kevin guzman recounts the legislative career of james madison. mr. guzman contends madisons political life was complicated and marked by his country and ideas about the need for the bill of rights and the failing of the u.s. constitution. the two documents that he assisted in drafting and his thoughts on the negative impact of political parties. >> good evening. eeni all i intend tonight to discuss one of the most overlooked elements of james madison's courier or perhaps i should say. the most underemphasized underemphasized elements of james madison's career.

and one reason why it doesn't get the emphasis it should get his here as in other areas of his political life, madison self-consciously stood in the shadow of one of his contemporaries, that of tom jefferson. so for example, madison is often seen as lieutenant of jeffersons who claimed credit for drafting the virginia staff for religious freedom atop the virginia general assembly in 1986 and in fact checkers than was wise enough or perhaps we should say machiavellian enough to sketch his own gravestone on which he said that he wanted included statements that he was the author of the declaration of independence and of the virginia religious freedom besides father of university of virginia and this is commonly the way we understand the process that led

to the establishment of a secular government in the old dominion. but if you think about it, you realize that jefferson was claiming credit for some team for which madison should get a lot, not he and the reason it most commonly when we discuss a particular legal enactment, we credit the politician who is the prelude to get through the legislature, perhaps the chief executive has stressed that was the leading element of this program and so for example when it comes to the voting rights act of 1965, we don't say which should steer attorney on the senate judiciary staffer at the actual language of the voting rights act. what we see is which politician pushed back and so lyndon johnson tend to get the credit for it, even though johnson has nothing to do with the actual drafting of the act. here when it comes to the virginia statute for religious freedom mr. in 1777, jefferson drafted the bill.

he actually tried to get it.did. he failed. he was nine years that from the legislature when madison picked it up and pushed it to adoption. the site income and the fact that jefferson and claimed credit for it and madison never complained about that tells us something significant about madison political personality and his personality generally. but i think the establishment of this principle of secularism, secular government i should say this sounds dated virginia was despite the fact he took the lead in several other extremely important developments in american politics. the most significant of madison's achievements. before i go on, let me just say a quick thank you to deborah hirsch and admit town library for having me tonight. i'm very happy to be here.

it was nice of them to make preparations that were necessary here and i am really thrilled to be old to present this talk to you. madison's insistence on the principle of secular government can be understood if divorced from his own experience through his childhood and early adulthood. and i think in order to get an idea of where madison first became convinced that virginia should be the first quality to adapt this principle of secular government, we have to go back to his decision, which he took in his late teens or he would go to college. madison was a sickly young man, although he was born to the wealthiest bantering orange county and piedmont, virginia, which was essentially the frontier about 100 miles inland. he was born in orange county to the wealthiest man in the county

one might expect did that if you are interested in studying medicine and he would go off to eat and baroque or if you're interested in studying i go to the ends of court in london. or if you have no interest in either of those he might spend some time as most of these peers did at the colonial college, the only college south of princeton colonial america, william and mary. but when the time came, madison did none of these in the reason was that he sometimes referred to as his poor can't petition. that was that he was perennially unwell and he thought it people did at the time the williamsburg was disease ridden environment. they got the vapors made cheesesteak and so he decided to go off to what was then called the college of new jersey, what we now call of princeton. this is going to have a very important fact i madison's political career. there is a significant distinction to be made in those days between princeton and

william and mary. william and mary was not a rigorous academic environment. it was a school in which enlightenment thinking dominated. on the other hand, it was run by the colonial church of virginia, the episcopal church. if he had gone there, madison would've had a different kind of nurturance of his intellect and he encountered at the college of new jersey. the college of new jersey at the time was run by john withers then, who is a recently immigrated scottish presbyterian divine. and in the college -- at the college of new jersey, madison encountered particular current enlightenment thought that led him to have a very skeptical attitude about human nature. the one way you can distinguish revolution, most notably the french and russian is that the

people at the head of the american revolution tended not to think, as leaders of the french and russian revolutions bad, that if their political program were successful, we would be a kind of transformation of human nature. .. why you certainly should not mix an area of life that's dominated by people like that with something as important as religion. we shouldn't understand having fought it wasn't important and that's why the government shouldn't be concerned with it

rather his reason was that he took it so seriously said he spent time at the college of new jersey and he went back to virginia at age 21 they were then commenced time he engaged in a very fascinating correspondence here in his early 20s with one of his princeton classmates a fellow named william grout from from pennsylvania and should also be politically prominent for the attorney general in the washington administration but what is more important about bradford is he's a fellow that elicited some relationships on government and religion from madison. in 1772 to 1774 madison 21 to 23 wrote several letters to bradford and got responses to him on the question of the1 to , relationship between government. he g and religion, and what he saidve to him first was that he would u like for bradford to tell him exactly how it worked in pennsylvania that there was no

established church and of courst pennsylvania and new jersey being founded by quakers never did have established churches in this they were essentially thec same boat ash ryland the not for the same reasons and madisonse also passed new york with of thh puritan rule violent experimentl because he said although there is nominally in the establishment normally an establishment in new york, there has not been one effectively. madison was limited in 1772 with the authorities in virginia because he said that in those and neighboring counties, by that he meant in orange county in the virginia piedmont, there have in recent weeks on 10 weeks being jailed, width, find, and otherwise mistreated for being baptists and spreading baptist teachings. in fact, there were also a couple of cases in nearby counties. it happened fortuitously,

although i don't know if mattison would've said this was fortuitous. it happened that madison was born in the epicenter of radical protestantism in america. the baptist movement was in the neighboring counties in virginia the two of them were witnessed to this treatment that was being given to the baptists in virginia. these very last few years of the colonial period. besides the whippings that were complained of, in one case, the local leader of the gentry, that is the local elite cheap figure, -- waited until the baptists had gone into a meeting on sunday, he locked the doors and through api through the window. there was another episode of the

gentry, this was an episcopalian church, likely a wizard family to pay for the capital. another time, another family in colonial virginia had waited for the baptist to go into their meeting house on a sunday morning. all of them in on horseback, riding down a center idle, whipping everyone in reach. apparently there this was some kind of sport. it was another case when the baptists had snakes thrown through the windows of their meeting house on sunday mornings. if you think of it as fiction, this could be humorous. we might chuckle or we might be somewhat embarrassed and nervously chuckle. for madison, this was appalling. he could not leave this kind of thing can happen. he finally, at the end of this

correspondence, with bradford, he said here we see a breakthrough in thought. he took the lead in writing the u.s. constitution. but i think this is the most important insight he arrived at. at age 23, madison wrote to william bradford, if we eat, and all of north america, could agree on the what the right church to establish, and if we had been right that was the right one, it still would've been a bad thing to establish it. because, he said, wherever you have an established church, you are always going to have freedom and other areas of intellectual life, too. even if we all agreed on what the true religion was, even if we were right and established best an establishment would've been a bad thing. for the rest of his life, madison was going to see to it but there was no such thing. it happened in 1776.

