been exposed. and so there is very -- there is not sufficient pressure on the state of israel for it to change. obviously, there has to be a price tag on the israeli government and the israeli military for it to change, for democratic space to open inside israel and for equal rights to be afforded to palestinians. there are two ways that price tag can be imposed, it can be imposed through violence which might -- and a bloody civil war or some kind of, you know, all-out assault which will lead to mass bloodshed and potentially jewish israelis experiencing what their ancestors visited on palestinians. or it it can be done through nonviolent civil society means which this jewish-israelis are offered the ability to become part of the region, to become legitimized as part of the middle easts, as part of a, hopefully, new middle east.

instead of to be living in this kind of hermetically-sealed distaupe ya which will be by 2020 surrounded by walls on all sides in which an adviser to netanyahu has proposed seawalls to keep out climate refugees in which the united states government has offered $200 million to provide an iron wall that coats the sky of israel with missiles. this is the reality that they're in, and there should be a nonviolent means that all of you can participate in to get them out of it and also to get the people in the gaza strip, according to the u.n. the gaza strip will be uninhabitable by 2020, to get them out of their crisis. that should be the priority. and so, obviously, i favor the latter means which is, i think, humane and moral and also based in international law. [applause]

>> well, on behalf of the committee, i want to to thank max, of course, and also a thank the public for coming. and we hope to continue this series of discussions on these and other topics. yeah. and as max delicately suggested, don't neglect to buy the book. [inaudible conversations] >> you're watching booktv on c-span2. here's our prime time lineup for tonight:

>> that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. this weekend booktv is in olympia, washington, with the help of our local cable partner, comcast. learn about the history of the puget sound, next. >> when our nation was founded

in 1776, only 16 years later were the first explorers exploring puget sound. so the shipping and the exploration by ship was going on very quickly after we became a nation. and it's, of course, even before. the original residents were the indian population, the tribal nations that were here. the first british explorers came here in 1792. captain george vancouver and lieutenant peter puget, for whom puget sound is named. so it was a very important area for settlement, for trade and for the establishment of forts for trading by the british and the hudson bay company. in the late 1800s and mid

1800s, we became an offshoot of the gold rush in california in 1849. many of the activities that happened here and in seattle and in taco that and the sound -- tacoma and the sound were basically spin-offs from the gold rush of 1849. a lot of the shipping, a lot of the ships that came from the atlantic coast to the pacific coast to bring gold miners and the people who are going to find their fortunes eventually came north with cargoes from here. then we had another gold rush in alaska in 1897, so another influx of people came to the puget sound area in the pacific northwest and helped washington state to grow and become the great port nation and maritime state that it is today for pacific rim cargo activities and other kinds of maritime

commerce. i think one of the host interesting things -- the most interesting things are the, the transition between age of sail with the sailing ships to the age of steam and then diesel-powered or petroleum-powered ships. and that is a very important be transition. it happened very rapidly. we had sailing ships for decades and years and years. and then in the late 1800s with the advent of the steamship, that transition became very rapid. once the steam engines became more powerful and smaller, it was a major trend that happened very, very rapidly. in fact, one of the first steamships to come to the puget sound area was the steamship beaver. it was owned by the hudson bay company, so it was a british vessel. and the interesting fact of that

is that the only way to get that ship here was not to use a steam engine, but to use its sails. so it sailed here from england around cape horn to the puget sound area. that's about a 16,000-mile voyage. but once it got here, the engine was hooked up, the paddle wheels attached to the sides of the zest el, and -- vessel, and it then was used to supply the various forts operated by the hudson bay company throughout puget sound. so in 1836 when it started and came here, that was the first steam boat, and it just caused a revolution. and as i said, the transition to steam became very rapidly after the advent of the the beaver. the original ships, the first one that came to limp ya was probably only 60 feet long, and the ships grew in nature.

the big sailing ships were 150 feet long, and then we got into the steamships which became 250 teat long. today the -- feet long. today the container ships that come to seattle and tacoma and the other ports in the puget sound area are, some are 800 and 900 feet long ask carry -- and carry 20,000 containers. so the amount of cargo has changed, the size of the ships has changed, and the maritime economy is a big part of the pacific northwest. the first maritime history of the pacific northwest was written in 1892. and then no further work was done until 1965. so i wanted a book which would be more a brief overview of the history. so i wrote a shorter, smaller

book, a pictorial history. and i thought that more people would have access to, more people would read and, therefore, the important maritime history of the region would be more fully valued and reached many, many more people. >> for more information on booktv's recent trip to to limp ya, washington, and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles. go to c-span.org/localcontent. >> cokie roberts, political commentator for npr and abc news, recounts the lives of numerous american revolution-era women. this is about an hour. [applause] >> thank you very much. so is this cool or what? you get to get out of school and come here to this bookstore

which has been on saturday night live, this bookstore has, and in doons bury cartoons, and the president came to this bookstore. so this is a very special place to get to come, and it's very special for me to be here too. so i'm very pleased. but i'm also especially pleased to be able to talk to you about these great women, because when i was a kid growing up and even well into my time as an adult, i would look at all these stories from history and all these pictures and paintings and all that, statues, and there were no women. and i started to think maybe there weren't any women then. what do you think? [laughter] do you think there were any women around the time of the declaration of independence and the constitution and all that? you do? you think there were actual women. well, probably. i, you know, i did start to think about and thought, well, you know, adam and eve. there was women then. [laughter]

although my favorite bumper sticker is "eve was framed." [laughter] so, of course, living here and grewing up here i did go to mount vernon all the time. so i did know that there was somebody named martha washington. but that was about it. do you all know anything about martha washington? do some of -- yeah, go ahead. >> [inaudible] >> she was married to george washington. but did she do anything herself, does anybody know? yeah, go ahead. >> she helped, she cheered up the soldiers at valley forge. >> she cheered up the soldiers at valley forge. that's exactly what i knew about martha washington. was that she spent a winter at valley forge with the soldiers. but you know what? the revolutionary war was eight years long, and she spent every winter with the soldierings. and she hated it. she hated having to go because partly it was unpleasant, it was

cold, there was not food, it was difficult. also the roads were very treacherous, and she had to go over them, and the british took people like martha washington who was the wife of the chief patriot, george washington, they took women like her hostage and put hem in prison. and -- them in prison. and some of them were killed. so it was scary for her to go. but she went every winter of the war because george washington wanted her to. was she did cheer up the troops -- because she did cheer up the troops so much that she really helped keep them in camp and keep them from deserting the army at times when they had no food and no shelter and no pay. and here she is at valley forge with the soldiers. but she would come, the soldiers loved her. she would come from mount vernon where over the summer the enslaved people there had made

preserves and made, and cured meets and woven cloth, and so she would arrive with a carriage full of stuff. and they would finish the soldiers would cheer, lady washington is here! and that was just one of the many contributions that african-americans made to the revolution, was what martha washington was able to contribute to the soldiers. but there was another really important thing she did that i never knew about until i was learning about these women. and that is that smallpox was a the terrible disease. and what used to happen is more people were killed in wars by disease than by weapons. the americans were many danger of all being wiped out by smallpox. so george washington, the general, wanted the soldiers to all take the smallpox inoculation. well, in those days that was a really dangerous thing to do.

if you took it and lived, you were unlikely to get smallpox. but you might die from the inoculation itself. so people were very nervous about taking it. and much to george washington's surprise, martha washington went and had the smallpox inoculation. and so he was able to say to the troops, well, look, the girl did it. and then they, they then followed suit. and they had far fewer cases of smallpox than the british army did. so it was just one of the many things that women did during the time period that was really significant. and i kept learning things like this as i learned about these women. benjamin franklin's wife, for instance, i knew nothing about -- does anybody know anything about benjamin franklin's wife? see what i heene? there it is. well, what do we know about

benjamin franklin? i know you know about the kite and all of that, but what else do you know about him? over here. >> i know he married someone and had a child. >> he married someone and had a child, yeah. >> he signed the declaration of independence. >> he did. he was actually one of the authors of it. over here. >> [inaudible] >> he went to france, yeah. >> he opened up the free library? >> he opened up the first free lie bare, that's true. -- library, that's true. go ahead. >> [inaudible] >> fire department. >> he was a cartoonist. >> a cartoonist, well, what i was hoping you might remember is that you usually learn in school that he was also the first postmaster general. in the colonies, and that he was in charge of the post office. but you know what? he budget here. he wasn't here. he wasn't in the colonies. he was in england, and he was in england for years and years and years. and that left his wife deborah to run the postal service.

and she did a very good job of it. it was, of course, since we were still under the british at that point, there was a british lord, lord lowden, in charge of it. and he at one point tried to fire one of deborah's workers for the postal system, and she got furious, and she wrote to him and said you can't fire my people. and by way, you are slowing down the postal system and just get out of the way. and so here is a picture of deborah franklin telling off lord lowden who is in the palm of her hand. but she was a very astute businesswoman, and she ran all of what were hers and ben franklin's businesses which were essentially printing shops which were like franchisings. a franchise is like mcdonald's, right? there are lots of them. and they went out to the front,

frontier which was western pennsylvania, and ben was very grateful to her for being such a good businesswoman. he kept writing to her and saying, oh, you are a fortune to me, you do wonderful work. and she kept saying, well, would you please come home from england? i'm lonely here, and i'd really like you to come home. and he wouldn't. and then some of their friends and neighbors thought that he was not really fighting hard enough against the stamp act. does anybody know what the stamp act was? yeah, go ahead. >> the stamp act is when the british decided to tax the tea coming into the kohl new -- colonies? >> they were taxing at that point paper and other very essential things. and that was one of the reasons that the americans started to rebel against the british, was the stamp act.

