the terms of accountability, in terms of the relationships between the federal government, state governments and nonprofit organizations. we have new forms of, um, oversight, new forms of recordkeeping, documentation and accountability that are starting to emerge whereas -- and at the end of the 1990s when we were studying things for the book, it felt like the wild west. there was this new system emerging, and nobody really knew what to do or how accountability was going to be -- take place. and people who are using public resources and twining the public good -- defining the public good and working on behalf of the public who were not actually public firms. they were volunteers, they were heads of nonprofit organizations. yet they were using public funds, and the public didn't necessarily have any oversight. well, today we have all these

measures, indicators and reporting systems that are a bit onerous for a lot of, for a lot of folks, but it does, um, it does provide a little more oversight. >> well, thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. >> the c-span campaign 2012 bus visits communities across the country to follow the bus' travels, visit www.c-span.org/bus. >> well, coming up next, a program from our archives. richard brookhiser recounts the life of gouverneur morris of new york who helped draft the u.s. constitution at the anal of 35 and crafted the phrase, "we the people." gouverneur morris died on november 6, 1816. >> called it in april john furling revealed that although their political views were often quite similar, as people john adams and george washington werh

really as different as night ani day. and then in may stuart lyeberges revealed that james madison wasm often george washington's indispensable adviser. advisor although i hate to admit it at least once in a while a ghostwriter. but in the end, there was the driffing the camp of the anti-federalist. as interesting as the relationships between madison and washington prove to be, i promise you we save the best for last. richard brookhiser graduated from yale in 191978 and became the senior editor of "the national review." in 1922 he became a speechwriter for george bush the senior and became the first-rate author of a number of informative and quite intriguing books.

after warming up with thomes on ronald reagan, william f. buckley jr., and wasps in america, he wrote a groundbreaking biography of george washington entitled "founding father." this fast-paced account of the first president, he not only explains why washington was a great leader during the critical period of our nation's founding but also why he remains so relevant and important today. this book was so successful and popular it soon became a prime-time tv special. he's also the author of noteworthy books on alexander hamilton and the adams family. tonight we're here to celebrate the publication of his latest biography of one of the most colorful and probably one of the most underrated figures in american history.

ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming a great friend of george washington and an even greater friend to mt. vernon, richard brookhiser. [applause] >> thank you, jim, for that introduction and thank you for being here. it's always a great honor to be in mt. vernon. are these microphones working? can you all hear me? ok. if you know one story about george washington and governor morris, this is it, and it's a great one. the story goes that at the constitutional convention in 1787, summer of 1787, two of the delegates made a bet. alexander hamilton, who was from the westindies but representing new york,

approached his friend, morris, who was from new york but representing pennsylvania, where he'd lived for the last eight years, and these were both youngish delegates, hamilton was 30, morris was 35. and hamilton's proposition was that if morris would go up to general george washington, the commander in chief of the revolutionary army and the president of the continue mention, and slap him on the shoulder and say, "my dear general, i'm glad to see you looking so well," hamilton would buy him and 12 of his friends dinner. so, the story goes, morris slapped the slap, he won the dinner, but he said afterwards that the look he got from washington was the worst moment of his life. now, you have to understand that at this moment in morris' life, he had lost his left leg in a carriage accident, he had

burned most of the flesh off his right arm in a kitchen accident, and he had spent the revolutionary war seeing it divide his family. his mother was a torie, his sisters were all tories, one half brother was a general in the british army, and another half brother signed the declaration. so, if after all that, a look from george washington is the worst thing in his life must have been quite a look. it's a terrific story. unfortunately, i have to tell you i don't think it's true. when we first read of it, it is decades after the fact. martin van buren said a judge told him who heard it from a senator who'd heard it from alexander hamilton. there is another story very similar but set in a different time. and then there is a third story which has morris slapping somebody else on the back and he stumps off angrily, probably

cursing in german. so, what i dedeuce from that as a biographer is that we have a story in search of characters. and what a character it found in morris. any comparison between washington and morris is going to be necessarily asymmetrical. we all know who george washington was. i used to think that we didn't know what was important in his life, but i'm now coming around to the view that, in fact, most americans do know the bare essentials. he won the war. he wouldn't be a king. he couldn't tell a lie. what they don't understand is how important those essentials were and how disastrous it could have been for the country

if he'd been a different sort of man or not done any of those things. but we all do know george washington. govneer morris, on the other hand, is almost unknown. there had been nine books written on him ever, two of them in french. this is an astonishing figure. i think there are probably nine books written on abraham lincoln every year. so, he's been very underrepresented. i think there are reasons for that. one is that he's a new yorker. and as a new yorker myself, i have to tell you we do not take care of our famous dead. boston, philadelphia, and virginia do it much better than we do. we are absorbed in today and tomorrow and just don't pay

attention. morris was also a federalist. so he has no political heirs. the federalist party died after the election and had no successor. so, there are jefferson jackson dinners thrown by the democratic party and the republican party honors abraham lincoln but there are no hamilton-morris dinners because the federalists are gone. the main reason we don't know him is because his personality does not fit our mental image of what a founding father should be. i think this is a perception many of his contemporaries had as well. they didn't feel he fit in. as i go on tonight, i think what you'll see is what they had in mind and reacting to

them. it will be a comparison of the two men but also a journey of discovery i hope for a very delightful man. i want to start by saying how they met and go through four episodes where washington and morris were both focusing their attention on the same problem. and we will see them agreeing and disagreeing, sometimes grossly. and sometimes we'll see them agreeing but handling the problem in different ways. i just want to conclude with a few words about the usefulness of each of these men to us today. the first time they met was in 1776. govneer morris was 24 years old. he was a politician in the

province of new york. he was assigned to coordinate on the defense of new york with george washington, the next immediate problem after the british evacuation of boston. everybody expected them to come and make a move on new york, which is, in fact, what they did in the summer of 1776. so, morris is 24 years old. washington is 44. there are a number of reasons why they may not have hit it off. morris wasn't going to be impressed by washington's height and stature as so many of his contemporaries were. the reason he was not going to be impressed was he was the same size. some years later when a french sculptor did his great standing