madison, age 25, was elected to a parliamentary body in the first time. and what a parliamentary body this was to be elected to. madison was elected the youngest delegate to the virginia revolutionary convention. what happened here is that the colonial governor last appointed -- royally appointed governor had fled virginia. jefferson said this was a wise decision. a wise decision for him to flee. he had fled virginia and so that council, the house of burgesses, the oldest body in north america, decided to rule in his absence. they met jointly in what became called the convention. then they had an election for that convention. people were told what we were going to be doing. we will be creating a new model of government. this virginia convention of 1776 was responsible for writing the first written constitution adopted by the people's people's representatives in the history of the world. madison was the youngest participant. before they did that, they

decided, and here we see the influence of george mason, madison's older colleague, who called himself a man of 1688. because he was a devotee of a lorry is revolution in england, by which parliament had been mean supreme and super or donated above the monarchy, in other words. they decided before the adopted the constitution they had to first layout their philosophical messes with a declaration of rights. madison was appointed a member of the committee, chaired by george mason to draft a declaration of rights for the full convention to consider. once again, he was the youngest member. this is a very interesting episode. when the committee reported out its draft declaration of rights, it had 16 articles, and to begin with statements about political philosophy. men are born free and equal.

they had a debate about that. and they made an amendment and said when they enter into a state of society, government is responsible for protecting their rights. what they were doing there was deciding that the slaves in virginia were not being allowed to enter into society with the whites, and so from the beginning, the virginians were deciding that the black people in virginia were a separate people. thomas jefferson would resort to them as a captive nation. i tell my students that they were not african-americans. they were not allowing you to be an american. that was the crime. madison did not object to that. they went on to say that government authority was properly derived from the consent of the governance. and that they must periodically have elections. then there were articles having to do with individual rights. the right to own a gun, freedom of speech, trial by jury, and

finally, the very last article, article 16, drafted by george mason, a man of 1688 said that the virginians were going to be entitled to the fullest toleration of the matters of religion. toleration was the formula that was used in england at the time. in england in the 17th century, they had a conflict between a parliament dominated by puritans. of course, the king was an episcopalian. finally, the parliament one nas executed the king and established a puritan society. they asked the king to come back, then they adopted the act of toleration which said that you can be any kind of protestant that you want. this was a very liberal position in the world in the 17th century. in spain you could be any kind of catholic that he wanted. right? in russia you could be any kind

of orthodox that he wanted. in turkey could be any kind of muslim that you wanted. but in england you could be any kind of protestant. george mason, who was a liberal -- i'm being facetious, of course, george mason said that virginia should be according to the fullest toleration. madison, age 25, the youngest man says i object to this idea. he said, the implication of toleration offended him. the problem, he said, was it he said the government was going to tolerate your religious opinions, you were saying a couple of things. the first one was that the government knew better than you did, and the second one was the government was putting up with your air for now. of course from the implication was in my correct itself later. madison suggested that he thought what article 16 should say that virginians were entitled to the free exercise of

religion, and once madison said this in the full convention, george mason, the chairman of the committee said, i agree. that is a superior formulation. at that point, the record tells us the agreement was unanimous. everyone accepted this idea. at age 25, madison invented the notion of the free exercise of religion on the basis of his experience in orange county, and under the influence of his having been in new jersey instead of in virginia, because of his sickly nature. i should say that madison was complaining in his early 20s that he was sickly and about to die and he was going to be complaining about that for 60 more years. [laughter] >> he was. and if you read his correspondence, i have read every word -- we find him saying that he is still complaining. he is just going to die at any moment. he was finally right, of course. [laughter] [laughter] i gave away the end of the book, sorry.

[laughter] anyway, and 1776, after he had had this success, and i committed to say that the virginia declaration of rights was the first american declaration of rights. not only when was he the youngest, he also took this significant role second only to george mason, as i would argue, in drafting the first american declaration of rights. he then might've thought that he could be elected to virginia's house of delegates. newly renamed in this new constitution that madison helped write from the house of burgesses. of course the house of burgesses was the first elected assembly in the western hemisphere. that is not to say that no native americans ever had democratic government. they tended to have a kenyan style democracy. but the virginia house of burgesses were first elected body like this.

after they renamed it, madison thought the he would run for election. here we see something about his personality. they had a tradition in virginia called treating. that is, in other colonies, you may not know this, but in new york, for example, when you showed up on voting day, you showed up at the polls, and if you didn't show up in virginia, you could be fined. if you were elavil to be there and you did not, people were fined for not voting. not a good idea idea. not too sure about that. anyway, madison thought that he could be elected to the house of delegates. they have this tradition of treating, which was that people would show up in the sheriff would ask you, who do you vote?

and i could say that i voted for john randle. and randolph would say i will never forget it. and of course the other day saying, i will never forget it. this is why people tended to vote for the nearest rich guy. the rich fellow living here is your house was a patron, you will count on him in case your horse came up lame at some time or you needed by sport putting your burn backup if it burned down, if ugandans in with them, then you vote for your neighbor. not a boat or whoever. after the voting, they went out into the lawn outside the courthouse and the people that had voted for randolph or smith would expect randolph was meant to give them all the whiskey they could drink. virginians were known for this. i should say, i think virginia is still notable for this. my father was in the army when i was a kid. i happen to live in texas when i got out of high school and i

went to the university of texas. i buy some partying in texas, basically you have church schools from agricultural colleges, and the university of texas. if you want to party, you go to the university of texas. but i never saw drinking until i went to virginia. i'm not exaggerating. i saw people hanging out of cars and i saw people lying unconscious on the sidewalk. it was amazing. this was a very old tradition. in the 17th century, it was a place where people drink a lot. put them -- to put it in context, the average american drinks 5 gallons of whiskey per year. 320 ounces in a year, is that right? that would be announced today. men women and children, young and old. people visited philadelphia, reported seeing 5-year-olds standing around the street. it's true. people drink like fish back then. virginians drink more.

people talk about how virginians drink more. unbelievable. madison thought this treating and tradition -- did you vote for me, i will give you all the ham and whiskey you can consume in a weekend, that is just not republican. people should vote for me because i'm the most qualified. so i'm going to stand up for this principle. so the house of delegates election of 1776 was the only one that james madison lost. [laughter] virginians had not changed their mind about this young whippersnapper. what this means is that voters from the house of burgesses that was renamed, they ran the executive branch of the new government. for that reason, madison was not in the house because he was not been elected in 1776.