and ben franklin was in england, and people in pennsylvania thought, well, he should be fighting harder against that stamp act. and so they were so angry that they came, and they were going to tear down his house. and everybody warned deborah to get out of the way, and she said i'm not going to do that. and she got a gun, ask she got some friends -- and she got some friends with guns -- [laughter] and she defended her house. and ben wrote to her and said well done, deborah. but he still wouldn't come home. [laughter] and their only daughter got married, and he wrote to her and said make sure the wedding doesn't cost very much money, but he still wouldn't come home. and finally she died. deborah died, and ben said, well, i have to come home now, go home now he wrote to a friend, because my wife, in whose hands i left the care of

my atears, has died. -- affairs. when he got home, he did sign the declaration of independence can, so i can't be all the time mad at him. there are lots of reasons to be mad, but he was there in philadelphia while the men, and it was men, were assembling to decide what to do about the british. was they were feeling more and more that the british were making it hard to be under them, to be their colonists. and some of the men said we can't fight the british, you know? they're our mother country. we have to work with them. but meanwhile, the british had already had battles at lexington and concord, right? you remember those, the battles of lexington and concord? and those happened in 1775 up in massachusetts. and in massachusetts while the men were meeting in

philadelphia, were a couple of women who were saying, oh, for heaven sakes, what is wrong with you men? it is time to declare our independence from the british. and the men were not ready to do that. and there was one woman in particular who was writing to them and saying, you know, you've got to understand how bad it is here. the british are occupying our churches, they are taking hostages into boston, and there was one woman in particular named mercy otis warren -- has anybody ever heard of mercy otis warren? i suspected not. she was a very, very, very important woman. at the time of the revolution. because she wrote poems and plays and pamphlets to to say how terrible it was with the british. and, you know, that would be like somebody going today on fox

news or msnbc to say how terrible they thought the other political party was. that's the way you did it in those days because, of course, there wasn't any tv or radio or internet. so she wrote these letters and poems, and she got the men all riled up against the british, and she, and she also informed the men meeting in philadelphia about how bad it was. and it did get them, particularly the men who weren't from new england, energized to understand that they really did have to take on the british. and the fact that they were in massachusetts and fighting, fighting the men and taking some of the women hostage, was something very concerning, obviously, to the men from boston who were in philadelphia. and one of those was john adams who became our, what, second

president, right? john adams was in philadelphia having a perfectly nice time at the continental congress, going out to dinner, you know? having a nice life. meanwhile, his wife, abigail, is back in massachusetts with four little bitty children, and the british are coming. and he says to her at one point, if it gets really dangerous, take our children and fly to the woods. thank you, john. [laughter] hope you're having a nice dinner in philadelphia, right? but even with the danger she was very, very interested in politics, and she kept saying to him you have to declare our independence from britain. and finally when it looked like the men were about to do that and ready to do that, she wrote to john and she said, well, if you're going to have a new code of laws, you should -- does anybody know what she said?

.. married women could not even though property. the reason there were in the law into their as the end. tried to fix that and the way that the laws were at the time. so, finally, the americans declare independence. they raise an army and put george washington, right, in charge of the army.

no, george washington wrote a letter to his wife and said, i am so sorry that this is happening. nl is going to have sent you a lot, but i have been named as commander of the army. had nothing to do with it. i don't believe them for a second. he went to philadelphia wearing his army uniform. so i think he was kind of saying , and is directed to the guy for this job. so he would. so he occupied with his little group of militiamen, cambridge right next door where harvard colleges. the men stayed in the arbour dormitories. and everybody in boston came to see them. and one of the people who came to see him was mercy otis warren. she wrote to john adams his said that general washington was amiable and accomplished, but

generally who was also there, she said, he was sensible and judicious, but he is as marked by an ugly this end of politeness. so i don't think she expected us to be reading your mail a couple hundred years later, but that is how we learn. we read the mail in reading and we read, if we have them, the diaries. if we are really lucky we also learned things that people publish. there is one woman at the time who was already published and was very, very famous. and her name was phyllis. who knows about phyllis wheatley? and kate. you. [inaudible] >> her daughter taught her. and after that she started to

write. >> that's exactly right. brought from africa and the 1760's. and she came to boston. and people don't realize, a lot of people, that slavery unfortunately was legal in every colony at that point. says she was in boston as slave. we think she was about six, seven, eight years ago when she got to boston. in the way people know that, can you guess? >> she still had her baby teeth. that's exactly right. and then the wheel the family where she was living discovered she was a smart. the teenagers in the family taught her to read in english and the bible. then she was so smart she started learning latin and greek , just like you do every day. and then she started writing poetry. nobody believed that she was actually writing.

because nobody had ever heard of a teenage drug riding such poems, much less of a teenage slave grow. and so she tried to get them published. nobody in massachusetts would publish them in a recession get letters from all of the important men in boston to say, yes, this really is phyllis wheatley. she really did write these palms . and they sent the palms and the letters off. there her palms are published. says she had become an international celebrity. everybody knew about her, and everybody knew her palms. so when george washington got to massachusetts he said, would like to meet this phyllis wheatley person because she has been so blessed. and so he did go to me and she wrote a poem for him which he was very pleased to have. so there were lots of women who

went to war in one where another some of them will recall camp followers because, you know, poor women cannot afford to stay home with their husbands went to war. there was no way for them to give money to a to get food and housing. so they went with their husbands off to war. they got paid a little bit of money by the army, very little bit of money for cooking in nursing and for doing chores, like water in the canons. and then there would be out on the battlefield doing those things. sometimes their husbands would get hit and it would take over. the most famous case of that is margaret corbin who the battle of fort washington and new york after her arrest and was killed check his cannon. she was it three terms before the british finally won. she was given a retirement perry

by the congress because of the work she had done. she was buried at west point, the military academy because everybody honored her for servers and the war. and then, of course, there were lots of love and spice. spying is kind of women's work. and some of the spy's did they use like so -- will tell you about one committee and there. the british occupied philadelphia. it took her house. she said, well, can i just day in my house will you're living here? to the syndicate chester. she would listen and read it in code and then she would put the written code behind the buttons of for the boys go and so then there and then send him out tse is big brother and the army.

so that is the wave of the army got these coded messages about what the british right to. so she was very, very useful. then there were spies, but to the night. i must say, this illustration is exactly the way acknowledged of them. says so this is emily gagger unanimous is to take. in a stopped by the british we're going to searcher. of course, they wanted a woman the searcher. while that she was waiting for a woman to come searcher she read the message, memorized it, and then swallow it so that they could not get it from. so they could not find the message. she was able to go on. instead of getting scared and going back, she went on to general marine and delivered a message. then there were women who

actually dressed up as soldiers and went to war. do you know who one of them this? bet you do. a woman who went dressed up as a man and then fought a revolution no? deborah sampson. deborah sampson was, again, she listed it as robert sherman. she was injured several times and kept not only fighting but volunteering for difficulty. finally, she gets sick and she ended up in the hospital and the doctor discovered, wait, hold on. this is a woman. but she also did receive full pension benefits from the congress which said that she had -- she was an example of female heroism, fidelity, encourage abuse so we have lots of different women who were actually on the battlefield.

but, you know, in the middle of this war, this long, long a war, things and of killing so low. 1780's, the british were occupying the york. there were occupying charleston. the fridge and let it show up to help. and the soldiers were threatening to leave the army in great numbers by rigid. so there was a woman in philadelphia whose husband was the governor of philadelphia, pennsylvania, had decided that the woman of the country had to really do something to cheer up the soldiers. her name was esther to byrd read. she was an english will in. she had just come to the country a few years before, but she had quickly become a great patriot. when she saw the situation with the soldiers she wrote something that was published in all of the newspapers all of the country,

the sentiment of an american woman. here they are here, the sentiments of an american woman. and she then organized a fund-raising drive for the soldiers. if she had women go impairs door to door all around philadelphia, but she also contacted all of the other first ladies of the state's to say, we need to have this fund-raising drive for the soldiers. they said it up in their states. and in just a few weeks in 1780 they raised $300,000 which was just a huge amount of money. and then she wanted to use it to give the soldiers something really special that there would not have otherwise. george washington kept saying, what the nba shirts to be she can say, i don't want to give them shirts. you're supposed to give the insurance. what to give them something else. how about giving them gold.

george austin said, no, don't give them gold. there will notice that never did call the rest of the time. and so they fought back and forth. and she died. said george washington won. in the way it made shirts and then made 2,000 shirts, but the way that they showed the men that it was something special from the women of america for them was that each woman who made a shared sewed her own name into it. so when the soldier got the shared a new and somebody cared about him especially. and it boosted morale tremendously, and there are letters about that are quite wonderful, of the soldiers responded to it, the women of america were supporting them. kendis captain going until the french showed up. so it was a very important part. well, of course, finally we one. it took awhile. yea. right.

yea. took his eight years, but we won and then there was a country to raise. and that was a very easy either. george washington, of course, became the first president. martha washington the first first lady. she had to figure out how to be first lady hillary and there were all kinds of rules and people trying to figure out, she should do as she shouldn't do. it was hard to make it all work because you had to be kind of fancy enough so that the europeans would take that we were important as a country and not just a bunch of bums. you know what companies? [laughter] says it means not very sophisticated color kind of a hayseed. you know what a hayseed is? but it also had to be informal enough and friendly and out so that people who care would feel comfortable with it.

