great minds of usc, in a world where we have seven to 9 billion people anticipating major challenges and anticipating that there will be a market just as folks are using their blackberry right now to text my exciting points. in a world where there is a need for climate change innovation, the demand creates supply and so my optimism is not naïve wishful thinking, but if we anticipate that unlike the titanic if we can see the iceberg ahead, if we are afraid of the iceberg, this is the beginnings of lead time to take proactive actions that will help many of us to adapt to this very scary scenario. >> thank you, matt. ..

>> thank you. when i wrote "how the states got their shapes too," i was doing with why the lines where they are. and in doing that i encountered stories of people who were involved in the why, but the book was unable to contain those stories. and so this book is a collection of the people who i encountered and subsequently looked into,

that created the lines. but both books are really seeking to answer one question here, which is how did we get from this to this. and in this second book, some of the chapters deal with people who, not with these particular lines but try to put more of these lines on the map but failed. or people who have tried in some cases are currently trying to change some of those lines. if you all got a handout it should look very much like this. these are the names of the people that i looked into. a number of them will be talking about tonight but i want you all to the copy so that later when we do questions, they can help for my question or help others well with what you're about. what intrigued me about all of these people go was that none of

them, and, in fact, as far as i know no person ever, said when they were a kid when i grow up i want to establish a state line. [laughter] what i found was that all of these people had a quest, their own personal quest, that somehow ended up impacting on where a line is today. if you look at these names, the names under handout, you will see that some of them are famous, and some of them are not famous, and some of them you of heard of you don't really know why, nor did i come i don't know if i can make his point. daniel webster at the top of main, what did he ever really do? most of us don't know. i didn't before i started. stephen douglas who is in the middle of this map a number of times, i debated abraham

lincoln. what else? some of them are people that we have heard of but i discovered that what i heard wasn't quite the whole story. in some cases it was simply wrong. if you look to rhode island u.s.a. roger williams. i was tired in school that roger williams founded rhode island to establish religious tolerance. true enough. what i did know was that he did it for religious reasons. he wasn't kicked out of the massachusetts baycol me because because he is some loosey-goosey liberal guy, but rather because he was too puritan for the puritans. [laughter] i'll give you a quick example. there were other incidents in massachusetts. the colonial charter that created the colony begins with the words charles by the grace of god, king of england. and roger williams said how do we know he has the grace of god? we don't know who and who does not have the grace of god and,

therefore, do we have the right to take this land from these needs? and his fellow puritans said roger, roger, he goes back home, like he wouldn't keep quiet. and eventually things like that got him kicked out. another name that is very misunderstood, and i want to take a few moments to talk about it because it's a springboard to the larger issue i want to kind of follow the discussion tonight, is mason and dixon. famous line that they've contributed to the map, the mason and dixon line, why we believe is the separation of the free states from the slave states. absolutely incorrect. that's the mason dixon line, not a line, it is three lines. it was created, our survey by mason and dixon to come as best they could, mitigate conflicts

in the colonial documents that created pennsylvania, maryland, and delaware. now, they don't quite know but it could, in fact, be that the phrase dixie comes from the name jeremiah dixon. but jeremiah dixon was not a southerner. jeremiah dixon wasn't even an american. charles mason and jeremiah dixon were two very eminent british scientists. to get him to come over here and be surveyors is the equivalent to get mozart to play at a prom. they came here in 1763, before the revolution. in 1763, there was no prohibition of slavery in any other colonies. in fact, slavery existed in most if not all of the colonies. so the question becomes where do we get this phrase mason-dixon line as referring to the free

states and the slave states? and the answer begins here with the louisiana purchase in 1803. president jefferson made this purchase, and very send a question arose, what about slavery in this new region? it wasn't until 1820 that that got resolved in what's called the missouri compromise. a compromise authorized by henry clay and it established a line. the key word there is a line. missouri compromise is a line at 36 degrees, 30 minutes but it was an extension, given her take given some surveying of the boundary from below virginia, below kentucky, and it said that no new state or territory north of 36 degrees 30 minutes can have slavery with the exception of missouri, that being a compromise. after that was established, four years later, and this is the

earliest i could find, it may have already been in news before that, i found a reference by john randolph, congressman from virginia, which is the earliest reference i could find to the mason-dixon line as a line dividing free states from slave states. randolph said on the floor of the congress, we who belong to that unfortunate portion of the confederacy which is south of mason and dixon's line, and east of the allegheny mountains have to make up our minds to perish only must resort to the measures which we first opposed to british aggression and usurpation. sort of interesting that as early as 1824. in fact, earlier, already out in the open was the idea of southern independence from the union. later to become secession. so it was at that point that we start seeing this shorthand with the mason-dixon line. but if you look closely at the

map you'll notice that parts of slaveholding areas east of the alleghenies are north of the mason-dixon line. at delaware goes up a little above the mason-dixon line, what is now west virginia, at the time it was still virginia as a whole panhandle sticking up between ohio, north of the line. you may be able to see new hampshire, i've kind of a checkerboard color. new hampshire did not officially abolished slavery until the civil war. so it's really a shorthand to our language. but i wanted to talk about it because slavery is one of the two underlying elements that i want to follow a bit tonight through the people that, because of slavery, established a great deal of the lines that are on the american map. and also to talk about another underlying element that came to be entwined with slavery, and that is the vision of this man, thomas jefferson.

