>> hello, everybody. i want to thank the atlanta history center for inviting me in and provide a much nicer weather for me than six years ago when i came in when my wife carol and i were driving and that is, we looked at the

thermometer on the dashboard of the car and it was 103 degrees as we came in. so it is much nicer to me. i want to thank you for coming out, especially on night when my priors are struggling to stay alive. i guess we'll find out how we think that when this is over. i want to talk with you tonight about "jefferson and hamilton." their political battle was over the shape and care for the new american nation and not battle has been a sense never really ended. puts one in mind of the line from folksinger when he says the past isn't dead. in fact, the past is an event past because jeffords -- jefferson and hamilton's battle was over the same issues that have been perennial values in american clinical history.

struggles over the power and intrusiveness of the federal government, over which americans were to be empowered, over the distribution of wealth and over the size of the american military. the reputations of hamilton and jefferson have acted flowed over the years. jefferson was the predominant figure out the way down to the civil war. in fact, hamilton was almost forgot during much of that time. but it was a brutal society. jeffersons party was triumphant during the early part of the 19th century and jeffersons predominated. but then jeffersons reputations suffered so much as a result of the civil war. who's after all, a southerner as slaveowner. following the civil war, the country began to industrialize,

following the lines that hamilton had emphasized. hamilton's reputation soared. but then, jeffersons came back again in the early 20th century. it is somewhat incongruous. progressive votes new deal embraced jefferson and it was during roosevelt's presidency in 1943 on the 200th anniversary of jeffersons earth of the jefferson memorial was opened in washington. but then after world war ii, with the cold war, with the mayor can transcend militarily and in industrialize, urbanized nation, hamilton's reputation soared again and jeffersons has plummeted somewhat in the aftermath of the civil rights revolution and revelation about

his relationship with sally hemming. and back, during the lifetimes of jefferson and hamilton, both men were praised in contempt, just as they have been by subsequent generations. for example, governor morris said of hamilton, it seemed as if god had called him suddenly in to access and that he might access to save the world. there were those who condemn hamilton, like abigail adams, who said not only that she thought hamilton wish to be americans napoleon, but she said i have read is hard in his wicked eyes. the very devil is in them. her husband, john adams, said of hamilton, his talents are greatly exaggerated.

he wishes to destroy everyone in his way. adams was just warming up with those comments. he went on to call hamilton a brat of a scottish pathway. his ambition, his rest was nice and i was grandiose schemes, i'm convinced from a stupor about secretion, which she couldn't find enough to absorb. [laughter] and jefferson was praised by some. abigail had ensued had not to say of jefferson county is one of the choice on thursday aired. john adams thought it is extraordinary mind and praised him as a gifted writer. lafayette called jefferson. , up right and enlightened. thomas lee shipman of philadelphia was on a european

tour following his schooling. while in france he met jefferson and decided jefferson county is the wisest and most amiable man that died in europe. but there were those who didn't care for jefferson. charles carroll of carrollton said jefferson was too theoretical and fanciful to be a good statesman and one of jeffersons enemies in in virginia, john nicholas, said he got jefferson was the most intriguing and double faced man in american politics. so comment these two have had the pros and cons thrown at them since their lifetime and by generations that followed. the two were similar in some ways in different in many ways. they were different in the sense that they had very, very different -- a very different

use. hamilton didn't grow up in an impoverished background, the what sociologist at probably call a lower middle-class background. jefferson, on the other hand, was the son of a plant chair, aristocrat, his mother was from the first aegis randolph family in virginia. he grew up on the plantation, shadwell near present day charlottesville. they were different in appearance. hamilton was about average height, which was about five feet seven inches tall in those days, but very small in stature and many people described hamilton as having a somewhat feminine manner about him. jefferson on the other hand was quite tall. he was about six feet two, which

for our time. would be the equivalent of someone who is about six feet five or six feet six, towering over most other men. jefferson was described by many people as having a mild in pleasing personality, but rather shy, raptors. , somewhat great demeanor, a man with poor posture, where hamilton intended to stand ramrod straight according to many people and jefferson was described by a senator from pennsylvania but he was secretary of state as entering a room, speaking without ceasing, rambling and his top, but offering spicy comments and scattering information as he went. some of it really set that observer.

