used them and rode with them so she could see how the women experienced the writing because she got so interested not only in what they wrote but how they wrote. this is abigail adams sort of disappearing into her words and she thought that their handwriting was so beautiful she wanted to copy it. and then right at the very end before they were ready to go to press, she said to me do you think that we can get all of these women's signatures? i said we can try. so i got in touch with all of the historic societies and universities where there has and speakers were kept and i got every single one of their signatures so that is how they got their names.

>> if you could go bac back in r time who would you want to be? >> first i wouldn't really want to go back to their time. life was very hard and the women who say it's hard i can't do it all i think they are kind of a bunch of sissies. [laughter] because it was hard to live in the 18th century. you didn't have any conveniences of course and you would have terrible things happen in your family. even with all of that, they cannot so much about what was happening in the country even though they could vote on all of those they still involve so i admire them tremendously, but i wouldn't want to be any one of them.

>> [inaudible] >> when i was younger that i want to be a writer? not really, but i always wrote. i was always a good writer. and so i found i did in fact enjoy writing. but it wasn't something that i had aspired to. >> the books about the women in the revolution, yes. a bunch have come out since founding others but there are several good books. there is a wonderful biography of dolly madison called perfect

union by kathryn. they put them together and how they interact with each other and how they focus on the politics of it. you in the blue shirt right there. >> as you caught on, also they have some sections that give you more so each one gives you a page about a woman in her life story and a page that sort of tells a little anecdote about her. but then they do have sections in the middle about the women

writers and we have a timeline at the beginning. what i like is that you get information in a short period although the first person i read it too was my just turned 8-year-old granddaughter and she said it's getting long. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> i'm totally done. i'm really sorry. that means you have to go back to school. [laughter]

talks about the use of executive power during times of crisis. coming back to president george washington. this is about an hour. welcome to the national constitution center. i am the president an presidentf this wonderful institution. the national constitution center. as you know the only institution in the country to disseminate information about the u.s. constitution on the nonpartisan basis. those of you that have been to the town hall, that mission statement with me in unison.

i'm proud of the programs that we have been having over the past couple of weeks and in the coming weeks to fulfill that mission. in conjunction with the university of pennsylvania had a panel on the nsa surveillance with the president's intelligence commission and "the new york times." alan dershowitz will d-day to the question of whether the president has the constitutional authority to target and kill american citizens abroad. the following day that is not enough on march the sixth, the vice provost and as it happens my roommate in philadelphia will come to discuss his definitive book on healthcare reform and i

would have to see that in the town hall programs that we have coming up. i'm especially excited about today's program. it's a great pleasure to welcome you to the program that is presented in conjunction with one buck, one celebration. the yellow birds to those of you that have read and know that it's a haunting memoir about his time. in the executive power to do so i cannot imagine a more timely book than the one that we are going to be discussing today. emergency presidential power from the drafting of the constitution to the war on terror is to my mind one of the most concise and about once and hopeful introductions to the most vexing of all topics that could be imagined.

it combines thoughtful commentary that really presents both sidepresentboth sides of ty vexing issues with primary sources so that you can read the great excerpts from the supreme court opinions of robert jackson celebrated concurrent. at the same time you get to the professors firm defense position about the importance of the president seeking the congressional support for his actions which we are going to be discussing extensively today. let me briefly introduced the professor who is an assistant professor in th the department f government and american university before joining the faculty practiced employment discrimination law and was the director for the human rights campaign and this great book was in the fall of 2013 and is available in the museum stores.

they have the world expert on the presidential authority and congress role in constraining it. many of them are viewed as the master of the scope whose the residents of the constitution project. we look at the senio senior spet and separation of powers and specialist on the constitutional law more than 50 times such as low-power, state privilege and so forth and the seven scholarly articles. they look forward to this great book so he didn't have to do any extra homework.

in your book starting at the time to president obama. you call it to the executive unilateralism and that the president is not constrained in the foreign affairs as the commander-in-chief to do what he wants. it says that the president needs congressional support to do most of what he does in the foreign affairs and tell us about the roots of that. >> i think it is probably a good way to define it.

there has been a db2 that goes back to james madison during the washington presidency and when it was being drafted. and i think it reflects the competing views of the constitution themselves. the articles had failed in large part because the federal government was not strong enough and there was no executive under the article confederation and the drafted the constitution were people that learned from lm experience and they thought they had gone too far and they were understandably reluctant to create a new monarchy in the uniteunitedunited states and tht wanwant it but they also that bd we need somebody that can be somebody in the executive branch so they created the presidency and they wanted to make sure he would have enough to carry out the responsibilities including during the wartime during the revolutionary war not having the executive general washington to report to that they also wanted to set the limits on alexander hamilton to draft or tha her ths most supportive of the strong

executive we are not predating the kings are therthe kings of 0 d-day that has gone on and the way that i look at it is you have to set aside competing impulses and how do you give enough power to deal with emergencies to provide national security and the congress do the same time how do you set limits that is a great description and give us a sense of the historic class that shapes the debate to issue the neutrality proclamation on his issue without the congressional approval and then give the strongest on the other side for the robust view of the executive power taken by those who say that the president essentially can act without congressional approval. >> the frame is recognized that the president would need to repel the attacks when the congress is not in session so

the defensive capacity all of the framers understood that the decision to take the country from the state of peace to the state of war was 100% with congress and not only was that the framers view, that was the pattern of the presiden presidem 1789 up until 1950 every president who wanted to go to the war and knew they had to go to the congress or an authorization is what's changed things was true wednesday the decision to go to war against north korea and upcoming to congress from the security council and to balance what chris said on the other side, i think mike eisenhower understood that was not just a political mistake. it's very sound but the country is safe when the two elected branches act jointly and that sends the right message to the allies and enemies.

>> things seemed to have changed and president truman who was thought of as quite successful in foreign affairs pushed the envelope of and inserting the power to seize the steel mills with the position that the supreme court rejected. i will talk about that in a bit of that give us the greatest hits of the executive unilateralism throughout history. do you want to tell us about president lincoln who did some good things sought congressional approval retrospectively? >> i was living in new york on september 11 i was really scared up with what happened and i wanted to make sure that things were being protected in the united states but i also realized it's important are we going to maintain a constitutional government and

like the surveillance and torture over the military force. presidents were cited for these actions and people defended the resident disabling game did this and took unilateral action himself. that is true. but what we are overlooking is that they didn't recognize the power. he recognized when he took unilateral actions including suspending habeas corpus between philadelphia and washington, ordering a blockade as the south. he sent a message to congress in july 41861 and said some of the things i did were not strictly legal and i'm asking you the congress, to take action and decide what you want. he lifted up to them and recognized some people have argued that lincoln was acting based on prerogative to set aside the law.