so she had to figure all that out. she rode at one point, people say i am the finest lady in the land, but i think i am the chief state prisoner because it was such hard work, and a lot of first ladies have felt the licensor. but she did it, and she had two little kids, by the way here. she had her grandchildren with her. one of them, she said, was a wild, crazy thing. but she did make it happen. then, of course, that was in new york. in philadelphia, the capitol temporarily. then, of course, finally they moved to washington. abigail adams goes into the white house been laughs which is still under construction. it was so cold that she's sort of let 13 fires to warm it up. she was. at that point jefferson's wife was dead, and at that point

james madison became secretary of state and dolley madison contemn. and she understood that even then very early in our history people were fighting with each other just like they do today. the republicans and the federalists were at each other's throats, and she figured that this little fragile young country might fall apart. sessionman everybody comes together and get together and have parties together and behave and she was very well aware of what she was doing. and it did bring a lot of people who otherwise would be argue with each other, they would come and have drinks at her house and talk to each other and make political compromises. and that one. henry clay who was a very important member congress of the time center, everybody was mrs. madison. and she said, well, that's because mrs. madison loves

everybody. no, i have read her mail, and that is not true. but she managed to convince people of it. then, of course, we have another war with the british under james madison's of ministers and. the war of 1812, right to reckon the british came and did what to washington? somebody -- yes, you. there what? they let the white house on fire. they let a lot of the city on fire, the city such as it was. she says what? george washington's portrait. and lots of government papers as well. and the burning of washington. and then madison was not with her. he was out in the field. she rode the day that it was

happening. i am still here with in this out of the can to assure her sister. she would not leave until the large picture of general washington is secured. and then for her friend is there to get her away. he kept saying, you have to leave up. you have to leave no. finally she left. the british came in. she it cook dinner because she was expecting madison to come back from the cabinet. so the british sent an aide her dinner. and then she came back just a couple of days later even though the city was a disaster. and this third convincing the congress to keep the capitol here because they thought, well, it is all birds tow. doesn't do that anymore. she also started with some other women in washington an orphanage for the children, girls who have lost their fathers as a result of the war, and that was the beginning of something that we see a lot.

the organization to help poor people and children and sick people. and that is why they really have been so very important, not only in this but throughout history. it is time to put them in the pictures. does he think? yes. and out so you, the best compliment and the revolution came not from the americans, although they kept talking about how important the women work. george washington wrote to one of the poets of the revolution. he wrote to her and said, you women are among the best patriot's the country can boast. but the best compliment came from the enemy. you remember what the name of the british commander was?

somebody over year. okay. go ahead. nope. he was one of them. the one who surrendered a yorktown. cornwallis. you know what lord cornwallis road? he wrote, we may destroy all the men in america, but we would still have all we can do to the fee the women. so those are the women of the revolutionary tide. and you will love reading about them and getting to know them and looking at the terrific pictures. now would be delighted to take your questions. thank you. [applause] >> this was my favorite to learn about. actually don't have favorites. i am now in my day job i interview people all the time. it is the favre person of interviewed. there's never an answer to that because people were so different from each other. these women are very different from each other. there's one woman i have not

talked up today this has been john j. was the first chief justice. and she went with him to spain and france when he was our ambassador. and her letters us of fun to read and funny and smart, i think she would have been a lot of fun to just get to know. over here. a current. >> how much more did gino really going into it about these women? >> when i was researching them homers to lead going into it? hardly anything. the reason i get so interested in them is because i, and my job, have to spend a lot of time learning about the founding fathers because they wrote the constitution, and i have to deal with the constitutional time. and so i go back and read the

letters in their arguments about things like the right to bear arms. the role of religion, things like that. and so i keep thinking about their time and wondering what about the women of the tongue. and of via a of it to give up hull occur if it is difficult to deter. ♪ ish. people and think the women were born to was a live-in save the letters in any significant way. sometimes the women themselves burn their letters. we didn't have ridings, that and think. it was not easy to do, but it was a lot of fun to do because a love of learning about the and of telling people about the. >> oh, good. good.

[laughter] >> what is and then? all right. tell her high back. check you. over here, anybody? ahead. >> how did mark the washington die? she get -- adelle robo what she got. george washington was basically killed by the doctors. she -- i don't remember what she got. she got some -- i mean, disease was so prevalent says. that is one of the things you learn about these women's lives. it is so sad because sometimes they lose to children in a week to disease. i mean, it was very, very difficult. and so she was in her 60's. she had lived, you know, are good while after george washington. [inaudible question]

>> was my inspiration to write the book? well, i told you already about knowing the founding fathers. i was on a first in bases with them. i wanted to know more about their lives, but as you heard when i was being introduced, i grew up here with my father in congress and the modern congress. when i was growing up i saw how very important the political lines were at that time. and what work they did put in campaigns and voter registration in organizing the conventions and running their husbands offices. also in working here with the african-american women in washington to work on all the social service organizations. so from sun employee children or anyone to know about the women of this earlier time. this time in our history is a crucial time. so i was very curious about what

to wear more up to at that time. no grownups. that will touchy about it. >> how long did it take to write the book? i probably started the research. i can't remember exactly. my guess would be because i did it from the book before that, that book came out in 2000. so i probably started the research about 2001. the book was published in 2004. but then there was a second book called ladies of liberty. in that came out in 2008. so the total research was almost in years. of sorry. i can't hear you. who did the illustration? the illustrations were fabulous, wonderful illustrations done by diane good. she was a copy cat. she was a wonderful person in

cadbury interested in the researchers self and got some old fashioned called parents and use them and grow with them so that she could see how the women experienced their writing because she got so interested, not just in what they were but held there were. this was abigail adams. and she thought that it their handwriting was so beautiful that she was to copy it. and then right at the very end before they're ready to go to press she said to me, do you think we can get all these women signatures? and i said, well, we can try. i got to touch with all the historic societies in the university's weather husband's papers are kept and get every single one of these women signatures. so under each of their pictures, that is exactly how their router name.

she did such a good job copying the she could become a counterfeiter. first. >> if you could go back, who would you want to be? >> if i could go back in time who would want to be? first of all, i really wouldn't want to go back to the life was very, very hard. and the kind of thing modern-day women who say it so hard and i can't do it all, a think they're kind of a bunch of sissies. because this was very hard to live in the 18th-century. he did not have any conveniences', of course. as i said, you know, disease would come through. you would have terrible things happen in your family that even with all of that they can so much about what was happening in the country. you know, even though they could not vote and all of that, they still were so involved, so i admire them tremendously.

but i would not want to be any one of them. >> when i was joined to want to be a writer? you know, no, not really. i always wrote. he had to write and write and write and write. which is an excellent and to do. and so i was always a good writer. and so i've found that i did, in fact, enjoy writing. but it was not something that i never aspired to. is, you. do you have a question? >> has anyone besides you remove anything? >> have there been any other -- the books about the women in the revolution? yes. a bunch have come out since

founding mothers has come up, several very good books. there is a wonderful biography of dolly madison called perfect union by catherine l. gore. there is several good biographies of abigail adams, but will people have not done is put them all together and how they interact with each other and how they -- and focus on the politics of the. some political reporter and one to do that. >> in the blue shirt. >> what to and like most about this book? our review of the illustrations, as you probably caught on. also it has got some sort of section that gives you more. so ten women, and each one gives you a page about the career woman, her love story and then

another basis rototills a couple will live and it gets better. we do have these sections about women writers. we have a time line at the beginning. and what i like about that is the really key of whole lot of. first kolo the first person the right to was my just trendy year-old granddaughter. she said, it's getting along. but then she got her mom up the next morning and said, and got to read your book. here are my favorites. she liked frank and the best beaches like this buys. i am done. i have really sorry. that means you have to go back to school. >> he did a great job. >> book tv is on c-span2. like us.

watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. up next, sr martin jr. recounts his family's migration from texas to california in the 1940's and compares his own experiences growing up with those of his relatives who remain in the south. mr. martin spoke with us during the recent trip to blimpie of washington. >> october 8th 1935 and for worth, texas. ..

we stayed probably a little over ae or. then we moved to billings, montana where i started school. at that point i was between five and six and i started school at six, having not been to kindergarten and then to california in 1942. and monterey in 1943, so in the span of roughly four years, we

were really on the move as the title of the book suggests. we moved from fort worth to cody for a couple of different reasons. one was economics. we are talking about 1938, 39 in that neighborhood and despite the fact that it was so called over and they were in the interregnum between the world wars we were not doing all that while economic way. my parents got married at 1934. my dad was earning $14 a week and one of the stories of my family was my mom went to her mother and said hey do you think we will manage as a new couple

on a salary of $14 a week and that sounded her to get to her. that is where they were. so economics was one and another driver was raised. black life in texas was not easy and one story i tell in the book is about how my parents were discriminated against and harassed racially which was a matter of course. my dad got stopped on the road and hauled off to town in the jail. the police left my mother in the car. they harassed him by threatening to try him for assaulting a white woman.

a tried and true race meeting issue. this was not true of course. at the time the woman that they claimed had been assaulted by my father said no, this is not the guy. this is somebody i have never seen before. they took whatever money my dad had and put him out on the street and made him walk back to his car. he hitchhiked back to his car. another thing was that my dad rather had run away to wyoming to become a cowboy and he had been gone from fort worth for about four years. nobody had heard from him. he wrote it postcard back to my dad saying hey rudy come out here.

i will get you a job on this ranch where i work. and so, my dad being good friends with his older brother said hey this sounds like a good deal. i think i will go out there and be a cowboy too so they packed up, my mother and me and my brother and headed to wyoming in the winter. i think it was 1938. so all these things tended to sort of coalesce at one point and opportunity not and they took it. over the years, i was the only black man in america that was qualified to be president because i had abraham lincoln log cabin experience, wright? and i said that because we in fact did live in a log cabin on the banks of the shoshone river outside of cody, wyoming.

my father worked shining shoes. he worked in a car dealership. he worked in a bakery, and was able to make a living doing this kind of stuff. at the same time, we lived a lot off the land. we have a garden and we raised critters. my father hunted and fished so we would have wild game and wild fish. and we made life. on the social side, there was discrimination just like there have been in texas but not so much. and it was and i think because anybody loved anybody anymore or less than they did in texas. it was because everybody there

had to struggle to make life. so you didn't have much time or energy to be struggling about race when everybody was struggling, do you know what i mean? so that was the kind of thing that happened. on the social and my parents who were deeply religious pentecostals worshiped with a white pentecostal bunch and part of why we ultimately left cody as social and racial church mainly. the one that they were attached to, so liked my father and his preaching. he was already becoming a minister. they wanted to fire their pastor

and have my dad to come their pastor. neither my father nor my mother was ready for that, for a young black preacher from texas to take over a white congregation in wyoming. it just wouldn't fly so they ran and they ended up in billings montana where they started a congregation. black, red, native americans. they were mexicans. there were white folks in his congregation. so it was a very mixed kind of world and that i think is one of the things that distinguished racial life in the west by contrast with what you see in other parts of the country. that is to say folks have to get on with each other because that is who is there. folks have to work together because they need help.