hamilton intended to be rather outgoing and his personality, somewhat domineering, whereas jefferson was quite reserved. jefferson heated confrontation throughout his life. hamilton relished it. jefferson intended to be somewhat manipulative individual. hamilton seemed to attract his followers by the force of his personality. around women, when they were young, jefferson was quite shy. hamilton on the other hand fancied himself as a ladykiller. and in fact, when the army would go into winter quarters in a number of young women would come to camp with their fathers, hamilton recorded so many of them that washington's wife, martha washington named her

tomcat hamilton. [laughter] both became lawyers, but jefferson hated her sanwa. the moment he got married and with independent economically, he quit his legal is for good. hamilton left practicing law. he left the give-and-take of the courtroom and the fighting that went on there. jefferson had a passion for architecture and gardening and hamilton was largely indifferent to that. during washington's presidency, early in the president the other is still still in relatively good terms, jefferson invited hamilton to his residence in new york. but hamilton came in, he saw the pictures of three men on the wall and hamilton asked, who are those three men? jefferson responded they are the three greatest men in history.

john lott, soraya sick isn't it an aransas bacon. hamilton corrected and they say no, the greatest man was julius caesar. jefferson never got over that and never forgot that. but for all of their differences, there were similarities between these two. both had rather unhappy youths. jefferson tellingly referred to use as a time of what he called colonial subservience. think about that a little bit because that comes from a man who was the author of the declaration of independence to breakaway from the colonial subservience. hamilton endured a use that a novelist lake charles dickens would have been hard pressed to write about icy. hamilton's mother was granted by

the courts as a horror. his father abandoned the family. his mother and father never married so hamilton was an illegitimate child and the biggest of that day, not finding enough to occupy their prejudices, much of it at illegitimate children. not so much on the parents, but the child himself said that hamilton and i think have experienced a thousand cool in his youth. we know that he was discriminated against in the sense that he could not attend the public schools where he was growing up. i think i have got used, hamilton has really shaped. i believe in the old adage that the child is the father to the man.

nms in stands, i think hamilton comes out of his youth scarred industry event from map point on to seek fame, to seek renown, to seek respect than that drives him throughout his life. another similarity is that both surprisingly grew up with slaveowning parents. jefferson's father owned about 200 slaves. hamilton's mother: five slaves. both were extremely ambitious. jefferson spoke of that little tincture of ambition as the weather, but there was more than a little better in jefferson and a great deal in hamilton. both valued education. then he went to the mainland colonies, to to to your, to

study, two goes to college and jefferson wrote to his guardian when he was in his teens, asking permission to go to the college of william and mary, saying it would provide a more universal acquaintance for him as he put it and it would be serviceable to me. both of these men, like they ain't every one of the founders during the revolutionary area caught the eye of of older men who became ap chins and help further their careers. and hamilton's case, a presbyterian minister and christian stud raise money to send hamilton to the mainland colonies to study. the hope was hamilton would attend what is now princeton

university. but his preparatory education was deficient and after prolonged study on its own, he wound up what is now columbia university. jefferson was shepherded along by williams mall, his favorite professor at the college of william and harry and later by andrew wyatt, the leading lawyer in virginia at the time and they say america to duration of independence. they were similar in the sense that both were rather affable. i mentioned earlier jefferson was shy and reserved. for once he got to know someone, he was quite open and quite friendly and had many friends throughout his life. so too did hamilton when he was washington's aid during the revolutionary war. the other aides not only that tim, but called him ham or hammy

and pals around with him. more significantly, jefferson and hamilton were alike in one other way. and that is they were both revolutionaries. both were caught up in the american revolution. hamilton is i think the more intriguing of these two. when one tries to determine why he became a revolutionary. if he were a senate, i'm somewhat cynical, one could argue that hamilton was merely an opportunist. i think that was part of were planning to him becoming a supporter of the american revolution. i don't think he was alone in that respect. i think you can say that about virtually every one who was a major figure in the american revolution. but if you think about it for a moment, he comes to new york,