..

>> host: as a present, i was given a copy of the marion opinion and lincoln ignored him. in the end, lincoln did go to congress and get approval. >> this was a personal crusade for him. he believed the south had a right to succeed. lincoln and him were enemies. when when lincoln said it was okay to end this, washington was in big problems.

lincoln was concerned that washington would be cut off and he needed troops getting through from further north to washington. and because troops had to come through baltimore and get off the train and go to another one, they were met by pro-secession mobs who attacked and killed the troops. and lincoln said i need troops getting through and gave tort to suspend habeas corpus. he managed to get a lawyer to file a petition with the opponent of lincoln's sympathetic to the south. and the opinion says the president has no executive power. and if you read it, you would have no idea what was going on.

tawny didn't recognize that maryland was a sympathetic state. so when the discussion was handed down, tawny said i don't think the president can do this alone. but lincoln didn't follow the opinion, but i would not say he ignored it because he replied. he said first, am i to ignore all of the laws but one. and he is taking into context that tawny didn't. saying there was a civil war going on. if all of the laws are being disobeyed am i supposed to charge for his one? he is saying i have the ability

to suspend habeas corpus even if i would not be able to normally. the next thing he said is i don't think i acted illegal here. maybe the power to suspend habeas corpus is shared between the congress. he is making a constitutional argument. he is saying during the emergency the executive can simply set aside because he is president. he made an argument about the constitution and at the end of the message he said you, congress, can do what you want and congress passed to habeas corpsing right and said sometimes you will need the

authority to hold people. >> host: lincoln says show me the spot where the troops crossed the boarder. and as president, even if he did want constitutionalize this lockin prerogative was he more likely to take temporary action? >> lincoln was a wig at that time. and i think lincoln and and the wigs were correct that bad language is said and blood is shed on american soil. polk said i don't know where the boundary is between texas and mexico. he didn't know where the boundary was and later tried to find out. that was the case where the president lied to the country to go to war. and i think lincoln was correct. as chris says of the civil war, and july 4th, 1861 speech,

lincoln, i think, expressed the deepest understanding of the constitution we have ever had from a president and that is as christian mentioned, whether it is legal or not -- that is a nice phrase, but he said i don't think i, as president went behind the competition. he is saying in addition to article ii he is saying i used article i. that is the greatest crisis we have ever had and he didn't suspend the constitution. it may seem shocking for a president to ignore a chief justice decision, but the person in a position to help hold the lincoln together was lincoln. it wasn't the chief justice.

in fact, dread scott helped bring on the law. and his attorney general, bates, on suspending the right of habeas corpus didn't say lincoln could do it. he said whatever lincoln had was of a temporary/restricted nature and the only branch that could do it permanent was congress. so i think they took the constitution seriously. >> host: so lincoln is the model of the constitutionalist as president. he doesn't say he can do whatever he likes. he acknowledges the gaps in his authority. does what he thinks is necessary but careful to justify the position and then congressional

approval. let's talk about harry truman now and his decision to issue executive orders and we know they are very much in the news now that president obama says he is going to use them. truman was going to seize the steel mills and keep them open. in a famous opinion by jackson, he identified three categories of executive power. tell us about those and how they are relevant. >> this goes to the point you and lou made about presidents best being served to act with congress. an executive order isn't magic. because a president does something through an executive

order doesn't just make it pass. in 1952, during the korean war, a war he started on his own, which a treaty cannot trump the constitution so it was an ill liget mate war. truman saw there was going to be a steel strike and he issued an execute order changing the person running the mills. congress would have the power to take control of private property for a public purpose as long as the owners were compensated. but the president they could they were argue. so they went to court and the

truman administration, and lawyers in the justice department made a remark argument to judge pine. they said we believe during presidential emergency power, during an emergency the president can do whatever he wants. the only two limits that the the lawyer from the justice department acknowledged are elections and impeachment. the district court judge was taken aback by that and rejected the argument. members said are you saying the courts don't have the right to limit the power of the president? truman had to back off a bit saying i think the courts will weigh in but i hope they will accept my position that during an emergency the president can do what he wants. in a 6:3 decision they said the

president can't do this. justice jackson, an interesting supreme court justice, little bit understudied; he had an interesting background. he was attorney general during the roosevelt prescidency. jackson said later in the opinion we know some of the things the drafters of the constitution intended and one thing is not to create a king. we should be careful of

dictators. he said emergency power, once it is accepted, can be dangerous. hitler came to power during a state of emergency. he asked the president of the german republic to grant him temporary power and it lasted in definitely. it will place there president above the law and make him more like a king or dictator. and jackson said presidents are best serve, and i think he was giving vice to advisors, he should they should seek congressional approval whenever possible. jackson descented in a case a few years earlier where congress did approve an executive order.

but in order to keep government under the law, the president should seek congressional approve in most cases and it will put the president on the strongest footing. when the congress acts against the president that is when the ebb and flow is messed up >> he has three categories and we should all know them because reassure relevant to the current debates. here are jackson's three categories: when the president acts congruiant to congress. and second, he can only rely on independent powers but there is a zone of twilight and congress hasn't spoken so the courts are not sure whether the president can act.

and third is when the president takes measures against the expressed will of congress, he is at the lowest level and courts will not defer. lou take us up to the bush administration. after the iran contra affair, congressman dick cheney shutdown a report reputing jackson's theory and defending the unitarian execute receive saying the president isn't bound by congress or the court, he can do what he likes even if congress said not to do that. and president bush and his lawyers brought that back to life to engage in wire tapping

and trying of terrorist. tell us what the theory was during the bush ad mintration and what the reception were to the claims in court. >> i was on the committee in the house side for seven months. i was the chief researchers and read a lot of reports. we heard during that time and testimony in iran contra, people testified the president has independent power in foreign affairs. i want to say something about the steel case where that theory was floated and shutdown. in district court, the attorney said the courts may not check presidential actions and said the president has inherit authority. and he said inherit 20 times during the testimony. after a couple time of that, the

district judge asked this attorney, if tomorrow, president truman ordered you arrested and executed, would you have anything to say to the court? that is not the question this guy anticipated. he said maybe statutory remedies and he said the fifth amendment. by the time it went to the supreme court, it was argued and he didn't use the word inherit. there is a clashing difference in philadelphia beside implied power. all three branches all implied power. and they are not restricted to everything enumerated. and it is wrong on that one. so you have implied powers. you have to look at express power and draw from it.