folks go to church together because everybody can't have -- that kind of stuff. so people got two places and did things that might not have happened in alabama or georgia or wherever. i remember one time we went to the rodeo and as we went through the audience into the stands to where we were going to sit to watch the show, people started making racist remarks. oh dark clouds and rain. i remember my parents being very up tight at this kind of behavior because it wasn't uncommon for whites to be fairly direct and open with their racism. in billings where i started to

school, my first day in school i experienced an exceedingly painful racial experience. i got to school and when the teacher asked us who wanted to read i raise my hand. i was the only kid who did and i was the only black kid in the class. it turns out i was indeed the only kid who knew how to read already because i didn't know and i still don't when i learned how to read or how i came about doing it all i know is that i read. and instead of encouraging me or supporting me that teacher punished me because i knew how to read and couldn't explain how i had learned it. as i said i was the only one who

knew how to read so she made me sit in the back of the class on a high stool with a dunce cap is my reward for being the only kid in the class who knew how to read. so i remember that. i remember some things because i was old enough life five or six years old. i can remember quite distinctly. the aspects of my life that were comfortable and which weren't. there may have been aspects of life in billings that were segregated but i didn't see it. by that i mean i never have the sense that we had to live in a particular place based on race. that was clear in san francisco. this is where black folks lived in the fillmore and you know the giants came to town.

willie mays tried to buy a house near where my grandparents ultimately bought a house and folks wouldn't sell it to him on the basis of race. so it was there that i first saw segregation though, not legally but the fact of. ironically, i should have seen it in the church when my parents couldn't handle the emotion of pastoring a white congregation and the fact that the church and cody had so few folks of color. there would be an occasional mexican and there was a -- in that group and there were never any black people whereas in billings besought indian folks and our next-door

neighbors were indian. mexican folks came to my dad's church, white folks came so there was a much clearer mixture of folks involved in my life. i guess that is part of what distinguishes western life for me and that is that i mean in the last 20 years i can go to places in the south and midwest and east even and not have to deal with people very often. i would see them from a distance and i know they are there but we did not have to deal with them. i could live in a black world that had everything i needed and it didn't require me to interact much with other black folks.

that's impossible out here except for maybe some areas in l.a. and the l.a. san diego nexus, in the san francisco bay area and maybe around denver or phoenix, but that's very unusual here you have to take them as they come because there isn't anybody else there. so you take them as they come. i think it's easier for a kid as i was to see that. when i was 14, 15, my mother's and husband died of cancer and my folks wanted us to see him again before he died. they sent us to fort worth to visit him. we went down on the train and my

father not wanting us to have to deal with segregation on the train bought tickets for us in monterey. they took us there and we never have to deal, we thought. when it came time to see us on the train, this was coming back to california because we went down in a car, we went under the train and went to where our seats were designated on our tickets. i guess i was about 14 and my brother was about 12. we sat down. the conductor came down the aisle and he said boys, who sat you hear? this person over here told us where we were supposed to sit. he said there has been some kind of a mistake.

and he sent us to the segregated car. we rode in the segregated car out to el paso from fort worth, from fort worth to el paso in the segregated car and in el paso we change trains and cars. we got home and my dad just blew a gasket. he went straight down to the station, negotiated with these folks, got some of his money back, had a written apology but we had the experience. so he didn't go to black folks in monterey. in texas, the conductor who moved us out of the integrated car into the segregated car was white but he moved us away into

segregation in the quote colored car. so we had those kinds of experiences both in the west where we lived and where we went. there were huge numbers of african-americans who moved to the west before and after the war and during the second world war. i mean literally thousands and thousands of black folks. i don't think that many folks took the circuitous route and i don't think many folks did it when we did it. i think my parents were a little bit ahead of that, the waves of migration between the wars and i think that after we were here in the west, we could see huge

numbers of black folks coming. when they came to this town the first day was in this town i stopped at an intersection downtown at the corner of fifth and capital. some young guys drove by in a pickup and saw me sitting there in this little blue volkswagen bug and this dude rolled down his window and shouted out the window, go home. i looked at my wife and i said well, we are home. we know where we are. we understand who's here. but it was unusual to see many black folks when they first came. we are talking 1970. in that 40 some years between then and now, there are are so many black folks who have come to the town, so many asian folks

particularly southeast asians. indians were already here. it's clear that the wave of migration has continued and has made the region and area much more diverse than it was. i think if my book is that all successful, what it does and will do is demonstrate the general through the particular. in other words, the individual experience of this family represent black experience in america written small and by looking at the small picture one

can infer things about the bigger one. so i'm hoping that is folks read this book, they will come to understand how this single-family and its various branches and offshoots and so forth represent a much bigger bunch of folks and not just the family. that is what i hope it does. robert watson presents a history of the war of 1812. the author details the origins of the war, the principle players in the battles that marked america's second war for independence. this is about an hour 15.

>> can you all hear me okay? a feisty stay here maybe we won't get the feedback. karen thank you and thanks to the hagan ranch library. i've had the pleasure of speaking at this library many times over the years for the books of bind and if we also brought booktv and c-span here today and also thanks to booktv and cease plan for covering us. either the pleasure of doing if does and programs for booktv and c-span. how many fans do we have of c-span and the audience? [applause] thank you for coming out on a beautiful day in palm beach county. when you hear that you're giving a lecture or announce that you are giving a talk on the war of 1812 you were if anyone will show up. palm beach county is filled with more historians per-capita than any other place and i can't believe there is such a

wonderful and large audience. hopefully at the end of the remarks you will learn something about the war of 1812. was my punchline most americans don't even know when the war started. [laughter] no one knows anything about it and hopefully i will share some of my views and the war of 1812 in my opinion was one of the most intriguing wars in american history if not the most intriguing. it was also in the year 1814. i've always said the year 1814 was possibly the most important year in american history so i'm going to try to make an argument for that today. all right? at the conclusion of my remarks if we have time we will take questions and after we finished the taping for booktv i will turn the mic off and will be happy to stay and answer questions or whatever you want to talk about. the war of 1812, what a bizarre affair. it was fought for two and half years. we don't call world war ii the year of 1941.

we don't call the civil war the war of 1861 but we call it the war of 1812. folks that supported it and feel that was a positive thing calls that america's war for independence and i think it was that. it's the tractors call it an unnecessary war and i think it was utterly completely and necessary. thankfully we haven't had an unnecessary war since that time. [laughter] i call it the unknown war because no one knows anything about it. my favorite president harry truman was characteristically blunt. the war of 1812 truman called it the silliest war we ever fought and i think it was that too. it was a war that had we won, canada would have been a state and possibly we would have had a huge slave colony in mexico and maybe even cuba. had we lost the war of 1812 we would have become once again a colony of britain.

but after all that fighting, all that loss of lives, it was in the end a costly and complement complement -- complicated time. it was a war that was fought from the great lakes down to the gold coast. it was fought against canadians, british, american indians. it was fought off of the coast of brazil. it was fought in the atlantic and pacific. it was fought all the way to england. it was a continental wide land were that was a worldwide naval and economic campaign. a fascinating, fascinating war. in the end when the peace treaty was signed the reasons why we have the war were not even part of the peace treaty. some of the causes of the war were no longer apparent when we signed the declaration to go to war. folks rather wanted to wash -- rush to war. how do we get an award to eight teen 12? three main causes of the war. number one, impressment.

we used to teach history once upon a time in the schools. impress me. what this was was the british would simply pull over, stop and american merchant ship and they would press our sailors into service. they would just go on board and take sailors often say welcome to his majesty's royal navy. why did they do this? a couple of reasons. one was this. britain was at war with napoleon and this was a continental wide war in europe. it was total war. napoleon was hell-bent on dominating europe and then some. it was told war to the point where free. gave -- conversely if we traded with the president about the british to doc the french saw it as an act of war. it was total war. now while france possibly have

the strongest army on land, easily britain was the mistress of the seas. just maybe was the master of the oceans so here is one of the ideas that written had. one of the ways it could win the war was to blockade every court in europe. imagine how ambitious and then blockade ports in the caribbean and north america. therefore they would deny the french navy the ability to resupply the army, the ability to move the army and weapons, the inability to export and therefore raise the money to fund the war and the inability to import items to fight the war so it would be an equivalent to a stranglehold. they launch this huge blockade. now if you have a blessed -- massive blockade you need a lot of ships. britain wanted 1000 ships in the navy. can you imagine such a number? 1000 ships names to things.

canada becomes very important. you need wood for the ships. with all due respect and glenn is a small crowded resource poor island compared to canada. canada endless forest could the 1000 ships of canada becomes important in britain is going to fight for canada. secondly if you have that many ships and you want to blockade of ports you need a lot of sailors and there weren't enough sailors in his majesty's navy. one of the things the brits did, there were a lot of enterprising tavern or pub owners. a lot of pub owners didn't just make their money from selling alcohol and food. what they would do at the end of the night, when they closed up shop there would be six guys passed out, drunk. they would load them in wagons and sell them to the british navy. the guys would wake up the next day with a cold bucket of saltwater in their face and someone standing over them saying welcome to the navy.

prison populations were sold. even the fact that britain didn't have enough sailors so they stopped american merchant ships and took our sailors. new england fishermen, new england sailors were some of the best in the world and therefore that was an attractive price for the british. now can you imagine american communities along the coast, wives and widows and newspapers and politicians when the ship comes back to port and says the men were taken, several men were taken off and they will never be heard from again. they were taken by the british in an act of war. americans were rightly angered and brightly upset. another reason the british did this is so many british sailors would jump ship and join our navy or are merchant fleet. why? life aboard a british warship, rudely hard discipline, long tours of duty, short life expectancies, not much pay or

you could work for an american merchant ship, good pay, short tours of duty, lacks conditions and take the money pick up a shovel and three at -- he of free american and on your own land. a lot of readers were jumping ship. one such incident happened in 1807 and we came this close to having the war of 1807. here is what happened. three brits, sailors jumped ship and came into the u.s. from the british ship yards report. not only did they jump ship but it appeared that they stole the captains rowboat to do that so the captain wanted his vote and his ship and that carried the rumor was that they went to work on board the ship the uss chesapeake. so the british ship is laying anchor waiting for the chesapeake to come out of the harbor and as another british warship called the hms leopard.

a perfect name, isn't it? prowling the oceans ,-com,-com ma the leopard in this worship is waiting for ship. when the chesapeake comes out of the port its deck is filled with supplies of water and its doors are closed. if you wanted to fire a cannon you had to raise the gun port doors and roll it out and then fire them. it was headed all the way to the north african post to fight the barbary pilots. ..