statue of george washington, the original is in richmond, he had come to america and mt. vernon to do a life mask of washington state. but for the body model, he used morris, who happened to be in paris at the time. it was his judgment that morris looked enough like washington that he could just use him as the body model. morris certainly was not going to be impressed by washington's education. washington's formal schooling, whatever it was, had stopped by the age of 15 or 16. morris had been sent as a boy to a school run by a french-speaking minister, so he learned french at a very early age. his mother was a french

discendant. he had gone to kings college in new york city, which is now columbia. he had a great facility both for mathematics and for languages. his first biographer says he used to amuse himself by doing calculations in his head. and he was also good enough at languages that he would write poems to his girlfriend and when he moved to europe, and had girlfriends in france and germany, he would write poems for them in french and german. this was a man with top verbal skills. morris was also not going to be impressed by washington's family and social standing. george washington was a rich planter. and hiffs a member of the virginia house of burgesses, and washington had sat in the house of burgesses before him.

and that was not unknown in the revolutionary elite. there were other revolutionaries who were rich and politically active. but morris almost alone among them had descended from the governing elite of the colonial era. his ancestors had not just sat in the elected colonial assembly. they had governed colonies for london. his grandfather had been the governor of the colony of new jersey. his uncle had been the deputy governor of the colony of pennsylvania, running it through absentee proprietors. morris' father, uncle, and grandfather had all been judges. so, when gouverneur morris comes to politics, he is coming to it from the top and he's coming to it with an inherited leading family position.

on washington's side, one possible reason for not hitting it off with this young man is that morris already at that time in his life had a reputation as a ladies' man. what historians make of washington's pressure on sally fairfax, well, they make different things about it, but no one disputes the fact that when he met and married martha washington, that was his marriage and his bond for life. well, gouverneur morris would not marry until he was 57 and he was not alone before that time. one of his good friends from new york was john jay, and he writes a letter to robert livingston during the war commenting that gouverneur morris is making daily to great lakeses to serena. a few years later when morris

has the carriage accident which leads to the amputation of his left leg below the knee, he caught his foot in a carriage wheel as the carriage was starting up and it was so mangled the physicians said, you know, we have to take this off. i should tell you when his own doctor came back to town and looked at the stump and heard the circumstance, he said, well, i'm not sure they had to take that off. not only did he lose his leg, he had to live with the knowledge that it may not have been necessary. anyway, when he lost his leg, john jay wrote another letter and said that gouverneur morris might better have lost something else. so, these are the two men who are meeting. and, yes, despite some of these disparities, a bond forms which will last until 1799 when washington finally dies.

washington appreciates morris' high spirits. he appreciates his intelligence, his devotion to the patriot cause and on morris' side, george washington is the one man that he admires and the only man that he admires. all of his life. i think pretty clearly he was a substitute father. morris' own father had been 54 years old when morris was born. he had a second marriage, and morris was the child of the second marriage. to the young boy, his own father must have been almost a grandfather, a remote figure. and here washington is only 20 years older and the bond that they formed was a lasting one. they next meet in 1777 in the valley forge winter. and there the bond is

strengthened. and what strengthens the bond is the suffering condition of the army. morris by this time has been elected to the continental congress, and his assignment from the congress is to go to valley forge to study the condition of the army and to report back to congress on how it might be bettered, on how the troops could be better supplied and better paid. that was the problem at valley forge. the winter was not so bad. that winter. there were other winters that were truly awful. the valley forge winter was not so bad in terms of temperature and snow, but supply and logistics were simply awful and the troops essentially were starving. and this spect cal -- spect cal -- spectacle drove him mad.

he wrote, "the skeleton of an army presents itself to our eyes in a naked, starving condition, out of health, out of spirits." then he later wrote that he loved the army for the sufferings which, as a body, they had bravely and patiently endured. so, this shows us another side of morris. there's not just the flash and the dash and the mental agility at math and languages. there's also a romantic side to him. and that was stirred by the bravery and the endurance of the troops. and it also fused with his sense of patriotism. so, this is an example of the two men agreeing, both concerned over the condition of the army, both nationally, both seeing the army as a uniting force between the 13 states and the force that is going to win

the revolution and win the struggle in this phase of the struggle. but, of course, then the question becomes, if you agree that the army has to be helped, how do you help it? and this brings me to the second problem that both men consider. and here they disagree sharply. morris spends several years in the continental congress, and then he goes to work at the office of finance under robert morris, who is no relation, but they are both brilliant men, both very adept at finance. and they put their efforts to the question of paying for the revolutionary war. what makes this difficult is that the continental congress had no power to tax. it could only make requisitions upon the states. it could ask them for money and if the states had it or if they

had it and wanted to give it, they would give them the money, but very often no money was forthcoming. the continental congress had also tried printing paper money. since it wasn't backed by anything, it had inflated to the point where $40 was worth $1 of hard currency. we tried getting loans at sea and we were unable to pay interest, much less principal so that was not attractive. morrises, they basically bluffed their way through the financing of the struggle. a 19th century economist said that robert and gouverneur morris' measures amounted to the most vulgar film of bill kiting. but this is what they had to do

because it's all that could be done. there was simply nothing there and they had to do it by bluff and improvisation. so, who is capable in a situation like this of making a debtor shape up? because the united states government is a debtor. well, creditors can do that. creditors can do that over the long haul. by withholding future loans. and then very often debtors do get their house in order. but suppose the creditors also include the army. maybe you don't have to wait for the long haul. and this is the idea that begins to gestate in gouverneur morris' mind in 1782 and turning to 1783. the fighting had ended at

