about the constitution related to fiscal mandates, bailouts, limited government can't do little or nothing about increasing encroachment of government on rights to privacy and free expression. am i correct in my inspection? >> guest: major encroachment to privacy right now, but that is not part of the contract from america. it may be phase two is the politically mature, and right now they believe they have bigger fish to fry and not privacy. >> host: nexus of rain and video, missouri. lorraine, are you dare? >> guest: yes, i'm there. you have the last question. >> caller: just a comment. talking about the constitution and the tea party. the all mighty wind that talks about the constitution follows the constitution is ron paul in

the tea party people are not behind ron paul. so for me, it is ron paul or no one. that is my comment. >> host: thanks so much. >> guest: ron paul and tea party. and the polling data early on he was getting a third of tea party support. that's dropped off over time. one of the reasons is one of the principles is unapologetic sovereignty. mr. paul has sort of interesting views u.s. sovereignty. they don't align very well believe it or not what the tea party and makes them different from his son, randy paul on that. so it's not going to be the darling of the tea party. we should expect anyone. mr. paul al-aqsa tea party support, but over time he's not going to be the candidate. they are looking for someone else who might be electable. >> host: so as far as you can tell, the tea parties hereto say? >> guest: they will show up in november and will be part of our

political scene well beyond 2012. >> host: the book we talk about, elizabeth foley's book is "the tea party: three principles" available wherever you buy your books. thank you so much for wrapping up our coverage of the los angeles times festival of books. and for being with us this weekend. great to be in los angeles for two days every year. if you miss coverage, panels and authors are all available on the c-span video library. have a good rest of your day. >> up next, guy gugliotta recounts the social and political landscape of the time. this is about an hour. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. thank you are coming out today. my name is donald cannon, vice president of the u.s. capitol historical society, where i

oversee our scholarship and educational programs. my pleasure to welcome you to today's brownbag book lecture. i would like to invite you back again on thursday when we will have our second mark brown bag lecture featuring a book is joseph wilkins, an historical novel. the first time at a book discussion of a historical novel. it is about speaker thomas bracken read and a contentious 51st congress. if you have had a chance to read it, you'll enjoy meeting the author. if you haven't, come anyway and listen to him talk about the book. and his research and doing it and may be get some pointers. i don't know, would probably have some budding authors in our audience, either here or on cease and. let me just briefly introduce today's authors so we can get right into the program.

i would mention that there is an article by your speaker, guy gugliotta come and our current edition of our capital film magazine. there are copies of the in the back. please pick one up on your way out. it is also available online in an interactive version on the historical society's website, www.u.s. chs.org. as i mentioned her speaker today is guy gugliotta. after commanding a swift boat in south vietnam he became a journalist who has covered latin america, served 16 years as a national reporter for the washington post and has written extensively on science and policy issues for a variety of publications in "the new york times," "national geographic," wired and the smithsonian. he is here today to discuss his recent book, friedman's cap, the

united states capitol in coming of the civil war. a book that explores one of the most interesting periods in the history of the capital in congress and several of the most interesting personalities that have graced the united states capitol building. so guys, the podium is yours. >> thanks, dawn. can everyone hear me okay? i am pleased to be here and the last time i was here was to ask don for money and the capitol historical society provided me with two very nice grant to help you with the on this book. i came to this project in 1998. i was covering the congress for the "washington post" at that

time. it was the middle of president clinton's impeachment troubles. he had troubles with monica lewinsky, newt gingrich had troubles with the second wife. it was an interesting problem. i was covering the house judiciary committee and he was chairman henry hyde and the committee's effort to reach to arrive at an indictment against president clinton. we have been working for me the 16 days straight. it was 1998 was like that. and finally, the press secretary for representative hyde, a guy named sam stratman who is a capital bus said forget about this. we are not covering this anymore today. but take a tour of the u.s. capitol and i will show you around. so the first thing that we did

was climb the staircase between the inner down and outer dome to the catwalk that goes around the rotunda on the inside. after i had my death grip on the rail and opened my eyes and looked down, i got to myself, my god, this is an incredible view. i didn't know you could do this. capital was the place i worked, not a place that i noticed at all. of course you know what the capitalists, but you never think about it as a building. next, stamp took us out to the subtle -- and sorry. that little catwalk there and after i had my death grip around the rails up there and looked down 300 feet full text my god, this is really some pain. and during the process of this little tour, i found out that the modern u.s. capitol, that is to say the two wings and the dome were built between eight