>> with men taken off the deck of the ship. we wanted war. thankfully, thomas jefferson knew that the american navy, which consisted of a handful of ships, was not ready to take on the british navy, and he appealed to calm and cooler heads. so we came this close to having the war of 1812. that's the first cause of war. second, the indian question. the indian question. back during revolutionary times or colonial times, we whites and the british had made a deal that if the indians stop attacking our settlers on the western frontier, we won't move west of the appalachians. now, we really honored that treaty, didn't we? [laughter] and all the rest. by attacking settlers on the west, the wild, wild west back

then would be pittsburgh, roanoke, and cleveland was the hinterlands, right? so that was the deal. what happened, of course, as soon as we gained our independence, we rushed west. in the early 1800s it makes the beginning of the end for the american indian. jefferson buys louisiana, right? the louisiana purchase. which doubles the size of the country. even today it's a third of the land mass of the continental u.s. lewis and clark go west and discover is these great unknown lands, and we rush west. so in the late 1790s and the 1800s, there is an all-out bloodbath on the frontier with white settlers massacring men, women and children, indians, and the indians massacring men, women and children among white settlers. in the late 1700s, there is something called the battle of fallen timbers, 1797, i'm sorry. 1797. anyone hear of the battle of fallen timbers? okay, one. okay, good, we'll learn

something new today. there was a chief, his name was little turtle. not a very intimidating name, right? [laughter] he probably had an inferiority complex, right? chief little turtle organizes a large indian confederation, and the purpose is they are going to attack whites on the frontier. and the american government is, rightly, concerned about this. so they dispatch a rough, tough revolutionary guy named general mad anthony wayne. perfect nickname. and he goes in with vast forces. chief little turtle, we believe, had about a thousand warriors which was a huge army for indians at the time. and before we attacked chief little turtle, we knew that because he was defending his lands that he and his braves would fight like demons. they're fighting for their homeland. so rather than just attack in a conventional way, general mad

anthony wayne has a young officer, his name is william henry harrison. remember that name, okay? more on him throughout this. and william henry harrison has an idea of why don't we just charge with everything we have right up the gut. hitler would have called it blitz career against poland, right? mounted infantry, artillery, everything at once. and we do that, and although chief little turtle's braves were tough, they were undies palined. the -- undies linned. that lesson is not lost on william henry harrison. it's also a lesson not lost on some indians including a young future chief named te couple saw. more on him in a moment. so after the battle of fallen timbers, so named because apparently there was a tornado that knocked over a lot of trees, that marked sort of the beginning, if you will, the end of indian self-determination. a few years later, however, through the 1800s, tecumseh

emerges as, arguably, the greatest american indian leader we've ever known. i think he's one of the world's true ily great military leaders, war none. tecumseh is a big, handsome, powerful, charismatic, brave, smart leader, a natural leader of men. it's hard to overstate how remarkable tecumseh was. i'm a big fan. tecumseh has this unbelievable idea. he is going to unite indians in a grand confederation. he's going to recruit indian nations from the great lakes to the gulf along the mississippi throughout. now, good luck with that. american indian nations have different languages, hundreds and hundreds of years of wad blood -- bad blood, vastly different cultures. how is he going to do this? guess what? he's succeeding in doing this through his charisma, through his vision. and tecumseh is amassing the battle of fallen timbers was in present day ohio, now he's many indiana. back then that whole area was was called indian territory, thus the name indiana.

tecumseh is amazing this massive federation, they have cattle, dogs, crops, storehouses. he's getting ready for a huge war against the white man. now, around the same time that this is happening, throughout the latter 1800s our government assigns the governor of indiana, a guy named william henry harrison, to deal with tecumseh the way that he helped deal with chief little turtle. so harrison has an idea, i think it's an idea george bush and dick cheney had, preemptive war. [laughter] although it works out a wee bit better for harrison. he's going to hit tecumseh before tecumseh can hit the whites. so he amasses an army, and he marches for tecumseh's headquarters which was in a town called prof tentstown -- prophetstown. a couple of bizarre things happen. tecumseh says i need to recruit

another, one more, another group of ferocious warriors, the red sticks, which were this present day alabama. part of the crete nation. the red sticks were ferocious. so tecumseh is going to go and get the red sticks and bring them back and start the war. around the time he does that, william henry harrison marches his army to prof tentstown, and he camps just outside of prophetstown at a creek called tip a canoe. [laughter] more on that in a moment. now, when tecumseh leaves, he left prophetstown in the charge of his younger brother, the prophet. he's kind of the holy man for the federation. now, i'm sure tecumseh said to the prophet what you and i said to our kids the first time we left them home without a babysitter, don't do anything dumb. [laughter] in fact, don't do anything until

i get back, right? now, the rough fete was, basically, a snake oil sales match. he had no status in his village, in his tribe until one day he has a massive seizure. and i'm not sure, and i mean this respectfully, if it's epilepsy or if he's acting. he announces he spoke to the great chief in the sky, and now he's filled with magical powers. and he had heard from his brother that there was an eclipse about to occur, so tecumseh announces that he will bring the heavens together in an eclipse, and it happens. so he has great magic, great power. this helps to bring more indian nations to prof tentstown. -- prophetstown. of so tecumseh puts the prophet in charge. he leaves to get the red sticks. right as he leaves, here comes william henry harrison, and what does tecumseh do? he has a great party, a gigantic

party. their drinking alcohol -- they're drinking alcohol, smoking spirits, having a massive party. and during the party tecumseh, i mean, the prophet announces that he has another seizure, and he's talked to the great chief in the sky, and he has additional ours. he's imbued now with the power to make all the warriors invisible. i imagine like this, right? [laughter] to make hem invisible ask to make them, secondly, impervious to the white man's bullets. in the middle of night in a drunken, stoned party stupor, without planning, the of prophet charges towards tip a canoe creek and william henry harrison. as they're killing one of the sentries, the sentry manages to get off a shot. the army lines up, and it's like shooting fish in a barrel. in a heart of minutes, an hour, tecumseh's grand indian confederation is annihilated, done.

the prophet lives through the ordeal and goes back to prophetstown, and any warriors that lived through the ordeal, they now know that the rough fete's magic is week, so they leave, and they go back to their tribal homes. that's the end of the confederation. tecumseh returns successful, he brings the red sticks. he comes back and imagine the scene of devastation. the day after william henry harrison defeats in 1811, defeats the prophet at the battle of tip a a canoe, his army mars in the next day to prophetstown and burns it to the ground. this is a pile of bodies that were burned, dogs are killed, crops are destroyed, cattle are killed and eaten. they did everything but salt the earth. imagine the scene of def nation when tecumseh returns. -- devastation. he was about to achieve the unachievable and unite all indians against us. our history was this close to being radically different. now, with rough tentstown

destroyed and tecumseh's warriors gone, tecumseh uses that old notion the enemy of my enemy is my friend, he joins the british this canada against the americans during the war. and this is a huge asset for the british, because tecumseh is amazing. now, e couple saw and a handful of war yours and a british general we'll talk about soon and a handful of soldiers, basically, beat three massive american armies in 1812. it's three of the biggest upsets in military history, war none. that's how good tecumseh is, unfortunately for the or british and canadians and the american indian, i believe the end of self-determination gets another blow in 181. tecumseh is killed. for two decades he had been tighting with william henry harrison. harrison as governor of indiana would invite indian chiefs, he would give them alcohol and then cut a deal and swindle them out of their lands. but not tecumseh. tecumseh says no one indian can

give away our lands. the great chief gave it to all his red children. they're all our lands. we will have war. so harrison and tecumseh have been locking horns for two decades. tecumseh dies in the battle of thames as in the river in london, just across the border in canada. the british with maybe 800 and tecumseh and some warriors are on the run. william henry harrison is pursuing them with an army that numbers 5-6,000. the army is catching the british. the tecumseh falls to the rear of the british army, and he burns bridges, cuts down trees, harasses the americans to slow them down. but by the time they reach the town of thames, it's aaren't they will catch them. the british line up for one last stand, and harrison opens up with everything he has. the british either run, their general

he's a small, frail, older sick guy. and the country has buyer's remorse. so he has a very cold inaugural day, but he wants to show everyone he's not too april and old. he gives one of, if not the longest address in inaugural history, nearly two hours. it took kennedy, lincoln and washington less than 15 minutes. a whopper. but he's going to do his speech

without his jacket, his scarf, his hat to show he's not too frail. i'm sure his mother was going, my son, the president -- [laughter] he doesn't listen to me, right? and he gives the speech without his jacket. he catches pneumonia and dies a month later. as tecumseh cursed him. i don't call harrison old tip a canoe, i call him old natural selection. that's not the end of tecumseh's curse. twenty years later two, decades, in 1860 we elect lincoln. five years later lincoln is shot and killed in ford's theater: tecumseh's curse. twenty years after lincoln's elected in 1880 we elect garfield. garfield's a professor. like most of them, he can't handle the stress. he's going to a train deeau in washington to vacation at the jersey shore with governor christie -- [laughter] snooki and jwow, and he's shot and killed. in 1881.