in 1784, congress assigned thomas jefferson the task of coming up with a way to create new states. it's not in the constitution, so we needed some kind of method for doing so. this was the proposal for new states that jefferson handed in, probably the first thing to strike is that ain't what we got. nor did we keep most of those names, although two of them have kind of survived, michigan and illinois you. but jefferson what's interesting is that jefferson had a quest as well. and when he issued this report and made the suggestion, he made a statement that you may not quite follow everything he is suggesting here, and i will get into that right after. you will do the quest, you will recognize the quest of thomas

jefferson. with respect to new states where the question to stand simply in this form, how may be territory, the territory west of the allegheny mountains, be disposed of so as to produce the greatest and most immediate benefit to the inhabitants of the maritime states, those are these darker green states along the east. the plan will be laying it off into two or more states only. good faith requires us to put the question in its just form, how may the territories of the union be disposed of so as to produce the greatest degree of happiness to its inhabitants. there's about a quest. jefferson had two things in mind. one was much smaller states than we ended up with. he believed that if a state was too big it would end up containing people from two

diverse groups, and would eventually crumble. he knew of what he was speaking because his state, virginia, at that point in time, include what is now virginia, kentucky and west virginia. and it was not a happy state. as a matter fact, it later broke up. kentucky was seated right around this time. west virginia not in the civil war. but the other thing jefferson was talking about was who controlled the senate. all these maritime states they talked about, the darker green states on the map have rivers and waterways that flow to the land. west of the appalachian the waterways flow, unless they go directly into the gulf, the ultimate find their way to the mississippi river. and at that point in time, the mississippi river was controlled in what is now tennessee, not yet been made a state.

they proclaimed themselves a state without congress' approval called franklin. they talk about proclaimed themselves a republic called franklin and opening negotiations with spain for navigation along the mississippi river. so congress had to get its act in gear pronto, and they also wanted, the issue would be welcome in terms of spain, things like that, who would control the river. the biggest provision, well, i guess the first question i wanted to point out is when did congress began to tinker with the founding fathers vision? we hear a lot today about tinkering. and it began in 18 days after jefferson handed in his report. [laughter] they started to tinker with it, but the biggest change came three years later when congress passed the northwest ordinance. that divided the area in light green which is called the northwest territory. administrative time, they also

started creating and laying out what became the future boundaries for kentucky, tennessee, alabama and mississippi. as you can see, they didn't follow jefferson's vision at all, and as you can see some of these lines are, in fact, the lines that exist in the states today. illinois, indiana and ohio. but you can also see who controls the senate. because if you add up those states that we have in this region today, they do not equal the number of states in the maritime site. this is probably the biggest gerrymander in history of the united states. two of these lines are not lines that we have today. and so the next question is, what happened to that horizontal line and to the vertical line through lake michigan? this man happened. be affected more state lines than any other person with the

exception of stephen a. douglas, that jesse hawley dated from jail. [laughter] >> jesse hawley was a flower merchant in western new york and he depended on the mohawk river to transport the flower to the markets in the east. at the time the mohawk river was not fully navigable and the company that controlled the navigation on the mohawk shipping company had promised the merchant going into western new york that they would improve the navigation. but they didn't. and jesse hawley and probably others went bankrupt. and when you go bankrupt in those years, you go to debtors prison. while he was in debtors prison he wrote a series of lengthy articles that he published in newspapers using a pseudonym because debtors prison wasn't a good for the resume. in which he described an idea that he had, and that idea was the erie canal.

jesse hockett was not the first person to imagine such a canal. by the way, up there, boxed everyone -- what did i do? go back. here we go. that is the erie canal. it begins in buffalo at the eastern end of lake erie. across as through western new york to albany where it meets the hudson river and then it goes down to the port of new york. so it turns all of the great lakes into a highway of commerce from the midwest to the atlantic ocean. and jesse holley knew the geography of western new york so well and he knew the geology the underground structures so well and into the hydrology so well that he wrote these reports with so much detail, and they were lengthy, into the book length, that the governor of new york used his reports as his bible

and getting legislature of new york to fund the erie canal. and it was expensive. those were posted called clinton ditch. but the erie canal altered the proposed boundaries for the existing boundaries of every state or future state around all of the great lakes, beginning first -- gosh, i'm sorry. this button. pennsylvania was negotiating its boundary with new york. and when it concluded them come it ended up with a little pad at the western end of pennsylvania. that pad gives it a port on lake erie called theory. just below box three you will see the red line there is the line from the ordinance of 1787 that congress had established. but then with the erie canal idea, congressman the northern border of indiana north 10 miles

to give it a port at kerry. you'll also see ohio's border moved north that it isn't a straight 10 miles. why didn't congress just moved north 10 miles? the answer is congress didn't move to ohio did. we will come back to that in a moment. box five and six on the map are over in that box to the left. that's wisconsin. there were two changes made to the territory of wisconsin due to the erie canal. one was this western boundary number five was taken away from the future state of wisconsin and given to the future state that would be treated to its west, which is minnesota. and that provided minnesota with a port at duluth. and then the number six chose the upper peninsula which extends off of wisconsin. that was removed from wisconsin and get into michigan, because of that line down there between