teen safety and 1865. this was to an incredible thing because i need the u.s. capitalists are at the iconic image of republican democracy throughout the world ended absolutely amazed me that this building had been created, had been made into its modern image during a time when the greatest republic, greatest democratic republic in the world was pretty much going down the tubes and stayed there. so that is how i got into the project. so what we are going to talk about is getting to hear from here. this is the original capital. it is now the center section. i'm sure you recognize it. you cannot see too well, but there is lovely grounds here in the front. nice approach, beautiful

rotunda. the capital is magnificent tour attraction like it is now and people could wander the stairs, talk to senators and congressmen and everybody sort of england happily and bought sandwiches from paddlers that were walking around in my. here are a couple of things, actually several things wrong with the capital however. this is the senate, an intimate room, very good to watch speeches from. it was not good for spectators. charles bulfinch, and in german patrolled designed and put it this balcony to rose, but it is semipermanent can only accommodate a few people. this is interesting because the senate and senators for the rock stars of the 1850s. they were taken down and

verbatim and at that time the congressional globe was reprinted in their debates were reprinted in their entirety in newspapers up and down the eastern seaboard and deep into st. louis at that point. this was no surprise. after andrew jackson, all of the president is served up to 1850 were one termers and several of them really chock-full. the two that i am particularly involved with in freedom's cap, franklin pearce and james buchanan were really good though. so most of the action took place in the senate, where you could see henry clay, john c. calhoun, daniel webster, thomas hart

bandstand, stephena douglas, jefferson davis, sam houston, the names everybody knew. not only did everybody know them, but they stayed and were in washington all time. they came and went. but the senators were forever and they were the stars. people love to be able to get seats in the gallery there and watch the debate. there is another thing that was wrong and besides having not too much space, with the senate was very hot in the summer, very cold in the winter. there were 20 that fat he hind the vice president's chair because the vice president was actually served as the president of the senate. senator walked behind the president of the senate in these old guys with hands on behind walking around and standing in front of this does, warming

their hands. when they were doing that, they were sitting in chairs wrapped in buffalo robes and wrapped in link tags. sam houston were mexican poncho and it picks embraer wrote and leaned back and carved little hearts and handed them off to the ladies in the gallery during debate. so that is what it was like. the second type thing about it was that everybody in the house and senate shoot plug tobacco or took snuff. this is not remarked upon in any newspapers or any contemporary accounts from american authors, but every single foreigner that i ever encountered their pro-memoirs are wrote stories about this was one of the first things they commented on. charles dickens said when you go to the senate it's a lovely room. but if you drop some names, make sure you don't reach for it without a pair of gloves. and so, the place was sort of a

mass and needed a little help and a little expansion. this is the house of representatives, currently has most of you ensure in this room know, statuary hall. there is one good thing to say about the house of representatives. it was generally regarded and still is regarded today as an absolutely beautiful room. there was one really bad thing to say about the house of representatives and that is no one could hear anything. as you see here, the ceiling is curved and away the room is structured, somebody is standing in the well here could be giving a speech in somebody out here could feel see that person perfectly. someone appear couldn't see a perfect thing. it was all white noise. it was total divebomb in the

house was known for that and demand for that for some time. i'm one of the stars of the house of representatives in 1850 was a tiny, tiny congressman from georgia, alexander stephens who later became vice president of the confederacy. his most prominent real estate, even though he weighed less than 100 pounds, he had a voice that could cut through the atmosphere in the house like a phaser. so he could be heard by everybody. so the power rested with the man with the loudest voice and that was alexander stephens. but the thing that the capital really needed more than anything was more space. the united states had just won a huge tract of land from the mexican war and 1848. a year later, it'd been

discovered in california. 97,000 people in 1850. california needed to become a state. more senators would be coming, and many more representatives. there was in fact no room. but it was this man, oddly enough and this is the second big surprise that i had it doing the research for this book, that played the largest political role in enlarging the capital. since jefferson davis and senator from mississippi, southern democrat, outspoken states right and per se we advocate. during the teen safety debate that resulted in the great compromise to place and nobody did more to polarize the debate and nobody threatened secession didn't.

