jefferson studies here at monticello. it's my pleasure to welcome andrew burstein and nancy isenberg for the launch of their joint book, "madison and jefferson," published by random house. they are both of history at louisiana state university. andrew has written widely on the 19th century, done two books on jefferson, "jefferson's secrets" which is published in 2005, and nancy most recent data biography of aaron burr. she earlier published on the origins the women's rights movement in america, in a book called "sex and citizenship in antebellum america." andrew and nancy are old time

friends of the thomas jefferson foundation. they are both a former fellows and residents. they are known to many members of this audience and i'm delighted to welcome them back. so please join me in 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 philadelphia and, one of the gentle folk of that city. she petitioned him to begin his administered with an act of generosity by pardoning aaron burr who was then living in exile in europe. although trained in every

nicety, she did her cause no service when she unloaded on a particular friend of medicines. i despise your predecessor too much to condescend to become his petitioner here today to favor in inferiority and heaven forbid, i should ever place myself in the light of an inferred to thomas jefferson, i think this principles religious moral and political our likely wicked. that's shifting, shuffling visionary, an old woman in her dotage, our wretched, pardon me, sir, my pen does strange trick and although i often caution able to all the secrets of my heart. madison and jefferson sparred with each other and did so generally with brutal honesty. but there is was remarkable and enduring partnership. something rebecca didn't get. but on the other hand, what her letter shows is that many

citizens perceived madison as someone independent of jefferson, not dependent on him. she would not have approached the new president was so blunt and opinion unless she thought she had a decent chance of getting through to him. this vignette exposes one of our central themes, which is easy enough to identify if you look at the cover of the book, and look at the type and see who gets top billing. in every historical treatment that describes their partnersh partnership, jefferson has received most of the attention, positive and negative. madison distance to us as an emotionally neutral actor. it's a false portrait. true, jefferson was and remains thoroughly fascinating. but only two shortcuts taken by our national storytellers, madison has been greatly diminished in stature. maybe that sounds like a play on words because madison 5'4" 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 staters call him little jimmy, and called jefferson tall tommy. reducing masters in rank by giving them slave names. we see madison and jefferson as equals in every sense. our book shows unmistakably that madison was a leading partisan, not a zealot but a forceful advocate. he took on hamilton before jefferson did, and in the 17 '90s he was the first and foremost leader of the emerging democratic republican party. while jefferson state back into his politicking over dinner and through private correspondence, madison wrote a strong string pieces in the partisan press. does that make jefferson secretive and, or dexterous in a politically astute way? both. it's how the world worked. both madison and jefferson came to believe that political progress was best arranged in

secret. madison was no boy scout and he was no, that does see brutal madison is a character and oversimplification. that's what we're changing today. our book is an epic political drama and the dual biography. the founders circle contain many outspoken individuals for modern americans have never encountered before, but whom all the headliners of the revolutionary era paid keen attention to. virginia such as edmund pendleton, edmund randolph, the pennsylvania albert gallatin after them towns and babies were named, william jones, emergency cap and an opium trader who became secretary of the navy. they all matter. they all carried influence. we speak to fact which the popular imagination has ignored. we open with the line madison and jefferson were country gentleman who practice hardball

politics in the time of intolerance. as much as as much as theirs was an age of enlightened propositions, it was a time of ruthlessness, back stanley. if the founders could have been said to be geniuses it's because they stay the history of government and to recognize that american government would always be torn by clashes of opinion. the republic had to be constructed to withstand is unavoidable often nasty clashes. what the founders did not anticipate was that strict political party organizations would form. they didn't even see the need for the president and vice president to campaign as a ticket. whoever received the second most votes became vice president. in supremely rancorous 17 '90s, the pathological decade as we refer to it because of the violence minded witness, opinion makers constantly protested what they called the spirit of party, constructive fashion. politicians who sent -- admitted they had no reliable remedy for

it. one reason for misreadings of founding generation is that the countless stories of triumph draw upon an inheritance fashion by the participants themselves and the generation born during and just after the revolution. both wish to decrease of posterity of moral and intellectual transcendence. but to rethink american politics was ever a philosophical parlor game made by superior gentlemen in fashionable wigs? the founders were motivated by local as much as national interest, and fear as much as hope. that localism is another key theme in our book. rhetoric aside, they were considering whether the glass is half-full or half-empty, but whether the vessel itself would lead him pretty soon sink their union. the 1790s put america on the course today's unions long before three score years before the civil war.