tecumseh's curse. twenty years later in 1900 we elect william mckinley. shortly thereafter, mckinley's in buffalo and is shot and killed at a world's expo kind of a thing. twenty years after that in 1920 we elect warren g. harding. this is a sharp crowd. from ohio. three years later, harding travels cross country and dies of a heart attack in san francisco. twenty years after harding in 1940 we elect -- fdr. april 12, '45, fdr dies in warm springs, georgia, of a cerebral hemorrhage. twenty years later we elect john kennedy. dallas, '63, right? assassinated. twenty years after kennedy, 1980, we elect ronald reagan. he's shot. the bullet lodges right next to his heart, but he lives, and he breaks tecumseh's curse. pretty good, huh? [laughter] now, i don't believe -- [applause] thank you very much.

i'm here all week. try the veal, right? [laughter] so i don't believe that's tecumseh's curse. some people that know about a curse and know about history put this together, and it's one of those things that go out on the internet. my guess is tecumseh's curse of harrison kind of went like this, f-you, harrison. [laughter] so with tecumseh dead, so the second cause of war was the indian question. we wanted to annihilate the redman. not a reservation system, genocide. and the war was an excuse to do that. the third cause of the war, manifest destiny. empire. you had people like james win chester and aaron burr, right? the first of two vice presidents to shoot one, right? and aaron burr in winchester, henry clay, john c. calhoun, all these guys had delusions of grandeur and visions of empire. they saw themselves taking canada, taking mexico, taking

whatever they wanted. burr thought he could be emperor of this great territory. and clay and call houston were the ringleaders in the year 1810 which was a midterm election year. and sometime in midterm election years, like the last one, right? 2010, there is a big turnover. i hope in this year a big turnover, right? both parties, both chambers n. 1810 there was a big turnover to, that's the good news. a large percentage of congress was defeated. that's good news. bad news was they were beaten by these young, rabble-rousing war hawks who wouldn't negotiate, wouldn't compromise if you could imagine such a thing -- [laughter] and were hell bent on marching to war. henry clay is the ringleader of kentucky, john c. calhoun of south carolina, they were mostly southern war hawks that had come to power. they disrespect the revolutionary leaders, their elders, they throw the whole seniority system in a tailspin, and after clay's elected in 1810, when he's sworn in in

1811, he's not only sworn into the congress, he's selected as speaker of the house as a freshman. clay has three goals; canada, canada, canada. they said he sounded like a songbird, canada, canada, canada. clay gives a speech where he says i would seize the swire -- the entire continent from britain. i wish, quote-unquote, to never see peace until we do. he's hell went on war -- hell bent on war. so these noncompromising hawks rush us to war. they steam roll president james madison who's a reluctant war president. the war vote in the senate passes 19-13, the first vote was tied 16-16. four members absent, one enroute. now, the same folks that wanted war then turn around and defeat every measure to fund the war. no new taxes. they fought a war without funding it, if you could imagine

such a thing. they defund the navy, they don't provide adequate uniforms, muskets and supplies for our soldiers. many of the americans that die in canada don't have proper warm clothing or run out of food or am mission -- food or ammunition, and they go to war. now, we planned a three-pronged invasion of canada, a western wrong, a central prong and an eastern prong, all three smuggles. the canadian -- all of canada contains around 4,50 soldiers. what -- 4,500 soldiers. what's that, one for every hundred miles or something like that? how do you defend that massive border and expansive wilderness? the answer is it's impossible to even try. more orr, how coyou -- more our, how do you move soldiers across rivers, lakes in the winter? you can't. so we're going to annihilate the british and the canadians like that. the western prong will cross from detroit in michigan into canada and will be led by

general hull, 1812. the central prong will be between lakes ontario and erie across the niagara river, 35 miles long, after visiting niagara falls, across into canada. that's the central prong. an eastern prong will come up from and cross the st. lawrence led by general dearborn. now, here's the problem, all three of these men were a good decade past their prime. all three of them are how cowards, all three of them are inept. we couldn't have picked three worse people. the three of them don't like or trust one another, the three of them conspire against one another hoping the others fail so they can seize control of everything. so they're at war with one another instead of against the british. consequently, they don't coordinate their attack, and we don't have a three-pronged, assumption attack -- simultaneous attack. hull marches first into canada. he stops and makes camp, doesn't

tire a shot. he spends a long time working on a grand speech or oration. he gets up to handful of canadians in the flop fear and says -- frontier and says, people of canada, i am here. surrender. it's like bad william shatner on "star trek," right? [laughter] ridiculous. no one does anything. in addition to three inept commanders, here's what the british have, they have two weapons; e tecumseh and brock. anyone heard of general brock? one of my heroes, one of the great generals from history. brock, like tecumseh, is big and smart and strong and dashing and courageous. these two guys are ahazing. and they lead a small -- amazing. they lead a small group of british and canadians. brock described his army as ill equipped, no supplies. he said he was lucky if half of them were not drunk 24/7. he picks those that aren't drunk, that can fight, and a few of tecumseh's warriors and they

defeat armies. young kids, my college students, would call it a bromance. my 10-year-old daughter would say they were bffs, best friends forever. these guys loved each other. like those guys who say i love you man, no, no, i love you, man, no, i love you, your the best. these two hit it off. they even wore one another's clothes, which is bizarre, isn't it? brock takes off his red sash, and tecumseh wears it as a turban. brock over his red uniform wears the tecumseh's sort of a bone chest plate, and these two guys take it to us. here's what they do. hull marches into canada and does nothing. now, they realize that we're so inept and communication and transportation so primitive, we probably didn't notify all the forts that we were at war. so brock rushes around throughout the frontier, and

tecumseh -- and they'd hit every fort. they hit a fort -- where's my michiganders? best fudge in the world, right? no doubt about it. and that's in the hinterlands. that is way out. you take the space shuttle to canada, and then cut south. it's way out there. [laughter] there's a young lieutenant, porter hanks, who has 50 or 60 members and when brock and tecumseh take the fort the quote is, war? what war? we didn't even know we were at war. fort after fort after fort fall to brock and tecumseh because we're so inept. hull's so inept, he doesn't even notify them. imagine hull day after day in camp when one army after another keep coming back saying we lost our fort to tecumseh, then the next day someone comes in, we lost our fort to tecumseh, hull begins to panic. and then something happens. hull sends out scouts. tecumseh and brock catch the scouts, and this is what they find out.

hull had a lifelong phobia, a fear, a reoccurring nightmare. i mean, it's clinical. he was scared to death that he was going to be scalped by indians. so what they do after interrogating the american scouts and reading some of the letters which tecumseh gives to brock, the letters being transported by hull's younger officers, brock realizes all this, he knows everything, he knows where they are, what they do is they kill a lot of the scouts and then send others back to the camp. imagine a scout coming back saying our men were killed and scalped by tecumseh. we were overrun. so hull sends out more scouts. what happens to them? killed, scalped and attacked. they come back, hull was in a panic. tecumseh is everywhere. he is a ghost. he's a demon. and he's scalping everyone. so hull with this massive army without firing a shot, he panics and marches back to detroit.

marches back to detroit. he gets in the fort and shuts doors this the fort and hides -- in the fort and hides. as soon as he gets into the fort, they look out in front of the fort, and there's brock and tecumseh. brock knows what's going to happen, it's psychological warfare. he and tecumseh and a few men rush to the fort. that night brock has tecumseh light fires this a 360-degree ring around the fort and run around with his few warriors all night screaming like madmen. the hull says the whole entire hordes of indians are about to to attack us. hull thinks there's tens of thousands. there's handful. in the morning, the white flag is there, and brock and tecumseh are ready to parlay. brock tells hull that if you surrender now, i can guarantee your safety, if not, i cannot constrain tecumseh's appetite. he'll eat you. hull surrenders his army, the fort and everything. this massive army marches out of

the fort to brock and tecumseh and a handful of men. now brock has all the weapons and am know and supplies he needs, but rather than stay and celebrate, brock takes off to make it to the central prong. these guys rush across the entire expansion from michigan to the st. lawrence. when he gets to the central prong, we're ready to invade canada, the u.s. is, at lewistown in new york. they're going to cross into queenston heights on the other side of the niagara river. brock has spies looking at all of our camps. he knows exactly where we're going to cross, so they're ready. they have cannons on the top of queenston heights to hit us. day one, one of the young soldiers panics, steals one of the boats and sails away on the river. it was the boat with all the ores. [laughter] oars. [laughter] remember blazing saddles, any

mel brooks fans? [laughter] huge mel brooks fan. remember when they set up the toll gate in the middle of the desert, and they p can't get through the toll, so someone says go pack and get me a mess of -- go back and get me a mess of dimes? so they get the oarses, they're going to try to cross. the river's too swift. as we try to get ashore, out of the woods comes the indians, and they're attacking them. day three we're going to try to cross the cannons up on the high grounds start blowing up our boats. the americans go back to the american side and refuse to cross over the river. we finally, ultimately, find a hero, genuinefield scott. you've all heard that name. 6-4. scott gets 300 men, and the hell with it, he takes queenston heights. we're finally going to have a victory. his men refuse to deal with the general whom they call van ladder, he's such a coward.