yorktown in 1781, but the peace treaty is being negotiated, the war is still formally going on. the army still has to be in arms and it's not getting paid. so, morris comes up with the idea of uniting the army with the other creditors, the money men who have advanced loans throughout the war. and compelling congress to do the right thing. he writes another letter to john jay. jay, by this time, is in europe as a diplomat. this is new year's day, 178 3. morris writes, "the army had swords in their hands. you know enough of the history of mankind to know much more than i have said and possibly much more than they themselves yet think of. i am glad to see things in

their present train. depend on it. good will rise from the situation to we are hayesening, and this you may rely on, that my efforts will not be wanting, although i think it probable that much of convulsion will ensue, yet it must terminate in giving to government that power without which government is but a name." so, what he's saying, in es essence, is that the army will threaten congress to get its house in order and if the army hasn't yet thought of doing it, morris will be quite happy to put them up to it. now, he gets some replies to letters of this kind from officers which throw great credit on some of our revolutionary officers. henry knox writes him and says, "if the present constitution is so defective, why do not you great men call the people

together and tell them so?" and nathaniel green writes morris, "when soldiers advance without authority, who can halt them?" so, here are two military men saying, don't look to us to solve all your problems. this is a political problem. this is for politicians to handle in political ways, but don't go to the army and ask the army to get involved. now, as we know, not all officers were so principled and selfless as knox and green. and at newburg in the spring of 1783 the situation came to a very ugly head and it was only averted by the commander in chief, george washington, making perhaps one of the most important appeals of his career when he told his grumbling officers that they must not do what they threatened to do,

that they must continue to uphold their record of service, and he capped it with the great gesture of taking a letter from a congressman out of his pocket and then hesitating over the letter, putting on his glasses, and saying, you nust forgive me. i have found them growing blind as well. it was only with the expansion of all of washington's charisma that the angry army was kept in its place. how could morris, the great admirer of george washington, have been so different from him in this situation? i think part of it is impetch i don't sayy, i think part of it is his pride. this is the pride and confidence of the third generation of political morrises. so, if he has an idea, it's bound to be a good one and

he'll just try it out and let it fly. it may also have to do with his being a civilian and never having fought. of course, washington had been fighting since his early 20's and he knew what fighting was. so, when morris talks about convulsion at this point in his life, he's talking about it as an outsider. washington has been in the midst of convulsion and knows how terrible they can be. my only defense of morris is that after the newburg conspiracy collapsed, he gave it up. he was not a die-hard troublemaker, and he was perfectly willing to let the situation unfold in a different way. he writes another letter to john jay saying, "true it is that the general government wants energy and equally true it is that this want will eventually be supplied." "this generation will die away

and give place to a race of americans." so, at the end of newburg, morris returns to being hopeful and leaves mischief behind him. but this still begs the question of how exactly you solve the problem of finance and how you do reform the government so that the government can finance itself. and this leads to the third occasion where morris and washington are both working on the same problem. and this is the constitutional convention in the summer of 1787. because things had reached that point that the political elite in the country, most of it, concluded the only way to reform the system was to reform it at the roots, to devise a new fundamental law for the government, and that is what the meeting in philadelphia was about.

so, here again, we see washington and morris on the same track. they are both delegates to the convention, washington comes from virginia, morris comes from pennsylvania. those are the two strongest state delegations. virginia is led by washington, pennsylvania is led by franklin. so, the two celebrities that the little country has are both there in philadelphia at the same time. but the two men conduct themselves very differently in philadelphia that summer. and each reflects his own strengths and each avoids his own weaknesses. george washington is the hero of the revolution and is elected as the president of the convention, and he hardly speaks. through the whole summer, from may to september. he thanks the delegates for electing him at the beginning. he gives a little speech at the end, proposing a last-minute change, and once in the middle,

according to one delegate, he said, "the minutes are secret." yet i have here a copy that was lying around in the statehouse. he put it down and walked off. the delegate added no one claimed the paper. so, washington spent the summer listening, .. listening he did was to gouverneur morris. morris spoke 173 times during the convention. this was more than any other delegate. james wilson spoke 168 times, madison, 161, but wilson and madison attended every single session. morris missed the whole month of june. so, even missing a month he puts on a of speed and passes his colleagues. and if you read madison's notes

of the convention, which are the most complete set we have, it is very interesting reading. it's instructive reading. it is seldom fun. but when it is fun, that's when gouverneur morris is on the floor. he could be a very entertaining speaker, a very aggressive one, often both at once. there's one moment where benjamin franklin is speaking for what we would now call term limits. and he is saying that since in the republic of the people have the power, then of course the office holders when they leave office, they are rejoining the people and they are in fact being promoted. well, morris immediately responds by saying that he did not doubt that our governors would decline the promotion. so, you know, benjamin franklin was a man of the world. there was no pulling the wool

over his eyes. but when he needed to churn the rhetorical butter, he could do it as well as anyone. and morris is just saying, come on. we're all adults here. don't give us this high and lofty line about how people are going to willingly give up power. we don't have to have bulwarks against that. on another occasion, the delegates were discussing the questions of slave trade. and the language on the floor very similar to the language that finally made it into the constitution was saying that the importation of persons shall be permitted until such and such a year. so, morris rises to offer an amendment. he wants to change it to the importation of slaves into the states of north carolina, south carolina, and georgia. and he explains that this would be more explicit. he also wants it known this is a concession to those states.

and then, to make the insult most insuggesting, he says, if anyone objects to the language, i'll of course withdraw the amendment. so, four sputtering delegates get up, two southerners, two northerners from states that profit by the slave trade and after that little eruption, morris withdraws his amendment. so, he was not afraid of provoking and knew how to do it very well. but many of his speeches were substantive and serious, and by the homestretch of the convention -- we're talking about august now -- he gets the most important assignment of his life. all the resolutions that the delegates had argued and voted on were swept together into a draft. and then this draft was presented to a committee on style to be put into the final form of the constitution. now, the committee on style was a very strong committee.