>> generations of ms. makers have glossed over one of the central realities about the founders. like their peers in new york, and massachusetts, pennsylvania, james madison and thomas jefferson were virginians first, and americans second. if we were to understand the revolution and its aftermath, knowing the virginians is critical. into the 1780s virginia claimed all the land west of the mississippi on the basis of the 1609 jamestown charter. virginia's best legal minds subscribe to this interpretation, it does include madison and jefferson. the leadership of revolutionary virginia belong to land syndicates are arming deeply and investing wisely in 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 not big. the planter elite have expensive plants. half of the land of the state was owned by less than one-tenth of the white population, and nearly 40% of the people were enslaved. virginia tobacco represents some 40% of what the 13 colonies exported to great britain. but tobacco destroyed the soil, so the ambitious gentry looked westward for more land. these people were madison and jefferson's prime constituency. the fathers of madison and jefferson both invested in the loyalty and company which claimed nearly a million acres, mostly in kentucky. virginians had to have kentucky. the continent congress finally recognize their claim in the critical year of 1776. at the constitutional convention, madison aggressively

led his delegation in defending virginia's rights. he aims to the so-called virginia plan to make virginia the preeminent state in the union. he told a supportive of george washington the smaller states should be made in his words subordinate lee useful. madison disliked small the democracy. in williamsburg, at richmond, he encountered state legislators will be considered a new life. he watched as they would easily swayed by the seductive oratory of patrick henry. now, madison identified with panic in 1775. yet henry came to subvert every last reform, every last policy, that he and jefferson championed. madison feared demagoguery. and he identified henry with demagoguery. this is where madison and jefferson fundamentally differed. jefferson always saw tierney 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 lodged in the states or launch an executive branch. power kuchar pixel in the 1790s that madison and jefferson identified the same source of tierney. that was when hamilton stood between them and present washington and they to consolidate national power in one place. madison and jefferson differed in meaningful ways on the subject of slavery. both advocated recolonization of free slaves on the west coast of africa. but their underlying thinking was remarkably dissimilar. jefferson the amateur anthropologist and scientist saw the inevitability of a bloody race war if the races were not permanently separated. he believe this in spite of

having witnessed firsthand the productive lives of african-americans in philadelphia. he could not turn away from a serious bloodlines and degradation of the species breeding practices. on a trip with jefferson through new york state in 1791, madison observed the talents of a black farmer who hired white laborers. he was impressed with the man's understanding of the agrarian economy. the very quality that jefferson's idealized yeoman farmer was meant to possess. at his montpelier home in central virginia, madison entertained pre-slave named christopher mcpherson. he was treated as a social equal at the madison stable. jefferson referred to the same individual by his slave name, mr. ross' man kid. telling differences in the two friends attitudes towards race. madison served as president of

the american colonization society new the end of his life the cassini that his virginia peers did not share any life perspective on race. he refused to make wave, again, he and jefferson were virginians first. modern americans are told you about madison that they don't even know him that the man most associated with the federal constitution never practiced law. 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 a divorce decree. instead describing the team as father of his colonies, he demoted george the third, consign to the role of abusive husband and a patient colony as his suffering spouse. we know jefferson park from the series of the social contract,

as john locke argued the first society was marriage. the same rationale that appears in jefferson's 1772 notes on divorce, on a divorce case, reappear in the declaration. in the earlier instance, attorney jefferson also cited the argument of philosopher david you justify divorce, and i quote, cruel to continue by violence a union made at first by mutual love but now dissolved by hatred. jefferson's declaration cites the kings violence which produced hatred, describing the mercenaries as homewrecker is sent by him to harass and to file america. he finds a just cause for divorce inf the liberty of action which underlies every individual's natural right to happiness. this new perspective finally