knows very little about the background of the protest against england, which had started almost a decade before he arrived in new york. he ate the clicks at the situation and makes, as hamilton was always wanting to do, he rather calculated decision, which would be the best way for me to go? if i choose england, then can i rise very far? if i choose america in a new nation emerges, doors will open in the way will be clear perhaps for me to rise. but i would not say opportunism alone explains hamilton's revolutionary bed. he was a recent immigrant to new york and like recent immigrants at all times i think, many of those immigrants embraced their

new country. they see their new country as a place that is giving them opportunities that did not exist for them where they came from and they fall in love with their new country and they want to serve their new country. and hamilton was, to be sure, and intense american nationalist from the 1770s until his death in 1804. he serves and risks his life for his country during the revolutionary war. so i think there was more to hamilton then merely opportunists and. in jefferson's case, i think he becomes a revolutionary through his studies of the enlightenment. he's introduced to the enlightenment in preparatory

school. he delves further into it at the college of william and harry and the undergirding eight t. a at the enlightenment was to question every day. jefferson davis question every, including his society and virginia. he wonders why there are so many people in virginia who have so little property and so little power and so many others who have so much power. and then he looks at england and asks the same questions about an end as well. for jeffers said, i think the american revolution from the very beginning was about reforms, reforming virginia, raking away from england and creating an america that would offer to use thomas paine's term in common sense, the birth day of the new world.

and that was what jefferson was after i think. during the american revolution, the two plates very different roles. hamilton was a soldier. he went into the militia on the eve of the outbreak of the war, then into the continental army. for the first year of fighting, he is an officer and artillery company. an observer at the time saw hamilton during washington's retreat across new jersey in the fall of 1776. and he said his hamilton, a hearsay small, slender, almost delicate and framed, marching with a top pulled down over his eyes, apparently lost with his

hand resting on a canon and every now and then, adding it as if to worry favorite horse for a pat clay. a year into service in the continental army was offered a position as an aid to camp to washington. he didn't really want that position. he had dirty been offered a position as an aid to lord sterling and turned that down. he wanted a field command. after all, he was unlikely to win glory at a desk job, but he could possibly win glory in a field command. when washington offers him the position as an aid, hamilton debated for several days before he finally accepted. and he excepted it i think because he thought it would be a short-term appointment, leading

to his appointment as the commander of a brigade, which had happened with some of washington's other aides. he never grew very close to washington. washington was cold, i went in and apparently was the same when private. hamilton had lost his father who'd been in the family at only 10 or 11 years and he may have wanted washing to to be a father to him and washington was not going to be his father or anyone else's father. so it was a rather cold, distant relationship. at one point, there is a lower between the two. in february, 1781, washington passed hamilton in the hallway had had orders to set, i need to see you about something.

hamilton had a load of papers in his hands and he said, let me put these down mlb rate and. but along the way, he was distracted by someone, fell into a conversation and forgot all about washing 10. when he remembered, he went to washington's office quite late and washington upbraided him. no one keeps me waiting, washington said to hamilton. hamilton's response was, i quit. and he did quit as washington's aid. but he told some other people, including his father-in-law, general schuyler, what he had done. skyler told him, get back to washington and apologize and hamilton did that and he continued to serve washington and sort of an untitled position. but he said at the time to a friend, i really don't like

washington. i've seen him up close in on me and died and he's a horse individual and he's an overrated individual hamilton said. but also, as he put it to martha washington, following washington's death in 1799, washington is my age is to success. and so he stuck with washington. and washington stuck with him during the remaining years. jefferson's revolution was extremely different from hamilton's. while hamilton was with washington and in battle, fighting in seven major engagements during the war, risking his life, at one point, been surprised by a british patrol and having, when they shot at him having to dive off his boat into the cool scruple

river and swim for safety. jefferson served first in the house of burgesses, then in congress and want congress, whose 15 months in congress was the principal author of the declaration of independence. almost immediately after independence was declared, however, jefferson left congress and returned to virginia because he was interested in reform. the content of congress was simply going to be a managerial audit, but managed to conduct of the war and the conduct of the army. hamilton wanted to return -- jeffers and rather wanted to return to virginia and kerry at his many reforms as he could. he didn't always succeed, but he pushed for reforms in the landmarks of virginia so that