hamilton was member of it. james madison was a member of it. but the committee member that they give the job of writing the final draft of the constitution to is gouverneur morris, and i have to believe that it was his performance as an orator that made his fellow delegates hand the assignment to him. and if you compare the draft that he worked from with the constitution that we now have, it is a wonderful job of editing. one of my other careers is being a journalist and an editor. and i have to tell you, he just -- he smooths, polishes, gets rid of redundancies, trims all the little verbal vines that were dangling off the edges. sometimes he cuts an article down by half. sometimes he'll take out only seven or eight words. but he always makes it cleaner

and leaner and faster. then the great thing that he does, the part that he writes out of his own head, is the preamble to the constitution. now, all he had to work with was a very plain statement. the draft said, "we, the people of the states of new hampshire, massachusetts," so on through all the 13 down to georgia -- they went north to south -- "do ordain and establish the following constitution for the governance of ourselves and our prosperity." morris says, "we, the people of the united states, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to

ourselves and our prosperity to ordain and establish this constitution for the united states of america." i guess the first thing that strikes me is the verbs. those wonderful verbs -- form, establish, ensure, provide, promote, secure, and notice two alliterations, two rimes, provide promote, ensure and secure. it doesn't lie dead clotted on the page. they're active verbs. and the subject of the verbs. who is doing all these things? this is his greatest contribution. instead of "we the people of the states of new hampshire, massachusetts, rhode island, connecticut," it's "we, the people of the united states." that's a very small shift,

subtle shift, but it had monumental consequences. it is changing the focus from the united states as a confederation or as a collection of allied states to a nation. to a unity. and this turned out to be prophetic. because that was the direction that the country would take. of course lincoln picked up on these words in the gettysburg address, government of the people, by the people, and for the people. what he is echoing is we the people of the united states. and that is gouverneur morris' contribution in the summer of 1787. so, washington was the presiding figure in many ways the catalyst an the focal point, but morris puts it into words which are still referred to by lawyers and judges every day. the final subject i want to

touch on tonight is not -- doesn't have to do with our revolution but it has to do with the french revolution. and morris is one of the few people -- there were a handful, but he's one of the few who had a ringside seat on both revolutions. because he goes to france as a businessman at the end of 1788. that's when he sails away from america, and he comes to paris in february of 17889. and then he stays in france until the fall of 17994. at some point in that stay, president washington now makes him america's minister to france, so he begins as a businessman and ends as a diplomat. and this means that he is in paris from before the fall of the bastille to the death of the reign of terror.

so, he sees the whole early course of the french revolution. now, most americans took a very hopeful view of the french revolution when it began, including washington. after the bastille fell, the marquee delafayette sent washington one of the keys. it is still in mt. vernon, still displayed in mt. vernon, and the man who brought it over was thomas payne. he was another hero, of course, in the american revolution, the author author of "common sense" and "the american crisis." and payne wrote a letter to washington saying that having a share in two revolutions is a living of some purpose. we have washington, lafayette, and payne all linked around this symbol, the key to the bastille, and at that moment, it looks as if france will go through an experience similar to the one we had. and americans were happy to see

this happen. we had warm feelings towards france. they'd helped us out, helped us win our freedom. perhaps they could enjoy the same blessing that we had secured. gouverneur morris, who's on the spot, is almost the only american i know of who never for a moment thought that it could work. he knew many of the players. he had met lafayette in the valley forge winter. he had known thomas payne from philadelphia politics during and after the war. he came to know very well -- later to be a french diplomat tallyran. at this point, there was a bishop of the roman catholic

church but he would leave his orders and become a statesman and diplomat. morris got to know tallyran because they shared the same lover. this was a woman she was a french woman. her husband, who is yet a third man, was 35 years older than she was. it was an arranged marriage, which was the pattern of the french aristocracy. she had a son who bore her husband's name although everyone assumed that the father of the child was tallyran, the bishop. so, that was her amorous and marital situation in 1789 when morris shows up, and soon enough, he becomes yet another of her lovers. in defense of her, i have to say that she is looking for security for herself and for

her son and clearly the political world is being shaken and her husband is a reactionary loyalist and whatever direction it goes it's probably not going to go his. so, she is well advised to look for a safe port, whether it's the renegade bishop or the one-legged american or some of the various other lovers that she takes. so, morris is at the heart of things. he never thinks that the french can pull it off. he has two reasons for thinking that. one is their lack of experience, and here morris' family history comes back once again. he knows french, he knows frenchmen, he likes france, he thinks the french are charming,

he likes to socialize with them, but they have never held political office because it's been an absolute monarchy. so, for a third-generation political morris the son, the nephew, the grandson, the judges and governors, the french are setting off into a political experiment without any experience to guide them, without any experience with government and he thinks that would be a fatal blast. he also seems to believe that nations have temperaments and that the french temperament is unsuited to a high degree of liberties. in one of his letters he compares the french to a vicious horse on a cart and he says it has to be beaten to be managed well. so, that's his attitude towards

the french as a people. whatever we think of his reason, we can hardly say he was wrong in his prediction. eight days after the bastille falls he goes to have dinner at the palace royale, a building with many arcades, shops, clubs, and restaurants in it. and he writes in his diary that night what he sees. he's waiting for his carriage. in this period, the head and body of a royalist politician are introduced in triumph. the head on a pike, the body dragged naked on the earth. afterwards, this horrible exhibition is carried through the different streets. then he adds that the corpse was shown to the son-in-law who is himself cut to pieces, the populace carrying about the

mangled fragments with a savage joy. gracious god, what a people. and morris is not writing this as an innocent. he had lived through the whole american revolution. and as i toll you earlier, his own family was very split by it. and our revolution was nastier than we like to remember, especially in new york, it had many of the characteristics of the civil war. so, morris had seen some bad things in america, but he had never seen anything like this and this chilled him to the bone. of course as the years passed, occasions like this become more and more common. he's able briefly to save the lives of his lover and of her husband. adele manages to escape from france. her husband is arrested and executed, one of the many to suffer that fate. and in 1794 after five years of living at the epicenter, morris

leaves france and he writes washington the following letter. "i saw misery and affliction every day and all around me without power to mitigate or means to relieve. and i felt myself degraded by communications i was forced into with the worst of mankind." i read that. it is as balanced and grim as an inscription on a tomb. and how hard it must have been for this lively, confident man to be so impotent in such a situation. how useful are washington and morris to us today? i think washington is the purest example of how to live as a citizen. he's an example of devotion, of public service, and an example of selflessness.