nobody cried foul more often than just as an avis. he was one of the leading advocate then became over time probably the leading advocate of four states right incongruous. at the same time, however, it is jefferson davis at a time when all politics were really local, when almost all politicians, whether democrats were waves, whether northern or south africa or the federal government has an absolutely inconvenient institution, good mostly for waging war for setting tariffs. jefferson davis put forth the idea that a great nation he did a great seat of government. was it just that the united states is getting bigger. the united states was becoming more important. and he saw a fascia division of

the united states is a nation at a time when very few people did. during debate on gaining an appropriation to begin expansion in the capital, somebody said he wanted $100,000 somebody said well, hundred thousand dollars, that's not going to get you anything. and this was true. the then as now, the whole idea is to get the program started. he started the program and then it is really easy to add to it and it's real hard to kill any program. so davis do this because he was a very skilled bureaucrat, something people didn't know about him. the theme was what hundred thousand dollars wasn't going to to be enough. his reply was your absolutely right. $100,000 isn't going to do it. no matter how much money you gave me today, it is not going to be enough.

this nation is going to be so big that there is no building we can do on the present site of the capital that is going to hold everything we need. and the future we are going to have buildings all over this. and he was right. you didn't have to see it, that is absolutely right. he was one of the few people that understood this. one of the questions that i tried to ask and try to answer in "freedom's cap" was how effective david come to this viewpoint? i have come to the conclusion that the main reason was that he was a graduate of west point and like many west point graduates during this time, he was very well-traveled. he'd been well-traveled as a child and an economy of course he was sent out to build forts in the middle of nowhere to write back and forth with calgary in oklahoma and he knew

washington, new york, east, west, north. he knew the country. he could see -- she could see the extent of the nation and understand that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. now, he never reconciled this during this whole period that i write about. he never reconciled the two conflicting images of the two conflicting images he had of the united states. one, the great nation. and two, mississippi. and individual state senate race. and eventually caught up to him and eventually had to choose. interestingly enough for the whole time that he was in washington, first as a seminary, then secretary of war and under can, he was the capital extension's greatest political

opponent. once he left, as he became confederacy never return to washington and saw completion of this work. so anyway, he got his money, not quite as much as he would've wished, but got the project started. he had a contest for the architects to see who would be building it and went off to mississippi to run for governor. he lost. the job of hiring an architect and designer was left to millard fillmore, the president at that time. fillmore had another contest and in june of 1851, he hired this man. thomas u. walter is his second major character in freedom's cap. a very interesting man, self-made man his father was a

bricklayer and he apprenticed his father is the bricklayer and stonemason and enjoined him as a partner. later he went to the franklin institute to study architecture, graduated and became an architect, open up his own office. by the time he was hired to build the large capital, he was 43 years old, probably the most successful architect in the country. was very wealthy, have a whole bunch of kids and a whole bunch of relatives. the vast majority of which he supported in the fire and brimstone back to his tremendously ambitious, tremendous worker and extremely aggressive. he immediately got to work and began to dig foundations and by the end of 1851, there are a lot of progress had been made.

but again as if washington today, thomas altered by the end of 1851 probably had about 800 people working for him. most of them guys carrying space, digging trenches, carrying stones and doing manual labor today foundation of the two new wings. they were going to go up on the sides. well, millard fillmore, it was obvious at that point, was a lame duck. so if you got 800 jobs in your working in congress are working right next to congress and the senators in congress see you doing that in your patron is guy who not to get around in 10 or 11 months, you see that and think let's get them out of here. let's put my guy in. and so, congress had two or three investigations of walter for bribery, kicked packs for shoddy workmanship and most of

his time in 1852 was involved in sending off these attacks. by that time the fillmore administration ended in 1853, while to attend nothing wrong nevertheless had to start hanging at red. so this is that the capital probably the site in early 1853 when franklin pearce gave his inaugural speech from the eastern frontier. you can see the foundations of the wind starting to come up. you can also see the beautiful blonde that we saw a few friends to go have now disappeared and is replaced by piles of stones, piles of junk and mud. so it really wasn't a particularly attract bids. franklin pearce was the youngest person to ever become president of the united states at that

time. i believe he was 44. a recovering alcoholic, very good-looking and gave his speech without notice. other than that, he was pretty much in these two. improved this dramatically during the four years he was president. on the other hand, he westermann this asset for the united states capitol. because the first thing he did for one of the first things he did with the point jefferson davis to be his secretary of war. jefferson davis took over and within two weeks had displaced the secretary of the interior as the officer in charge of the capital project in two weeks after that he appointed this man should be the engineer in charge of the project. this is army captain, montgomery city mad, probably just about the time he was hired as engineer in charge.