land with dcom were available. at one point, he even proposed that all landless men, free men and virginia became an land, some danette didn't fire with the virginia assembly. but he did push for religious toleration for reform of the criminal statute in virginia and many of reforms were eventually realized. in 1779, with the war effort really suffering, washington came to the conclusion that the best men who had once served in congress, then the benjamin franklin and john adams and jefferson had last and the congress was separate in their hats and peered washington wrote

to church may send and virginia and said very pointedly, where is jefferson when his country needs him? backup back to jefferson and stung by washington's apparent criticism. jefferson agreed to serve as the governor of virginia. and he served two extremely difficult and not terribly successful terms as the governor of virginia. i think almost anyone at the governor's would've had the difficulties that jefferson had, but he certainly did have a tempestuous time as governor. four both, the time. on the cusp of the senate teen 80s and during the 1780s were pivotal moment.

for hamilton, the pivotal moment is the collapse of the american economy. it begins to collapse in 1777 penthouse utterly collapsed by 1779. i don't think hamilton understood the reasons for that collapse. and washington did neither. both initially thought it was lack of good leadership by congress. the congress was really much deeper than that. hamilton, beginning around 1779, began getting up at headquarters early in the morning, lighting a candle and reading books, studying. studying economics, reading him, reading hobbes, reading the guy who has a favorite game of all of the characters from the

revolutionary era, malick a possible way of all people. he has an name. at any rate, hamilton read those and in the course of reading those, he came to the version that the english had the right idea. the english economic system was the perfect system. it was a system that featured a strong government, strong enough to tack, strong enough to regulate commerce. it had a national government. it had a fund that. it was in fact what many historians now call a fiscal military state. it was a state in which kidman the economic measures that had begun to come into play around the 1690s in england, the nation had plenty of money to

expand. as it expanded, it acquired more wealth, which flowed back into england and enabled it to expand even more so that england, which in the mid-17th century had been a rather backwater country in the affairs of europe, had a hamilton and jefferson's time be calm the largest empire in the western world since the roman empire. the most powerful country. the country that had one for seven years tour of what we call the french and get more. and hamilton begins to articulate this vision of the english economic system for america in a series of essays that he published in newspapers

in 1780 when he was only 25 years old, writing as what he called the continental is. first of all things, the pivotal moment in the 1780s did what occurs in france. i'm not sure which is then really envision after his disastrous gubernatorial experience. bd has certainly failed and said that he was finished with politics for all time. and i think what jefferson may have envision was a life somewhat like benjamin frank lindh, who after all retired when he was in his early 40s and wrote voluminously writing pamphlets and newspapers. jefferson made he saw himself perhaps has become in this age would sit atop the hill where monticello existed, do a nice

spring that had been. but jefferson's life took a long-term -- wrong turn. his wife died at june 82 of complications from child birth. and jefferson, after a time in which he appears to have been almost suicidal, he says in one of his letters, he hints that he might have committed suicide had not been for the fact he had three daughters at that point. but once he began to come out with that somewhat, he wanted to get away from monticello in a diplomatic assignment abroad seemed the perfect being. he went to philadelphia where congress was meeting in december of 1782. he states that were about 75 days. hamilton, incidentally, was a member of congress at that point. hamilton was very close to james

madison and jefferson was very close to james madison. i suspect that the two must have it during jefferson's stay in philadelphia. although there is no record in any of their correspondence in which either says anything about the other. jefferson eventually but he didn't appointment i think that i'm not in europe that turned into a position as the united state minister to france and he lives in paris for five years from senate in 84 until 1789. there is a pivotal moment for jefferson. his ideas had already fallin. he'd long since had turned against monarchy and against aristocracy and as i said earlier, 18 major reforms that would usher in this new world of

what she dreamed. but interact, in france and in england on a short stay in england when he visited john and abigail adams, jefferson sees an aristocratic monarchical world for the first time. he says, once he sees this, that peasants in europe with a more wretched life than the most conspicuously wretched americans live. it was an epic scale of wretchedness, jefferson's bed. he quoted volterra, who said in europe, one is the there hammer or the and so norco society, most people over the info of queries. in fact, jefferson came away