ohio and michigan. when ohio wrote its constitution for statehood and i believe 1803, it was suspected that this line due east from the bottom of lake michigan, and the ordinance of 1797, keep in mind, just because it's on paper doesn't mean people know what it really is. they suspected it would cut off the western river in ohio from its board where in these into lake erie at toledo. so they described their northern border a little different. they described as going from the northern end of the day, top of toledo, to the bottom of point of lake michigan stopping when it reaches the indiana boundary. that is why ohio has a slightly angled line. congress didn't have -- the thing they were doing, they

recognize ohio had a little shift. they didn't feel that was a big of a deal. until the 1830s when this man became the boy governor of michigan. stephen t. mason was 19 years old when president jackson appointed him to be the secretary of the territory of michigan. in effect making the governor because the governor at that point had basically gone fishing. the people in michigan were outraged and they sent letters to the president saying please get rid of this kid and give us a man as the governor. so, mason m.e.d.i.c. west and it was to show that he was a man. and that he had the moxie to lead this state. when he became first this in effect ever and where the action tutorial governor, talking in the early 1830s there are a

lot more canals now being built because of the erie canal. one in particular was called the wabash and erie canal. a connected the wabash river where that circle is on the map to the mommy river. what that did was create a waterway to the entire hinterland of the united states. i'll start at the bottom. this is now looking at this map. if you start at new orleans you go up the mississippi, to the ohio river, to the wabash river through the wabash and erie canal into lake erie to the lake erie to the erie canal to the hudson to the ocean. that is an incredible highlight. and the hub is toledo. [laughter] so stevens t. mason was the first governor, talking still a territory of michigan, to

challenge that adjustment that ohio made. and the governor of ohio, robert lucas, said hey, we are a state, you're a territory. you cannot alter a state line, you know, without our consent. i am abbreviating things enormously here, but -- [laughter] mason in effect subject, and whose army is going to stop us? he called up the territorial militia. lucas said my arm is going to stop you and he called of ohio's militia, and we had two militias face-to-face in what is known as the toledo war, which almost sparked a full-scale combat but didn't because congress quickly intervened and said to michigan, how about this wrecks we'll give you this peninsula appear coming off -- what is it? [laughter] was confident hardly anyone living there. some indians. and if we do that how but you

let ohio at its way. and again, to sympathize michigan friday said okay, we will take the deal. robert lucas went on to become the territorial governor of iowa and it was in that capacity that we began to return quite a rude yet to thomas jefferson. lucas, too, had a quest. he was quite a character. so i would like to take a moment to just reach you three excerpts from the times of robert lucas. the first is from the cleveland herald in 1838. so the point of 1838, this is after he has won this dispute with michigan and been appointed to become the territorial governor of ohio. ex-governor lucas is one of the most deserving men in the party. and we don't not approve a good government of the territory of iowa.

he is an old-fashioned, honest, intelligent western pioneer. nice. the second is a letter that lucas wrote many years earlier during the war of 1812 when he was a young officer, and he wrote this letter to a fellow officer. and what's important to keep in mind is the virtue hearing, he put in writing. he wrote, never was there a more patriotic army that had more completely in their power to accomplish every object of their desire and the present. and it must now be sunk in disgrace for want of a general at their hands. was there ever men of talent as their are so shamefully opposed by imbecile or treacherous commander. first of all, the grammar isn't perfect because this man was self educated. but smart. secondly, you put that in writing? if you could get in a lot of trouble. but this was a man who, as we

saw with michigan and ohio, and as we see you back in the war of 1812, a pioneer which is to say he would go and get what he wanted. example number three of this is from an ohio paper in 1832. the point of each entry to is this is before the conflict of michigan altogether, okay? when colonel of the regiment, and something other than he is now, lucas seduced a young lady who sued him for breach of marriage contract and got judgment against him. and when he had put all his property out of his hands, and nothing could be got, so that nothing could be god, he was in jail for the death. and then issued his orders for his regiment to come and rescue him from the custody of the law. [laughter] well, they didn't come and rescue him from the custody of the law, and he had to make good on his the debt. but this is one widely, poor

headed guy. but by the time he became bad guy, by the time he became the governor of ohio, and that the territorial governor of iowa, he still had all of that in him. but he had learned to do it within the ground rules. when he became -- let me go back. when he became the governor of iowa, ironically he neatly encountered an identical boundary conflict that he had had in ohio. this was between the southern border of iowa and the northern border of the mystery. the only difference was that he was now the territorial governor opposing the governor of the state. and opposing the way a boundary had been surveyed compared to the way it had been, line had been stipulated. i won't go into the details of that.