of knowing when the service has reached its end and when it's appropriate to step down and hand the reins on to others. he's an example of public wisdom and public self-knowledge. of knowing that however great you are, you are not so great that the fate of the nation must be kept in your hands. and i think we will always be able to take lessons from his example. we will always honor. gouverneur morris, his younger friend, cannot teach us that. but what he can offer us is a model for how to live as a private man. that despite your injuries, despite the bodies you see in the streets, despite the convulsions that perhaps you

unwisely dream of or that you actually witness, there is something more important or at least something different than politics and that is living your life and treating people around you well. one of his letters to one of his many suffering european friends has this sentence. "to try to do good, to avoid evil, a little severity for oneself, a little indulgence for others. this is the means to maintain some good result out of our poor system. to love one's friends, to be loved by them, this is the means to greatness." if you read that in a book when you were in some turmoil or upheaval, it might be enraging. it seems too pat. but if you heard it from a man with one leg and missing most

of an arm it's not just talk. he's been there. he knows what bad things are. but he's encouraging us to do good, to look at the good thing, and always to keep our high spirits. and so, that's why i think gouverneur morris is worth knowing and worth you making your acquaintance with. thank you very much. [applause] >> i'll take some -- thanks very much. jim has told me i should take questions. yes. >> -- over there in france during the revolution, the dichotomy between things that

were actually taking place during the revolution? did he ever write about that at all? >> did morris ever write about what he was observing? >> by men like the marquee when they were promoting and saying how good things were going to be. >> right. well, morris, when he moves to france, he starts keeping a diary. he's 37. when he gets over there. so far as we know, he's never kept a diary before that. but he begins keeping a diary in france. and i think this is because he knows moving to europe is going to be a special thing. he's wanted to do this since he was a young man. and he put it off to -- well, to do public service but also to work and earn money and ensure his financial position. but now he's 37. he's made himself secure. now he's going to go to europe. it's not just that he's going to have fun and have a great time. he's going to see europe, see a

whole new world, and he wants to write it all down. so, he wrote this very thorough diary covering his years in france. he would write hundreds of words every night, sometimes 500 words. and that's where you get accounts like the accounts of seeing the courts. he begins shrimpinging the industries when he's minister to france because he realized if he were ever seized he might implicate people. so he has to finally close it off. we still get him writing some letters back to american friends he writes an amazing one to william short, who's another one of our diplomats. and short was equally disgusted by the course of the french revolution and was making some complaints about i. and he

writes "comments on government should not be committed to a post office which is under that government's care. good thinking. so in his diary and also in his letters back home torque people including washington, he does sometimes reflect on the hopes and the rhetoric of the french revolutionaries. and he's always skeptical. he has low opinions of all of them. lafayette, whom he liked when he was in america, he just says, you know, when the storm blows high, he will be unable to hold the helm. he just doesn't think lafayette will have what it takes. and as for the hopes of the revolutionaries, he just thinks they're unrealistic. he writes another letter to short it's fascinating. he says that governing is

learned by doing it, men who govern have no time to write books. so therefore all the ideas of government that are found in books are utopian. and he would never say that to a frenchman. he would never waste that on the french. it would be wasting his breath sork he never doesment he only feels he can tell it to an american. any other questions? yes, ma'am. >> can you tell the wonderful story about his wife? >> oh, yes. well, he finally marries when he's 57. he marries a woman named nancy randolph. and this is the virginia randolphs. nancy is 22 years younger than he is, and she is his housekeeper. now why a randolph is working as a housekeeper in new york is a whole other story.

nancy has quite a back story of her own. but he hires her. he marries her on christmas or new year eesms he has a party over for dinner, including one of his in-law, a minister of the episcopal church and then he surprises all of his guests by asking his in-law to marry him and his housekeeper. this enrages his nieces and nephews. you know, a rich, single man. and one of the nieces is bold enough to write him and say, you know, don't you think the world will think you're a little foolish entering into a union at this time of your life? and he writes her back and say if the world were to live with my wife, i would, of course, consider its opinion. that's a great brushoff.

and it's a happy marriage. and they have a son. and then as he is, in his -- when he's 64 years old, he realizes he's entering his final illness, which is complications from gout. he draws on his wealth and leaves nancy a number of good things including abannuity. and the annuity is $2,600 a year. and this is 1816 dollars sork that's pretty good. then he adds that if she should marry again, the annuity should be increased to $3,200 a year because she will have more expenses in that state. now thank you for setting up that story. i tell it at cocktail parties. and whenever i tell it to woman they're just "what a guy! " i should also add that nancy

never married again. and maybe after an offer like that, you know, how could you? but there's a lot to be said about mrs. morris. but that may whet the appetite. any other questions? i do find, i've done some talking about this book and promoting of it. on the radio, and one thing that makes it different from all the other historical books i've done is that there are no preconceptions from the house, because no one's ever heard of this guy. and jim will sympathize with this. i mean, when you talk about washington, what about the dollar? did he throw it across the delaware? and did he have black children? you know, was he a free mason? did he grow hemp at mount vernon?