with the conclusion that monarchy and aristocracy and the army that supported them in the church that supported them or the causes of the enormous inequality of wealth that he be held in europe. people lived in hovels, but the wealthy were attended by scores of servants. the wealthy kept much of their land idle for their past time of haunting, while most people were landless. when people like madison, from america wrote to jefferson and told him in the 70s that there were americans in the economic point america was experiencing after the revolution told jefferson some of those gentry in america were now wistfully thinking of the good old days of

monarch e. before 1776. jefferson said in a reply to madison, if anybody thinks that king's novels are priests are good conservators of public happiness, send them here to see with their own eyes that those who rule our confederacy against the happiness of the mass of the people. jefferson came home in 1789. not to say. he planned to be in virginia are only about six months. he whines to get his own economic affairs in order and he wanted to get his oldest daughter, martha, mary while he was in virginia. to many hoped to go back to france, where he could be an observer of the french revolution that had already

begun. when jefferson came home, he knew that the neocons to two shin had been written. he had read the constitution. he wasn't terribly happy with it, but he knew that washington was to be the first president, was the first president in fact by then. and he thought i would be well as long as washington was in office. but the longer jefferson was in america's nerdiness washing and d. come along hamilton served in the same cabinet as washington secretary of the treasury, the scales began to fall from jefferson's eyes. he began as hamilton's economic program, the same economic program that hamilton had outlined in the cot mentalist more than a decade before. as that economic program began

to unfold, jefferson began to see that there was what he regarded as a hidden agenda to hamilton's program. it wasn't just about funding. it wasn't just about a bank. those things were bad jefferson's point of view. but he believes that hamilton had another agenda. he came to the conclusion that hamilton and many around him are really counterrevolutionaries who wanted to roll back the sport to a new world that jefferson had hoped for, to restore much of what had existed before 1776. why would he think that? for one thing, during the constitutional convention, hamilton had made a five hours each. the sessions were secret, but

madison took notes on the talks along with three or four other delegates to the constitutional convention and madison surely broke the nose to jefferson of what hamilton had said. hamilton said in that beach that he favored a monarch for the united state, that he favored that one house of the congress would be an aristocratic body in essence in which the members hope to see for life and then he recommended that states be done away with entirely. as jefferson looked at things, as he studied hamilton's economic program, as he heard that hamilton had said, as he became more familiar with the constitution, jefferson and eight inc. saw hamilton and his forces setting about to bring about what he thought of as the

europeanization of americans. they have the constitution, which gave the national government enormous power. after all, there was the supreme law of the land in the constitution and the necessary and proper calls. he sought in hamilton's economic program a program that would concentrate well in few hands. he saw another program a situation which in time northern businesses and financiers would control the american government. already, jefferson that there was a corrupt squadron as he put it in congress, willing to advance the interests of merchants and the errors over and above those of the average

person. he saw an incredibly powerful chief executive in the constitution. things were safe while washington was there, but who knew what would happen after washington? he saw a fiscal military state that would lead to a gargantuan military. before the end of the 1790s, the size of the army had been it creates, almost tenfold by hamilton's party and hamilton had emerged as the leading figure, the inspector general of the provisional army. jefferson insured sought hamilton's program at leading to the doom of the birth day of the new world that he treasured. in the end, i think it is jefferson who triumphs politically.

jefferson wins the election of 1800. and he calls his victory in the election of 1800, the revolution of 1800. he wrote to tom paine's shortly after taking office and he told pain that his election finds us returned generally to send commands of former times, meaning to the sentiments that had been shared a most americans in 1776. he says in his inaugural address, but with some our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to it teaming defense. they must be the creed of our political faith and touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust. and what were those cents?