the point is lucas one it. this is where stevens t. mason did not. he played his cards differently. and was much more patient and ultimately iowa won that conflict. lucas also wanted a different northern border for iowa. these lines actually make sense in a way. they follow the mississippi river to the minnesota river. then there's a little straight line over there in the northwest that takes it over to the big sioux river, and all of the big sioux river to the missouri river. it's not illogical. in fact, in its day it made sense. in comparison to other states in the northwest territory. but when iowa came up for statehood was that supposed border, samuel benton, a congressman from ohio, opposed it. what's important about it is in

opposing it then reminded congress about jefferson's original vision in 1784. and how congress in 1787 strayed from that vision. vinton then went on to say this. what has been the effect that has changed the vast and fertile region between the ohio, the lakes and the mississippi, that's those five states there, ohio, indiana, illinois, wisconsin and michigan, has been reduced from 12 to 14 states, to five at the most. that can never have but 10 votes in the senate. as an equitable compensation to the western country, for this flagrant injustice, i would make a series of small states on the opposite bank of the mississippi river. vinton then proposed a straight line border for the northern border of iowa. iowa had a nonvoting delegate their, dodge who opposed this

straight line. what's interesting to me about it is he said that line you create, that's just an arbitrary line. and the question that i want to do with now, was it an arbitrary line? and the answer to that begins with this man, stephen douglas. douglas affected, suggested more lives than any other person on the map. he's one of those people that you can we have heard of, he degraded lincoln, right? he did. he also beat lincoln in the 1858 senate race and douglas won that election. douglas also had a quest. his quest was to become the president of the united states. he tried to do that by preventing this nation from dividing over slavery. so the issue of slavery and the

vision of thomas jefferson begins to become intertwined. and it starts here. united states won the mexican war in 1848, and in doing so the treaty that ended the war, the united states acquired this land in yellow. and very quickly the question came up as a day with the louisiana purchase, what about slavery? because southerners could see, probably you can, that the missouri compromise line wasn't going to work anymore. it was going to maintain parity between free states and slave states. many of the state lines that douglas affected dealt with that missouri compromise line, and dealt with it in this bill. the kansas nebraska act in 1854 which douglas road. the red line is the missouri cover rise line. but the main thing about that

kansas-nebraska act said we will no longer recognize that. from there on out new states and territories will decide for themselves whether not to have slavery. it was extremely controversial. there was a huge dust up. when they finally voted and enacted the kansas-nebraska act, not too many people notice that during the dustup that douglas had a change in his proposal. initially he proposed the southern border of kansas at 36 degrees 30 minutes. it made sense. it made it adjacent to the top of texas which entered the union in 1845. it followed along the line of missouri. at any entered an amendment and he raised that boundary of what happened one degree. that left a gap. that gap is now the panhandle of

oklahoma. why did he do it? and by the way, what does all that have to do with the northern border of iowa? this. by creating this new baseline at 37 degrees, whether intentionally or not i can't tell you because stephen douglas never spoke to directly to what his intentions were. but what evolves over the upcoming years were a tier of prairie space with exactly three degrees of height. kansas, nebraska, north dakota and south dakota. just to their west using the same baseline, a tier of mountains states, less good for agriculture with four degrees of height, colorado, wyoming and montana. and if you look at iowa, it has almost exactly three degrees of height. but more to the point, what we see here is that jefferson's vision of states being created from a mathematical prototype

has finally emerged on the map. in fact congress also started quickly making these new states with seven degrees of with. north dakota, south dakota, wyoming, colorado, washington and oregon all have seven degrees of width. washington and oregon give-and-take just because of the coast. others come close to seven degrees of trend once we have this prototype of jefferson that has reemerged. so we go from jefferson to robert lucas the samuel benton to stephen douglas and jefferson returned to the american map. well, here he is again. when you later today you will know why stephen douglas was famous before he debated a one term congressman who lost the election and two years later ran for president. the other piece of legislation

that dealt with slavery that stephen a. douglas was a great participant in was the compromise of 1850. that was a package of five bills, and he was involved in two of them in particular, but the one i want to talk about is the bill that involve texas. texas when it entered the union it had been a republic and was much larger than the texas we have today. it continued further north, all the way to wyoming, tapering as it went. it relinquished all of its land north of 36 degrees 30 minutes because the missouri compromise was still in effect, and it's slavery in texas and he wanted to keep it so they let the united states have that land. but it still included all the land east of the rio grande which is today the eastern half of new mexico that you see here. it also still included a whole lot of debt that it had incurred in its years as a republic. so in 1850, is texas bill pay

taxes enough money so it could get out of debt and in return bought this land that is today part of new mexico. and those two lines that define the land that we bought from texas were established by stephen a. douglas. now, it's no big trick to understand that horizontal line at the bottom, the purchase, that these, el paso, an important pass through the mounds in the state of texas. but this horizontal one, why did he put this line where it is? that's 103 degrees west longitude. why be a pika? why not 105? or 100. what is with 103 degrees? the answer to that surfaced in 1861 when the new mexico territory was divided in order to create the arizona territory. the delegate from the new mexico territory was a man named john

watts. and it was through him that this line dividing the territory to create arizona was proposed. a congressman from new york, william wheeler, questions this line. he said the only reason you put this line here is because it continues from the line separating colorado and utah, so you get this nifty little for corner thing going on. watts disagreed with that, and the first thing he pointed out was that he created almost exactly equal territories out of new mexico and arizona. but he also spoke to the issue of race. and that's where it really gets interesting to me. let me explain who this bottom and is at -- who this man is at the bottom. he came from one of the old and