he is captain in the army corps of engineers, about to be six years old at this time, have absolutely no reputation, no particular distinguishing good restates. he has spent almost all of his career out in the middle of nowhere building for it, dredging harbors and doing what army corps of engineer people do. which is spend as little time in the army as possible, then retired and go build canals, railroads were run mines for the private sector and make a lot of money. west point was, at that time, the only four-year engineering college in the country. its graduates -- it's tough graduates were neither into the army corps of engineers for the army corps topographical

engineers. favorite part is as finest, most highly trained schneerson the country. it would've been foolish for them to stay in the army. max made $1800 a year, which even then was not much money. now, they were two things about him that were important. the first is that he answer to jefferson davis. he didn't answer to the president. i'm jefferson davis was not someone you want to mess with. he was known as a ferocious advocate in favor of slavery, but anybody who knew him from congress, either as a senator or house member committee that he was also a vicious insider, very clever bureaucrats and tremendous protectorate turf, hold grudges capable of towering rates. if you've gotten this bad might come you never cut off his right

side and need a hair trigger temper and was willing -- which went off at the slightest provocation. so come you go from walter, whose project was millard fillmore, a disappearing wig and would come to montgomery c. nine, 836 or army cap and it says i don't like the way you're doing this. that's fine. talk to my boss. talk to my boss is not a good game, not a fun experience. so did three things when he came in. that was the second thing about montgomery megs. his innovation and energy and skill, coupled with walter's artistic talent and design skill

and davis' political clout is what drove this project forward. during the four years at the pearce administration from 1853 tonight 1857, the lions share of the new wings and part of the new dome were built. everything was put in place during this period. mags and did three things immediately. he decided to marble facing for the capital was too late. it needed to be heavier. here are so decided to put into monasteries. when on the senate went to the north and another in the new house swing to the south. the combined effect of these two -- these two changes was to make the capital already by far the largest building in washington, even more massive, as massive as it is today. it dominated the skyline of watching him. it dominated the city and in

effect, dominated the country. that was the idea. meigs wanted was to last or the millennium. davis wanted to make a statement about u.s. power. the two of them were like this. they were absolutely one line and this is a major decision in bringing the capital to the sort of dominant position it has today. the third being the meigs decided to do was move the new chambers away from the windows, where walter had placed them and put them in the wings apollo ways on all four sides. on the time it was time i remained controversial for hundreds of years. i think, although i was never able to make sure of this, this

is the first time that anyone in a large public outing of this sort in the united states had decided to construct date and have it completely, artificially heated and ventilated. and meigs spend a lot of time planning this and got all the approvals from prominent scientists and never really convinced congressmen and senators that it was the right thing to do. so he had gotten off to a good start. but the main accomplishment of this period, which occurred in 1854 was this. in april of that year, thomas walter wrote a friend of his in new york and said, i have devised a way to replace the old dome with a new dog made of cast-iron. he had taken his inspiration

from the pantheon in paris, from mostly probably from st. paul in london and from st. peter's in the vatican. he had visited all these places as a young architect many years before. and he had solved the problem that the new capital had and that the old dome, which was too sick for the old capital was not too small for the new capital. so he needed a larger job, but he needed it at the material that the old original capital that the foundation could handle. cast iron is that material. meigs was hugely impressed with this and hugely enthusiastic about it. at the same time, i believe that meigs was slightly jealous

because he realized inside right at the beginning and conversations with davis, said i can put the chambers on the side. i can do while smart masses. i can do about these things, but this building is going to be defined by the way it looks in the front and by this dome that walter has created. there was nothing he was ever going to be able to do that is going to equal that. didn't stop him from trying. late 1854 he hired this man, to paint frescoes and do interior design work for him. as an sure most of you have seen, these are part of the committee corridor is on the first floor of the senate. it may be defined the internal