suggests a reason for jefferson having adjusted locks 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 know that cabinet level showdowns between jeffersonian and hamiltonian, the virginian wanted unobtrusive federal government and new yorkers not to have power which he can personally control. but for a full decade before washington's presidency, madison and jefferson faced a different political enemy, nancy briefly allude to. the most popular virginian in virginia was patrick henry, give me liberty or give me death, that patrick henry. the colorful, theatrical henry was the first governor of their

state. and in very real way madison and jefferson who met for the first time in the fall of 1776 found common purposes in their shared distrust of governor henry. madison was demonstrative, but he did not use the mails to undo his opponents as jefferson often sought to do. one piece of correspondence in 1782 shows us just how jefferson operated. again, let's wrap her mind around the notion that virginia claimed all the land west of the mississippi including modern kentucky indiana, illinois, and missouri. that's where the virginian and revolutionary frontier fighter george rogers clark rained late in the revolution. trying always to stay one step at a patrick henry, jepson gave clark a guide to who his friends were back on and he was certificate undermining him. resorting to invective without sounding petulant, jefferson displayed a gentleman's delicacy in not mentioning the name when he damned a certain someone has

all the time without either head or heart. one of the great pretense of the 18th century. jefferson went on to face a price at henry's hostel turned and withdrawal of support for clark. in the meat of the letter speaking again and he inserted a clause as far as he has personal courage to show hostility to any man, this is an example of what jefferson did so well throughout his career. he could write off a political rival with one deft twist of the peninsular and i. the way to secure an allied with into another man's courage. manages, honesty. but what goes around comes around and jefferson would find itself attacked us cowardly many times over the years. having his governor troops they ascended monticello in 1780 what kind of idiot you ask would've stayed around to see nightly take on an armed guard at the

british goons? that what jefferson asked his detractors. we know the answer, crazy know gibson in the patriot. [laughter] >> the letter to clark is meaningful. this was how politics of the madison, jeffersonian kind would be constructed in the coming years. identifying friends and enemies, then molding opinions building alliances, and forging plans in an coded letters or in small conclaves and finally presenting those well formed plans to large deliberative bodies. in general it would be jefferson who issued th a controlling statement goading their allies while the incisive madison reshaped the strategy. when necessary, taking a chisel to jefferson award to trim the excess. it was madison who knew congress from the inside. though it was jefferson who suggested in one confidential letter that they prayed devoutly, patrick henry's death. madison was no less henry's

enemy and jefferson and nola stored in expressing distaste for his rival. in 1789 henry prevented madison from becoming a u.s. senator. madison was the anti-henry. in his style of address as a legislator, his was the order persuasion rather than the art of captivation. he took copious notes, thought through arguments in advance and spoke to influence. he usually succeeded. in the early years of the association madison and jefferson combined on the virginia statute of religious freedom passed in 1785 over the objection of governor henry. which explains jeffersons play on words, praying devoutly for henry's death. jefferson had failed -- sale to france in 1784 to serve as the u.s. minister. when madison was able to seize on an opportunity. he authored one the most vivid in striking position pieces of his long career, memorial against religious assessments which roused his colleagues to

take immediate action. it was so strongly worded madison did not admit authorship for over 40 years. in that unheralded but historically critical paper foreshadowing the constitutional separation of church and state, madison declared the christian religion quote is the house a dependence on the powers of this world. what had religious establishment brought civilization in past centuries, madison pressed. 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 praise almighty god has created mine freak. stood as models for the first amendment survey only to confirm virginia's sense of their superior rank as a voice of republican progress within the union of the states.

went in 1790s hamiltonian criticize madison and jefferson, they often refer to the virginia party. in 1808 and again in 1812, prominent new yorkers were tired of virginia stranglehold on the presidency and he saw 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 virginia saw with indignation the rising greatness in preeminent rank new york would assume among the states, and in all the blackness of malevolence and indie india they plotted new york's dismemberment and establishment of two distinct states in her stead. this plan is now in the hands of james madison, asking us biological and practical as man could concede. that's the new york democratic republican purported allies,