wealthy mexican families in one event the mexican province. as the united states was approaching the civil war, francisco went up and down the rio grande valley which is where virtually all the hispanic population was centered. urging them to remain loyal to the union. when the civil war broke out, in fact, arizona did become a state, but it became a confederate state. it didn't divide itself a longest vertical line. it divided along the horizontal line in the middle. the southern half was arizona. the northern half was new mexico. the union sent troops in to reclaim that land from confederate troops from texas who were defending it, and there were several battles, all of which were won by the union troops, and so this area was reclaimed by the union. among the union troops was francisco. something else about this

hispanic population along the rio grande is that there were many of them darker skinned. so this is what john watts, come back to congress in 1861, also spoke to in terms of this horizontal, vertical boundary that he proposed. i find his words fascinating. that aren't many men in the of new mexico who, by living constantly in the open air and exposed to the raise of the burning sun has become bronze in complexion. what ever may their color, the treaty stipulation between the united states and the republic of mexico have invested them with all the privileges and communities of american citizens. the first duty which the government owes to its people is to give both military and civil protection. in this case, the government is under a double obligation. mexico was compelled to

relinquish her right to a portion of her territory, and to write to protect a portion of her people in duty to her by 10,000 pleasant memories and hopes, and doubly endeared by 10,000 painful or voting for the future. what painful forebodings for the future. well, the forebodings can be described in what was a five letter word, a very dirty word, of the hispanic appellation of on the rio grande ilogistics belt. t-e-x-a-s. texas were people who would come into mexico for the province of tejas, and one to three, it was an independent republic and then he became a state in the union. and now they were beginning to migrate into this area of arizona. hispanic population was nervous for their culture, for the future. if you look at the geometry of this line that john watts

proposed, it puts the rio grande, as best as possible, in the center of the new mexico territory, and largest population center, santa fe, these three degrees from texas and three degrees from arizona. creating a state or future state six degrees wide, and at the same time arizona roughly six degrees wide in the amount of area that it entailed. for this geometry to work, you have to have a line at 103 degrees west longitude, the line that stephen a. douglas originally proposed. in my opinion, that light is the most brilliantly located line on the american map. now, douglas' efforts were very controversial, particularly the kansas-nebraska act and the scrapping of government regulation of slavery. and there was an enormous amount of suspicion in this country in

this run up to the civil war about both efforts by northerners and efforts by southerners. and one of those people was senator thomas benton of missouri. senator thomas benton was the great uncle of thomas been, the great painter. but senator bitten painted a very different picture. he thought stephen douglas is kansas-nebraska act as part of a conspiracy. i want to retrieve what he said on the floor of the senate when they were debating the kansas-nebraska act. as he's describing the conspiracy. i must now look for the real object, the particular purpose for which it was manufactured, the kansas-nebraska act, and the grand movement of which is the basis. first, the mission of mr. katz to santa ana, we'll talk about him in a moment, it must have convinced about the time of this

bill, it must've been conceived about the time of this bill. $50 million for as much mexican territory on our southern border as would make five or six states. secondly, the mission of ambassadors to madrid, $250 million for cuba. we will talk about cuba in a minute. this nebraska bill is only an entering wedge to future enterprises, i think manufactured for a particular purpose, a stepping stone to a grand movement which is to develop itself in this country of ours. so what was senator benton was saying was that he saw a nightmare in the offing, and is based on three bad dreams. bad dream number one was the purchase. james gatson also had request. he was a southerner, in his

adult life was to preserve the culture and lifestyle of his country as he saw it, which is euphemistic. he wanted to preserve slavery. as a young man he was officer in a military. he repeatedly tried -- he may not have been the brightest because calhoun didn't pick up on him. though i won't get into it, at least in this talk, at this moment, his mission to mexico got a little found up with some of the things he did. but when he was dispatched by the united states government to go to mexico, it was to buy land for a railroad to go, create transcontinental railroad that would parallel the transcontinental railroad being planned through the middle of the country.

we talked today about big business and its involvement with government and government bailing it out or the amount of money that big business has in campaigns. at this point in his life, james gadsden was a railroad president. in 1853 that taxpayers in this country spend millions of dollars to acquire land so that the railroads could build a railroad that they could draw great profits from. but that was not ben's 90. dance night i was fact we did need that land to create a sudden caught i in the railroad. transcontinental railroad. the white line at gc is, the mood that been show the senate could be built without making this purchase but it ended at san francisco which was a great port. this one that gadsden was talking about and in san diego which was just at that point in time a military base. and it went through god-awful land where there was no commerce, no agriculture, no

future for agriculture. why were they making a purchase way down there? been suspected that there was a hidden agenda. that suspicion was that by the fact that gadsden tried to purchase all that land in orange. and it wasn't $50 million. he was on choice to spend up to $65 million. mexico didn't want to sell any land to the united states but they were broke from the mexican war with the united states. so santa anna was able to persuade his people to sell just enough land to raise just enough money so that they could arm themselves and defend themselves against the people to whom they were selling the land. [laughter] so you can see the gadsden purchase again on this map, but you wanted a great deal more. then there was bad dream number two. that was the kansas-nebraska

