>> please move down so our friends can get through the audience. >> comments? questions? anything to explain to you? or we can do straight to milling around or trying to cool off. and amazing books. >> it sounded like you were reciting some think and the elements it takes to create -- any idea what i am talking about? >> yes. i mention that in men explain things talking about their right to have a police. the sense that your voice matters, possibility of being

heard. >> sounds to me like you were reciting it, then you started reading. >> we know it is in here but we don't know where. was it so -- it would take a while -- >> you were definitely not reading. its sounded like you were. >> only memory and booktv will know exactly what was said. >> i would like to hear it again. >> it doesn't slip away when it is written down. >> and for the new york times the dialogue about that. >> i haven't heard anything about it. i was under the impression she left voluntarily but was she fired?

>> it would be interesting online the comments and the dialogue back and forth. you was brusque, that management style, much less. i thought you might have read about it. >> no i don't. just happened in the last few days and i'm trying to write something for our present one i am not standing attempting to enunciate clearly, frantically writing. >> i'm really nervous about asking a question but something important to say to you because you were in a position of power. i love how the harbor institution is mentioned but i am also troubled by their consistently poor on the visa account every year. >> they did in issue that was mostly women and i talked -- they are working on it, getting steadily better but it is funny. the conversation ahead with what

would make some happy, does it have to -- is it enough to get better work is it a shifting benchmark. they are working on it and i am working on it and keep promoting my female friends who are great writers, for them to publish but they're very conscious of it and it has done great work in calling attention to it and i am only one woman but i tried to show up at harper's regularly and urge them to do stuff. thank you for bringing it up but they are working on it, really. other questions or comments or inside scoops? is it too one to have questions? of a. we can go to the happy, aimless

milling about in the fabulous bookstore portion of the evening. if anybody wants me to sign anything that i wrote or colloid like these that wases on will be here and happy to do it. thank you for coming. [applause] >> thanks for coming. there are books in front end that back and at the desk. thank you again. >> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers, watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. >> lynne cheney examines the presidential tenure of james madison. discusses her book with her husband and 4 vice president

dick cheney in california. this is all little under an hour. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> that was nice. dick says it is enough to make you want to run for office. >> almost, almost.

we are delighted, delighted to visit the nixon library and museum on a number of occasions and the nixon administration during the first term so i am always pleased to come back and visit this part of the world to be reminded of an important time in our history and i was happy to be part of his administration. we are here tonight, i should explain at the outset why we are here together. the fact is i was born in lincoln, nebraska and lynne was born in wyoming. one of was 13 years old about going to the eighth grade my dad moved the family to wyoming, had a choice between montana oil wyoming and picked wyoming and it was a good thing because we grew up together when i first started and she was 16 years old to celebrate our 50th wedding

anniversary come august. [applause] >> if his dad had picked montana instead of wyoming i would never have married lynn. she would have married somebody else and as she said the other night, then he would have been vice president of the united states. [applause] >> i don't recall that that was one of the jokes. >> on a free lancer now the hymen changed. we are here tonight to talk specifically about a magnificent book that win has written about james madison. it has gotten some great reviews and we are on the book circuit so to speak and i have been to the knicks an event here before, sponsored by the nixon library when i had other books to write, to publish. and now we wanted to have an

opportunity obviously for lynn to present her as. i say it is a superb book about our nation's fourth president and the plan is that i will ask her questions and she will respond and at the end of that period of time we will open it up to take questions from the audience as well. let me begin by asking why madison? what made you decide james madison needed a biography? >> i want to say i am grateful to dick for joining me on this book tour and i refer to him as my arm candy. i was interested in madison for a long time. i served on the bicentennial commission for the constitution in 1987 and it was then i first began to understand how magnificent madison's accomplishments were and how little recognized he was in terms of what he had

accomplished in his political life. it wasn't until five years ago that i became serious about writing a book and it has been up labor of love and i only hope that you will enjoy the book as much as i enjoy writing it. he was the architect of the constitution, the architect of the bill of rights, he was crucial to the establishment of the first government under the constitution, he was president during the first war under the constitution and he performed if not magnificently in all those jobs, at least very well. at the end of his presidency john adams who was kind of base our figure and not given to making complement's easily john adams wrote that james madison's administration had covered itself in more glory than any of his predecessors which is a