they take queenton heights. scott tells his men to spike the cannon. brock rushes his men up to attack. of course, brock's in the front. he gets shot and killed. brock dies in 1812 in queenston, tecumseh the year later at thames. with that, it gives us a shot. now, we take queenston heights, but our men don't know how to spike the cannon, and brock's men end up knocking us off queenston heights. we go be, licking our wounds, back across the river. tsa forward to 1813, we are street for a -- desperate for a victory. we have a very old plan, we are going to hit the capital, present day toronto. back then it was york, that was the capital. we're going to hit them at york. we finally find a general that can lead men. he was an explorer, pike, who found a mountain in colorado you might have heard of. and pike is a tough guy, he's a

natural leader of menment pike leads men, hull has a massive army, and we hit new york, and we wipe out the british of york. pike is sitting out in front of the fort interrogating his prisoners saying, hook, we don't need the bloodshed to continue, if you surrender, we can all live, and we won't destroy the city and the fort, and i'll let you go. as he's negotiating, apparently, a stray cannonball hits a supply depot inside the fort and blows it up. trees are knocked over in all directions. it's said fort was lifted off the ground, the walls blown out. a hundred men are blown into the air, and a boulder the size of a piano goes spiraling through the air and lands straight on top of pike's head. it squishes him like a pancake. with zebulon pike dead, what do our men do? we rape, rob, pillage and burn york to the ground. we get a victory, and we soil

ourselves. we attack civilians, and we burn it to the ground. the british promised to repay the favor. now it's 1814. i'll hit three battles, and we'll call it a day. 1814, this is the most important year in american history, in my opinion. the british finally finish with napoleon. for two years a couple of canadians, brock and tecumseh, have been beating this pesky mosquito, the americans. thousand with britain victorious in europe, they sail tens of thousands of men on an armada across the atlantic. they are going to invade the united states, destroy us and recolonize us. what are we going to do? we lose to a handful of canadians, now we have tens of thousands of veterans who have beat napoleon. and ironically, the british plan a three-prong invasion. a northern prong coming down from canada at lake champlain in platts burg, new york/vermont, a central prong coming up the

chesapeake to hit washington and baltimore, and a southern prong at new orleans to go up the mississippi and cut the country in half. the northern prong -- and this is august and september of 1814 -- the northern prong marchs with a massive army, maybe the biggest army at the time ever assembled on the continent. they march down, we have of a general healthcare comb inside -- mccomb with 1,500 men. that's it. the british are going to attack us on lake champlain and hit the fort. they decide to hit the lake first. why? in part, quited. old ironsides are beating the british navy, so the british want to destroy us on champlain. our soldiers are watching from the high ground, and we battle on champlain before they easily overrun our fort. on lake champlain we have a young officer named mcdonough, and here's his navy. he's got two ships, maybe 12, 14

cannons, two ships and a handful of gun boats. that's a fishing boat with one cannon strapped to it. that's our navy. but he knows the lake. lake channel lain comes down from -- champlain comes down from canada and does a j. the british armada comes sailing down the lake. here's what mcdonough does. when you turn to go up the fish hook, you encounter headwinds and a head turn. your sails would tall limp, and you would go back -- would fall limp, and you would go back. he aligns his ships bow to stern, wow to stern, bow to stern, drops anchor right where the hook occurs covered by the high ground. and then it's hard to sail, so he hooks them up with winches, they could winch, fire, winch, fire, winch, fire. the british come down, and as soon as they hit the j, they hit headwinds and head currents, their sails fall lip, and

mcdonough opens up. he sinks or destroys every ship in the british navy. and hen his men gave out a great yell. i'm sure they gave a finger occupy the british too. not this one. imagine the british looking town as their navy gets wiped out by this ragtag fleet. so now the british are going to hit the fort. 1500 men, there's thousands and thousands and thousands outside. but what mccomb does is he has 500 men stay in the fort, 500 men go out and burn bridges and knock over trees to funnel the british in the way he wants them to hit the fort, through a swatch. the last 500 men are on the other side of the swamp. the british start the invasion with 3,000 men, a fraction of their army. a 3,000-man wing or front or flank. they come through the swamp ask guess what happens? the woods on the other side of the swamp open up with 500 muskets. we annihilate the british. after watching what happened on the lake, after watching what happened on the swamp, they give up and go back to canada.

we're 1-1. second wrong, general robert ross, lands in the tide water region and marches for washington. we have no army. we gather some volunteers, hand them a musket, and they line up. now, the only thing working against ross is it's summer in washington. it is hot ask humid. the british are used to london, and they're wearing wool uniforms, okay? his army's exhausted. he has them wait before hitting our ragtag volunteers. before hitting it, he fires rockets, not cannons. a rocket is basically a fireworks show. it's a lot of noise, but it doesn't do anything. our men are all undies palined, untrained, brand new volunteers. at the sight and the sound of the rockets, they turn and run. [laughter] madison and monroe, his cabinet, president hadson, secretary monroe, they almost get killed, because they almost get trampled by the army. it happens in a place on the

outskirts of washington. we call it the races because we ran so fast. robert ross was supposed to explain why his army doesn't catch our men, he said his two army were too hot and humid. so he marches into washington, we have no resistance, and he burns washington to the ground. he repays the favor. we lost our white house and our capitol 200 years ago this year. now, while he's burning washington, they march to the why white house. back in the white house is dolley madison, the president's wife, with one maid. they send in a rider. madison's worried she's going to be burned, captured, killed. he sends a rider. dolley refuses to leave the white house. she sends back a note, i refuse to abandon my post, quote- quote-unquote. don't you love it? she had bigger ca hone nays than the generals. [laughter] so she stays there until the

11th hour when she says i was with a spyglass watching the british march to the white house. so she flees at the last minute but before getting a young slave and another fellow to get all the priceless artifacts out of the white house. you've seen george washington in plaque painted by gilbert -- [inaudible] she saves that. they can't get the frame out of the wall, they break it, roll the canvas out and flee. the british march into the white house. they eat our food, drink our wine in the white house, but before they burn it, they hold a rote to mark our democracy. they burn it. all of washington would have been burped except after burning the -- burned except after burning the white house, a freakish thunderstorm kicks up and puts out the fires. it unnerves the british, that's how powerful it is. then after the thunderstorm -- by the way, you can't write something like this. i could never even make this up. not one, but two tornadoes touch down. [laughter]

some local resident had leaned out the window and fired shots. if general washington was alive. the parish begin to think that washington -- the british begin to think that washington is attacking them. they're unnerved, they leave washington. they march to ballot hour. two-pronged attack on baltimore. ross with 4500 men by land, admirals coburn and cochran are going to sail the armada and hit them from the water. stop at the cheesecake factory when they're there, visit the science museum which i love there. [laughter] anyway, here they come. two-proppinged attack -- pronged attackment well, there's no way we can withstand this attack. james madison picks a man who tells the citizens do it orderly so we don't kill one another. there's two crusty old revolutionary war vets who

basically pull an alexander haig as if to say i'm in charge now, and they organize baltimore's defenses. they order everyone to put out every lantern in the city so at night the british can't target city. they order bucket brigades, they round up every boat, and they sink them at the entrance to the harbor. the british can't sail in. now they have to drop anchor and shoot from afar. after that they gather 3,000 volunteers, pitchforks and old muskets, farmers. now, there's no way they could withstand 4500 regulars under raz, so the crusty old revolutionary commanders say follow me, we're going to take it to them, we're going to attack them. here comes ross on the road to baltimore. he doesn't even have sentries posted. all of a sudden as he's marching down the road, the woods on either side open up. these volunteers take it to

them. ross had said, quote-unquote, i will sup in baltimore tonight or in hell, have tinner. i will up finish dinner. quote-unquote. be careful what you wish for. the army starts pouring back trying to run away, and it's a traffic jam with the rest of the army because our men are fighting so tenaciously. ross gets a report. ross says, quote-unquote, i don't care if it rains militia. ross, like brock, rides to the front with a swort to rally his men and is shot and killed. his men are so unnerved, they give up and march away. what about the naval hit? all night long the british have to bombard washington -- baltimore, but they have to do it from out at sea. before they to, they capture a fellow named dr. beans. he's a scotsman, but he turns and supports us. when he, as a physician, when he takes care of a british soldier,

officer, he spies and tells us the information. so the british capture him, they're going to have him killed. dr. breens is friends with president -- dr. beans is friends with president madison. one of them is a womanizer and budding poet. his name's francis scott key. and key goes out to negotiate, and the british won't release beans, but key thought to get letters from the british officers whose lives were saved. so i r so they released him, but not until the next day. all night long they have to watch baltimore bombs, so all night long they marched back and forth on the deck watching the rockets' red glare, watching the bombs bursting in air. their only hope was that in the morning. >> [inaudible] >> our flag would still be there, right. [laughter] and our flag was there, and the british sail away. and francis scott key puts pen

to paper. newspapers published the poem. we decide to make it our national anthem. but we don't have a melody. we don't have any bachs and mozarts, so we borrow as our melody a drunk british song when you go to the pub or tavern, you get drunk, and then you try to sing this song with an impossible melody. it goes something like this -- ♪ ♪ [laughter] >> it's so hard to sing it, not even beyonce can sing it. [laughter] so you get drunk, ask you make a fool out of yourself, that's the purpose of the song. we make that our national anthem. last battle. we're 2-2. 12-14,000 men under general sir packenham are ready to hit new orleans. problem is we don't have an army south of chesapeake. throughout the war there was

this wild man from tennessee who liked cockfighting, horse racing, gambling, dueling, his name was andrew jackson. and he wanted to get into the war. no one liked and no one trusted jackson, for good reason. but he's the only thing standing between the british and washington at new orleans. jackson can round up 2,000 or 3,000 tennessee and kentucky riflemen, so they send jackson to new orleans. the goal is basically twofold, slow the british down. jackson arrives in new orleans, and the british have 12-14,000. he puts together the most colorfully ragtag band of soldiers in history. the spanish and french rez tents of new orleans, he gets them to stop drinking coffee and fight. okay? that's something. he gets cajuns, indians, slaves and a band of haitian pirates,

and they're going to defend new orleans many. jackson doesn't have time to build a fort. but what he builds are big mud hounds. when the british see it, they think it's a joke. but how effective is a mud mound when you shoot a cannon ball into it in a swamp with it raining? it just sucks the cannonball in. so the british are ready to disembark. our coastal navy consisted of five one-cannon fishing boats. under a young lieutenant jones. he decides to hit them first. now, of course, he and his hen are wiped out, but he unnerves the british. they send a few thousand to camp, and then they're going to hit new orleans. jackson hears that they're camping there, and he says by thunder, the enemy not sleep on our soil. he gets some men and says, follow me. at men they hit them in camp. but a lot of his men are using

tomahawks and knives. they're lacking it apart. do you think the british got a good night's sleep after that? no. so they come and attack us at new orleans. the one thing jackson did was pick good grand. on one side is a part of the mississippi river and in front of him was a swamp. british have to come up the swatch. imagine massive army trying to walk through with a red uniform and a white x be, probably a bull's eye on the back with a sign that says kick me, right?