thinking their fears of virginia journey. you can imagine what the opposition federalists were saying. in the mid-1790s federalists dubbed congressman and the madison jettisoned him as the mad democrats. partisanship was the order of the day, so was hyperbole. >> it is misleading to call madison the father of the constitution, as may be conventional, maybe contentious, but hear me out. even his own notetaking, his own rendering of the philadelphia convention in 1787, he does not come across as its victor or hero, at the convention. if anyone deserves to turn bm-25 will be roger sherman of tiny connecticut, whose manner of address was described as laughable and grotesque but who effectively stood in the way of virginia, nation. madison the virginia plan

hammered out in private over many months was mostly rejected. is most sought after provision will shut 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, had this in as an intellectual elite. more or less supplant the supreme court in lecturing to states as to what legislation made sense and what did not. madison had no patience for mediocrity. what he and alec sent hamilton had in common was that neither particularly care for the constitution at the time it was passed. bear authorship of the federalist papers represent a means of salvaging union. without which the states would continue to argue amongst themselves. madison believed even after the constitution was adopted he wrote this in a long letter to jefferson, that the u.s. to

remain, for him, a loose confederation of states get what he called a feudal system of republics. and in short time, he believed this might lead to a alliances between individual states and even regional coalition. the other thing we have to remember is that the federalist papers which we often think of as someone most important writings were not particularly important at the time they were written. know what side the federalist papers at any of the ratifying conventions. and really think it important federalist number 10, this founding document with the only achieved renown in the 20th century. as a leading voice of the first united states congress in 1789, 1790, madison wrote president washington's inaugural address, and congress' official response to it. yes, you heard me currently.

you might call it the madison administration. he set the legislative agenda and he assumed a central in proposing the bill of rights, despite his believe they were unnecessary. 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. he actually sought to undermine madison's work at writing letters from france proposing that the constitution be turned down by both virginia and maryland ratifying conventions. he wanted a majority ratified the constitution, but he also wanted a few others to hold out until a bill of rights was added. there is no straight line for the revolution to democratic government, even jefferson and madison by this time already

close confidence worked across purposes. jefferson came home in 1790, and with no small effort on madison's part, became the first secretary of state. step-by-step congress when madison became jeffersons handler and chief political consultant. when jefferson, tired of the infighting in washington's cabinet, and went into a three-year midcareer retirement at monticello, he urged madison to stand for president against john adams in 1796. madison did some arm twisting and obliged jefferson to reenter politics. yet done this once before in 1782 when he convinces jefferson to end the diplomatic corps and joined franklin and adams in europe. without madison's earlier intercession, jefferson at that point, a disgruntled ex-governor and a recent widower would have been, been holed up in his private library and remained a

virginia provincial. madison was as ambitious as he was a man of principle. by 1791, he found his friend, president washington, turning away from his view of ballots government, checks and balances. and instead turning towards hamilton's deal of cultivating, this is madison's critique, of cultivating money men and making them a privileged class with special access to the executive. madison was no longer satisfied just to be the leader of a growing congressional opposition. he understood the power of the press. there was at this point only the pro-administration vehicle, and he recruited his college roommate, the poet philip furneaux, to edit a critical paper. madison wrote under a pseudonym in his paper, taking on hamilton and proclaiming the difference between what he claimed were the real friends of the republic and

the would be aristocracy. here again is what makes this book different. madison was a sturdy political operative, not merely a political thinker. >> in 1793, when war between england and france placed americans in one of two camps, there was no middle ground. hamilton wrote preciously of madison and jefferson that they had a womanish attachment to france in a womanish resentment toward england. even more demonstrably in madison, jefferson spelled out who he thought of as their domestic enemy. the armchair speculators, a pompous, ineffective and parasitic species that produce nothing of value, men of commerce to thrive on their association with the british juggernaut and had transferred loyalty to london. jefferson habitually express a hatred for monarchy. this was the mantra of his

political existence, and you produce an excessive fear that hamiltonian federalist espouse republican government, and i quote, only as a steppingstone to monarchy. drawing a line in the sand, jefferson claimed for his and madison's side the small provincial modest hard-working of the american nation. of course we used the innocuous word farmers to describe america's republican core, jefferson conceal the truth about his prime constituency, wealthy, slaveowning aristocratic virginians. it was jefferson's peculiar habit to personify his political enemies, to give them a physical form through metaphors. he dubbed the federalists monographs, a word he coined him a commendation of ministry aristocrat. is monarchists, monographs had an intimate with its own unique anthology. it was a feminine disorder. embodied and attended nervous

constitution and parasitic desire to worship the strong. pseudo-aristocrats were backward in your thinking and out of step with the times, dysfunctional and doomed. like dinosaurs of jurassic park, jefferson defeats was a monster re- creation of poison introduced into the natural environment, a natural entity unable to adapt to new ways of thinking. ..

