. they're both former fellows and residents and. there are many members in this audience and i'm delighted to welcome them back. so please join me in a welcoming andrew and nancy. [applause] within days of taking office of

the fourth president of the united states james madison received a letter from rebecca, a well educated philadelphians, one of the gentlefolk of the city. she petitioned him to begin his administration with an act of generosity by pardoning aaron burr, then living in exile in europe. although trained in every assyrian nicely, she did her clauson new service when she unloaded on a particular friend of madison's. i despise your predecessor to much to become his petitioner. to big favor and furs and purity and heaven forbid i should place negative light in the thomas jefferson, a thing whose principals and religious moral and political are like weekend wicked. a shifting shoveling visionary, an old woman in her dotage this, a rich without nerve, pardon me, sir, my pen is a strange trip and the often caution it will

tell all of the secrets of my heart. madison and jefferson sparred with each other and did so generally with a brutal honesty, but theirs was a remarkable enduring partnership, something rebecca didn't get. but on the other hand, with her letter shows is that many citizens perceive to madison as someone independent of jefferson, not dependent on him. she would not have approached the new president with so blunt opinion unless she thought she had a decent chance of getting through to him. this vignette expose some of the central themes which is easy enough to identify if you look at the cover of the book and that the title and see who gets top billing. in every historical treatment that describes their partnership, jefferson has received most of the attention positive and negative. madison sent to us as an emotional initial actor. it is a false portrait.

true, jefferson was and remains thoroughly fascinating, but a and shortcuts taken by the national storytellers, madison has been greatly diminished in stature. maybe that sounds like a play on words because madison was 5-foot 4 inches and rather scrawny. but as a matter of fact his physical stature, has long been part of the general prejudice against him. during his presidency satirists called him a little jimmy and called jefferson called tommy, reducing the masters in rank by giving them slave names. we see madison and jefferson as equal in every sense. our book shows unmistakably that madison was a leading a partisan, not azo with a forceful at. he took on hamilton before jefferson did. in the 17 nineties he was the first and foremost leader of this emerging democratic republican party. while jefferson stay back and did his politics over dinner and through private correspondence,

madison road strong zearing pcs in the partisan press. does that make jefferson secretive and a mixing sort of way or dexter in a politically astute way? well, both. it is how their world worked. but madison and jefferson came to believe that political progress is best are arranged in secret. madison was no boy scout and he was no wallflower to read the cerebral madison of historical memory is a caricature and oversimplification. that is what we are changing today. our book is an epic political drama and a dual biography. the founders circle contained many outspoken individuals who never encountered before, but whom all the headliners of the revolutionary era paid attention to. virginians such as edmund pendleton, edmund randolph, the pennsylvania albert after hometowns and beebee is running,

william jones and merchant captain and opium traders who became secretary of the navy under madison. they all mattered. they carry influence. we speak to that part of the founding which the popular imagination has ignored. we open with the line madison and jefferson were country gentleman who practiced hard ball politics in a time of intolerance. as much as theirs was an age of enlightened propositions, it was a time of ruthlessness, backstabbing and anonymous of worship. if the founders can be set to have been genius' it's because the study the history of government and recognized american government would always be torn by clashing of opinion. the republic had to be constructed to withstand the unavoidable often nasty clashes. what the founders did not anticipate was the strict political party organizations would form. they did not even see the need for the president and vice president to campaign as a ticket. whoever received second most

votes became vice president in the supreme rancorous 79 these the pathological decade as we refer to it because the violence of the mind with this opinion makers constantly protested what they call the spirit of party. destructive factionalism. politicians whose surprise of the persistence of the parties. admitted that they had no reliable remedy for it. one reason for the miss ratings of the founding generation is that the countless stories of triumphed draw upon an inheritance fashion by the participants in cells and the generation born just after the revolution. both wish to be quick to prosperity of the positive message of moral and intellectual transcendence. but really thinks american politics was never a philosophical parlor game played by superior gentleman fashionable leagues? the founders were motivated by local as much as national interests and feared as much as

hope. that localism is another key theme in the book. rhetoric aside they were not considering whether the glass is half full or half-empty but it would leak and pretty soon seek the union. the 17 nineties put america on the course to the union long before three years before the civil war. >> generations of ms. makers have glossed over one of the central reality is about the founders. like their peers and new york and massachusetts, pennsylvania, james madison and thomas jefferson were virginians first. and americans second. if we are to understand the revolution and its aftermath, knowing the virginians is critical to wade into the 1780's virginia claimed the land west of the mississippi on the basis of the 1609 jamestown charter.

virginia's best legal wind subscriber to the misinterpretation and this included madison and jefferson. the leadership of revolutionary virginia belonged to the lampson tickets barring deeply and investing widely in the land they had never seen. it's not insignificant that after writing the declaration of independence jefferson was anxious to return home and take the lead in writing his state's constitution. virginia was his priority. virginians fought big. the plan had expensive plans. half of the land was owned by less than one-tenth of the white population and nearly 40% of the people were enslaved. virginia tobacco represented some 40% of what the 13 colonies exported to great britain. but tobacco and destroyed the soil so the ambitious gentry looked westward for more land. these people or madison and jefferson's prime constituency.