he didn't have any role in that. but his friend jefferson, and jefferson did become a good friend of his is one of the governors while madison was on the council, his friend jefferson was sent to france in 1784 to be the american minister to france. while he was gone, madison came back to virginia and was elected to the house of delegates. he was there just in time to oppose a new proposal for what was called a general assessment. the idea here was, and this was an idea that was shared by several prominent figures in virginia politics, notably edmund pendleton, who is a cousin of medicines and who was the top judge in virginia, and patrick henry, easily the most popular politician in revolutionary virginia, they have the idea that during the revolution, popular reality had declined. so for example, they thought that there had been more betting than before. it's hard to imagine.

it's like saying there's more drinking than before. apparently, more betting and tippling houses, which we would call bars, people were not paying their taxes, for various reasons, they thought, that there needed to be a general assessment. what this is going to be the kind of resuscitation of government involved in religion. both hamilton and henry were episcopalian. what they were proposing was not to restore the establishment. beginning in 1776, the government of virginia had stopped collecting the taxes to pay for the state church. in theory, the episcopal church, would still be established as a church, but they were not collecting the taxes. pendleton and henry said in the legislature, what we need to do is collect these taxes again.

but we won't force everyone to pay for the church of england. what we will do instead is a, you can specify where your tax money will go. for example, if you are a methodist, you can say not episcopalian, but the methodist congregation will get my tax revenue. by doing this, they hoped that they would restore such situations in which all virginians were contributing to protestant religion. in fact, that is what the act said was about protestant religion. you can imagine madison disapproving of this idea. one secret of early american political history is that you couldn't beat patrick henry and virginia politics. every time they butted heads, patrick henry one. one-time jefferson said, i guess the only thing we can do is pray for him to die. [laughter]

[laughter] what happened with this general assessment in 1785 was that they were following the state constitution's requirement that every bill pass on three readings. so they brought it up for the first vote. it passed pretty easily. they brought it up for a second vote. it passed pretty easily. the third time around, madison said, i have an idea. i think that patrick henry ought to be the governor. under the 1776 constitution governor was elected. it just happened that the one governor expired between the second and third readings. so james madison nominated patrick henry. they did. as soon as henry was sent off in sworn in, he was kicked upstairs, he said here's what i said. rather than take another bow, we should prefer this to the people. we should print copies of this and distribute it in every county. then we need to have a full public conversation throughout virginia of this question,

whether people believe that we should have tax support for religion. for the first time ever, there was a statewide popular political campaign in virginia. they didn't have political parties. there wasn't a statewide elections for governors. so this was the first statewide political campaign. what it was about this question whether there should be a general assessment. now, george nicholas, who was the delegate from jefferson, went to madison and said i think what we need is a pamphlet laying out the argument against this idea. you need to write it. madison said, well, okay. i will write it. they keep my identity secret. in fact, people did not know that madison had written this document, which is called from oil and remonstrance. memorial and remonstrance. it laid out the classic

evangelical argument, essentially, the radical argument against state establishments. by the time madison made speeches, he had laid out several arguments about why there should not be -- why there could not be both state support for some kind of protestant religion and religious freedom. he said anytime you save your going to allow money to be spent on some kind of partisan, you're going to get virginia government asking who is a christian and who is not. so we had madison's two sets of notes that he made against the idea of a general assessment. the first one he laid out several questions that he didn't think proponents could answer. for example, suppose a judge has

a question brought before him. here is a local minister. these people want to give him their tax money, but i don't think he is a christian, so they should not be able to give him the tax money. then the judge is going to ask, okay, well, it's using the bible in the services? which bible? madison says which bible is going to be required? will be the hebrew bible? will it be the greek bible when it isn't going to be the vulgate latin bible? which translation of the bible is christian? which scriptures are going to be accredited and approved by the state, is going to be the protestants? is going to be the catholic list of books in the bible? is going to be the lutheran list of books in the bible? once we get past this question of what text to use, what approach will a minister be required to take before he is accredited as a christian? is he going to have to say that the bible is divinely inspired

and every word? is going to have to say that the bible is divinely inspired and general? is he going to have to say that the bible is divinely inspired and essentials? if we can agree about that, how is he going to define god? will he have to say that god is the trinity and the orthodox were his? in the art ariana way? that he created jesus? instead of god beginning jesus? you might think that this is some abstract monkey stuff. but the point medicine was making, i think, is incontrovertible. once he said, only christians can receive this tax money, the government is going to be right back into the game of deciding who is a christian and who is not. whose religion is accredited and whose is not. who'll be able to get money and who's not. the next thing you know, we are going to have an act of uniformity and we are right back in england. then you will think that toleration is liberal again. any other speech that madison laid out against this idea, of a general assessment, he took

different routes. here, he said, religion is not for the civil authority to be concerned in. once the civil authority is involved in enforcing any kind of definition of christianity, you are on your way toward uniformity. in other words, you're on your way towards queen elizabeth's decision at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 17th century in england. this is what christianity is. it means the same thing everywhere in my kingdom, and we are going to be doing that in virginia. people are going to be back to whipping baptist. were they necessary to christianity? utah clearly not. besides that, he said several states have been devoted to religious freedom and have prospered. he thought that new jersey was more christian than virginia.

he pointed to article 16. he said this is contrary to our state declaration of rights. people are going to be entitled to the free exercise of religion. my religion says i should only support a minister who is behaving the way i think he he ought. this guide is there. this year i don't want to give him any money. i should be able to give no one my money this year. not because i am deciding i hate religion, but because i like it. madison didn't think that the government should be secular because he was your religious. we often make the mistake of thinking that anyone enforcing religious positions doesn't think religion is important. his view was that it was the most stated position -- that it was because most important thing. he didn't want people to be involved in an.

he didn't want politicians to be involved in it. if you think about the world today, you will see that it is true. he thought that having a general assessment would drive immigration. if you started enforcing religion, people would believe virginia. they would go to kentucky and other places where they could have free religion. it happens in our world all the time. besides that, the argument people are making in favor of a general assessment doesn't even make sense. if there has been a breakdown of society during the war, it is because we had a war. and the war wasn't like the war in two dozen 12. if you are paying attention and are involved, it is important to you, but it's not like having a war bought here in manhattan or in danbury. it's not like that. madison said, the reason why we had any kind of decline in popular morality is because we had this war thought in our own backyards.