great compliment because his predecessors were washington, jefferson and adams himself so i do think he has been a newsappreciate it and it has been really so much fun. i know five years of labor doesn't sound like fun but discovering things, being able to put it in a form that i hope will reach a wide audience and as the book is called, reconsidering james madison's life. >> which was the most important contribution. i don't think these contributions were enormous obviously but if you had to pick just one, what would it be? >> it would have to be the constitution. i think he was a genius and the reason is he was the kind of genius he had is he was able to break through conventional thinking. when everyone else was thinking one way, madison doesn't necessarily accept it. he would think of other

possibilities and he did that in the case of the constitution, in the case of establishing a great republic which is what we are. the conventional wisdom was you couldn't have a great republic where people voted for representatives for themselves, representative government, that it would be too loose over long extent of land and it could fall apart unless you had monarchical power, a king, a monarch at the center. madison thought that was not true. he thought that in fact the danger in our republic is that one faction will dominate and of tres everyone else and madison's genius was to see that if you had many factions as there would be in a large republican than no single one was likely to be able to become aggressive. that was the rationale for the constitution that was produced

in philadelphia. it was his genius to see through what everyone else believe time and again and it transformed the world by doing it. >> you talk about his relationship with the other founders george washington for example. >> we think sometimes of the founders as sitting around having a polite conversation and dollars from having degraded in mind at all times. is much more interesting to realize the man as they were which was people who theorem believed in that point of view and were willing to fight to see it succeed. in the beginning madison was washington's chief lieutenant. when the first government under the constitution began, this will be familiar to any of you in politics, washington had an aide to read his inaugural

address and the aid produced a 72 page disaster. so washington wrote to madison and and asked please come to mount vernon and held some madison did and he wrote washington's inaugural address and did a very good job of it. after washington delivered the address madison who was leader of the congress wrote the congress's response to madison. he wrote the congress's response to the inaugural address and washington thought madison was so good at this kind of thing he asked him madison, to write washington's reply back to the congress. it is hard to imagine his voice echoing off every wall. i'm not sure there has been another time in history when one man has been so influential at the beginning of an administration when madison was in the beginning with

washington. >> talk about the constitutional convention. obviously there were battles over various provisions in the constitution. we ended up with article i, ii and iii and it took a long time, many hours and days of work to put it all together but can you cite specific compromise, the most important provisions they were arguing about and ultimately were able to resolve? >> it is will we learn about in history, big states and small states, the big states wanted states beat represented according to their population. small states wanted then to be represented as states and we all know the compromise. they got representative states in the senate and proportionally in the house. madison was appalled at that. he thought there should be proportional representation across the board. he had gone into the

constitutional convention thinking it was a great threat to the republic, he called them the evil states because they had been so irresponsible under the articles of confederation, repressing religious freedom, churning out money. road island was a special the guilty. it was called brogue island, churning out money and this is what rhode island did, passing laws that made it necessary for merchants to accept that depreciated money for debts that had been incurred, maybe we're getting paid off a penny on the dollar. the states were taxing one another, they were conducting their own foreign policy. some madison's states needed to be controlled so when it turned out the compromise was to have the state representatives not proportionally in the senate, he was very disconsolate, kept a

couple days to get around to accepting that. >> conceivably made him think they needed a vice president. >> that is an eternal question, isn't it? it had to do with the electrical college. every electorate had two votes. they finally got the electoral college when they couldn't agree on anything else. the alternate at that point was to let the congress choose the president. imagine how different the president would have been if the congress was choosing. you wouldn't have data ronald reagan. nixon -- i don't think you would have nixon either. you would have had plenty of speakers of the house go on to become president. the electoral college, everybody gets two votes and again, the big states and small states, small states are worried that the big states will always elect

the president, so to assuage their concerns the deal was made that you could only cast one vote, one of those we to vote for someone in your own state. the other had to be cast for somebody from another state which would give the small states to better chance, but then they started worrying, and you have played this kind of game, if you want that one vote for your own guy had to be really important you throw away the second vote, you expanded on jim who doesn't have a chance, to prevent that you are finally getting the answer, they invented the vice presidency. the at the was the person that got the second-highest number of votes would then become vice president and that seemed like a pretty good idea but then they started worrying what was he going to do? and it is so interesting to see how this thing builds up.