the fathers of madison and jefferson both invested in the loyal land company which claimed nearly a million acres mostly in kentucky. virginians had to have kentucky. the continental congress finally recognized the claim in the critical year of 1776. at the constitutional convention, madison aggressively led his delegation in defending virginia's writes pt into the so-called virginia plan to make virginia the preeminent stayed in the union. he told a supporter of george washington the smaller states should be made, in his words, support nightly useful. madison disliked small de democracy in williamsburg and richmond, he had encountered state legislators to whom he considered an enlightened. he watched as they were easily swayed by the seductive oratory of patrick henry. mabus identified with henry in

1775, yet henry came to subvert every last perform, every last policy he in the jefferson championed madison feared demagoguery, and he identified henry with demagoguery. this is where madison and jefferson fundamentally different. jefferson always salles tyranny at the top of the political hierarchy until he was elected president. for madison, tierney had more than one source. it could manifest itself if too much power was launched in the state's court in the executive branch. pow work could shift. it was only in the 79 these madison and jefferson identified the same source of tierney. that is when hamilton steps between them and president washington and the bid to consolidate national power in one place. madison and jefferson deferred in meaningful ways on the meaning of slavery.

both advocated the decolonization of freed slaves on the west coast of africa. but they're underlining thinking was remarkably dissimilar. jefferson, the amateur anthropologist and scientist saul the inevitability of a bloody race of the races were not permanently separated. his belief is in spite of having witnessed first hand the productive lives of african-americans in philadelphia. he could not turn away from a series of blood lines and degradation this of the species through breeding practices. on a trip with jefferson to new york state in the 1791, madison observed the talent of a black farmer who hired white laborers. he was impressed with the man's understanding of the agrarian economy. the quality jefferson's idealized farmer was meant to possess. as his mount to your home in virginia madison entertained

freed slaves and christopher mcpherson. he was treated as a social the coolest in madison's table. jefferson referred to the same individual by his sleeve name. mr. ross's mant kit, telling differences in the two french attitudes toward race. madison served as president of the american colonization society near the end of his life because he knew that his virginia appears did not share an enlightened perspective on race. he refused to make way, again, he and jefferson were the virginias first. modern americans are told so little about madison that they don't even know that the man most associated with the federal constitution never practiced all week. jefferson did. he wrote the circuit and he became an expert on divorce. this is important because the declaration of independence was drafted in the language of a

divorce petition and divorce decree. instead of describing the king as the father of his colonies, he demoted george iii, confining him to the role of an abusive husband and the patient colony of his supporting spouse. we know jefferson borough from the series of the social contract. as john locke argued, the first society was marriage. the same rationale appears in jefferson's 1772 notes on divorce in a divorce case reappear in the declaration. in the earlier instance, turning jefferson also cited the argument of philosopher david hume justifying divorce, and i quote, cruel to continue by violence, a union made at first by a mutual love, but now dissolved by hatred. jefferson's declaration cites the king's violence which

produced hatred, describing the mercenaries as home wreckers, sent by him to harass and defile america. he finds a just cause for divorce in the abandonment of a liberty of affection, which underlines every individual's a natural right to happiness. this new perspective finally suggests a reason for jefferson having a justice of life, liberty and property to read, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. he states powerfully with regard to the british we must forget our former love for them. >> there is love and there is political rancor. students of history no the cabinet level showdowns between jeffersonian and hamilton views. the virginians wanted an on intrusive federal government. the new yorkers sought to consolidate power with an executive he personally

controlled. but for a full decade before washington's presidency, madison and jefferson faced a different political enemy, whom nancy briefly eluted to. the most popular virginia and virginia was patrick henry, give me liberty or give me death, that patrick henry. the colorful, theatrical henry was the first governor of their seat, and in a very real way, madison and jefferson, who met for the first time in the fall of 7076, found common purposes in their shared distrust of governor henry. madison was demonstrative, but he didn't use the mail to undo his opponent as jefferson also sought to do. once he had correspondence and 1782 shows just how jefferson operated. again, let's wrap our mind about the notion that virginia claimed all of the land west of the mississippi including the modern kentucky, indiana, illinois and missouri. that's where the virginia revolutionary frontier fighter

george roberts clark was lead in the revolution. trying always to stay one step ahead of patrick henry, jefferson gave clark the guide to who his friends were back home, and who was surreptitiously undermining him. resorting to infective without sounding petulant, jefferson displayed a gentleman's delicacy not mentioning the name when he damned a certain someone as all tongue without either head or heart, one of the great put downs of the 18th-century. jefferson went on to surprise at henry's cost i'll turn and withdrawal of support for clark. in the meat of the letter speaking again he answer to the calls as far as his personal courage to show hostility to any man. this is an early example of what jefferson did well for his career. he could write off a political rival with one twist of the epistolary knife. the way to secure an ally used in pure and another man's