people marched across virginia. well, that is passed. things are going to improve. we don't need is for this reason. this was his culminating argument. a general assessment would dishonor christianity. it implies that it is necessary. he thought, he insisted that it wasn't necessary. as i said, in that memorial remonstrance, he took his most radical of evangelical positions about the proper relationship between government and religion, he said. here he was always the wrong, but he said that a close link between church and state had never assisted christianity. everyone knows the early history of the christian church knows that that is not true. this was the most radical position in madison's time. it was clearly one that he had imbibed at the college of new jersey, and one that he had come to believe in after witnessing what was being done to the baptists in orange county. worship was for god and not the

state. if a general assessment of the order, so could an establishment and so on. this does petition and pamphlet were circulated across the state. thousands of people signed. when they came back into session the following year, the house of delegates didn't even vote on the general assessment again. not only to not vote for it, they didn't even bring it up. instead, they decided the woman. then madison said i have an alternative. that is when he waved the virginia statute for religious freedom. it was at that point that virginians were ready to adopt this policy. which said that, well, it has three sections. the first section is a long philosophical predicate written by jefferson. it is the most harshly antiestablishment position you can envision. it does essentially, my favorite part, where he says, government

can only make people into hypocrites are liars if it requires them to say what they think. if you require me -- for example, john adams wrote the 1780 massachusetts constitution. it said if you are going to be the governor coming at us where you were christian. jefferson's bill said, well, if i run for governor, are you not going to say that you're a christian? jefferson said this is a kind of spoof on christianity. .. virginia said that people are not going to have to pay to

support any particular religion. they were going to have to participate in any particular religion. there were going to be any civil penalties for not participating in any religion. in fact in the private correspondence richard henry lee, who was another prominent politician in virginia at the time and for a while was president of the congress, he and madison both wrote, they we fought this principal of religious freedom was only forns christians was incorrect. it should apply to hindus, muslims, it should apply to jews, it should apply to feethi freethinkers.nk it's really somewhat. breathtaking that medicine can to these conclusions.eathtaki given the context in which he was writing, but he agreed with jefferson writing. he agreed with jefferson's preamble is essentially almighty god has created the mind free and in the wake of the adoption of the religious freedom, not offend wrote he thought the project of finding men's minds have forever been laid to rest

in virginia. this was accomplished in 1786. you might think any one of these -- either his role in the declaration of rights or at.dean's virginia statute for religious freedom would be enough for a whole career. name a politician who's done more than that. you can't. that wasn't the end of course because in 1787, not offend finally succeeded in the project had long been working on and that was in bringing together an interstate convention, supposedly with the call of amendment two confederation. at least that was the theory of it. so the confederation congress in the 12 states that it delegates to philadelphians 1987 said that the reason was the articles of

confederation. people like madison did not have that in mind. they have substituted the national government for the federal government. we don't have time to go into the whole description of the back-and-forth over the question of whether should be national or federal, especially whether authorities should initiate in the center and be partial to insofar as its convenience to the sender. or should be in the states and delegated to the federal government as it was convenient for the states of the federal model. madison favored the national idea but was defeated in philadelphia on that. not only was he defeated in philadelphia were authority ultimately should be seen and the federal system, but it to have his virginia colleagues were among the three people who stay through the whole summer of 1787 in philadelphia and refused to sign the constitution. george may send and the governor

of virginia edna grand falls who had been the right hand man and the national model one of the reasons both mason and randolph gave for not signing the constitution was dayside there should be a bill of rights. it is unacceptable there should be a bill of rights and there's no reason we could not state that various rights of englishmen will be expected by any central government. the argument made against them including that madison was we don't need to have a bill of rights. we don't need to lay out because they said this is only being given the powers expressly enumerated. article i, section eight the reasoning goes you don't see anything that says congress can take away your gun, and therefore congress can't take away your gun. congress can regulate the price,

congress can have your house without a warrant therefore congress can't have your house searched without a warrant. the chief proponent of the argument was madison joined in making this argument. he was among the majority of ultimately all the state delegates voting voted not to have a declaration of rights in the constitution and the philadelphia convention and that was one of the main reasons for maine mason and randolph receipts to sign in the night defend the constitution colonel mason has less philadelphia in a very ill-humor indeed, mason had promised he would go home to virginia and see the constitution was not ratified in the governor drafted a pamphlet and thank you to the speaker of the house of delegates laying out his objections. there were several important ones, but the chief was that

there is no bill of rights in this unamended constitution. so what to do? will come and madison got around a little for not after the constitution signing day sending a copy to his friend jefferson and france. everyone thinks jefferson wrote the constitution that he was in france. so madison wrote to jefferson and gave him a long description of what happened in the philadelphia convention, because several reasons why he didn't like the constitution is that it's better than articles that went for it. it will feel in a few years but i am for it. jefferson wrote back and said okay, i like the way they should have compromised the claims of the large states and small states by having different ways for portion in the and senate and i like the way you compromise the interests of slave states and kerry stayed by compromise regarding importation of slaves and terrorists. i like various parts, but there's two things i really

dislike. number one, perpetually eligibility of the president. once someone is elected president he can be there for life. there needs to be a term limit. in the second thing was in there has to be a bill of rights. it's just essential. madison wrote the next thing i just told you they thought about the congress is in expressly given the power to violate the rights and congress won't have that power and they went back and forth a couple times. finally jefferson said he bill of rights is that the people are entitled to against any government in the world. if you're not missing you must've been thinking okay jefferson, randolph, nathan, and this isn't looking too good in virginia. so they're going to have a ratification convention in virginia as in each of the other states do not than hot at first thought he would stay out of it. he was a draftsman of the constitution show you shouldn't play a role in passing on it,

but he said well, and several other states people in the philadelphia convention up in participating, so i want to do that, too. the baptist norge county were going d ..is father wrote in the letter. please send me your participating in the confederation congress and his father sent him a letter that says you better get back to urge county because they're telling everybody you want a national church and that is why there's no bill of rights and the constitution. he goes back and promises his neighbors if you will like me to the ratification convention i will see to it we do some in about this and something laughing about this. he goes to the convention and they make the same kinds of arguments any theory skeptical about the idea. the constitution is merely ratified in virginia and it's time to have elections for the first house of this question comes up again of the bill of rights.

baptist the skeptical of madison's candidacy. madison have to travel around. this was not expected by him. at one point he said if i had the day did what i never done before which was to stand on a public rostrum and arrange the planters. he thought was the need him to give a public talk, saying what he ought to be elected. the reason he had to travel around his district with james monroe, leading opponent of ratification was the baptists were skeptical and thought he wanted a national church. he said elect me to congress and i will see to it that amendments are proposed making clear there is not going to be any national church. what we know when he came out of this is the first amendment which reflected -- use the same language madison use in article 16. we don't often notes is peculiar language of the first amendment opposed to the failure or results of the failure of madison to get what he wanted in

congress. the proposal for the first amendment said there would not be any establishment of religion. at that point congressman from three new england states objected and they said does this mean there can't be any religion at all? at the time massachusetts and connecticut had state churches and wanted to keep their state churches, if you want the provision that says there won't the establishment of religion this would be you have to stop passing taxes to pay for puritanism. mattison says here's what we will do. we will say congress shall make no law respecting establishment of religion which means congress couldn't establish a religion. congress couldn't say anything about established religion. so the point is all though madison wanted a national statement about freedom of religion what came out of the congress was the principal be