there were a jealous care of the right of election by the people and absolute acquiescence in the decision of the majority. and those are quotes from jefferson's inaugural address. it is jefferson won that election, that revolution of the tina good, the rivalry between these two ended with both winning and both losing. hamilton one night inc. in the sand that the country is transforming economically. his economic program was successful as washington repeatedly told jefferson during the 1790s. and that led to a changing face of america. in 1776, almost all americans had lived on farms. they still lived on farms and 1790 when hamilton proposed the

first of his economic mashers. but i 1840 in new england, one in three of new england's labor force was working in a factory. that was a harbinger of widespread change throughout the night teamed and 20th centuries. but if hamilton one in that respect, he lost another ways. in the very last letter that hamilton road a couple of days before the duel in 1804, he writes, our real disease is democracy and he calls democracy in that letter a poison. that was what jefferson was trying to boost as he made clear in his inaugural address.

and poignantly, near the end, hamilton who realized that his day perhaps had come and gone wrote every day proves to be more and more that this american world was not made for me. jefferson's world was changing, too. he had wanted, he had favored an arcadian america in which most people live on farms. he envisioned a lasting for generations as the country expanded all the way through the pacific coast, which would take centuries perhaps to accomplish. but jefferson, who lived until 1826 saw those smokestack, those factories in new england and

knew that his world was vanishing. but unlike hamilton, jefferson's theme to shrug off his bosses. we might as well require a man to wear a silver coat that fitted him as the boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regime of their ancestors he said. but he also rejoice that the flames of the american revolution has brought around the world, and led him to proclaim the rights and liberty are on a steady advance. and of course, jefferson was certain that he had played the pivotal role in establishing what he called the world's best hope, a new world in which there was no plays for the tyrannies of monarchy and the.

thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much for your talk. i am a john advance person myself, so these two guys are interesting to me. i had a professor and graduate school who told us once that the more he studied jefferson and hamilton, the more he liked hamilton over jefferson. i am just curious after spending so much time with these two men,

where you fall in terms of who had the better vision for the country and come you know, just in terms of your particular defection for these two. >> well, i think i really started as jeffersonian. but as i went alone, i came to admire much about him. i certainly admired his military service during the revolution. he was extraordinarily brave individual, came under fire many times, obviously bright, obviously had without a doubt the right economic program i think in most respects, at least for dealing with the crisis that existed at that time. so i didn't abandon jeffers and in the course of that, but i came to admire both of them. i think as i look at things now,

my sense is that much of what jefferson saw hamilton's economic program leading to has come to fruition. i think we lived in a society that is increasingly the plutocracy of wealth undistributed just as jefferson said that it would be power is increasingly i think not so much on main street, but in wall street. so jefferson and i think dangers that were inherent in hamilton's program. i do want to mention one thing that i mentioned in my preface to the book and that is in one respect it ain't jefferson, probably many respects, jefferson sold hamilton assured.

and one respect, jefferson didn't really understand that within -- within hamilton's economic program, there was a spreading of the well through the industrialization of american, which might have come even if hamilton had never lived. but he did live than he did advocate to give some credit for that. i think that distribution of wild goat riders that raised a good many ships. as i said in that premise, i came from a working-class background. my family on the ferling site at any rate came from germany in the 1970s. as in the fourth generation to come along in america. at the first to have an opportunity to go to college. my dad is inc. was sort of an

example of what came out of hamilton's program. he worked in an industry in which people then to send me to college. i wound up with both aspects at any rate. >> thank you for your talk. we try and transpose them into modern times. i think everyone's thinking that this guy was. where i am today on the current governmental dispute over clean resolutions, unclean resolutions opposing national monument. who's to today and where would they be standing? please don't tell me harry reid. >> i don't want to challenge your question, but it really tough to take somebody from the

18th world, which was so different from our world. one of my favorite lines comes from a novel by l. p. hartley that you might have read how the go-between. in that novel, his opening sentence is the past is a foreign country. they do things differently there. they really did things differently back in jefferson and hamilton time. so it makes it very difficult to see how they would react. jefferson obviously favored a small government and more power for the state since bofors, even flirted with nullification, which seems to be kind of a variant of what's going on now with the shutdown of the national government and hamilton