courage, manliness, honesty. but what goes around comes around, and jefferson would find himself attacked as cowardly many times over the years. having his governor fled british troops descended monticello in 1780. what kind of idiot, u.s., would have stayed around to take on an armed party and that is what jefferson pointed out as leader of tractors. we know the answer. it is crazed mel gibson and the patriot. [laughter] the letter to george rogers clark is meaningful as a template. this is how politics at the madison in jeffersonian kind would be constructive in the coming years. identifying friends and enemies, then molding opinions, building alliances, and forging plants in included letters and conclaves that finally presenting those will ford plans to the large collaborative bodies. in general it would be jefferson who issued the controlling

statements gooding darrell issa, one of the incisive madison free st the strategy -- reshaped the strategy in jefferson's words to trim the excess. as madison when the congress from the inside. there was jefferson was adjusted in one confidential letter that they pray devoutly for patrick henry's death, madison was no less henry's enemy and jefferson. and no less forward in expressing distaste for his rifle. in 79, henry preventive medicine from becoming a u.s. senator. madison was the antihenry and his style of address as a legislator his was the art of persuasion rather than of to cultivation. he took notes, fought through arguments in advance and spoke to influence. he usually succeeded. in the early years of there is a season, madison and jefferson combined on the virginia statute of religious freedom past 1785 over the objection of governor henry. which explains jefferson's play on words praying devoutly for

henry's death. jefferson had sailed to france in 1784 to serve as the u.s. minister. when madison was able to seize on an opportunity. he offered at one of the most vivid and striking positions of his career. memorial against which roused his colleagues to take immediate action. it was so strongly worded that madison didn't admit authorship for over 40 years. in that unheralded but historically critical paper for shuttering the constitutional separation of church and state, madison declared the christian religion, quote, disavows a dependence on the powers of this world. what had religious establishment brought to the civilization and the past centuries, madison press? superstition, bigotry and persecution. this was the language of the american enlightenment. the virginia declaration of rights of 1776.

the virginia statute for religious freedom, 1785, with its ringing phrase almighty god has created the mind free, stood as models for the first amendment, serving only to confirm va's sense of their superior rank as the voice of republican progress within the union of the state's. when the 79 these the hamiltonian is criticized hamilton and jefferson they referred to the virginia party. in 1808 and again 18th of a prominent new yorkers were tired of the virginias stranglehold on the presidency and they sought to elect george clinton of new york, jefferson's second term vice president in 1808 and his nephew in 1812, taking on madison twice, first as jefferson's chosen successor and then as an incumbent. one representative campaign pamphlet read va salles with indignation the rising greatness and preeminent rank new york would assume among the states

and in all of the blackness of malevolence and enzi immediately applauded new york dismemberment and establish that of the two distinct states. this plan is now in the hands of james madison, the scheme as diabolical and practice at the heart of man could conceive. that's the new york democratic republican purported allies venting their fear of the virginia tierney, and you can imagine what the opposition federalist for saying in the riding. in the mid 79 these come federalists dubbed congressman and the madison jefferson camp as the andrew to mads or the mad democrats. >> it is misleading to call medicine the father of the constitution. now this may be conventional, this may be contentious, but to hear me out. even in his own note taking, his own rendering of the philadelphia convention of 1787,

he does not come across as a sector or the hero of the convention. if anyone deserves paternity it might as well be roger sherman of connecticut who is a matter of address was described as laughable and grotesque but effectively stood in the wake of the virginia domination. madison's virginia plan, hammered out in private over many months, was mostly rejected. his most sought after provision was shot down. he wanted the u.s. senate to be granted an absolute negative in all cases whatsoever. madison's words, overstate the national legislation. he would have had the senate as an intellectual elite. more or less supplant the supreme court and lecturing to the states as to what legislation makes sense and what does not. madison had no patience for the mediocrity. but he and alexander hamilton had in common was that neither particularly cared for the

constitution at the time of this past. they're co-authors of the federalist papers represented the means of salvaging union, without which the states would continue to argue among themselves. madison believed, even after the constitution was adopted, and he wrote this in a long letter to jefferson, that the u.s. still remained, for him, a loose confederation of states. what he called a feudal system of republics, and in short, he believed this might lead to a alliances between individual states and even regional coalitions. the other thing we have to remember is the federalist papers, which we often think of as some of the most important writings were not particularly important at the time they were written. no one cited the federalist papers as any of the ratifying conventions. and when we think of the important federalist number ten,

this founding document really only achieved renown century. as a leading voice of the first united states congress in 1789, 1790, madison wrote president washington's inaugural address and congress's offical response to it. yes, you heard me correctly. and you might call it the madison administration. [laughter] she set up the legislative agenda, and he assumed a central role in proposing the bill of rights. despite his belief that they were on necessary. our point here is that the founders were not profits. they spoke with many voices, discordant voices. jefferson had reservations about the constitution, notably because it lacked a bill of rights.