there's all this nonsense you're bombarded with that you have to, you know, hack away at . and, you know, i feel -- i feel like someone coming to a party with a friend that nobody there knows. and i just know they're going to like this guy. and it's a nice feeling. any other questions? yes, sir. >> the first reading on new york -- >> well, washington had the military responsibility. and that was to -- you know, this was kind of just to keep the lines open with the local civilian authorities. one thing morris did have to do was applaud on washington's life in new york. it's known as the hickie plot. but there was a member of his lifeguard thomas hicky, i think. hicky was his last anytime. in any case, he was supposed to

have plotted to kill washington by poisoning a dish of peas. it was to be served to him at a male. i think it's where city hall is. it's a place where people were dispatched to the next world. one of morris' assignment was to monitor extremist plots. he examined his mentor, the man he read law out with. turned out to be a loyalist. so that man came before mlist. so that man came before morris. or morris summoned him to appear before a committee, and the gentleman didn't do it. he, you know, he stayed away and he ended up becoming the governor of quebec. so he stayed with the british. and i have to tell you one

story. this was one of the most moving things i found in the course of doing this book. a new yorker named peterman shack was supposed to have been very intelligence. he was in a whole cadre with morris, john jay, robert livingston. there were a lot of bright youngish new yorkers as the revolution was approaching. and everybody seems to have liked him. every reference you find to him, people just liked this man. he seemed like a nice, wonderful, decent man. and he was a patriot. he was a wig at first. and he thought britain was doing o impressive and stupid things and the colony's rights had to be better defended. so shack joins some of the early committees of protest. but as things go on and as the war begins.

in 1776, it comes to the point of declaring independence, shack can't bring himself to do it. and he reads political theorists. reads locke and all these tones that were read in that day to try to find a way to the labyrinth. he loses the sight in one of his eyes because he's reading so much. meanwhile, his private life is falling apart. sick of his children die in four years. two of them in the same week. his wife falls sick. her doctor is british. the patriots won't let hersey her doctor because he's british. so he dies. they force him to move out of new york state. i mean, they really hustle and harass the guy. and he cannot agree with independence because he doesn't believe that the oppressions of

britain are part of a design. he thinks it's all land. so he sails away to britain in exile. and morris stays in touch with him during this period and he writes him -- he writes him a very moving letter because he doesn't sur rener any of his own principles, but he still admires his friend for sticking to his. and he's sorry that he's going through what he's gone through. and he says, you know, affliction is the school of wisdom and if my countrymen come to it untutored, i can't blame them, although i don't admire them. so shack arrives in england, and there he can read the papers. he can attend sessions in parliament. and he decides yes, this is a

design to oppress. you know, it wasn't just, you know, inadvertence or inattention or whatever. they really do not have our interests at heart. they are out to do us wrong. so he changes his view. and then when the war ends and he's still writing to old friends of his like jay and like morris and he decides to come back. and they welcome him back. and it's like the story of gerald. he marries again. he has another family, and he lives a long time. he becomes a lawyer again, and once again, everybody likes this man. but it's a very -- it's a poignant story. and i think it shows the revolution, maybe not such a great light, but it shows morris in a very good light. because he was not going to let politics consume his entire judgment of this friend of his. and he wasn't going to cast him off because he made the wrong decision.

so i like that in morris. yes, sir? >> [inaudible] >> we, let me read you one. it's kind of rhetorical. but it's very powerful. and this again is related to the question of slavery. and it has to do with the issue of how slaves should be counted in the representation, representation for the house of representatives, and then this also affects the electoral college when that is set up. and the southern states tend to want slaves to be counted, each

slave as an individual person. and takes into account the maximum count of the southern states. some of the northern delegates don't want them counted at all, because, of course, none of these slaves are voting. women don't vote and a lot of people who don't own property don't vote, but no slave obviously is going to vote. so why should they be counted in the representation? and morris, new york was a slave colony and a slave state and the morrises had owned slaves. but morris, it was part of his revolutionary experience, he thought that this institution was wrong and that it should be put on the course of extinction. here's what he said on august 8. >> slavery is the curse of

heaven. travel through the whole continent and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. passing through the jersey and pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change. proceed southwardly and every step you take through the great region of slaves presents a desert, increasing with the increasing proportion of these retched beings. upon what principle is it that the slaves should be computed in representation? are they men? why then make them citizens and let them vote. are they property? why then is no other property included? the houses in this city are worth more than all the retched slaves which cover the rice swamps of south carolina.

and finally, his long clenching sentence. the admission of slaves into the representation when fairly explained comes to this -- that the inhabitant of georgia and south carolina who goes to the coast of africa and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections and damns them to the most cruel bondages shall have more votes in a government instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind than the citizen of pennsylvania or new jersey who views with a laudable horror some nefarious a practice. [applause] >> don't applaud me. it's him. and i think it is good to read a kind of a long selection. we have that from madison's notes. madison said that morris spoke very clearly.

it was very clearly to take on his remarks. he also said one of his most provocative speeches, i don't think it was this one. i think it was an earlier one having to do with big and little states. he said that when mr. morris -- when it stares him in the face he laugh and said yes, that's what i sasmede -- said. so like a lot of good speerks he could get carried away. he could get wound up and in the flow of his own thoughts. testifies also probably a great nationalist convention. there were other nationalists there. washington was one, hamilton, madison to an extent. morris was certainly the most flamboyant. at another point, he says what if all the chearts of all the states were thrown into the fire and all their demagogues

into the ocean, what effect would that have on the liberties of america? so, you know, he never says something about it mildly when he thinks about a provocative way to say it. yes, sir? >> h bronsnooks >> yes. >> yes. it's now in the south bronx. in those days, west chester county went all the way down to the harlem river. but the family estate had 1,900 acres up there. morris' eldest half brother got 500 acres, and then he was able to buy out his second oldest half brother. he got the other 1400. >> also, he represented pennsylvania. if you would explain why. and i'm interested how people