inherit is something that is free-floating and not tethered by the constitution or any check and balance system. there are attorneys who use implied and inherit interchangable. they are totally different. bringing it up to the bush years and the uitarian executive, we have never had a unitarian executive at any time. the notion that the unitarian executive says the president sin charge of everybody within the executive branch. everybody is subordeniant to the president. we have never had that model. it was said if congress assigns duty to someone in the executive

branch that is a legal do. and it has been given that that person by congress and so long as that person is bring it about you can't interfere. so political duties and duties assigned by congress that are legal duties are differentment we have never had a system in the constitution and it is totally fabricated and made up. the fact a president can go in and say i don't like how you did the social security benefits and i will change it. nevertheless, the unitarian executive has a life of its own. it has been from well, mario ves

versus madison, we have shown the president isn't in control of every inside the executive branch. >> host: is it fair to see the unitarian executive theory didn't do well in the court during the bush year? the supreme court rejected detaining people without lawyers and the administration's own lawyers questions the idea of people being wiretapped without the appropriate wire. but congress gave bush everything he wanted. wouldn't it have been more pracical for the executive order

from the beginning? >> congressional approval is welcome, but not necessary is what one author wrote. they said when it comes to using military force, these decisions are for the president alone to make. congress and the courts cannot restrain the executive. if congress passes a law that the president deems not president he can set it aside. maybe you will seek congressional approval, but whenever possible, lawyers in the bush administration tried to argue they preserved this power. jeff mentioned several case and the supreme court rejected the

idea that the president has absolute or inherit power to set aside laws and not be constrained by the constitution. when the supreme court won a case in 2004, the bush administration's response was -- they misread the opinion and said we are glad the court represented the president. o'connor said a war isn't a blank check for the president. checks and balances apply. but whatever possible, the bush administration would do whatever they wanted. there is an argument to be made, some limits were placed by the court or even lawyers within the bush administration. jack goldsmith, who was head of the council, and when we found about the violation in the

surveyiance program, he is this can't go on and this is illegal -- surveillance -- and they were able to get things changed >> after going to the bed of the man. >> marlo brandon has been injured in the god father and his son gets there and realizes there is no one to protect the father and they are trying to scare off the mobsters trying to kill his father. there was no killing going on, luckily, but john ashcroft was very sick and he is in georgia washington in washington, d.c. and the bush administration has been throted by the attorney general with ashcroft in jail. comey said you cannot continue the program.

the bush administration decided to go to his hospital bed. he was incapacitated. two other side raced over there and goldsmith describe as moment where ashcroft was in bad shape, he thought, but he pulls himself up in bed and some of this is classified so they can not say the details, but he says this program can't be reauthorized and i am not the attorney general in any event and points to this man. no one knew about this outside effthe administration and

tension inside the administration. was it effective? after the standoff they continued for a year and a half until people knew about it. they said there were limits to what the president could do with military trials. nothing shutdown. there is reason for hope in terms of limits and power but int other ways i am concerned. >> host: that brings us to the obama administration and some of you are billing out card and we will ask knows in a moment. formal constitutional lawyer

coming promising to do many thing and the president take as more aggressive position on the question of state secret and the inability of court's to view who is on the list of targeted assassins than even president bush had. i want you to characterize president obama's vision of executive power and what was your reaction to his pledge to use executive orders more in the state of the union? is that not a big deal saying he is going to raise the federal minimum wane with executive order? >> the president made is clear he was rejecting the george w. bush administration position on

inherent power. he never says the word inherent but he is talking about the same thing. after 9-11, george w. bush signed a military order creating an order saying he had inherent power. i filled three briefs against the justice department because the justice department said they have that. it goes back to 1780. there is a john andre trial, a british spy brought before the t t t tribunial. the supreme court held him saying he has no power and you have to go to congress for that. now we have obama coming in,

supposedly teaching constitutional law. and his second day in office he signs an executive order to close guantanamo. once he did that a great majority of democrats and republicans passed legislation to stop him. if the state of the union address he says if congress doesn't act he will. he said he's going to tell private contractors to increase minimum wage and that is going to increase spending so will that benefit congress? he is not acting on inherent power. there is a statue in 1949 giving

the president authority. but he knows he is say if congress won't act, i will. i think they are on stronger ground when you talk straight and build up congressional and public confidence. it isn't just obama. the fact you can run around the block with different claims, look for the evidence and then it isn't there. you can go for rhetoric and get through primaries, but when you get into the oval office, you have to have judgments about how your power can be backed and supported working with congress, including the other party. there are republicans he can work with. and you don't get into this

claim i can act unilateral and no one can stop me. it will backfire. it did on truman, bush and now it is backfiring. not enough adults to happen we are in power how can we use it. >> the state of the union supports your theory that when the president acts against congress he is at the lowest ebb. are there example of the president using executive order to achieve things domestically? >> they go all the way back to washington. it is often non-controversial but it has to be rooted in

statute authority. it gives the president some power, but not well defined, over federal contractors. he has the authority to increase the efficiency of federal contracting. president johnson and president kennedy used that as the bases to establish afirmmitive action. if congress didn't agree with johnson's decision, they could take action. if congress doesn't like what president obama is suggesting with regarding raising the

minimum wage they can take action. it isn't going to be solid. the president has to identify authority for action and take into account what congress is going to do. if the president issues an executive order congress doesn't agree with they can stop it. the president didn't get the support from congress and didn't authorize funds to transfer prisoners to the united states for any purpose. and obama's plan to close guantanamo is more about moving them to the united states. not closing it down totally. president obama was trying to