>> federalist policies on inherent or defects or psychological failings. madison focused, instead, on social forces, errors in reason and balances of power that demanded structural solutions. so jefferson approached politics as an experimental physician recommending a healthy lifestyle, and madison saw politics from the perspective of an unrelenting chess master with his steady eye on the moves of the most valued peelses and with the people -- pieces and with the people as so many pawns. regardless of the metaphor, theirs was a cutthroat business. consequently, their often devious strategizing does not diminish their power. we have tried to shift of emphasis from the less tangible judgments of their private character to the culture of

competition amid a nationwide struggle to define how a republic should constitute itself. there is rarely a single moment this historical research, a smoking gun that permanently changing the way we think -- changes the way we think about the past. the relationship is too complex to be understood in soundbites. the most historical misjudgment is, of course, the portrayal of madison as the dullard among the founders. while it's true he was opaque to many observers, he was not unemotional. he had a raucous sense of humor. those who saw him up close over time, particularly this context of political performance, knew he could become flustered, frazzled and every so often quarrelsome. madison was able to move beyond his resentments. however, both consistently felt an intensifying pressure from be would-be european colonizers, so

expansion keenly absorbed them. florida, cuba, can ca, the west -- canada, the west. america, especially in jefferson's eyes, would be peaceful and resilient as a breeder nation. his political vocabulary was rich in illusions to affection, attachment, health, good air, natural abundance and the almost hysterical rejection of bad blood. it all added up to expansion of the white american species, hearty pioneers carrying the spirit of personal independence with them. what nancy and i have learned most in the research process is the humbling fact that the american past cannot be told in any one book. that past is dirty, messy. the regions north, south and west had and arguably still have distinct political and cultural personalities, and to a significant extent this is owing to the legacy of plantation slavery, the plantation system and slave eye.

interstate relationships, especially the virginia/new york axis, have not been studied sufficiently, yet the power dynamic there was certainly volatile. >> so that's some of what we've learned as scholars. what we learn as writers is that a dual biography is much more than a standard single poig my. by focusing on two lives going on at the same time, often in two different places, one is periodically engaged, and the other disengaged from key political events. their communication reveals the proactive and reactive. one man playing off against the other, trusting, touting, second -- doubting, second guessing. it's more like real life. you see their egos in motion. the dual biography adds a level of intensity to their humanity. there is a collaborative tension as they consciously struggled to

change the course of history. what we've also found that as virginians, madison and jefferson never thought about the republic without thinking about slavery. almost every policy matter or effort to reform had to engage with the national sin. in 1775 madison called the institution of slavery virginia's achilles heel. jefferson's awkwardly-worded paragraph in the declaration of independence blaming the king for imposing slavery on america had to be eliminated because of opposition from the deep south. when it came to foreign policy, madison and jefferson focused not only on the european powers of england and france, but also on the tiny island of haiti. fearing slave rebellions were contagious and might spread to louisiana and the u.s. south. madison and jefferson believed the slave, the southern economy be with its dependence on slave labor was viable.

they both sold slaves as a last resort, yes, but still they did so into their retirement years. jefferson especially envisioned nationhood in racially untainted hues. on his death in 1836, madison left a considerable sum to the american colonization society whose design was to remove black people, but whose call for colonization was disingenuously couched in terms of philanthropy. even abraham lincoln saw the merits of a voluntary removal plan to whiten america. the point here as throughout our book is that america's early leaders had few long-term solutions. as all people do, they rationalized inaction. our task as historical investigators is not to indulge ourselves in transferring moral judgments to the past whether it is to glam orize the

achievements and imagine a golden age that never existed or to use their failures to express self-satisfaction about our own motives as a modern, more progressive culture. our task is to recover the language, the issues and the people that matter to them. their political environment, not our fantasy of sturdy knights whose elegant prose is reflected in their shining armor. madison and jefferson stood out because of their campaigning psyches. they knew the revolution as a contentious time, yet they chose to remember it as a moment of promise. they realized that political success was built on productive alliances, that one man alone could not transform a nation. thank you. >> thank you. [applause]