considered him as from new york or from pennsylvania. or was pennsylvania just a temporary thing? >> well, it was temporary, but it was nine years. he goes there first as a delegate from the continental congress and the capital. it had been the capital, they move back to philadelphia when the british leave. and so he stay there is as a congressman. he's there when he's working for the office of finance. and then the rest of the years he spends there, he's making money. morris was the fourth son of his father. i told you there were two marriages. he had three elder half brothers and then he was the only son of the second marriage. so although the morrises were well off, he was smart enough to know that if he didn't make money, he was not going to continue to live in the style to which he had become accustomed. and so he did, very responsibly

and effectively. and he did it in philadelphia as a lawyer and then also he becomes a business partner of robert morris and all his other col colleagues and cronies. and he does very well, especially in land investment. robert morris -- yes. robert morris goes bust. by the time robert morris goes bankrupt, he owes 20 times his assets. and i'm not an economist, but i think, as i try to figure out what happened to robert morris, i think it was a certain kind of businessman, you're very extended. some of the things start to head south so how do you get better? you extend yourself further. you double your bets. and sometimes that works, but sometimes that means you really start going down. and then there's another

touching moment. morris, robert morris is sent to a debter's prison. he and his wife are in a debtor's prison. and a friend after nine years in europe goes to see robert morris in the prison. and he writes in his diary that mrs. morris tried to keep up a front which she couldn't. and he says, this is why i love the guy, he said i kept up a merry stream of conversation. and then he buys robert morris a house. so when he gets out of the debtor's prison, he has a roof over his head. so and maybe, if there aren't more questions, this would certainly be the thought to leave you with. if you suddenly went broke, or if you were thrown in jail, or

if you lost the dearest person in your life and you had one phone call and you needed help or money or consolation, the founder you would call would be governor morris. no question. now, you wouldn't introduce him to your sister. [applause] history. for more history programming check out american history television on c-span three or visit c-span.org / history. forty-eight hours of people and events that help document the

american story. >> saturday and sunday november 19th and 20th book tv breezy live coverage from the miami book fair international and florida. we will sit down with various office will be taking your phone calls live. on the 19th to have james bleeped, author of the information, john avalon, author of deadline artist, and author of jfk, castro, and america's jammed invasion of cuba is bay of pigs. on the 20th randall kennedy author of racial politics and the obama presidency, brick houses, author of the new kits, and several others will take your calls live from miami. a visit booktv.org for more information on book tv live coverage of the 2011 miami book fair international. >> all eight of your books about

liberals. say?he first book was on the ground. w on on the various ways. ways actually, the column book, how t to talk to a liberal a few liberals. months.actually, the that covers everything under the sun. treason, godless, guilty, demonic. of those fighting words? >> nifty titles to mark the?ic, well, like us said, i wasng thinking of calling this book t moloch. oe agent, or my name is legiong but a small slice of christiansb would understand what i wasoo talking about.n" or bes, i want people to read my book. slice i put a lot of work into them.ai it think they're interesting. do the world in a different wayt and understand things in a different way, so, yeah. we give them to the titles, put me on the cover. so in the black cocktail dress usually because it annoys

liberals. smiling. drives them crazy.the cov >> the democrats haerd any brais that would be republicans which could be referred to as the best of and culture.accding the repudiation of american ando christiaren destiny. stephen in south jordan utah, you are on. host: sernoon. >> out like to thank you. and i'm going tac have a comment about religious conservative an. the liberals.relign betw principals, and several thinciples that have applied ar conducted for the social, acte spiritual, and economic individuals of all beings.god h, i refer to it.

the liberals have done, the lasd 50 years, this and commandmentsn the inconvenient truce.0 go back to lyndon johnson, hisag welfare program, honor the great wether and mother, honor the mother and big government and wh concede. all of families, and have you d we ever read the keynote address lt given by obama?ead >> no, but i think you need toib read my book of los. u that is not an inconvenient truth, no.less," th theis platform is of the temocratic party is breaking.tha each one of the ten commandments one by one by one. the shall not murder among the n most important issue to the democratic party. that's right, abortion. im sticking a fork in the head of? ritle babies sleepingyes, thats peacefully in the mother's wombe thou shalt not steal the entirep

tax policy to generate and stead money, redistribute wealth. e certainly, but but no guns before me. steal they put every gun before the real got. i don't think their is a living, liberal who would not give up his eternal soul to attendwouldg vanity fair party. favorably in the new york times, published in the new york times. ehe worshiping of idols is sport it's more than sports. it is the religion of the left. their s religion is breaking ea. one of the ten commandments one by one. theen >> you write the orwellian by dishonesty about abortion begins with the laughs of a refusal to use the word abortion. abortion sacred and must not be mentioned. the only other practice that was both defended and unspeakable in america like this.e that was

>> that's right. that's true. >>est: uingly even in places where slavery was accepted as i, was in many parts of the worldvs people did not let their children played with slaveof the traders the way i imagine peoplt didn't today let their kids. t it's one thing to say i'm pro-choice and love a woman beside and different to let youo kids play with the child of a pd local abortionist, of whichis af there are not very many. play it repellant practice, but it i peculiar that they have elevate. yet we can't use the word. you don't have a gun rightstitu, groups refusing to use the wordd gun. it showsyo you what a hideous thing it is and what a hideous thing they know it is.it sho y >> another reason tweet. hideous why doesn't obama just take thih same speech and have them rerun it every night. you're on. run >> good afternoon.every n it's wonderful to talk to you. o i'd justu' finished reading youy book.st

>> thank you.inished >> and basically i am here from the home of judge carty, scott walker, and also the steel they. and at just read your book. teae as people why we're celebrating bastille day.ok at so we have a lot of fun withi ae that. but one of my, i do watch allwed this. o so many times that if we wouldk just follow the constitution we would not be in this mess. one of the main things istion, e article one of section 11. basically all the powers are the vested in congress, not vested in the bureaucrats, not -- what we are going to do is bring that whd and make people understand. d? get the power back -- unrstan >> i'm so glad you asked. the no. pple -- this is a very important point. um

democratic policies are so is,hs unpopular that democrats had to. stop promoting them themselves.t the violence and stop molesting murdering criminals, for asing example. instead they just nominatechil judges and then assure us thatsd of judges are very moderate. not they get to the supreme courtthg and suddenly discover, look,cenh this 200 year old document. we found one.scover, there is a right to gay marriage and abortion. 20 36,000 criminals from thethere't california prisons. recent united states supreme court ruling.mu lease some of the get the course to do their dirty work for them and tell us that the constitutional court rul right.now theget the and i think the only way to th d bring this end, i mean,'s a obviously we have a method that n, have been trying for the lasi 20 years, trying to electe republican presidents, wait forr vacancies on the supreme court, get a supreme court nominee whoe does not solicit when read in the constitution.