act. by letting people decide for themselves, been feared, as did most, that kansas which is to become a slave state and nebraska would be a free state. it turned out after great deal of violence and bloodshed that kansas ultimate became a free state. but he had no way of knowing that in 1854. california had been admitted to the union as a single great big state that did not have slavery. but they have debated becoming two states, and though still a movement afoot to divide california into two states, someone prominent in the move by the way was james gadsden. the new mexico territory have not yet been divided, but there was in the wind at the idea that it may divided horizontally. as we mentioned a moment back, during the civil war that effort was made. so that ben had the fear that there was a whole thing going on in the west regarding slave

states and free states. this is ben's nightmare number three, cuba. he mentioned the ed pastor souée trying to buy it from spain which turned out didn't work out. but there was a movement, a secret plan, widely discussed in the newspapers to raise a private army and invade cuba, and to re-enslave those cubans who were covert, either black with mix butter and the to offer to the united states. now, this wasn't the plan of some -- this plan was being organized by the governor of mississippi, and it was less significant than the bay of pigs, what you're seeing up there is news clippings from before the effort was launched, the one of the top says general contemplated descent upon cuba. other the one on the bottom it says cuba movement further --

preparations, i think, for the invasion of cuba. msha's widely discussed in the papers. but delicate because officially the government didn't know about or they should have to stop it. right before quitman launched his invasion, president franklin pierce told them it was a no go, don't do it because that kansas-nebraska act just been passed and it was such an uproar, pierced through the added uproar with cuba would bring. so taken together, bad dreams number one, two and three created this nightmare for benton, that there could be a belt of slave states that was large enough to defend itself and to sustain itself as an

independent nation. so, in fact, he wasn't crazy for having those fears. there are countless people have contributed to state boundaries, and aside from all the white men that i've been talking about, i want to just quickly mention that there were people from all walks of life. there were native americans, such as keith green mccurtain who sought to create a native american state called sequoia, which would occupy what is now the eastern side of oklahoma. there was sequoia who was involved in the negotiations that established the boundaries between what is today oklahoma and arkansas. that is a bit line border. chief standing bear impacted on what is the northern border of

nebraska. there were african-americans. this is edward p. mckay who sought to make oklahoma and african majority state. benjamin banneker, along with andrew ellicott, survey the boundary line for the district of colombia in 1791. that is quite a geek for a black man in 1791. he was a fascinating figure. and even today, eleanor holmes norton seeks to create voting rights for the district of colombia, but has also proposed a statehood bill that would alter the boundaries by creating a federal enclave that would be separate for the district of columbia, our will within because i suppose the state of new colombia. they were hispanics. i mentioned a franciscoperea. this is josé, who is a leading voice for puerto rico becoming a

state. they didn't follow his advice, but they did elect him the governor right after so he had a great deal of admiration for josé. and there were some women. women were hard to get information on because they were not given a seat at the table. so i think that a great deal more impact and influence that i know of at least, but among them, queen lili of hawaii. her efforts failed on the half of the hawaiian nation to change the boundaries of the united states. this is ms. nichols was involved in the convention, the creation of kansas. and once again, eleanor holmes norton. to me, all these people and the quests created bureau of an ongoing progression of americans. and why they did what they did, and when and where they did it turns that mural when you step

away from it into a portrait of who we are today. and that's what this book of mine is also bought. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible] [laughter] >> yeah, i wasn't speaking to blurb. the plug connects to new hampshire, to, ethan allen. at a lot of ethan allen, that's for mod? the green mountain boys came into existence because at the time there was no vermont. new hampshire always believed that the land west -- well, what is the date from august partner new hampshire, but the king of

england david in 1763 i believe to new york. by that time new hampshire had already sold land in what is today vermont, and he did it in new hampshire. in new york started selling in some cases the same land and beating it in new york. some of that land was owned by ethan allen and his brothers, among others, and deeded in new hampshire. they formed a vigilante group called the green mountain boys that went after these new yorkers who were laying claim to the new hampshire lands. ethan allen never built furniture by the way. never made furniture. [laughter] but he burned a good deal of it. and he was, he was a tough character. when the revolution broke out he was also a smart character and he thought i think i can play my cards differently with the green

mountain boys. and those are the green mountain boys that we learned about in high school history. so there is the connection with new hampshire that was advertised. [inaudible] >> oklahoma was originally a territory called indian territory. it mainly was used to when the ethnically cleanse the indians from southeastern states. they were shipped out to reservations in oklahoma. approaching the turn-of-the-century, the groundwork for this was late earlier. it became a state, and doing that meant congress had to change the way land was titled in that territory. it was held by tribes. and the dawes act i believe around 1900, 1899, gave

citizenship to indians in those tribes in return for the tribes redistricting plan so that it was titled by individual indians which was old and broken up. sort of a complicated thing. what's fascinating though to me most about oklahoma's statehood, because the lines were pretty much in place from the surrounding states, if there were three movements that were taking place virtually simultaneously, the first was this attempt by the native american tribes to create their own state, to join together. they had a convention to do this. and at the same time they were doing that, that would've been, the tribal lands with the eastern land is when edward mccabe and others were urging through advertisements and brochures african-americans to migrate to the newly opened lands in western oklahoma, so