left to the state to decide what their religion policy was. he also tried to get a statement in the constitution that states could violate free exercise of religion, trial by jury or freedom of the first. this too was rejected. people in congress were in favor of clarification of the limits of federal authority but not some new limits on state power in this very at and why was that? they had gotten through a revolution against centralized authority. they had just won revolution on behalf of legislative elections. they were not about to turn around and say five or six years later we want a new model in which we connecticut residents and new yorkers are not going to have control over these questions. madison did not get a version of an establishment clause that he wanted out of first congress. this was not the end of

madison's role in deciding what the federal regime's relationship to religion because as president which he was from 89 to 17 leaders and madison had two occasions on the basis they established violation of the establishment of religion. the first was on february second and what happened was congress pass a bill that would have incorporated the episcopal church in alexandria. it was part of the district of columbia. congress has ceded the part of virginia that was part of d.c. so d.c. is all in maryland. there's not any virginia any more. over jenna lee the district of columbia was the full ten miles square that the constitution allowed and part of that was south of potomac including alexandria. the episcopal church in alexandria. among other things that would have said how internal authority

would work in this the episcopal parish, and certain welfare functions to them in colonial america especially in the episcopal colonies. if you were blind or retarded or a widow who couldn't take care of herself and was the local episcopal parish that would handle these functions. they don't have a welfare state. they're handled through the church. congress envisioned having that continue. this is unconstitutional. we can't have congress telling this episcopal parish how it will function and can have the congress delegating these civil functions to declared church -- the church. madison had a second opportunity to consider the meaning of the establishment clause and what happened is congress had given land to some mississippi baptists for setting up a local congregations in their community

and he said we can't be having congress give land to a religious congregations. baptists in north carolina wrote to the president and thanked him for this veto. the principle of this establishment was central to baptist identity. we don't have any record of response to these mississippi baptist. they were a little less happy than their north carolina contraries but after 1800 according to the editor of the papers of james madison at the university of virginia told me once that we don't have any record that after 1800 madison made any positive comments about christianity. as a doctrine. does that mean he was not religious? the answer is what he did was he called religious references from his correspondence. we don't have his private

ruminations on religion. why is that? because he thought public figures should not be trying to influence you by the weight of their names or offices what religion you follow. we noted that was his opinion because in 1819, he wrote -- several scribbled notes called be attached memoranda and one that he came to was the question of religion. he said he didn't think there should be public -- government days of thanksgiving and the reason he didn't think there should be government days of thanksgiving was the implication what the government was doing was laid out a particular kind of prayer for people to say or laying out a schedule of prayer or saying you should say prayers at all. this does not mean madison didn't say prayers or go to church. they knew he went to church and where he went to church but the government should be trying to influence you in this direction. the alternative would be leading you down the road to uniformity. so madison thought not only that

the president shouldn't tell you when to from or what to pray or how to pray but he thought he had been mistaken during the war of 1812 when he asked for american arms but besides being against days of thanksgiving and calls for prayer said he didn't think the government should pay for chaplains in the military. he did not think there should be chaplains in congress and why was that? when it came to the congress he said was impossible to have a chaplain without offending somebody. no matter which nomination the chaplain came from everyone else had to pay for it too and the only way to avoid the problem was not have one. if members of congress wanted to pray they could do that. they shouldn't be doing about the public dime. why was that? he was opposed to this idea of the establishment generally and remained opposed to insofar as we can tell from that point in the newseum 70s when as a young man he was writing to william

bradford about it to the end of his life. thank you very much. [applause] >> the idea is we are going to take questions that you need to await the microphone's are rival please. >> [inaudible] -- is it on? what did madison -- there you go. what did madison learn that made him think differently about the baptism from the other virginia gentry? >> wasn't baptist specifically but the idea of religious persecution. the fact of the environment in new jersey in which people were not being punished for their

religion. madison experienced an environment in which there was complete religious toleration as there always had been in new jersey and being a quaker state and so when he got home and saw the whippings and beatings and snakes through the window he thought this was shameful. he said he was contemplating leaving virginia which there's a saying among historians that duke's don't emigrate and the idea that james madison was leaving orange county is a little far-fetched. he was appalled by the idea because he had seen the contrary possibility in action in new jersey. >> you used the term uniformity several times. what is the historical entomology of that as far as the context of the founding fathers and diversity of thought, how important diversity of thought

as far as finding solutions that diversity of the equation will provide that solution versus having one equations? >> the word uniformity -- thank you. i should have explained what i meant by that. didn't realize i had omitted to do that. there was an act of uniformity adopted by parliament at the end of the sixteenth century when queen elizabeth decided she was not going to issue the establishment of bishops and was going to require people to use the book of common prayer throughout the kingdom. if you are familiar with the episcopalian church today they still have the book of common prayer though it is not the same one but what that meant was no matter which parish you were in in queen elizabeth's empire on a different day you would say the same for air and sins of the same hymns and have the same in vocations and litanies and

scripture readings and uniformity in the kingdom and the implication is people would be made to do what they did believe in. the general investment is christians will be eligible to receive this tax money, you have a situation where the judges decide which ministers were actually christian. how do you decide what an actual question is? than you get the question which can be brutal which translation, how do you define god and that kind of thing? you recapitulates the history of christian dogma every time this came to a court room and the implication was no judge is equipped for that? who knows that stuff.

the only way to avoid an act of uniformity was not to have a general assessment or any kind of establishment at all even if it were so liberal as any kind of question. >> what do you think madison would say about the current situation where churches get tax breaks and which is a form of government interference and it should be challenged on constitutional grounds because a lot of people are secular freethinkers and a lot of people think their church is paid for by the government or tax abatements, >> madison -- and those longer ones was the subject of religion. madison was opposed to tax

breaks in churches. anytime you have a tax break for anyone it is effectively a subsidy. he thought nobody should have to pay for anybody else have religion and shouldn't be forced to do it and what you end up with is a situation in which some people's religions are made eligible and others aren't. that is the situation he wanted to avoid. you put your finger on an element of our contemporary practice you object to with the chaplain and so on. >> can you give some information, family background,

to marry rich people or what. and also practice and the law as a lawyer and also finally and input to the declaration of independence? >> we have three elements of the question. the first was about madison's family background and the second was madison's legal training and drafting the declaration of independence? i mentioned a couple times that madison's father was the wealthiest man in orange county. he was the biggest landowner and biggest slave owner and center of the political and social elite in orange county. during the revolution he was county lieutenant which means he was head of the militia in the county and responsible for mustering the militia when the governor called them to come