send a message in the state of the union address. he didn't make clear how he justifies the actions of raising minimum wage. the obama administration hasn't been as clear as they should. for example, the target killing list. it would be useful for the president to say here is why i think this is justified. when he is not clear, that creates problem. >> host: i want to talk about targeted killing in a second. but if you were advising the president about the dangers of the using his will to override congress, what example would you use to show that is trouble? >> well, washington issues a

warning saying there is a war between france and england and don't take side. they decide they will violate people who violate the proclamation. this went to jurors and you would go in and have jurors willing to go along and jurors said you are not a king, mr. president. maybe the king could do proclamation and make laws but not here. if you have criminal offense you need a statute. you need to go to congress and washington got the message and said you are correct. and a year later he went to told congress i did something here and maybe you can do something better and that became the neutrality act. that is an example of a president thinking he can work unilateral to make the law and

they told him you cannot do that. >> we have a lot of questions we do need to talk about. president obama's robust view of the state's secret stock. there are two relevant cases and administration lawyers have extended the relevant presence to say that lock and his father can't challenge whether or not he is on the list of the people targeting to be killed because revealing who is on the list would be a state secret. what way was this an expansion of state secret law? >> the state secret privilege was created in 1953.

the court said there is a state secret privilege and when it is used during litigation, there is classified information and we cannot reveal it. the court should accept that claim they say without seeing the underlining documents. it should not require the government to turn over the documents. in the reynold's case they said there was a plane crash and a number of people died. their widows filled a lawsuit to find out what happened and wanted to see the accident report and report from surviving witnesses. and the government said national security information and couldn't turn it over. the court created that argument for them. and the united states supreme court said state secret, privilege applies and the government doesn't have to provide that.

the case settled but for less money than they would have gotten. decades later the information wasn't state secret. it turns out they knew there was problem and let it fly anyway. the court doesn't have the power to oversee the president. that is an overposition by the president the court should defer to that without reviewing the documents in camera. the idea is court could see if this is really sensitive information or not. the obama administration, and the bush administration as well, has used this doctrine to close out cases. there was a man who was a united

states citizen and was associated with al qaeda and he spoke english so he was valuable. the united states didn't prove he was planning allegations, but instead they said we made this determination and we are going to order a killing. he was killed in a drone strike and his 16-year-old son was killed as well. the relatives brought a lawsuit claiming this was unconstitutional and violates the fifth amendment to will a citizen without due process and the executive branch's response was, they suggested this in documents, that have been released, that it has the power to do this on its own, order the

killing of someone who is planning attacks against the united states. but the more direct or immediate concern as jeff mentioned is they also argued cases like this can't go ahead because it would reveal state secrets. it would mean the case isn't even decided on the merits if it wins. they have used that to show the practice of taking people who are suspected of being terrorist and sending them to other countries where they are tortured. and there are claims of graphic torture. and that is the obama's administration approach >> lots of great questions. lou, chris writes about this in a book, but give us the answer: syria, what is obama's action or

leadership say about his executive power? >> what happened in syria is fascinating to me because three years before in libya, president obama goes to security council and gets a resolution and claims that is significant authority. and very interesting what happened. because obama in 2011, said this is going to be a matter of days, not weeks in libya. turned out to be seven months. obama said we are there to protect civilians and then mission creep came along and we are there to side with the militia and do regime change. i think the inability of presidents, and not just obama,

but anyone saying it will be this and wars have a momentum of their own and obama was inaccurate on what happened in l l l libya. when he threatened to send cruise missiles into damascus and i have been there and mccain said it would be very small. syria had not threatened us. there was no defense war. so i think the house members at home were hearing from people who are not as active on military activities, but 95% of people were telling their members do not support military

action in syria. and obama claimed he had constitutional authority said let's go to congress for authority. he might have gotten very close vote in the senate. i don't think there was a chance of getting any in the house. that was a debate over the scope of political power. he found a way to work with russia to get the chemical weapons under control. he never backed away from the fact he can use military action under article ii. i can it is not imanginable on his part. bush did come to congress to get

approval on afghanistan and iraq. syria is a national debate. the constitution doesn't belong to the three branches. this is the self government, the poplar government and there were the strong words from the maen public don't do this. -- american -- >> and regardless what the president said, in the end he did bow to the public opposition and didn't use his power. this question is how can we lair clarify when it is a time of war versus a time of peace? >> it is difficult because in the context of the war on terror that is going on. terror is a tactic not a

specific enemy. there is an argument for presidents to have power during crisis when there is a real emergency. if you have an on-going emergency and the president needs power throughout it, then it isn't an emergency anymore. and that is dangerous for the system and the nation as a whole. we are in this constant state of war. but it affects such people much more than others. for people in the military and their families it is a direct thing. for the rest of us, it is something we know about and hear about but doesn't directly impact us. and when the articles of con

federation failed, it failed because there wasn't a strong enough country. the constitution created a nation and it is difficult to have a nation if only a small part of the county is fighting a war with no clear end put. there can be and should be debates about these issues. and there should be questions about what does it mean to be at war. congress passed authorization allowing the president to use force against those using terrorism against him. at the end of this year, that act expires. will there be operations going on? the president thinks so. but the congress should be

asking and think about how they want to set the terms of power. will there be limits? will the president be able to act? doesn't make sense for military efforts indefinitely. >> these words war and peace are fascinating. the president say stay away, i have a right to go to war. when truman went to war in north korea he said this isn't war. and the report says is this a un police action? and he said yes. and in the clinton years when he was bombing iraq repeatedly, a student asked the secretary of state, how can the president go to war without congressional support? she said you have to be careful with your words. we are doing military operations

in iraq. it isn't war. they seem to know war is for congress and we will call it whatever we want to make sure we can get away with it. the truman administration said it was war eventually. >> host: here is a great last question that sums up the theme of this discussion: can a president break out of the uni lateral position? you would think any president who read your great book would say it sent a great idea to make these claims because i will get beaten back by the court. but presidents from washington to obama keep asserting power. why? and can you imagine a future president learning the lessons you counsel? >> i think this is something the

framers got right. madison writes in the federalist papers if men were angels, you would not need government or to make sure it is limited. but presidents tend to want to seek as much power as they can get. and i think one would expect that. sometimes this isn't a perfect analogy but i describe them as being a great white. if you put a seal in, the great white will attack it. if you put a white suit on and go in the water, the shark might attack you. and i mean the point of having checks and balances and setting limits on power, the other branch and the american people have to make sure the president is limited by the constitution. i would not expect presidents to do that by themselves. but i think they recognize when

there are constraints on their power. when obama was thinking about going to war in syria, if congress said you cannot do that, it would change the president's view. so if the president sees there is a risk if they expand their power too far they will change how they act. and syria was a great time for that >> please join me for thanking our guest. [ applause ] [inaudible conversations]

>> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with guest and viewers. watch videos and get up to date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. >> a slave revolt at sea and the discovery of the ship in 1805 in the south pacific. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you for this institution for allowing us to look at this book.

it is great to look at this with great. i come at it from a reader and it seems suiting and well-fitting we should be meeting in the new york public library to talk about the greatest new yorker who ever lived. and two talk also about the much larger story that he was expanding upon in it. and greg asked me to do the honors of talking for a minute at the outset about playing up the story that i am sure many of you are familiar with and may have thought have read as recently. i thought i would do. and remember seeing a movie about the writer saying he plays

bock over morning. and it is like this with this reading. it is about a sea captain that fetch fetches on a sealing ship. they are running out of seals to kill. he is off the coast of chili. he approaches this ship off the cove. melville took it from his mem raur and expanded upon it. he went aboard a ship. he saw a ship that was in trouble and he was aware it

might be a pirate trick and they might try to ambush him. we went there and thought maybe they need help and brought water, pumpkin and fish. he went on board and thought what he was seeing was a ship that ran into all kinds of trouble. it was a slave trading ship. what he didn't realize was the outset was this was a ship where there was a slave rebellion. they had risen up and killed a great deal -- well the slave trader and the white people on board. they were asking to be back to senegal where they were from. they were off the base of nigeria and they wanted to go back to africa.

when they saw this captain approaching, they created a masquerade and pretented -- even though the slaves were in charge of the ship, and the captain was the prisoner. they pretended it was the other way around. they propped up this fading man and played the servile slave attendant to him and controlled the thing as well. he thought this is remarkable and imagine being served by a such a person. he was an abolish, but then he

picked up maybe this is an ambush. i thought i would read you a second for a sense of how he approaches this. he describes the ships there in massachusetts. the morning was one one to that coast. everything mute and calm. the sea seemed fixed and sleek at the surface like waved lead that is cooled. the sky was gray. flights of troubled gray foul kiss and ken with troubled draped vapors they were mixed. shadowed present. foreshadowing deeper shadows to come. he made it easy for english

professors to the future years. considering the lonelyness of the spot, the captain was surprised and might have deepened them to uneasiness. and they engaged in alarms that didn't engage man at all. such a trait implies more than ordinary quickless of percept n perceptions maybe left to the wise to determine. he sets it up very much as as a sunny view of humanity and blinding him to a save rebellion.

and that runs through a theme throughout the book. i will leap to the very end, where having find out what happened, there is an exchange where he is with benenito and he is saying you saved by life. and he is saying you saved by life. even if i were more suspicious, these slaves would have killed me. so by masking the deception, you saved my life. they are in the boat and don boneto isn't persuaded by this. he said the past is past and why moralize upon it. forget it. there are new leaves turned over

now. because they have no memory he said. because they are not human. but these mild trades, don't they come with a human-like healing. they bring me to my tomb almost was the foreboding response. you are saved. what is casting such a shad upon you? the negro. and that is in "the invisible man" as well. and he hands the narrative over to these fictional depositions in which the story is told from his perspective but in legal

documents translated from a court. you ended up reading the real documents. this is a real story. how did you find it? >> there was really a story like this. i came to the story when i was teaching a class in u.s.-latin history. and a friend suggested i assign the novel that i had not read before. i read it. and i assigned it and as you n conveyed. it is gothic on the sea.

i was preparing to teach the class and i was reading around. and literary scholars knew it was based on a memrire for a while. it didn't sell well, but was out there. i think i read it was based on a true story in the footnote. bought ...

the whole memoir itself is just almost, you know, it is one misadventure after another that captured something i think about the early promise about the american revolution. melville's portrayal is kind of a wonderful -- one of the fully rendered and abroad kind of a forebear the quiet american and everything in between. but -- and it's superficial, but

in a superficial that designates. designates. it says something about the idiocy of the, the kind of mumbling in the world. but the actual i think says something even one i think is that it's he captures something much more profound about the american experience and the reaction we can get to later on in the discussion that is rooted much more in the social release and the economics rather than just the kind of blindness. the books i ended up writing basically as the narrative lines one is it follows the west africans who staged this remarkable deception and the other follows into the pacific on their income for -- on fair

and counter. >> it's an amazing story and greg has reconstructed it with a shipment of slaves expanding outwards to give you the immensity of the trade a time and to make you understand how much the age of freedom was also the age of slavery and how everything was linked to this. the epidemiology, culture, everything that in there in terms of how the world is reacting to these slaves. but a british ship that's picked up by the privateer was on a contract to offload them in latin america. and thiif this was a pretty stad operating procedure. >> and it was the -- i don't speak french but -- [inaudible] and it was actually believe it or not he had one arm so you

don't know how i wanted to start the buck with a one armed pirate. but yeah he was a partisan french revolution and they understood himself as jacobin as being pro- anarchists but at least in the case of latin america, they were actually vanguard of the merchant capital. and the ongoing in turn of the war with the british, and brought them into that contract will relations with south american merchants and brought the goods to seize the goods and by far the most profitable car go product seized and the one group that wound up on the trioval.