that it could become an african-american majority state. to escape persecution mainly in the south, and theodore roosevelt, president to both sides, neither one of these is going to happen. i'm going to veto it. so stop. then there was a third convention of which was basically, well, included native americans and whites, but blacks were not welcome. that created the state of oklahoma, which wanted to embed in the constitution white supremacy. and to do that they had to define a white person, and they did in a way that indians were white people. but other delegates, teddy roosevelt was never going to sign along with the constitution so they backed away from that and simply created oklahoma. in the first act of the oklahoma legislature want to segregate

the railway. >> will you please discuss the relationship between thomas hart benton and john in california, and also maybe brigham young and utah and the mormons? >> fremont was a real, i believe son-in-law, fremont, so benton was a backer of fremont, agenda india states army in the mexican war and a bit of a loose cannon. and without benton he probably wouldn't, you know, history books at all because there were efforts to court-martial him. i don't pursue them much in his but because they don't ultimately affect the boundary of you asked about someone else. brigham young. brigham young was a mormon, and leader. he let the largest continued of mormons from illinois to utah in 1847-48.

he envisioned the creation of a state which was, had it been created, huge. it would have filled -- pretty much everything from california. congress was not going to let a state like that be created. they weren't happy about the size of california over taxes, but texas and california created themselves. i don't have time to go into each one of those. they are in the books. i'll tell you an interesting thing about brigham young and desiree at. he dispatched a mormon elder named in to form a port at the furthest medical point on the colorado river. colorado river empties into the gulf of california. that's between them if you look at romance, that long that comes down from california, the border between chad and mexico is the gulf of california.

that's where the colorado river ends. today there's not much there because of irrigation and things training the river. back then it was navigable all the way up to a certain point and that's where he created a port of call for. that was important for commerce to the mormons and what they hoped would be desperate but even in utah. it was in arizona as it turned out once congress created the lines. after the civil war, payback time to arizona for trying to become a confederate state, and this triangle at the western end of the arizona colony god-given to nevada and became the triangle at the bottom of nevada. one of the reasons was called though, this important landing on the colorado river. you can see it today that you have to go under three to 400 feet of water. because the hoover dam on the colorado river created lake mead and call building right on that

channel is at the bottom of lake mead. yes, sir? >> your book talks about the retro session, and it also talks about the effort for statehood of the district. has read recession back to maryland been considered instead? and why has it not been undertaken in the same manner in which it was done in virginia and? ..

one of them was that maryland by virtue of the constitution you have to agree no one seem to be recognizing that. the other was that one person was saying how you know, this keeps getting blocked by the republicans because they don't want 300 some thousand registered democrats and the district of columbia becoming voters and congressional elections. the reality is it is not democrats who support d.c. voting rights and republicans oppose it. there have been times where the house and senate controlled by democrats and a democratic president and they still haven't acted on d.c. voting rights are statehood. also there are some surprisingly prominent republicans who have supported voting rights for the

district of columbia. one of the most interesting that i encountered was a rather narrow issue. it was ken starr who headed the investigation into whitewater and clinton's list to testify before congress on this more narrow question of what a constitutional amendment be required for voting rights for statehood and he said no. much as if you were talking to the supreme court on supreme court precedent so therefore when i read these letters today i thought you know, chiming in on this would be like arguing whether or not you could steal third race in football. [laughter] the discussion just gets while. let me go to the back for one. just to keep this guy on his toes. >> apart from the d.c. issue are the other state boundary settled at this point or are there still debates going on?

>> in 2008, the georgia legislature passed a resolution seeking to relocate its boundary with tennessee, which had been incorrectly surveyed and wanting it correctly survey. actually they didn't even want the whole correction, just one mile of correction which would give them access to the tennessee river. they needed water and still do really, desperately in georgia. now know stateline can be altered. this is in the constitution, without the consent of both states that are involved in congress. tennessee said no. [laughter] so you know, i think it's still an issue in georgia. don't think it's an issue in tennessee so it probably won't happen. there are a number of disputes disputes the go on regarding very technical things. there was one just result between maryland and virginia regarding the potomac river which theoretically is entirely

part of maryland and up to the virginia shore and virginia had intake pipes for their water and whether not they took water for maryland or not, so there are a number of things like that. yes, sir. >> supposedly there was a nafta to revise the confederate states to make them an entirely new state, different borders. a friend of mine years ago who said he saw that map. i've never been able to find it. have you ever heard the story or have you ever seen that map? >> i've never heard anything about it. i will google around. i will tell you though where you can i bet get the answer and i imagine there is some contact on e-mail or through the internet to do it and that is the geography and map division of the library of congress. they are fantastic staff over there and you can contact could

contact the reference library in. do you know what i mean? we have a librarian from the newspaper and current periodical position who is a fantastic help to me and this and who was also my wife. [laughter] >> what the town is -- one tell ms. bethel maine and that was once known as said very canada. do the same people affected got government of the international borders? >> up order was, actually it was destroyed in the treaty ending the resolution which made sense and would describe this country we were now becoming an england is recognizing that then angwin said no no you misunderstood our wording. abs, maybe no but after the war of 1812 there was a long and at times violent dispute between the united states and i will say canada. it was really england at that point. they were the country and