they decided he needed a job and they would make him president of the senate. by the end the constitutional convention there with two delegates who were so worried about the vice president, of the executive branch, being president of the senate, the legislative branch of about dilating separation of powers, two delegates, and randolph of virginia, two delegates and george mason of virginia, specifically cited the vice presidency as reasons they wouldn't sign the constitution. they call it that dangerous office so there you go. >> during the course of his career, in terms of implementing the constitution would be the

best way to describe it. alexander hamilton became an important player in all of that. can you talk about what it was that lead to their major disagreement and confrontation? >> maybe it is important to understand that he and hamilton were not buddies exactly, but they were friendly colleagues. they wrote the federalist papers together with a little help from john j.. the story of the federalist papers is, if you don't mind. >> go-ahead. >> the story of the federalist papers is so interesting because it was done at such speed and such haste. i was explaining to a college audience, colleges and universities in this area will appreciate that what madison did during one period of time, during 40 days was the equivalent of writing a ten page paper every other day. you could do that. that doesn't seem impossible,

but the papers became immortal soul writing, writing philosophy, politics, writing an effort to convince people to support the constitution at breakneck speed, the printer was putting the beginning parts of this and to print before they were finished. so that madison and hamilton respected one another until hamilton became secretary of the treasury and george washington, began to make his financial plans clear. madison was troubled from the beginning. body eventually, particularly when the issue of establishing a national bank came up. he was deeply concerned. he didn't think that a bank was a bad idea, but at the constitutional convention he said it was such a good idea

that the constitutional convention he had proposed giving the congress the power to grant charters which is what you needed if you want to establish a bank. however the constitutional convention had turned that opportunity down. congress didn't have that power and that was madison's problem. hamilton was simply running roughshod over the strict number of powers congress had been given. there was no power to grant chartering and therefore madison thought you should not establish a bank. he lost the fight, but he went on to win the war against you could say. reestablished the first opposition political party. parties didn't have any better reputation than than they do now. this is counter intuitive. was against the conventional wisdom that said parties were divisive, they were noisy. we didn't want them in the

republic. madison said yes we do. a government without opposition is little more than a monarchies though they organized the party in order to change the way, the feet away hamilton was trying to carry the government, to make it so strong that madison thought was something the constitution hadn't contemplated and by founding this political party meeting in the founding of that he manage to get jefferson elected president in 1800 and jefferson, like madison, was a small government guy. >> one of the most important functions when seen in recent years throughout our history is the role of commander-in-chief, who is in charge of the military. madison as you mentioned in the opening was the first president to have to conduct a war under the constitution. and the way the power was vested

in the presidency strikes me as a great story but it is not how they started out. >> the proposal at the constitutional convention was just about to go through, was that the congress, among its delegated powers was the power to make war. madison, his mind was so quick. his intellect instantly grasped what would be the results of various proposals. on the floor of the constitutional convention he changed the word make to declare. congress would have the power to declare war. he did this in part because he had seen what a mess congress made of things when they were in charge of war. he had been a member of the confederation congress where there was no executive and the congress would be decided, they

would write to washington and then realized there was more trouble in the north and say the washington sent him north and it simply wasn't a way to run a war so madison led to his feet and said congress has the power to declare a war but what that did was make the president commander-in-chief once the war had been declared. >> how did he do as commander in chief? the british marched on washington, burned down the capitol, burned down the white house? was he a good commander-in-chief? >> he was patient. like lincoln he had trouble with generals. and the war of 1812 the generals were people who had served in the revolution and they getting a little bit long in the tooth and they weren't -- as brave as

they might have been in their reentry years. one general who was supposed to invade canada near detroit over the border became so alarmed at the rumors that turned out to be true that the british had formed a strong alliance with the indians and were great warriors that the americans might have to face this, he turned around and not only didn't invade canada but gave the british detroit. so generals as they were with lincoln were a problem. not so with admirals. the navy started under john adams with six frigates, they had eight nine by the war of 1812. the british had more than a hundred warships or forgets but the navy had trained all that time and brought new and younger blood to man the warships.