out. james madison's senior -- james madison junior, our hero, president, james madison jr. was the member of the anglican vestry. we know he attended church through his life and went to church right across from the white house today. recently on television i saw president obama and his family coming out of the church james madison used to attend so through his life he did attend church. when he was a young man he was uncertain what he wanted to do for a career. after he completed his undergraduate studies he stayed on as a graduate student for a year where he saw among other things hebrew and the only practical application of hebrew for a president -- protestants from orange county would have been to become a minister but apparently he decided at an early age he did not want to be

administered so he turned to the idea he would become an attorney and he studied law which after a few weeks he described as exceedingly dry and i can say yes. it is exceedingly dry. he had absolutely nothing to do with drafting the declaration of independence because he was helping draft the constitution and declaration of rights. these were being done at the same time. thomas jefferson who is more famous than madison because he was chief draftsman of the declaration of independence when he was drafting the declaration of independence was riding back to williamsburg saying please relieve me. send someone else to be in congress. i want to do what this is about which is to draft the state constitution. so jefferson fought drafting the state constitution was won the war was all about. he said if we end up with a bad one of our own demise we might as well be subject to the bad one that was offered across the water. the main thing we are doing is -- he didn't help do that so had

to be satisfied with the declaration of independence. but madison was in on the ground for doing what jefferson thought was the more important thing which was inventing this idea of written constitutions adopted by the people's representatives. that is where madison got his political start and he played the lead role in drafting the federal constitution. i didn't mention this because it had nothing to do with church and state but in 1829-30 when he was in his latest 70s madison was involved another constitutional convention in virginia where he revise the original state constitution. that was last major political event of madison's life. [inaudible]

>> not that i am aware of. and as i said apparently he thought better of his one call while president for people to pray for american arms but it was in retirement that he said he didn't think this kind of thing should never be issued. annual days of thanksgiving are entirely contrary to his principal. but you can see through his wife actually he is working on this idea and he did see it implemented or see it incorporated into the virginia constitution and u.s. constitution, he was becoming more liberal as he thought about and the notion for example there

would be tax subsidies for tax-free status, seems to be implicit in the motion of not having an establishment. he hasn't elaborated that idea until he was an old man and the same is true of the chaplain. >> oh. oh. at the age -- at the age of 25 what i did was rejected and why? >> when he was 25 he was involved in the virginia convention he wrote the declaration of rights. i am not sure what you are referring to. i can think of the proposals that he made in the convention that was rejected. >> i meant the idea.

>> i can't think of one. >> what -- he was -- at the -- i am sorry. [talking over each other] >> how old was he when he was the youngest participant? >> he was 25 years when he was a member of the convention. he was the youngest member of the convention and the youngest member of the committee that drafted the declaration of rights. when he reported the declaration of rights he played a key role in article 16. he came up with this idea of guarantee of free exercise of religion rather than toleration.

>> i wonder how you explain the difference in how the founding fathers came out of the revolutionary war in favor of free men and we came out after 9/11 in the opposite direction and many people feel the constitution is being shredded by the patriot act and defense authorization act and obama's recent order and we have chaplains in congress and how is this to be explained? [laughter] >> i could say one semester course in constitutional history. people involved in making the american revolution and the federal constitution all believe governments tend to be generate overtime. even if you have the optimal constitutional system eventually it will degenerate and every society will end up in tierney at one point or another. it would not be surprising to any of the people who were

formative thinkers in the process of creating va's constitution and george mason believed that governments the generate overtime. madison believed that. almost universally held idea that over time there will be changed. if it is good it can only get worse. that is not surprising if unhappy. >> i assume he went to college university -- didn't have to have slaves to rely -- is that the reason? he won't have to earn a living from slaves that inherited -- >> he was physically and well and he believed in williamsburg,

and this is a common kind of idea. richard henry lee who mentioned the president of congress from virginia did not participate in the ratification because he was on well and felt richmond was a sickly environment. so that was not the reason. madison took slaves with him when he went to congress in new york and philadelphia and there are interesting exchanges between him and his father what to do about the fact that he was accustomed to more latitude in their behavior away from virginia. he freed a man because he said he is used to being free. i can't bring him back. that was not why he went to the college of new jersey.

>> in hindsight could he be considered a diaz and an atheist and did he believe in the states rights in spite of what he said about congress? >> in 30 words or fewer? we have no evidence that during the talks after 1800 about exactly what he thought of christianity. we know the attended christian church while he was president and apparently he had been interested in christianity enough to stay and study hebrew after graduating of a college of new jersey. he was an active member of the committee of layman who run an episcopal congregations in cooperation with the minister but he intended for us not to know what his specific religious beliefs were because he didn't

think this was something politicians should be telling you. you didn't have to say vote for me i am jewish, this is not supposed to be at least madison's understanding this is not supposed to be a ground of our politics so keep it out. i am not going to tell you. that was his attitude and apparently when he died he had his correspondence called to remove this kind of thing. besides personal letters there are no love letters to james madison -- can't imagine him writing a love letter. for assuming he was romantic at any point they don't have any evidence of that. why is that? because these people, although they knew people like me make careers of reading their mail, they didn't want us to read all of its so they took that stuff out. he believed what today would be seen as a conservative conception of states' rights. he believes in a federal system instead of a national one.

the government should be decentralized. at various points was at great pains to explain how constitution should be read. if you are interested in his views about that you could go to the internet and google the phrase james madison bonus bill veto and you can find a long message for him. his last act as president was to veto a bill sponsored by his closest allies in congress that he is explaining why and gives what would be called the state's right explanation of a constitution. this is entirely consistent with what he said at the beginning of congress in 1791 in response to alexander hamilton's bank bill. the government has very few powers and america, decentralized and so on. it is seen as the classic jeffersonian position and another area where jefferson gets the credit for something madison did besides adopting grow virginia statute of religious freedom in founding the jeffersonian party.

it was madison's party but jefferson made a better face for that jefferson recognize that and it became the jeffersonian party but it was madison's thinking that underlay jefferson's statements about the constitution. >> would you say madison switched from -- a conversion or the fact that once the constitution was ratified as written, he felt he was obligated by a that not withstanding his earlier nationalist views? >> he felt the proper way to read the constitution as explained to the people when they ratify that is what he repeatedly said so although he favored something different before it was agreed to in philadelphia he always after

that call for if to be enforced as it had been explained to the people during the ratification process and although this was not the subject of tonight's talk i devote a chapter to it in "james madison and the making of america". if you're interested, there is a solution. i will be happy to sign your copy. >> the attached memo -- it seems to reveal madison's thinking that seems more disjointed on the matter of religion and i was wondering did he in fact have a concise idea of what religion is or what it should be as opposed to what it shouldn't be? >> he didn't say what it should or should be. this section of the detach