>> it was bring the west africans by chile and came in in from the seized in liverpool that had been on the way to the caribbean and then converted. >> talk a little bit about -- i think that we are somewhere where we are probably not as much as we should be that what the country is built on in the slave trade in the united states and how that worked a little bit. but to the extent it was a large part of latin america and the whole southern hemisphere is something that you are expanding on for many people for the first time and that is the core of this book is it was as big of a deal they are both economically in terms of the trade. >> one of the things opening up is the extent and the full

panorama with people in the united states and u.s. history tend to treat u.s. slavery as its own thing but that was the stage of the expansion through the leap of the expansion of free-trade and to the atlantic market revolution that began in the caribbean in the 70s and event moved on to brazil and then south america and it wasn't until it was the last state. it was after the move into the mississippi valley, and then after the war of 1812 that it explodes in the united states and one of the things the story does is not only does it give you a sense of the scope of slavery by tracking across into the pacific but also in some sense a chronological.

they leave new england in 1804 and 1803 in the expedition and its guiding out in new england and it is assumed to be dying out in the south. and it is in full swing in south america. 1804 was at the height of what the spaniards called without missing any where it is free-trade, so the deregulation of the mercantile system that had regulated slavery for centuries. most came in and 1804 dan in any year previously. >> many of them came in the contraband. >> so they are picking them up and bringing them there presumably because it was a goofy deal and then he can't get them off the ship and they have to march across the entire continent into the pacific coast

which is an incredible odyssey also because these are not set up deals properly. in other words it isn't clear what is going to happen. >> there was the conversion of contraband into the commodities that was a complex process and then even though that there were political considerations, you know, that allowed some to be sold as commodities but the rest wanted out so there were all sorts of schemes to convert them into the commodities. but to go back into this kind of chronological thing he is basically heated encounter them as south pacific, this race terror and violence that will later explode in the united states, and that is the kind of

-- it's almost circular. and then melville does read it when it explodes in the united states and so there is an interesting circular crown knowledge he. >> it is like a glimpse of the future. >> what was the feeling all about? melville doesn't get his due as the great industrial novelist that he was a team of the great novelists to do business but what is the deal? >> it doesn't play a big part. so, he was from a good stock family that is less successful, he was franklin delano roosevelt from one of the less successful branches of the family, and he came from a family of ship builders and fishermen and he

came of age during the american revolution and he was born in the last year of the french and indian war which was a precursor that left the u.s. independence and he was in some ways a character in the sense that the american revolution catapulted them into history and from the revolution in which he ran away as a teenager to participate he went from one adventure to another. but he could never quite three d. and the promise -- never quite three d. and the promise suggested. he did for a little in the 1970s feeling the u.s. first experience with the boom and bust restructuring. the ships started leaving new england and heading into the south pacific and they are taking tens of thousands because

they had a technique in order to remove the first from the hair and trading than -- most of them in china for spices and t. and bringing them back. in the first expedition they took hundreds of thousands. it was enormously successful. and for a wireless seems like he has managed to establish himself. he and his brother -- >> these are the islands off of chile. >> by the second expedition when he set out in 1803 they disappear and what is happening is that the chinese market is being flooded and the prices are falling and they can't absorb them and they are rotting in the rain and the box into the price is plummeting and that leads to

accelerating the killing of the islands. so what you have is an oversupply of extinction during the hand in hand. during the boom there is a cooperation and there is money to be made. it is an all or nothing system of relations as you can imagine and once it starts disappearing from the conflicts start emerging among the crews. on this track by the time he passes the trioval first he tries in his england or australia and they are gone they are, too. this is e. t. know three and he's back in 1807 and they happens in 1805.

it disappears and jumps for the ship in tasmania and he winds up taking on a bunch of escaped prisoners convicts and they start heading back towards chi chile. if they are going from ireland to ireland -- island to island and we can talk about the blindness to it but once you realize thaherealized that he iy the victim of a con of the manipulation, he rallies his men to put down the rebellion and take down the ship that brings them together so it is interesting is he becomes this kind of avatar or he and body is

a kind of charismatic power so he is held up as a precursor of the totalitarian because he is able to, you know, through his charisma and creating an emotional bond with his men in which they participate. i think that bellmore represent a more modern form of power to control the labor and the contexin the contextof disappeal resources and in this intersection with the race, so he rallies his men not to hunt the white whale, but to suppress the black rebels. so it provides a window into a kind of more social understanding of the race violence and slavery. >> you have a section -- now that i lost my bookmark -- where throughout the buck, greg has these sections called interludes

which are wonderful meditation on the various aspects of the material and also on melville post recently and this one is on the machine but you really do the kind of comparison and really looking at them as alternately -- ultimately the way that we think of them as anonymous to explain everything from george w. bush to the planet, the straw beast royer they are not of destruction he writes. you say those that would never be the man to carry out the grinding process with the expenditure. so you set them off in a different way melvill melville m up as of the america who doesn't

actually lead the complexity of the drama and you are saying he's also an establishment in a way that he kind of represents -- it is interesting to no avail create this diabolical in a way that he likes them. >> he sets them up for a fool pretty blatantly as i read in the passage and he is a fool person. not so much an establishment i would figure him as an establishment but he certainly believes in institutionalism and in the memoir as a number of planes in the rights of property he has an encounter in the french revolution and in the indian ocean he has a clear

understanding that of the institutionalism is important thabut if you are going to havee rights of man you have to have the strong institutions that guarantee property rights and he leaves in the obeying the van and he says that a number of times. at the same time he is blinded to the social world around him they capture them. >> that the rebellion on the ship we see as an extraordinary story and once he got a hold of it it captured the imagination through time wasn't unusual then or something people would have taken note of or would it have taken into the newspapers wanted this pretty much something that went with the territory that happened a lot? did you have other stories of the slave revolt of the same demand in the fascinating diagnosis by these medical

experts who are brought in to analyze why they are unhappy that they don't talk to them and so forth of the ful. >> the revolts were quite common. i think that there are a few that have counted 600 but i think that that is just a fraction. some of them but pull up the deception have been involved in the other slave ship revolts coming out before they even get to the pacific. >> and you could survive one of these. >> right because there was an incentive to keep the property a live. that's my point was that none of them are documented in the accounts of the revolts, so i think it was quite common. i think what is remarkable about this one is the west african have been through a year and a

half before they even got to the south pacific. they are sailing up and down the coast of the group 53 days before they come into survive at least one horrible storm. >> having hung by a skeleton -- >> but think about that context. that dehydrated into the starving and dying. >> they come up an and manage in the reserves and resources in order to preserve.