you can't mothball a navy and then build up again so the navy kept going all that time and as a result there were magnificent victories, naval victories in the war of 1812. people like general hall were fleeing from the british and indian allies, isaac hall who was indeed related to general all it was commanding the constitution and the constitution of course, the uss constitution, most famously encountered the british frigate and wiped her out. part of the reason was our frigates though they were far, far, fewer were better built and the kind of cannonballs just bounce off the side of the constitution in many instances which is why she gained the name of old ironsides.

so splendid naval victories and toward the end of the war we were developing a new class of general. when i say madison was patient, he suffered through those first generals. don't know what choice the commander in chief has in that and absolutely helped celebrate the glories of the navy. he also changed his mind. he was not afraid to do that when circumstances change. he had long regarded armies and navies as too expensive and as a threat to the republic, too easily used against the citizenry. by the end of the war of 1812 he was suggesting congress expanded navy and provide a standing army. >> how would you evaluate him overall? how was he looked upon, was he viewed by the public by the day of his command when somebody was

successful or not very successful? >> contemporaries, madison was one of those who viewed left the presidency, we don't pay much attention to the board 1812. it was regarded by americans, and we deserve to be recognized by the world stage. and andrew jackson beat the heck out of the battle of new orleans. >> one of the most intriguing aspects of the research that came up was having to do with madison's health. it was a major contribution from a historical standpoint. he had an affliction that was with him throughout his entire

life and yet he was able to achieve these phenomenal objectives under extraordinary circumstances, one of the most important founders. can you tell us about that, what his problem was and how he dealt with it? >> was one of those puzzles to me in the beginning. people called madison shot. to the simply reserved. you could see that he was sick from time to time. between the episodes of whatever was. and another one was jefferson. traveling in days when travel was in d.c. between his home in montclair and wherever the capital was, new york, philadelphia, washington. undertaking just those routine trips i have often thought was

something none of those callers who called him sickly could manage. during the war of 1812 was on horseback for 60 hours when washington was burned so there was something odd here. he was sick a lot but between sickness he was quite well. there is a letter that he wrote for the end of his presidency that hasn't been published. i certainly didn't discover it but i think i was the first person to pay attention to it. it is at firestone library at princeton and is a draft of an autobiography madison wrote in which he says he was subject to, quote, sudden attack somewhat resembling epilepsy and suspending the intellectual function. nobody had taken him seriously. people wanted to shy away from it because it was a difficult topic to figure out health in

the 18th-century. and there were periods when he had these episodes and his description of sudden attacks. and it fit well with one neurologists call partial seizures. and i think that was it. the first -- he had seizures as a child. that is often part of a syndrome involving seizures, epileptic seizures as an adult. he had fits right into all of that. he suffered the first at princeton when he was in college and you can see it. once you say he knew what he was talking about and take him at his word he fell into a period of deep despondency when he

worried about his soul and word he wouldn't live long or worried he wasn't good enough. he was lucky. found doctors, his family did, that urged him to exercise. that would help. it didn't end the seizures but he was remarkably fit which doesn't fit with the sick theory. he decided once he had taken his physical health in hand he decided to take his soul in hand and was not going to believe all the things people said about epilepsy. people said if you had epilepsy or seizures resembling it that you were evil, that you work full of sand, that you were possessed by the devil and madison finally decided he didn't want -- didn't have to believe that. this fed into this from support

of freedom of religion, people can believe whatever religion or no religion if they want, into his strong support for freedom of conscience, intellectual freedom. nobody should have to believe anything that he or she thinks is wrong. that idea liberated him and i think helped liberate us all because he led the way for freedom of conscience, intellectual freedom, religious freedom, more than any other founder, even more than jefferson. >> what happened to the autobiography? just didn't finish it? >> he didn't. it is just a draft. this happens when you have been in political life for a while. people write and say would you tell me some things about yourself and this fellow wanted to publish them whatever madison sent him.