memoranda about religion is not about prescribing or proscribing a religion but not proscribing a religion. in other words his concern was that the government shouldn't be telling you and politicians should be telling you vote for me, i know catholic or vote for me, i am jewish. that is an anti madisonian position and if you ask him what is your religion he would have told you go away. he took great pains to ensure that his correspondence that survive to us, and these people were very egocentric in the sense that some of them from a freakish the early ages saved all their correspondence. no one was going to read it. thomas jefferson was a teenager when he wrote to someone and said save this letter, one day someone will read my letters. on adams wrote to abigail smith, his soon-to-be wife and said from now on say whatever i write you. people might want to read this. so madison knew that people were

going to be interested in his ruminations on these questions and also believe we should be. this is not the issue. because some guy as a politician doesn't mean he knows about god or not god or god is in the air. is not what they are about. should require of him. go ask your minister, your mom or your son. that was madison's attitude. just a second. we have to wait for the microphone. >> what was the position on who could vote out of position? voting rights? >> i mentioned in the talk that in the virginia convention when he was 25, the committee drafted

the declaration of rights and said all men are born free and equal and government is responsible for protecting their rights and when the committee reported that to the full convention one of the members said this would lead to social convulsion. do we want to say all men are born free and equal? i propose we amend this by saying when they enter into a state of society government has to protect their rights and the implication is the black people weren't being allowed to enter into this new society. so you have your lockian compact but the black people in virginia's territory are not allowed to participate. madison did not object. he didn't say i approve. he was silent. this was not an issue that came up -- this was not an issue that i am aware he had to consider. in the federal constitution which he had a key role in drafting and a key role in

explaining in the federalist ceres and virginia ratification convention, this matter was left to the states to decide that that is pending get. it is a federal system. is supposed to be up to the states to be side. we don't get any information about whether he thought blacks or women or whoever should vote. that is what i mean. he was involved in his old age in the constitutional convention in 1829-30 and extended suffrage from formerly only men who held a certain amount of land to men renting land and less well than that. favor liberalizing suffrage requirements but nothing like as liberal as we expect. everybody can vote. it wasn't to that extent and he never proposed any such thing.

>> during the time of madison over in england there was a lot of christian persecution, wasn't there? or i should say catholic persecution. >> certainly. there is a rule you had to be any episcopalian to be a member of the house of commons to attend oxford or cambridge university. there were various other disabilities you suffered if you were not any episcopalian. under the act of toleration there were various punishments for which you were not subject. we have to understand people in the past not in relation to our own situation but context. what i set about england sounds very repressive but in spain you had to be a catholic. in russia you had to be orthodox. in turkey you had to be muslim.

in england they made allowance for some dissenters even if it was only other protestants. at least it was more liberal than most places. more liberal than virtually any place. >> if you are in america, there was no christian persecution per se. >> that depends when and where. there were three by the time the revolution came, three colonies. pennsylvania, new jersey and rhode island that never had state churches. there was another colony in maryland that had no state religion and was forced to adopt anglican and the rest of them all had state churches. in new england you had to pay for puritanism and you could be punished in various ways if you weren't a puritan and most of the rest of the colony's you had to be an anglican including in new york they had at least on the books the official church was the church of england. this place was named for the

duke of york and he wasn't anglican so they set up the state church from the beginning of english will even new was not energetically enforced because the population was always heterogeneous unlike virtually any other colony. >> in the book ratifying the constitution you talk about -- i am in the middle of the chapter. my favorite chapter. mason talking about how the confederate states could form different confederacy's within that. there wasn't this pledge to the union where they are gathering. is that correct or am misinterpreting? can you summarize thoughts at the time where there are states that can feed from this union being established? >> give away. later on in the chapter i guess you haven't gotten that far but when they get to the point of

ratifying the constitution george nicholas and governor randolph worked we threw of the leading spokesman along with medicine in the virginia convention are going to explain if this government abuses the powers we can reclaim them. they didn't use the word secession yet. it hadn't been brought into wide use but clearly that is what that means. if we give this government power and abuses and we can take it back. this is one of the novel discoveries of this book. i am not aware of any other book ever pointed this out. the leading federalist said in the virginia convention that virginia can reclaim the powers granted the federal government. >> you should note in new york state catholics were not allowed to vote until 200 years ago. >> catholics were persecuted everywhere in north america accept earliest maryland, new

jersey, pennsylvania and rhode island. >> and bill clinton abolished that. >> correct. even to the civil war after the civil war there were religious tests in connecticut. >> not only there. >> before you made the case when madison was president he was a strong states rights -- what about a rupture in his own party, randolph to speak of making growth -- was it personality or politics? >> the break was during the jefferson administration. the issue had to do with what they thought about what was going on in the jefferson administration. when madison had to interpret the constitution he always came

back to this same argument he made against the bank bill in 1791 that congress had few enumerated powers specified in article 1 section 8 and that was the objection of his vetoing 1817. it there had been a bank 20 years from 1791-1811. he had to defer to the judgment of passed congresses and presidents. could rollback every question in every administration. in general he did adhere to the same principle to his presidency. there is discussion of the schism in the book. i agree with you that is an interesting passage. what he is talking about is the point in the thomas jefferson administration when jefferson's cousin john randolph who had been majority leader whenever jefferson became president broke

with jefferson and started a third party to oppose jefferson. your cousin instead of your majority leader is your chief opponent. a very interesting passage and besides that in the book there is a sketch from the life of deformed randolph that has never been published before. you see him on horseback and he looks very unwell which he was unlike madison. >> i was wondering what is the reason you are investigating madison anyway. he is a conservative populist? that should be examined in an age of populism? >> if i had begun writing about him last year that would have been the reason but actually i first encountered madison in a

serious way in 1993. i was writing a book about revolutionary virginia and what i found then and what i have found sins in writing a couple books about the constitution was there were several points in madison's career in which i thought the generally accepted version of his life was mistaken. was inconsistent with the primary sources. after i came to six or seven points at which major junctures in his wife at which most people said was just wrong that realize i should write a book about it. that is where the book came from. it was not we have occupy wall street i will write about james madison. sir >> what was his view about -- [inaudible] >> one reason to oppose his

emigration from virginia. with the end of madison's life was increasing talk about the negative effect of slavery on immigration. people in the south fought eventually the south would be more populist than the north because the environment was more salubrious as they would have said. the weather was better and why wouldn't people move here? in his old age madison thought that hadn't happened, why not? slavery is why not people don't want to compete with slave labor when they could move to ohio and not compete with slave labor. the land isn't as good. >> i believe i read in one of tom woods's books that a

condition of signing the constitution that it has a right to secede. >> he got that from me actually. [laughter] >> they did say they could. the short answer is yes. >> can you say as far as foreign policy, the secretary of state -- >> foreign policy is a big flop of madison's career. beginning of the 1780s madison wanted to try an experiment in economic coercion in serve military coercion and secretary of state persuaded jefferson to try this experiment of disbanding the army and navy and relying on militia in the first instance with farcical gun boats