favored obviously and much stronger government. the power of government is essential for local tea hamilton says in the first federalist. so that's about as close as i can come to putting them in a contemporary context. >> is very contemporary point, what jefferson and hamilton realized they're putting us on the path towards political parties and factions which hamilton warned us of the 10? >> well, jefferson and the weight of the passage of the bank bill of washington's signing of the bank bill, jefferson and madison go in the botanist into her as they called it up to new york. jefferson's intention was not to found a political party, but just to take people who had

reservations about the constitution and even more so, people in congress who had reservations about hamilton economic program that had unfolded to that point and to bring about a concerted opposition from and not to what hamilton had done necessarily, but to prevent them from going any further with that. so jefferson 10 planned a political party, it becomes the group that he found it becomes a political party in within a year, madison calls it a party and cause of the republican party in that name at six through the 1790s and hamilton does the same in response. he rallies people that support his vision and puts together the federalist party.

so i think pretty early on they realize that the early 1790s that something might local parties were brown and there was no question in the presidential election of 1796 among which was the first contested, the third election, but the first contested presidential election boasts all political parties is being in place. >> first of all, i enjoyed your lecture very much. thank you. i have to take issue just quickly. this is in the heart of what i want to say. you know, washington became a father figure to lafayette and there was quite a relationship father to son in that relationship. so i have to give worthiness to washington as a father of our country. >> well, i said i was a senate. i remember that lafayette was french and transpose our allies.

lafayette was diplomatic and how much was father-son. no dichotomy. i had to, in response to the person you wondered about how there was, these two giants of our past in today's world. you have quoted and i found it remarkable you were talking about the workout that still fitted as a boy, a civilized society to remain under the regimen of their impoverished ancestors. but the next sign that i think people will find pertinent to jefferson's mind and his wonderful visionary mind for today is quite the opposite of what many people, how they stereotype jeffersons use a today. jefferson said after your quote,

each generation has a right to choose for itself a form of government that believes both promoted of its own happiness, a following opportunity of doing this every 19 or 20 years to be provided by the constitution. he sits very much the same thing during shays rebellion when he hears about in france, while many people were outraged by shays rebellion, jefferson passed it off and said the tree of liberty needs to be watered with the blind patriots. and he measured a generation as last in about 20 years or so. so he was as i said a revolutionary who favor a change and change in a sense that each generation -- >> could provide for itself its own happiness. quit it, you know what hamilton

that is responsible for jefferson been arthur president. >> that's right. hamilton was never president. but he is a federalist that went before a federalist majority house and lobbied for jefferson, knowing the difference over aaron burr. as he said, jefferson though we differ in political philosophy, i know is a man of principle and cares about this country as much as i do, where is per as a small minded and who only thing of himself. so i want to spray the house to vote for and for president. and i think that's very fitting for jefferson's vision to be about hamilton and hamilton capitalistic vision to uplift jeffersons egalitarianism.

[laughter] [applause] >> well, i think you sort of plea wretchedly thought if god is jefferson was coming he was better than aaron burr. [laughter] [inaudible] >> thank you for your remarks. i enjoyed them very much. jezebel as you know presents jefferson is a very dog nodded and rigid and even pretty self-righteous partisan. that seems to contrast so much for jefferson enlightenment anchor in the revolutionary and the great mind of such cosmopolitan thoughts. i'm curious whether you see that contrast in jefferson and what you think of those whose portrayal. >> i agree with much of alice's portrayal. certainly, jefferson's views form in the 1760s i think.

and he expands those views, but he never really questions those views from that point on. he remains an adherent of the views that he came to at that point. .. constitution? jefferson or him?

>> well, i'm not sure either really influenced hamilton, madison that much. i think madison was a savvy politician. he looked at the situation in the 1780s. he's fearful that the union isn't going to survive. he reads deeply into possible constitutional or political solutions to it. i don't think he talks with jefferson much at all. jefferson's gone, in fact during that time and he doesn't really have much of a dialogue with jefferson. i mean, they talk about constitutional issues by doesn't let jefferson know what's going on behind the scenes. i think he works out pretty much on his own. he knows hamilton. i served in congress. they were friendly. there at the annapolis

convention together, but i wouldn't say that hamilton influenced him. i think madison was his own man. spent my question was also going to be about madison. in some of your previous writings are not held quite a high opinion of him and a disgrace to no in the course of writing this book and through the federalist papers and jefferson serving as a mentor. did your opinion of madison change at all over the course of the year's? >> not really. i mean, my problem with madison i think is that, i guess it was probably just some of his thoughts leading to the constitution. i think there were other solutions that were available without going as far as he went.