layout of much of the capital and artists have been sort of filling in the blanks for more than 100 years now. the other important thing about granny d. was that as an anti-man, he was the focus of much scorn from local congressmen and senators who were feeling tense pressure from the nativist movement called the doughnut eating at this point. meigs had hired enumerable germans, french,@hand, scott, irish, new immigrants to help them with all of his work. he would've been crazy not to. revolutions in europe are like spitting out experts every day, rushing up on the united states shores practically every day and would've been a fool not to hire him. so he did. at the same time, this movement had arisen i think he has there

was a move to blame the other for the problems in the united states. there's basically only one problem. slavery. by deciding that it was foreigners for their people were losing jobs and foreigners fault that people were always angry at each other, you could divert attention from the main problem, which apparently and indeed as time went on had no solution. so at the same time these developments are going on, things are getting sand. things are getting more elegant in that the capital, the country is sinking into greater and greater despair. second thing that meigs had to do or another theme was not that there is a plan for the capitol dome, he had to put a statue on the top.

he decided to hire thomas crawford, u.s. ex-pat living in rome asked him for a design and crawford sent this lady in the middle of 1855. neighbors loved it. makes loveday, davis love date. he said this is great, sent back a letter and said you need a pedestal here because i don't want her to be standing directly on top of the dome. can you redesign in, give me a pedestal. the crawford, fast worker just takes meigs brings back a pedestal here, but also the lady is completely different. most important, she is wearing this cat.

this is known as a liberty cap, symbol from antiquity as a man united ways. it had been resurrected during the american and french revolutions and crawford wanted to use a. you have freedom triumphant and more the sword and peace and freedom that. well, meigs knew that davis didn't like liberty caps. davis really didn't like liberty caps because he thought that they were inappropriate in the united states because the united states -- people of the united states were never slaves. they were always free. this is an unusual statement to make in a country with 4 million equal in bondage. but okay.

so meigs said already. we won't have the liberty bell. and so, he sent back to crawford for a third design. and this is what crawford came back with and this is the freedom from triumphant warrant peace we have today. crawford is feeling today is crawford's intent is to create an indian princess and you have this buckskin skirt here. but at the waist, debt disappears and then you have kind of a greek thing here. and then you have this remarkable headdress which was supposed to be an eagle and eagle feathers, but instead looks like a rooster with its mouth open. meigs had been urging thomas crawford constantly to go to the vatican library and look up some books that pictures of indians

because he suspect it, quite rightly, that crawford had no idea what indians looked like. anyway, crawford comes back to this. davis just absolutely loves it and meigs didn't say anything and the only one who had misgivings was walter. walter at that time was the architect and was working for meigs didn't say anything. so this is the statute of freedom and this is the statute that we have on the capital today. meigs was also noteworthy for engineering innovations. this is a derek that he decided to construct here from fort timbers, making gigantic mask from the floor of the rotunda. he had a platform here and he

had this room here. said the boom would lift pieces of cast iron up and they would be placed, and manhandled into place around here and then old said by the workers. no need for scaffolding, which was expensive and dangerous and as the dome went up, you could elevate the platform little by little so it went off the mask. it's as familiar to anybody who sees skyscrapers today. this is a bitter pill. as far as i know this is the first time this was tried in the united states. it was a tremendous success. meigs westerman sleep out of it. meigs also figured out that photography could be a great help to hand. and in the 1850s, there were no blueprints said that if an

architect produced a dry and needed a copy of the drying time you had to have a draftsman either do a tracing or copying of the drying handed to the foreign and so that he could -- so that he could do the work. meigs immediately saw the new photographic techniques that he could make a glass plate negative and reproduce the plans and in fact number of times and hand a copy to the people doing the job to anyone of them for or all of them so they would all have a negative effect what to do. you cannot see it here very well, but all of the measurements are delineated here very carefully. this is meant -- these are meant to be used by people using the