>> they were out in the south pacific and assumed the role of slavery for nine hours. who knows why melville left no letters or gerbils as to what attract ten to the story. but i think it is one of the things that certainly has to be the way that these west africans were able to use the things that they've decided not to have because that is coming within reason and any kind of an internal control all of the things that are usually associated to freemen in order to prove the lives of the things that were said to be. humble and simpleminded. what's fascinating about benito

also is maybe you can compare it to harriet beecher stowe uncle tom's cabin where it is presenting african slaves and african-american slaves as simpleminded as being somehow more pure christians in the transparency and motives. >> and then melville writes a story and they respond to the brutality with equal brutality and violence. >> it's almost some months after he never says a word after. he never responds in any aspect into giving details the body was

burned to ashes but for many days that subtlety fixed met on unabashed but he's not really being subtle. if you think they appeared in the mind on the shelf. not to own a dwell on that side of thaof the powers it how was r tim? who >> how was tha that after tim? >> it was the critical failure and melville -- this was the moment of the biographers really identified at the point of emotional physical exhaustion,

and he published it in the monthly journal publication that came ou out into three segmentsn october and november, decembe december 1865 and there were notices at th that the time to describe the narrative as reading it as a horror but it went quickly into obscurity like many of the other writings. >> when you went about reconstruction, you said you came across as a sort of mind blowing for truth first, but you went all over the map story covers coming and what i find it kind of amazing is how intensive all of this is that they were

describing the plight of the crude calculations of turning them into commodities and all of that is on paper. how were you able to reconstruct that on its unbelievable odyssey across the ocean and up over the mountains? the >> doing this kind of archival research when you are trying to construct an event that provides some kind of structure and organizing structure that gives you a long if one were to go out and write in history the freedom of the americas if one is trying to follow the itinerary and then there are protocol records that in some ways that hit in capitalism documents and transactions including the sale of slaves comes about was

hopeful. and then on the court case itself in chile and spain the one major change that comes back to the sources and the research, the one major change in melville does that he has to try to comfort in reality in other words trying to get half of the work that the surviving slaves in order to maintain the loyal loyalty. and they have had this falling out and he basically sues him to try to get the money so that is documented and that legal proceeding dealing with the spanish authorities and making

the demand on the claim that there are a lot of people related to that. i was only able to kind of documents one group of west africa because they are on trial who staged this deception they don't become a confinement as such until this provincial falling aristocrat who gets into slavery to spend his position. i was able to identify one of the streams as it were. >> still it is quite amazing that they survived.

>> again it was 1804. probably more than half of the people that came in were contraband and undocumented to the historian's testament. and so, you have all of this documentation about them. what do we really make in the end of the original story of what they treated them down as was it a micro cosmic story? >> i think again, th the momentt it happened, et 04 is a generation in the american revolution before the spanish-american revolutions. in the age of the revolution and liberty and it's the convulsing moment of the free trade as the

liberalization of the slave system and everything that came with it in spanish america. and the way that it intersects as i mentioned earlier with the feeling and the boom and bust comes fraction. so even if melville didn't read it and turn it into his compelling novella is itself a fascinating story. >> and you found that they were the most for muslims? >> they were identified -- the leadership -- the leaders were identified as muslim by the spaniards, and there was a number of other incidental evidence that suggested they follow the tracks. they started their assigned up at the beginning of ramadan or it started when they were a few days into that and they staged

their uprising on the earliest day of the ramadan and they know how to read and write in their own and they force them to sign a contract saying we would bring them back with no indication that they were at least the leadership and then they were identified and there was another slave ship uprising which has a whole chapter in the book that was also led by muslims and they wrote a letter back to spain making a suggestion that they had been making for centuries that they stopped and is leaving the muslims because they brought these ideas. and thos of those ideas, again e could speculate. they didn't say what those ideas were, but i think that when

catholics talk about islam, they didn't have to specify what the ideas were. everybody knew what the problem with islam was without having to lay it out. >> what percentage of the slaves did they bring over? do you have any sense on the scale? based on the origins. they were enslaved in the south and it was well documented and in terms of the percentage, it just -- >> when obviously they brought this to them, how much was perceived to be was actually educated and literate in other words was very higher percentage

of literate muslim slaves ban on muslim slaves that were part of that culture? spsp1 ..

>> was that part of the perception or the same? or if they just came from somewhere else? >> it was not a problem and tell it was a problem. them though largest urban slaver billion in the americas in history had very strong participation with muslims 18:35 a.m. that became a part of the counterinsurgency response. a.m. from the beginning beginning, from nearly the first with the uprisings and movement where muslims are identified as the problem

and the spanish authorities were constantly issuing edicts about not enslaving muslims. >> host: money ask about ladd america the new england abolitionist runs a flagship and that slavery is bad is supposedly a and it is dying out there and he realizes that it is actually the slaves who have imprisoned the white capt. and killed people and there is a lot of violence without hesitation which hopes to night his crew. where was he at? how does somebody like that regard slavery? did he feel humanity with them or ultimately like property is property? >> both.

he saw himself as a modern person, he was opposed to arbitrary laws and he explicitly said he was supposed to slavery in his memoir. but then he is caught in a for text -- for text of exhaustion and supply and demand in order to keep the crew intact. it does not really and there but this is the last major voyage and he is basically broke. and all of the mastery, he is actually a cultural pluralism with his

understanding and tolerance of other people in some ways there is a lot of parallels with the a understanding of the non-western peoples. he comes back he comes increasingly disillusioned with christianity, the united states and. he is on a voice rich with his brother and he and his brother come back to have almost diametrical responses to the violence they are involved that i think is almost emblematic he becomes a fundamentalist he embraces the kind of fire of christianity with an early

town that has moved away from calvinism and man's capacity a lot of ministers would be influential to articulate what is unitarian and the brothers came out of that hot house of optimism. and you can see their responses becomes a fundamentalist. but then to become very disillusioned he writes a letter before he dies in the early '80s and 20's that talks about abolishing christianity and is very critical of the united

states and the missionaries in particular. it is almost the emblematic response but in vietnam creates the new left and the new right they have strong criticism of america but that is embodied that to their involvement with the failure of overseas beyond the u.s. border. >> how you pronounce it? [laughter] >> maybe we should take a break while you tell us. [laughter]

>> there is only one in the bible. in the book of samuel i think he is a cousin of king david and he is killed by his cousin who pretends to embrace him as he sticks a dagger in him and and delano parents they've all the other brothers william and alexander but name him to 70. [laughter] he was named after his uncle amassa delano in the seventh year war was involved with the massacre of native americans in the vermont /

canada region in resorted to cannibalism as they offer is keeping the retribution of the native americans in the french down the connecticut river, they wound up taking one of the native americans hostage then they ended up killing the boy and eating him then they were captured and they were massacred. [laughter] why somebody would be named after that you could read a lot into that. [laughter] >> host: but have they a similarity to see other people as other people, that seems like the old sill does

not see that it is the side that maybe he is innocent but as an exposure to the world these people would go on a four year voyage to take a cruise from wherever they were. they have to deal with a lot more humanity. >> is hard to tell. with so little bit of an aside the with the actual physical copies of the books they have shakespeare, a bible, darwin, they don't have a copy of delano memoir. you could read that to see a lot of other belleville stories there is a certain

innocence. with the revolutionary war veteran going to world history but cannot understand it and that is amassa delano. to answer your question when he read it to he did transform him but not into way sympathetic character at all but a certain kind of emblematic of innocence that cannot see causes in defect to the consequences of their actions.