that didn't work out so well. we had three republicanum, thaty appointees, sandra day o'connor, justice kennedy who all voted tt uphold the heart of roe v wade, though not the precise holding.h aol doom of of that is boeing. in any event i think what we need to do is get five of ourow supreme court justices, this is one of my plans to restart engaging in conservative c judicial activism and who is itf the sort of right equivalent being elicited by the liberalhae justices. billingsly have a right for a rs hallutax. you have a right to own a suddey rocket-propelled grenade. we have a right to free have agne for blondes. all kinds of fantastic rights that i can think of. i think we declared withholdingo tax unconstitutional. i and thenca how justices can admi

it was all a joke because the liberals can never understand how heinous their policies are until it stops them. rse alternative plan to my unde considered much more quickly.s h ritae republican executive to say, and response to the suprema court rulings, for example, theo guantanamo rulings, i wish he had just said thank you for yous opinion.had just i am not giving special constitutional rights cove toamt e rrorists on a battlefield.tham >> the tweet and then e-mail.ste al like the way she flings her y hair.agner: hair,ell the dvd of that. that's the tweet. in elton johnson. lays it on the line. all who disagree are in here-ma, words stupid and demonic. >> in no, little misguided. miu.

mostly i think it is the worshiping of false idols.mostlh at think it is this desire to b. considered cool and in and not have to think about anything.ann >> her public appearances are an avalanche of small minds. appeas a series conservatives must be taken seriously the first things they have to do is distance takn themselves from the likes offirh planin beck, rush limbaugh, gror norquist, and ann coulter. >> i don't know about the other. guestbut i would say not at all . small. i mean, this is like what i said about joe mccarthy. wor what's your point. like but you disagree with? i think that was not called me wha and nice. was this is hell of royals avoid talking about the issue. this iw this same slender. racist, sexist, ugly, mean.

don't listen to this person. at don't be this person. danger. se danger. me. aell, our ideas.t re you do so, and if we were , despicable and smiling at don't think we would have some many fans. and a> you also wrote i about how ym cannot attack certain people such as casey pontians mother. >> guilty. guilty. >> is the liberal st. and how they -- it is sort of the reverse of what i just said. the technique so that the conservatives have their own median. talk radio. fox news where you can occasionally see a conservative. and so their approach, send out

something in hysterical women to make their point, and you can respond to them. from cindy sheehan and, the jersey girls camacho wilson, oh, but they have a relative died. you can respond. they are allowed to voice the entire left-wing agenda. >> next call comes from jordan and lexington kentucky. hi. >> hello. such a huge fan. i am a former republican president murray state university and a former reagan scholarship recipient from the phillips foundation. >> that's great. congratulations. nice to me give. r: really i had two questions>>e 20. you. i am reading demonic right now, by the way. at think it's my favorite ofng your books. i've read literally everyone. read it when i was in the eighth grade. >> you are a fine american ands

will go far.s" in >> to questions. number one, is it true that youu acaner is actually from paducah kentucky?o >> yes, she is.rue i was almost down there a couplm of weeks ago for the family reunion. is. wewas busy with the book. >> that's great. when i heard that i was so excited. i live in lexington now, but went to marry states. so great conservatives. second question, i have not been able to make it to any of your book tours. you really made a huge impression on me just in terms of their christian faith and telling things like it is. so really i have been wanting an autograph of my book. i can't figure out how to send it to you or what., >> and sure you can get it to mw through the phillips foundationm >> what is the film'stoe thro foundation? >> tom phillips, he is the. >> owner. he brought of gregory books. conservative book club.

various other publications. but he gives out these. club. very impressed that you won thir awrd ffor a young journalist. i guess it's called the reaganen award. and there are submissions and cd judges.eagan i'm aware of the various winners. so he oversees this whole complex of which i am a smallpso part. efinitely get the book to me through the phillips small foundation.ly >> next call comes from new york city. foundaon. hi, mike. >> hello. good afternoon to all ofcoul yoa i would, we talk about the recent act.centct the nationally -- this was described by people on the ride as muslim terrorism. was then it was described by people on left as christian terrorism, which is also incorrect. the only way this could have

been described is a white racist who committed an act of white terrorism in a world wide systef sysmhite supremacy. for good christianity, forget right wing in forgive left-wingt that is the only way this shoult be looked at. t and to do so any other way is sy incorrect. >> i agree with part of that. and as luck would have it i read his manifest., i not all of it, it gets a little repetitive. you can scan through some parts, but i don't think i am unaware of many conservatives to blendt- it on islamic terrorism. of didn't know what it was.es who d by the time we heard that didn't was already being described in the new york timesw headline as a christianas tandamentalist, gun-toting fox n

news viewing, i believe, and his manifesto makes clear, as the caller said, he is not a christian. is't as the word christian to mean non islamic.heord and it's not specifically, i is don't know, black, hispanic.llyi it is muslim he does not like.no that's said. he and, yes, it was very anti muslim, but he talks about how e he wants to use and do this and all th-me people of europe to jn with him to fight against theeof islamic resistance europe. join that's what his big thing is. whether or not that is connected to the insanity on some like toe level i don't know, but for the new york times described him ask a christian fundamentalist comes out of religiously something he would expect. >> you can watch this and other programs online booktv.org. coming up next, booktv.org presents an hou