capital. if we can go back here, figuring out that photography can be very good for public relations. we served together packages of photographs and get them to the wife of stephena douglas to send them to millard fillmore and to the museum at the united states military academy and pass them along to wherever they might do the most good. during this period, he never had any real problems with appropriations. so i've included this picture. this is the new house of representatives, which was occupied in late 1857. i feel house of representatives, there were several people who suggested that the bad month that accompanied to the base is probably one of the reasons why house members were always at each other's throats and

commenting that the house of representatives had seized two weeks days. well, in february 18th it g8, that her take the letter risk was dashed. this is a copy of frank will these illustrated newspaper from february and describes a late night were all in the house of representatives between pre-slavery and antislavery members. so the fighting continued and he was physical and apparently had nothing to do with the acoustics. but the other thing in the other reason i included this, you can see that the logo for the newspaper is the united states capitol. at this point, things had gotten so bad in the united states the country was so polarized that the capital had been a reality point for members of both

parties or for all parties and for members above section. because it was something that didn't have anything to do the slavery, so it's something people could agree on. it was a rallying point at a time when pretty much everyone is in despair in nothing was ever going to happen to step back from the brink. you'll notice there is take t. see her dome here. there is a reason for this. by the end of 1857 and going into 1858, nixon will -- meigs and water when it's free. for they didn't speak to one another for two years. meigs suspect that the incoming the incoming administration tried to throw him out and was

being helped in this regard by walter. walter suspect did that meigs was doing everything he could to take credit for walter's accomplishments in design. in fact, both people were right, was happening exactly as he described. there is really no stepping back from the brink. from 1857, from 1857, pretty much until the beginning of the civil war, very little was done to the dome inside the dome just sort of languished because walter wouldn't give meigs the drawings and at the drawings couldn't build the domes. this is the senate after he was dedicated in 1859 and include

this only to show it looks exactly here at this point exactly the way it does today, even to the carpet. and this is, i've included this -- this picture is his most dazzling. database and meigs together at top did decorations taiyo that they describe as the highest taiyo. this is the presidents room just off the senate chamber and nothing reflects the media is more dazzling techniques then that's. almost all the, it looks like this is loaded with relief sculpture and with the pain

teens and things like this. it's almost all optical illusion. the british still there today and the colors go down. they are not just surface glazed. they go down into the clay themselves. this is when i saw the rooms come in many rooms in the capital that looks like this. this is the handiwork of a meeting with the approval of meigs. although nothing is going on in the dome, walter was designing a new dome changing the dome appeared from the ellipsoid to a semi circle because crawford's liberty was too tall for a much taller than the original liberty so he needed to lower the dome and make it larger. this is one of walter's truly

beautiful drawings and one of his iconic drawings and a feature on the architect of the capitol's website. i also had the idea of putting a concave nero and between the inner and outer dome, such that sunlight would come through here and be reflected upward by neighbors and illuminate the dome, deniro from below. then the civil war came. meigs lost the battle with walter in 1859 and buchanan sent in the way to the dry tortugas islands in the gulf of mexico off the coast of florida. the meigs came back during the lincoln and illustration

indicate quartermaster general of the army can a child he was told for 20, 21 years. he built arlington cemetery. he built what is now the building museum in his supply train suppiah grant and not crush the confederacy in 1864 and it was meigs' ships that were waiting for sherman when he marched from atlanta to savanna in late 1864. but at the beginning of the war, there were no barracks in washington. washington was embraced by two slave states. virginia and maryland. people are terrified accuracy was going to invade. and so the first volunteer unit from the union came down to washington and there is no place to put them except capital.

this is the massachusetts. the first unit to take up residence there. and you can see, this is the mass going up into the rotunda and you can see the circular staircase that the father to the platform. so the soldiers were there for about three or four months and created a terrible mass. they were finally thrown out when the special session that lincoln called in july of 1861 to place. in 1862, walter became the architect of the capitol again and actually took over the project. said in the end of 1863, he installed the statue of freedom of the top of the dog. at the end of 1865, or maybe

finish the epictetus of washington to use it here. a couple of months into the job that industry should come away back to philadelphia with the intention of retiring. worked as an architect and draftsmen until his death in the 1880s. makes, as i said became one of the most powerful people in washington during the war, was a member of lincoln's inter-circle . built arlington cemetery and the building museum and developed a living for davis as one-time mentor. as a graduate of the military academy himself, he regarded the greatest sin possible to commit