>> host: i feel we're just getting started but we should open for questions please use the microphones. you will be on c-span2. here is your moment to talk to the world. any questions? you have answered everything. >> [inaudible] >> but in the true and historical event.

milk will there has been a lot of speculation and why he used that name. >> is there any it -- any evidence? >> no evidence. is undoubtedly more complex but no evidence there is no literary traces.

that his father-in-law actually plays a role to enforce the fugitive slave fact that this is politics in the 1850's. it works pro bono when amassa delano writes his memoirs to get out of debt probably out of debtors' prison and he is certainly desk chair. and to help legal services for free to keep him out of jail but also the contract that leads to the more. but melville could have come

across in the ship's library and -- in nervous -- an enormous amount was printed. but as a reaction, amassa delano dies and his fate is a $0.50 used him back and a writing desk and 700 unsold copies. [laughter] what happens when you become a writer? >> somehow that resonated. [laughter] the hammock sounded very desirable. if i have time for one question where was he at?

did he look at slavery in the economics with holdfast fish or loose fish where he basically says tell me that. as the absence of freedom and that does not justify slavery but then they are very clear on the contrary. greater bondage is greater bondage and for him whether it is the characters that pop up throughout, of prairie du steve mills will? >> his engaging with slavery

is the emotional bondage or psychological or philosophical. he was quite critical of the notion of freedom that was emerging in the united states as an individual supremacy. keep believe people live did relations of independence and necessity that kind of validation was obscured. but there was no evidence. he was the one moment where he engaged specifically with his chattel slavery but there was an earlier moment

that links up with the story the very first instance that milt wilcox about u.s. slavery he has a cause i memoir that he publishes i don't remember the dates may be 1849 with a passage where he comes across a monument in liverpool with the character because he had been to liverpool it is of lord nelson. [laughter] it is expiring at the moment of his victory and it is a crazy statue where lord nelson is up on top of the

pedestal of this was naked nelson falling back with a horrible skillet to end of death reaching up to grab his heart tuned at the base of the pedestal it was meant to represent the french and spit your prisoner of war but nil filled goes off how they they remind him of the slaves in the market then it is almost a stream of consciousness rip on the well flowed liverpool and virginia and carolina and slavery creates it all and the idea is interesting but it created the wealth of the western world but i think melvile was free association and to show how slavery creates what is fascinating abot

that was with men and merchants including john bolton who was responsible responsible, who owned the ship that had been seized by the french in 18 '04. in other words, , the statute that prompted melvile to think about slavery in the first place was raised by the man who almost immediately is responsible to bring the west africans to the americans to inspire melvile years later to right the masterpiece. so there is always that embodies the presence in western consciousness.

[applause] thank you. that was fun. [inaudible conversations] >> make an observation about childhood, you say children of the baby boom children were in control of their own

childhood. our parents worked as children and our children worked like maniacs but yet we were a generation. can you expand? >> get out of the house. it is a beautiful day. it is raining. [laughter] they said it was a beautiful day. get out of the house. i never quite figured out the parenting style. we talk about a helicopter parents but our parents were strange. they could be so cautious or so fearful. don't get to know people who are not from europe on. [laughter] that would be scary but yet on the other hand, fourth of july would come around and they would hand out the m 80s.

here are explosives that should take a license. [laughter] everybody has the oracle mike and actually this was my businessman ogle. -- uncle he would give us the firecrackers and eat give us each a lit cigarette [laughter] not to smoke. but because that was the safe way to light the firecracker. with matches we might hurt ourselves. [laughter] and then of course, they would drink. they are strict all day long until about 6:30 p.m.. i know i am only 10 years old but can i take the car? sure. [laughter] >> women's history for beginners is the booktv book club selection for the month

of february. booktv.llord you will see the tab that says book club you can participate in our discussion at speetwentythree. we will post articles up there tomorrow we will also be posted on a regular basis i hope you can participate with its history for beginners is the 2014 book club selection on booktv

only passing reference but not because they were not there in numbers but perhaps maybe not as clever as their contribution was irreplaceable. >> absolutely beautiful. it just seems so familiar to actually sit here. >> for my personal ties this is what i flew in vietnam. of the 226 combat missions i

flew i flew 180 missions in this airplane. it is my titanium mr.. it is what brought me home when at times and probably should not when i did things to survive, punished it and it held together. the airplane there is no way could not bring it home if i could. i had a painting done by the aviation artist to paint my airplane and he asked if i knew what happened to it but he knew somebody who did. when i contacted that person they told me it was in massachusetts. i said if there is any way to bring that in and out of the cold to present it to our museum patrons in the combat form that it was cover that would be my goal in life and that is what we are working to.

>> congressmen generally did not feel bad to ignore these speeches because real politics did not happen in the capital itself. as a result most of what happened in the capital fell into a category of 19th century speechmaking the origin of the word bunk comes from it was about giving a bill or amendment that had nothing to do what was going on in the house itself but strictly made for the purpose of pleasing constituents.

every congressman made the speeches. at was part of the experience of living in washington to understand the way things work you wanted to please constituency would make these speeches. it was so well expected that sometimes they don't even make the speech they would write them out and hand them over to the congressional record reporter in they would put them in the congressional record. nobody complained because this was part of the experience of working in washington, in the house. this was the part of congressional code.

>> the biggest challenge for me as an american educator women's studies find people because the assumption is it is all about the body than all history will be about sex and birth control so therefore it is not appropriate for a kindergartner or middle school class. >> on facebook you really have to be yourself to get

benefits that the software is designed to give you. you can pretend to be someone you are not the will not have a lot of friends because the whole point of facebook is to connect with people you really know and they will not know it is you if you don't use your real name. . .