as a means of protecting american ports and the end result was the british burned down the capitol and the white house. did didn't work and it is a grim passage. basically it was, i think, irresponsible, in the middle of a world war into which was obvious the united states were going to be sucked in some way to say here is our rule. you don't play by our rules we will take our football and go home and the british and french were not going to play that game either so alternately it failed. madison called on congress to declare war without first preparing financially or by military buildup and the british had no difficulty deviating maryland and burning down washington. i didn't give a talk on james

madison's wonderful foreign policy. >> any other questions? i think we have one over there. >> outside of virginia, you describe there were certain centers of the country that were dominant as far as controlling politics or whenever, texas was another stage and any other state and any other centers. >> became a state in 1845. >> originally 13 colonies not even described as colonies. around that time before -- he was a federalist and a federalist was like there wasn't

uniformity we were talking about earlier. there were certain areas of the colonies or certain areas of the country that he felt should be more dominant than others as far as representing a nation? >> madison died in 1836 so the question of texas or points west was not the issue. you use the word federalist that is a very confusing word because people who favor ratifying the constitution in 1787 call themselves federalists but in 1792 there's a political party called the federalist party. that is a different party from the people who favor ratifying the constitution. madison was an opponent of the second group but what you meant was he favored the principle of federalism which is decentralized government. yes he did.

consistently. after the constitution had been written. as to how he favored one region or another, he was a southerner but wanted to incorporate northerners into the coalition which is why they chose george clinton from new york and aaron burr to the jefferson's running mate. i don't know where to go beyond that. just a minute. we can't hear you. just a minute. we need to get the microphone to you. >> his family is one of the wealthiest families and you mentioned didn't seem like politics -- they were talking -- based in french -- talking about france was what they looked at, the french system but the state of virginia moseley was not like

one of the biggest areas of the united states where british culture was like still exists today. i didn't understand on the state level you were talking about local politics when you said he favored like a fringe -- kind of like the legend -- >> i don't know what you mean by favoring french. >> when you were talking about -- icing he touched think he t property rights and politics and

philosophical politics. [talking over each other] >> virginia was a british colony and it became independent during the revolution. i don't know what you mean by friends. >> the culture in the state of virginia. more than any other state like massachusetts would be another state that it would be similar to so i thought that i thought i heard you mention when you were talking about when his family was interacting with the other families that had or when they were interacting with the other population in the area that he was getting his political ideas or whenever, you mentioned -- you were talking about religion and you said -- you said that --

you were mentioning the difference between anglican and the french as far as political rhetoric. >> i have no idea what you are talking about in regards to france. i don't think i talked about the french religion at all. a couple people ask questions about catholicism but i don't think i said much about it. i don't know what you are referring to. any other questions? >> thank you. >> thank you. [inaudible] >> for more information visit the doctor's website kevingutzman.com. >> 's website kevingutzman.com. >> writing is a transactional process.

writing a sins reading. if you have written a wonderful novel one of the parts of the process is you want readers to be enlarged and enriched by it. you have to pull on everything at your disposal. >> anna quinlan will talk about her perspective on writing and life and her social policy and politics that make it happen live sunday on in debt from latest rumination on light, lots of candles we drizzle plenty of cake and she will be ready for your calls and e-mails on booktv's in depth on c-span2. >> the world is a big place the certainly the most powerful entities are these huge corporations like goldman sachs for instance. because i spend so much of my life in developing world in places like africa, let america

and the middle east to give you a small example i saw what happened when commodity futures were brought up and corporations like goldman sachs and price increased by 100%. i saw the cumin consequences of that and children who were malnourished and died of starvation because they couldn't afford to eat. the wars in iraq and afghanistan have little popular support yet for a handful of corporations lockheed martin, north roman, halliburton are immensely profitable as war is for a certain tiny segments and always has been. war is a racket. i think that we unfortunately have created a world where power is centralized in the hands of a

select group of corporations that are more powerful than the state itself and it is within the american political system impossible to vote against the interests of goldman sachs and unless we thwart that power we are doomed because corporations, unfettered capitalism, a great book called the great transformation leaders and turn everything into a commodity. in that sense karl marx was right. unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force and human beings become commodities, natural world becomes a commodity that you exploit and exhaustion or collapse and that is why the environmental crisis is with the -- if we don't find a mechanism or a way to break the power of those corporations they will trash -- continue to trash the ecosystem to the point at which life or huge segments of the human species will be and

sustainable. >> chris hedges, david e-mails to you see today's economic and political climate as resembling that which existed in germany during the 1930s? >> guest: noam chomsky has made that comparison. in some ways yes. it is always difficult to make those historical analogies because one has to be very cognizant of major differences including massive war reparations and the defeat of world war i and affected germany had no tradition of liberal democracy under its monarchy but i think there are some similarities. the most important being a modernization of the american working class. the disenfranchisement of working men and women. used to be in this country going back to the 50s and the 60s that

you could work in an auto plant or a steel mill and make a salary that would support a family and allow you to buy a small house and send your kids to college and have medical benefits and a pension plan and all that has vanished. we have to trust our working class into the service sector economy, low-wage economy, not only people tend to work in the working-class more than one jobs, to keep afloat. that has been a devastating change. one of the rises of the christian right as i argue is directly linked to this despair because these economic dislocations bring with it destruction of communities and families, substance-abuse, domestic abuse and the attendant

problems when communities breakdown and people retreat from this reality based world which frankly almost destroys them. almost has destroyed them into a non reality based belief system that all totalitarians a sins are non reality based belief systems of historical inevitability were god intervenes on your behalf and the only way to bring these people back into a reality based world is to enfranchise them within the economy and this is

that drives people >> i want to thank you for your thoughts in your book. very deep and open many of our minds. you present deep thought and objective reality. i was troubled in the area when you talk about the middle east because you talk about your history in terms of arabic and the people there. i was wondering if you had equal

knowledge of hebrew and people on that side? >> i live in jerusalem for two years. i don't speak hebrew. that was a conscious decision because one worked in the middle east to be working in syria or baghdad and to speak arabic and have any hebrew words creep into arabic could land you in prison although have to say eventually in iraq and iran i was thrown in prison anyway or jailed for brief periods of time. i have a great admiration and affection for israel and the parameters of the debate about the middle east and palestinian conflict are far broader than they are in the united states. my opinions are not particularly controversial in jerusalem among most of my friends who get

themselves another beer. but they are in the united states. the israeli newspapers have the best coverage of the palestinians of any paper in the country. all of these articles are written by israeli jews. danny rubinstein, gideon levy, these are great journalists and do israel credit. the frustration for many of us old middle east hants is we saw possibilities in oslo and in the relationship with king hussein. i knew king hussein. with the assassination, we watched that hope essentially vanish