that was my problem with madison. but no, my views didn't really change that much. >> do you think that jefferson was particularly disloyal to washington when he was secretary of state, and was the same things and doing things to oppose washington? in the other thing is, what do you think about the book, the hemmings of monticello? >> okay. i think ed gordon-reed road -- wrote a fine book, i don't have any particular problems. in my book on a little bit, i more wary of accepting madison hemmings of story completely.

i mean, basically i accept it. but i think she accepted in total. but i think it's a good book and i think that in the first book dealing with jefferson was an excellent book as well. i have forgotten what your first question -- >> whether jefferson was disloyal when he was secretary. >> i'm not sure i would say disloyal. he went to washington repeatedly and told washington what he thought about hamilton told washington his fears of where hamilton's program was leading. they discussed it. they argued about it. the last time they talk to

washington just cut them off and said i don't want to hear anymore of it, essentially. but is republican party was working against, obviously, hamiltons programs and he saw many things that hamilton was doing, crossing the whiskey rebellion or whatever with washington's assistance, that he opposed. but i'm not sure i would say disloyal. there was one incident, jefferson, in 1793, decides he's going to resign from the cabinet. he had been in the cabinet since 1790. he wanted to go home. he was having financial problems and wanted to attend to those economic problems at monticello. and washington rides from his

residence in philadelphia, the president's house in philadelphia, out into the outskirts of philadelphia where hamilton -- were jefferson was living. and meets with jefferson and tries to persuade jefferson to stay on in the office. and is the only instance that i've ever been able to uncover where washington went to someone's house during his presidency and pleaded with them to do something. song-hee, i think, remained at the point very much attached to jefferson. he persuaded jefferson to step about six more months but then jefferson left after that. >> thank you. >> at one point in time chairman with the dates, but hamilton and madison had a very close relationship and is also pretty close to jefferson.

and then that fell apart somewhere along the lines and i don't quite understand how that felt support but it got to the point where those guys made harry reid and john boehner seem like best buddies. >> that's right. it really begins to fall apart in 1791. and no one was more surprised than was hamilton about madison. that once the bank bill becomes law, and then hamilton and jefferson begin to oppose it and begin to try to form this, rally a group around to stop hamilton from further activities. and that's when the break occurs. and it's intriguing, i think, and no one ever understood completely why this was the case, but i think jefferson just

became the predominant figure for madison. madison listens to jefferson. he follows jefferson. he is swayed by jefferson, and jefferson manages, i think, apparently to convince him, this is what i saw in europe. this is where hamilton is taking us. there's great danger. and madison tends to follow jefferson more than hamilton. when hamilton learned that madison had deserted him, hamiltons remark was interesting. he says medicine is not a very worldly person. and you could take that to mean he's not a very sophisticated person and he's being manipulated by jefferson. and there may have been some truth to that.

[applause] >> please join us in a -- for a cool drink and a book signing outside. thank you very much for coming. [inaudible conversations] >> for more information about the author, visit his website. >> here's another one for you. another superlative. woodrow wilson was the most educated president we have ever had. i hesitate to say was the most intellectual. i'm not going to forget thomas jefferson standing here in washington, d.c. that i will tell you come woodrow wilson, attend most of in the college of new jersey in princeton. he graduated in 1879.

is aspirations then, he had political dreams already. is great aspiration was to become, as i discovered going through his papers because he at once made a little business card, homemade business card that said, thomas woodrow wilson, senator from virginia. and that was the dream then. the way to achieve that dream was to become a lawyer, because most presidents begin their professional lives as lawyers. and also as you notice, senator from virginia because virginia had sent more men to the white house than anybody in history. so will some of the university of virginia law school and there he studied law, really didn't like the study of so much but after a year or two he moved down to atlanta. opened office. he was really a terrible lawyer. in a year or two down there, he obtained