christmas eve, but it takes so long for the news to get there. but since we were beaten so badly early on, we claim it's part of the war. the british, the spanish basically give up any plans to take us over or attack us. it's end, tragically, the end of indian self-determination which means we can move west and the continent's ours, basically. a group of states that were in debt, that didn't get along, emerge as a nation, proud on the world stage. some people before the war of

1812 would write the united states with a small letter u, capital letter s. united being an adjective. after the war many wrote it capital letter u, noun. that capital letter s stays. several future presidents cut their teeth in the war of 1812, and we emerge as a power, and the rest, as they say, is history. thank you very much. [applause] thank you. in the time remaining, i'll take a few questions, and then after c-span cuts, hang around, and i'll continue to answer any questions you have. let's start over here on this side, and then we'll move over that way. i sometimes start on my left, okay? ready? go ahead. and a microphone's coming around. and i'll repeat the question, if you can't hear it. and there'll be a test later,

okay? [laughter] >> okay. canada, i'm confused about this. canada was part of britain? >> yes. >> through all those years? >> yes. >> when was it -- [inaudible] >> yeah, good. canada was part of the british empire. britain had, basically, the continent. britain, france and spain were carving up present-day u.s. and canada. britain and france fought a war, we call it the french and indian wars, over in europe it's called the seven years' war, in the 1750s. and the war was over the frontier, over lands. and what happened in a series of british-canadian conflicts is britain gets the upper hand. the deal is the french can have new orleans, they have have quebec, parts of canada can. british get pretty much everything else. so the british really assert itself and then, ultimately, push the french out. napoleon runs up a massive war debt, france needs to sell louisiana. for money. it's not that we got such great deal, it's possible that

napoleon was planning on then coming in and just taking it back but by force after he finished with the british. spain and france did a couple of deals back and forth between florida, new orleans, the mississippi valley, the louisiana region. so it was back and forth, back and forth. what this war does is, ironically, it pretty much -- the border between the u.s. and canada stays the same after two and a half years of fighting, ironically enough. but all this contributes to the beginning of the end of the french power on the continent, and the british would control canada, and then it would gain its independence and the rest for us, of course, is there. let me go to the left as i promised, and then i'll move over on the right, as i promised. anyone else over here? okay, well, by definition then how about over here? go ahead. i'm sorry. >> [inaudible] when jackson became president of the united states, he was a member of a different political party -- >> when jackson became president

of the united states, he was a member of a different political party. yes. jackson was elected in 1828. what happened in 1824, he ran against a guy named john quincy adams, and there was a showdown. quincy adams, the massachusetts, harvard-educated, son of a president, diplomat, against an uneducated wild man from the frontier, so it kind of polarized the country. there was basically one political party from about 1801 until then, for all intents and purposes. the federalists were around, but they were weak. it was the party of jefferson, madison and monroe. john quincy adams, everyone was basically an anti-federalist or democratic republican some folks republican. what happened many 1824 was jackson beat john quincy adams in the popular vote, but john quincy adams won the electoral college. since we're in palm beach county, you know all about electoral college votes. [laughter] jackson comes back four years

later in 1828 and wins, but he's so mad at the party, that he refuses to be a part of that, and he organizes in 1829 when he's inaugurated a new party, the democratic party. so -- >> and i'm told that he ran -- [inaudible] >> you're absolutely right. yeah, jackson was a wild man. his supporters were wild men. they sometimes called jackson's tenure coonskin dem of course si. and on one hand, everyone wore those rah coon-skin caps because it was folks from the frontier, common folks. but what's so exciting about that is the 1828 election marked the biggest turnout. over 800,000 people voted in 1828 over what did in 1824, and we hardly had any people.

so people came out to vote, and democracy worked, and they elected one of their own, andrew jackson. so jackson fires -- basically, to the victor go the spoils, jackson basically files everyone in government, even postmasters and replaces them with all of his buds who are from the frontier. at jackson's inaugural -- back then it was on march 4th -- his inaugural was the wildest inaugural in list. all these guys are drinking, shooting guns in the air. jackson had to flee out of the white house at one point for fear of his life. they put a big thing of spirits, a big thing of booze and a big block of cheese to try to get everyone to leave the white housement they had knocked food over and ground it into the carpet, the whole building smelled. so it was wild. yeah, jackson was wild, but what he was was a man of the people, and that is a part of our american culture, political culture. so it's sort of a mixed bag.

good question. yes, ma'am. >> i'm just wondering, i don't think this is related to the war of 1812, but at what point in history did the british fight french from quebec? >> okay. at what point in history did britain and france fight. britain and france were at war for hundreds of years, throughout, throughout the ordeal. remember, even during our own -- the french and indian war was britain and france. it was not only here for seven years, it was of in europe, and it was on the seasings. and when we were done with that war, there were still skirmishings and tit for tat exchanges on the seas. french privateers would sack merchant ships and so forth. they sacked ours even during our war and in quebec at the canadian border, even during the revolutionary war. the british and french were fighting was france, of course, the french sided with us.

ben franklin negotiating the deal. so there was bad blood for a long, long time which is why it's always fun when written and france play in soccer, right? or football. [laughter] who else? there's one up here and two in the back. >> jackson -- [inaudible] >> did jackson get married before he got divorced? [laughter] jack soften was married to two -- jackson was married to two women -- no, jackson's wife was married to two men at the same time. jackson's wife was named rachel done illson, and her father was the first white man to really settle tennessee. he leads a group of white settlers there, and rachel's a teenager, 17-ish, so she's kind of the debutante of the area. and she does what a proper girl ought not to do, she runs away and elopes and marries a hutch older man against her parents' wishes. his name was luis row bards, and he turns out to be a

ne'er-do-well who's abusive. we know that he was emotionally abusive, i suspect physically too, although there's no documentation. she does what a proper girl ought not to do for a second time, she leaves him. no one did this back then. she goes back home. in a settlement in tennessee, they're sacked and attacked by indians. her father, brothers and many of the men are all killed, so young rachel and her mother, the widow done ellison, are alone in indianer the tore. so they open up their home for borders as a way of making money and security, and one of the borders is a 6-2 dashing circuit court lawyer, andrew jackson. when jackson's in your house, you don't need a pit bull or a home security system. jackson falls in love with rachel, but rachel's harold. at the time women could not divorce, only men could divorce. [laughter] she has to -- jackson writes a

letter, she has to ask robards for the divorce, but he doesn't get around to doing it. jackson and rachel get married and later find out she's still married. this is when jackson writes the famous letter saying that this is not verbatim, he says i demand that you give my wife a divorce, otherwise i'm going to come and cut off both your ears with my sword. and so robards give the divorce, and it's one of the better marriages in the history where there have been some bizarre ones. and what rachel does is she really soothes the beast. when rachel's around, knackson's normal. when -- jackson's normal. when she's not, look out. what happens for jackson was there was that difficult 1824 election that i mentioned, then the difficult 1828 election, johnson's supporters called john quincy adams they didn't call

him his excellency, they called him his fraudulent si. but they called jackson the wife thief. they called his wife a bigamist or a whore. so his wife did not want to go to the white house. so in 1828 she's hoping and praying she didn't go to the white house. jackson wins, and right before the inauguration, she dies of a heart attack. on christmas eve of 1828, she's buried in the gown she was going to wear to the inaugural. so jackson quos to the white house -- goes to the white house outraged, angry, and that's part of the reason why he was so jacksonian, because his wife wasn't around. and by the way, as a nice sidebar, jackson doesn't have children. and they kept saying there was going to be a whore in the white house because of his wife. his wife's dead, so who's the hostess? jackson picks a woman named peggy o'neill timberlake eaton who is said to be washington's favorite whore. not george, the city. [laughter]

when she married, when she marries secretary of war john eaton, the great intellectual, daniel webster, raises a toast. says here's to secretary eaton. he married his mistress and the mistress of all the rest of us. [laughter] so good stuff. i always say this, are you like me, you love history, but you hated your history classes? >> yes. >> yeah. because what we do, history is taught without humans in it. it's cannons and castles and crowns and dates. what we need to do is reinsert the human i back -- humanity back into history. i always tell my students i don't watch any reality tv was i don't need to, i read history. [laughter] anything kim kardashian did, jackson's hostess did ten times over. [laughter] charlie sheen did not party nearly as hard as ben franklin or alexander hamilton, i promise you that. there is one or two in the back, and then i'll end up here.

>> [inaudible] >> yeah. sitting bull had an indian confederation, had warriors from several nations or tribes that all joined in, yeah, absolutely right. and there have been from chief joseph to chief seattle to sitting bull to geronimo there have been many, many great indigenous leaders. my money's on tecumseh as the greatest. he was just remarkable. brock was incredible and was a great judge of men, and brock felt tecumseh was the best. tecumseh was remarkable and a great judge of men, and he felt wrong was the best. -- brock was the best. there's letters from some of the officers when tecumseh would meet the officers, he would say be gone, go put your petticoat

and dress on, you're not a man. when he meets brock he writes, quote-unquote, now here was a man. brock was a man among boys, so they were both cheerleading one another and were both remarkable. yes, when we read back in history, we always need to be careful of the folks who said the fish was this big. when i was in high school, i walked 30 miles through the snow, you know, to get to school -- but there are so many accounts of, william henry harrison who was tecumseh's avowed enemy for years. william henry harrison says there are none like tecumseh. he's one of those mens that comes along -- men that comes along once in a century. even william henry harrison felt he was unimaginably impressive. that's from his avowed enemy. so the documents that survive history are all consistent. you don't get one saying brock was overrated. i mean, they're all the same. yeah, good. >> can i ask a question not

associated with the war in 1812? .. there is a lot of wiggle room in these kinds of things. here's what i'm interested in in terms of his future. if you look at the two scandals they go right to the heart of his number one strength and