was to betray the oath that you took and he never forgave david scott another graduate of the military academy orly for this and on several occasions wrote in his diary and letters to his father that he wished that those men would be hanged. he built arlington cemetery on the league grounds in arlington, specifically for that reason. be sure that the first plots were right in mrs. lee's rose garden so that you would bury people, including his own son, who died in virginia in 1964, ratepayer beside mrs. lee's back door because he didn't want her average eating that she could come back. davis as they say never returned to washington d.c., never saw

the completion of his work. he was in prison immediately after they were in fact i think a little over a year under suspicion of having orchestrated the assassination of lincoln, which he had nothing do with. he was eventually released on video and never be imprisoned. at one point, his wife wrote a letter to meigs, asking if it would be possible for them to meigs two nics though she could send this letter and threw it at that point. meigs it over and said forget old times sake, he had no time for this. in 1875, the speaker of the house of representatives for the letter to meigs, saying that he

thought the united states is getting too big again and need to have more additions put onto the capital. what the meigs name? meigs wrote back saying the late thomas walder designed this, it cannot be improved upon. don't touch it. the speaker took days and senate to walter was in philadelphia. walter broke meigs and the two had a reconciliation. at the very end of walter's life in a few years before, meigs died in this time they decided they were going to submit it time for standalone library of congress, which was under consideration at that point. i guess i will stop there. [applause] yes.

[inaudible] >> now, he left. he left in january of 1861 and it was pretty much written on the wall that if lincoln was going to win and everyone knew he was going to win, and that states are going to succeed. and so, davises wrote was pretty much etched in stone after that. i believe that i dart member the exact date that mississippi seceded, but it sounded like january 3rd or 4th time in 1861 and then davis cup word of it and about january or teener 14 and he left on january 19. construction continued -- was continuing at that point.

construction indeed continued all the way into many of 1861, a month after the war started and that was when meigs was back in charge at that point. he stopped with the intention of stopping it for the duration of the war. then, walter came in with two or three contractors managed a very clever bureaucratic moves and had congress take control of the project away from the war department and put it back in the interior department, sort of leading meigs without the job. the meigs had so much dvd didn't really care. i mean, meigs was gathering together, helping gather together a million man army and train to feed and clothe and house them all at the same time. he didn't really need to worry about the capital. so then, as we sit here now, 150 years ago that congress took

control or put control of the project that can -- back with the interior department and about two weeks later in early april, construction resumed. >> two-year period when walter and meigs were fighting, was davis involved? he would have had enough authority -- >> shura, so i'm sorry, the meigs walter feud started in late 1857. pearce was gone. buchanan was the president. so davis is no longer in control of the project. but he was meigs great friend and he was again the senator from mississippi.

walter, of course, immediately try to ingratiate himself and was successful ingratiating himself at the buchanan at a. so you have to stalemate in which buchanan, who support everywhere in the country was eroding excite among southern democrats. so he couldn't afford to upset davis. and it would really have upset davis if he'd have fired meigs. on the other hand, his secretary of war, who is in control of the project hated meigs and really wanted walter back in control. but couldn't get rid of meigs because he wouldn't do for davis didn't want. and so, you had a stalemate that resulted were absolutely virtually nothing happened, particularly with the dome for two years.

and until you canonized. -- until buchanan left. yes. >> just wondering about the correspondent trained meigs in crawford. crawford was in italy, so it must've taken a long time for them to be communicating back and forth as to what was happening with that statue. >> you may say really, really interesting and pointy. one that i puzzled over, too. not only did they correspond frequently, but they correspond at great lengths. meigs and wrote huge letters to crawford where she pretty much describe everything that was going on. the really important thing i think to know about meigs is his handwriting was as bad as anybody's i've ever seen.

so i can just see crawford getting one of these letters about 14 or 15 chicken scratch pages, sitting down with his wife and never get their ex-pat in rome trying to figure out what the is this guy saying? there was a famous line of sherman and george tickets and no firm meigs and looks up and says well, this is from meigs solitude he says, but i can't read it. and that's the way it was. so what happened was that the communications would go by ship and then they would come back by ship. crawford was able to take photographs, as we saw, as his model and send them out to meigs and meigs would show them to davis and make his judgment and then send it back.