>> we look forward to your questions. go ahead. [laughter] >> well, i wondered about this great distaste they have for patrick henry, ask i'm guessing it was mutual. i wonder how much of that is style and how much of it substance, what's your take on that? >> it's substance. in the legislature, the virginia legislature, before madison and jefferson shifted their focus to national matters they found themselves stymied every step of the way. whenever they sought some reform, patrick henry would automatically be on the other side standing in their way. jefferson tried to influence william word's biography of patrick henry, that's the biography that gives us the quote that may or may not be accurate, give me liberty or

give me death. so so much of the knowledge, the little knowledge that we have of patrick henry comes from william worth's 1870 biography. and jefferson tried to correct wort by making sure that the biography did not gloss over henry's weaknesses and especially jefferson wanted to say that make sure wort emphasized that henry had a love of money, and he would do anything for a dollar, that he was ill-educated, studied the law for just several weeks and barely squeaked by in the his examination for the bar. so he looked upon henry at the time and historically when he was caring about legacy as a man of minor intellect, shall we say. >> i just want to add one point. one of the interesting things about madison, he writes a very important manifesto before the constitutional convention.

it's called "vices of the political system of the united states." and he includes a very important passage where he's describing the seductive oratory, he's talking about how this figure is dangerous to the republic, and he's using the life and blood henry as his model. he department just think -- he didn't just think in terms of abstract. [laughter] he based his political theory on the encounters that he had had in the virginia assembly. and i think one other thing you have to realize is that madison had to take on henry in the ratifying convention. and it was, you know, henry basically took over the show. [laughter] he refused to follow the designated plan of the way they were going to debate issue by issue, and it's an interesting moment because there's an effort to corral people, know their votes even before the ratifying convention is held.

and, you know, madison even before the actual meeting in philadelphia makes this claim, you know, we're going to have to, like, tie henry down. [laughter] tie him down by the instructions, make sure that he doesn't interfear. and he even -- interfere. and he even imagines before the meeting in philadelphia that henry is plotting disunion. so these are real, they're not only emotional, they're not only about style, but they're also about this kind of very personal political tension that existed among virginians. >> henry mattered very much. he died in 1799, the same -- just a few months before george washington. and not long before his death washington urged patrick henry to run against the democratic republicans to deny national election to jefferson, and it shows that throughout their

building careers madison and jefferson faced henry in every way imaginable. when after the falling out with washington, once again patrick henry loomed as a perspective candidate to oppose jefferson, another virginian who might oppose jefferson for the presidency. is that all we got? yes. >> can you tell us something about how you collaborated on the two men and if there was issues that went back and forth between them? how did you deal with that to make it, you know -- continuity. >> yeah. the question is how i we collaborated on writing a book about these two partners. and the simple answer is that we've been intellectual partners

for close to 15 years, and we've been arguing history for all of that time. so we've taken part in the process when each of us was writing a book individually. and we happened to finish our last books at the same time, they came out at the same time in 2007, and it was that time that we decided to do something together, and it turned out to be "dirty politics in early america." >> i'll just add one thing. a lot of people imagine that somehow we're adopting the personas, you know, of the two people we're studying. [laughter] well, that's not really what drew us into this project. basically, we were interested in different themes or topics. we wrote on those different themes, then we would get together and revise it and work on it and debate it.

but we're not secretly pretending to be the reincarnation of madison and jefferson. [laughter] >> um, it's a book as much about the virginians -- ed month pendleton, edmund randolph who interact with madison and jefferson. so we were all the talking about a whole configuration of individuals and groups across state lines and just trying to understand the dynamics of early american politics in a new way to show that madison and jefferson found, that they had to alie with one another to deal with tensions that they saw across the country when they themselves very often disputed

one another in private. and you get that through the beautiful body of letters that we have with of them. but, yes, go ahead. >> one of the themes of the book is that madison was much more distrustful to the people than jefferson. and i wondered if you wanted to elaborate on both that difference and some of the differences between jefferson and madison? >> well, they knew clap rah tiff tension -- collaborative tension, and we know collaborative tension. [laughter] but it's a good thing. madison was less easily upset than jefferson was. jefferson, you see the emotionality in his correspondence. sometimes madison had to quiet him down. madison had one particular dislike.