control. ultimately it was negotiated by daniel webster who was the secretary of state at that point, and they came up with the line in the treaty known as the west as bird treaty. what is fascinating to me about the westberg asperger treaty as you would probably think webster sat down opposite ashford and they negotiated. they chatted so they knew each other from before. webster was really negotiating with maine and he went through a very clever, he was a courtroom lawyer and a fabulous magician in the courtroom. and he just had it brilliant strategy to force maine step-by-step by step to accept that it's not going to get the boundaries that it was probably legally entitled to and i imagine that is where the town we are talking about officially

became part of the united states and there may have been at times considered part of canada. >> what are the stories about lord fairfax? >> yes, lord fairfax through inheritances, had a title to an enormous portion of virginia along the potomac river, and he had its survey. this is going back to colonial times, so he could sell parts of it and title it, and the surveyors, the boundary, the colonial boundary separating ireland and virginia was the source of the potomac river. well the potomac river is made up of different branches and if you go out west there is the north potomac and the south atomic. this happens lots of times and there's a protocol for that. either the deeper branch of the branch that goes and extends further is the branch that is

referred to in such a boundary. the north branch of the potomac river does both, hence it's the boundary but it's not the boundary the surveyors surveyed. i'm sorry, the southern branch. the southern branch is the longer and the deeper. that should be the boundary but his surveyors surveyed the northern branch. they made virginia bigger then the charter really stipulated. and maryland challenged it. lord baltimore heard about this and challenged it. a number of things delay the challenge and then we come to after the revolution and now it's states going back-and-forth. at maryland faced a problem after the revolution was challenging it because one of the surveyors not many years back was a teenager really and towards washington. and george washington was the one mediating the dispute.

[laughter] other things were disputed to and so maryland in that dispute said let's not do this part of the dispute right now so they didn't bring it up in front of george washington and they tried bringing up later but it was too late to cause lands have been sold and deeded by virginia along the north branch of the potomac and once that starts happening it's very difficult to get the supreme court to start. you are right, all you people are in maryland now so that in a nutshell is lord fairfax. yes, sir. yes, maam. >> the fact that the real rivers tend to be boundaries, does that end up affecting really disputes? there is something in the original book about an island in illinois and i just was curious as to whether those kinds of disputes will begin to surface

and our current day because of how they water is rearranging itself? >> right. the answer is yes it causes dispute in the answer is no, not in our current day and here is why. when you look at the map, east to west you will see the lines get straighter and straighter. one of the reasons for that, and i didn't realize it today, is the redevelopment of railroads. with railroads rivers were no longer as vital for agriculture water distribution but they were no longer as vital as boundaries because railroads could transport goods. rivers have a problem. some of them shift their challenge. the mississippi is notorious for doing it in the missouri has done it and the ohio has filled in between islands and mainland's. so if you go down, in fact i was doing a radio show a while back and a man called in and he said i was hunting in southern illinois with my brother in the sheriff came up and said you

can't hunt here. i said well here is our license. he said that's an illinois license. you are in missouri. what he talking about, the mississippi rivers over there. it was over there but it is over here and you are still in missouri and you cannot hunt here. [laughter] the supreme court has consistently held that when a river changes its course, the boundary does not so there are lots of places downtown omaha nebraska as an area that is really an island and it is technically an island because of the flood on the missouri river that changed the course of a little lake back there and the river is over here. it did cause disputes but over the years, the consistency of the court and saying that the boundary does not change has resulted in no longer being something that creates disputes. there is a little place between

indiana and kentucky, the island in the ohio river. the ohio river. some rivers are divided down the middle and some are not. the ohio was entirely part of kentucky off of the indiana shore so there is an island very near indiana that has filled in between indiana and the island as it is kentucky. there is enough land that i think maybe a racetrack, maybe a casino, what can we do here? andy and on is not too wild about that but it is a conflict but not that big of a deal. >> i want to thank you marks mark stein for sharing your extraordinarily interesting -- [applause] and i thank all of you for coming again and we will see you

outside. don't forget your take away on the way out. [inaudible conversations] >> this event was hosted by the smithsonian institution here in washington d.c.. to find out more visit si.edu. >> as was hinted at in the introduction the thesis of this book in a nutshell is that the climate change doesn't just look like bad weather. it also looks like ethnic violence religious violence, civil war, banditry, counterinsurgency, xenophobic anti-immigrant policing and what i tried to do is tease out in these different situations the causality, the causal role of climate change and i never argue that climate change is the sole

driving force of violence in any one place, but that it is a contributing factor. and it always works in conjunction with preexisting crises. the idea of the book came to me when i was reporting on the heroin economy in afghanistan, and the farmers there, i would ask them why were they growing this illegal crop, and running the risk that came with that, but getting arrested in having their crops destroyed by the government. and part of the answer that came up again and again in different places over a series of years was well, poppy is very drought-resistant and at first i didn't know that there was a drought in afghanistan. it turns out that afghanistan is suffering the worst drought in living memory which has coincided with the whole nato project of nation-building in afghanistan.