he generally, like will rogers, didn't dislike people, but there was one particular dislike, and that was john adams. he detested adams for years and years, and this was the one cantankerous member of the founding generation who jefferson was always ready to make amends with. so there's another interesting triangular relationship there. >> yeah, i think in terms of madison's views toward the people, i mean, i think this is one of the things we have trouble understanding. he wasn't anticipating democracy. and, you know, one of the debates that he carries on in the federalist papers has to, there's an anonymous writer in new york known as brutus who really believes the representatives have to be closely influenced by their constituency. madison was uncomfortable with that. and, again, based upon his observations of what had gone on in virginia. but he basically felt that there -- what he really wanted

the constitution to do and the new government to do was to create a system that would filter legislation, remove impurities, remove the mistakes. and when he writes about the states in anticipation of the constitutional convention, he sees them almost as if they're a ram bunk white house group of children that need to be disciplined. and this is also where there's a very important difference between hamilton and madison. often if you follow one line of argument which comes from hamilton that somehow jefferson seduced madison away from hamilton, and hamilton can't understand why it is that, you know, madison seems to be his opponent. well, part of it is the way they thought about government was different. madison really wanted a government that would be more disciplined, you know, that would engage in discipline, would get rid of what he saw as the excesses of government or

excess of concentration of powers. hamilton really wanted an energetic government which would augment power. so their views and their thinking about the kind of government they envisioned was different. so it's not particularly surprising that they would part ways in the 1790s. the other thing that's really important that's different from madison and jeff orson is that -- jefferson is that jefferson, we know his illusions to the farmer. he tended to romanticize the people. it's not as if he was hanging around with them and drinking peer with them. [laughter] -- beer with them. that he knew the people intimately and somehow madison wasn't interacting with the people. jefferson, basically, believed in the of -- in the will of the majority. he believed that should be the ruling principle across the board. but as you also discover about jefferson, occasionally he realized that majority will

didn't work. majority will seemed to be opposed to the policies that he was backing. but they do have, you know, abstract principles, and they are looking at the government and imagining the role of the federal government in different ways. and they don't completely lose that. i mean, one of the interest things about madison writing for the press is he begins to value the importance of popular, what is called public opinion, but that's public opinion as it was known in the 18th century which is educated public opinion. he thought it was a good idea for educated people to write for the press and help influence and shape how the larger people should respond to certain issues. so we had to take into account that madison and jefferson don't remain constant over time. there are, i think, fundamental differences that do remain in their thinking, but we don't want to lose sight. this is one with of the problems we tend to, you know, trap the founders in one period of time and assume this encapsulates all

of their thinking. well, it's not true. people evolve of, people change their views, you know, change in certain directions, you know, as they respond to political situations. >> a good example of this is during the war of 1812. jefferson as an ex-president was coaching madison, privately writing letters to him suggesting how to prosecute the war of 1812. madison, ultimately, found that the best means was deficit spending and to go back to a hamiltonian view of the bank which madison himself had opposed in the early 1790s. so jefferson found himself, his ideas overturned by madison at some critical moments. and so to look upon these partners as two who saw eye to eye all the time is incorrect. and that's what makes the friendship, this, you know, half century of friendship so

powerful and intriguing. because they did dispute one another from time to time. not just style, but substance. >> yeah. >> you were talking about dirty politics in the 1790s. [inaudible] midterm election in 2010. what are the similarities that you see and differences you see, of course, we're a lot better wired than those guys were. but have things really changed that much? are we -- [inaudible] >> comparing -- yeah. the question asks us to compare the 1790s to politics in 2010. there is no corporate finance. [laughter] the personal attacks are what's unchanged, and what we ordinarily don't associate with

this pathological decade of the 1790s. but, you know, it's hard for historians to -- i mean, what we do is we read 18th century newspapers, we don't try to find parallels to what's going on today. so probably we won't be able to give you a really colorful answer to that. >> well, i think just one point you can add to that is you have to remember that the contentious political style, the use of satire, the use of innuendo, the nastiness of the press, we inherited it from great britain. [laughter] and that, it's not our own unique creation, although i think democracy fuels it. but clearly, this idea of attacking the enemy became much more politicized through the newspapers in the 1790s although we've shown enemies' intentions existed much earlier.

>> the activist in the popular press were very often english and irish immigrants, recent immigrants who sometimes madison and jefferson felt more comfortable dealing with through intermediaries because you didn't, you didn't campaign for office. you didn't run for office. you stood for office. a gentleman was not supposed to appear too interested in, in elective office. and so the newspaper men were increasingly important, and the fact that they came from an around advertiseal -- artisanal background made democrat accuracy happen in this country a little earlier than it otherwise would, perhaps. >> my question is along the same

lines, bringing it to today. as you were -- [inaudible] and then you would read of how they are quoted today, did you have any particular reaction to think of the -- [inaudible] jefferson in particular is used today? >> well, how madison and jefferson are quoted in the press and in the senate chamber today. well, one of the things that encouraged us to write this book and to do the research doomily is that madison -- deeply is that madison is generally known only as, you know, the so-called father of the constitution and a co-author of the federalist papers which, as nancy mentioned earlier, the federalist papers really didn't become important national documents until the modern age.

so when madison is oversimplified and looked upon just as the egghead of the founders who wrote the constitution and thought about, thought this -- in a language and perhaps even spoke in a language that would be hard for us to understand, you know, you miss his humanity. but what we've done is to present madison as an 'em bittered partisan and, in many ways, just as bitter as jefferson in going up against hamilton and the federalists. so, you know, jefferson is always intriguing, and we haven't written the last book on jefferson, his personality, his political views. but hopefully, we've jump-started a conversation about james madison. >> yeah, i would just add i think one of the problems of

when either madison or jefferson are quoted by journalists or politicians, it's complete hi out of context -- completely out of context. and there are even books that collect their quotes, if you just read their quotes, you're not going to understand the letter, who they're writing to. jefferson's case you can find he wrote one thing to one person in a letter and something else to someone else in a letter that contradicts that letter. [laughter] so you have to understand letters were politicized. people weren't just sharing confidences in secret. if they really wanted to keep them secret as madison and jefferson had to do when they were separated by the atlantic ocean, they'd have to write in cipher, they'd have to write in this secret, coded language because the mail could be opened, your secrets could be revealed, and it was jefferson who usually got into trouble that way. but i think part of the problem is it's difficult for americans to understand the issues of the 18th century. it's difficult for them to understand what are the things that riled people in the 18th

century about power? and if you just only cite references to tyranny, you're not going to really understand. i mean, the perfect example is that jefferson and madison were strongly opposed to a standing army. [laughter] i mean, is any politician today going to stand up and defend the dismantling of the military? >> i guess the -- >> no. >> -- the answer is that what matters is context, understanding context. so when you see the quotable jefferson or the quotable madison, you can't take them out of context. you have to understand them within the moral pound ris, within -- boundaries, within the emotional boundaries, within the intellectual boundaries of the world in which they lived. now, i understand that we're nearing the end of the hour, and i believe you all will be treated to mr. jefferson's

favorite wine -- [laughter] 1786. >> was that madison? >> i'm sorry. it turns out we'll be having a more recent vintage. thank you all for coming. [applause] >> there'll be a book signing and a reception upstairs. i might desire to reverse the name order of the book all to represent the extent which madison has been obscured, and andy and nancy have very properly attempted to resurrect madison in this relationship. so thank you again for the extremely accessible and readable book. thank you. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> co-authors nancy eisenberg and andrew burstein are associate professors at louisiana state university. visit nancy eisenberg.com and a burstein.com. >> you've been watching booktv, 48 hours of book programming beginning saturday morning at 8 eastern through monday morning at 8 eastern. nonfiction books all weekend, every weekend right here on c-span2. >> you're watching public affairs programming on