and he decided not to talk about is the lead see. it was so demonized. it was more trouble than it was forced to call that down on his head and his presidency. >> he had an amazing ability to perform as he did year after year after year. >> i really do think that seeing him as having complex partial seizures explains how he could be sick, sick, sick time and again that in between he was perfectly well, full of energy. the energy he expended at the constitutional convention was phenomenal. don't you love dolly? she was beautiful. men stopped industry to philadelphia when she walked past because she was so beautiful. she had dark hair and pale skin, blue eyes and ruby red lips, the

whole package and madison when he saw her on the street, asked his good friend, this will be a surprise to you, his good friend aaron burr, they had gone to princeton together. yes karen berger before ehrenburg got in trouble, asked him to introduce him to golly. she received in her parlor, she wore a mulberry red dress and yellow glass beads and he was a goner. they married a few months later, and she was a political asset. i am always skeptical to how important lives are. and we think it is. and they're not central to getting your husband elected. but all was. in those days the congressional

caucuses take the presidential nominees. there were no conventions but the caucus on the republican side and the federalist side picked their nominee and dolly made all of those members of congress very happy. they were miserable. washington was just getting started. they all lived in boarding houses. one senator said we are insensible like bears from talking nothing but politics. there was no place to go but there was one closet in washington, it specialize in rope dancers. i am not sure either but maybe -- may be tight rope walkers. that is my story. i don't know. these men were so happy when the madison plaza opened the doors of their house and welcomed them no matter the party, they played

cards. golly took all little on alongside henry clay. it was just warm and genial and they didn't mind if you talked politics. jefferson was different. event like people to talk politics around him. he liked things smooth and calm and he didn't -- the didn't invite people from both parties to dinner. he would only invite people from one party at a time but no. the madisons mix it up. people loved golly, she loved them and they began to feel not only great respect for madison but great warmth because of dolly's entertaining and there's even contemporary testimony to her having been in some not in significant measure responsible for his getting the nomination in 1808. >> they were married for 42 years. >> not as long as us. >> in august as i mentioned,

they were married 50 years. what was the high point of those 50 years for you? i am going to repeat the question. what was the high point of those 50 years for you? >> not the 42 years with dolly? i knew it was dangerous for you to ask questions. one event i can think of presents you in a light that i think people don't often see you in. garth fader's image. he is a real romantic and for the 50th anniversary of our first date. >> would have been 1958. so it was 2008. dick a range surprise party for me to celebrate the 50th

anniversary of our first date. all husbands in the audience, try to top that. it was very special. invited all our college friends. he even had the good sense to tell me we were going to the british ambassador's for dinner. you don't want to take somebody to a surprise party, especially -- is true, especially women. if she doesn't have on a nice dress, don't want to take her hair in rollers, so he got me to dress up and told me this story weeks in advance and then the annual gridiron dinner happened in washington and the vice president at staff, we always said that the head table. this particular occasion after is having told me we're going to the british embassy that night i was sitting next to the british ambassador. seo as dick put it i had to read

him in. he had to tell him the cover story, the british ambassador didn't say a word and the surprise was complete. it was a wonderful night. he had a cake made that this tall and had a little body sticking out of it with blonde hair cut the cake was read and it was that skirt and he did that because on our first days i wore a big red skirt. [applause] are you blushing? >> no. just like dolly madison. one more question and we will open up to the audience. this is a difficult one obviously. what was madison's greatest

disappointment with respect to the constitution in the formative years in the republic? >> the constitution when it was finished, he thought was probably the best human beings could do so he became a fervent defender but at the end of his life and throughout his life he hated slavery. he wrote a letter as a young man in which he said i will do everything i can to become independent of slave labor and off of his father's plantation or farm as they call it, live an independent life in which he wouldn't be dependent upon that dreadful institution. and he tried to but he didn't really have a long time to try at it because he became involved in public life, creating the constitution and so forth. so he didn't succeed. jefferson also hated slavery and he didn't succeed either at

freeing himself from its shell i don't think he had such a firm goal in mind as madison did. at the end of law lives they both died enslaves. you can see toward the end of his life he was clinging desperately to the only thing he could think might help which was the american colonization society. one of the problems by the 1830s was a few freed slaves they couldn't win virginia. a law prevented that. neighboring states passed laws so free slaves couldn't go there so there was this idea of finding a place in africa and paying the way for freed slaves to go to liberia. problems were many, one of which, a major one was freed slaves, where slaves generally thought of the united states as their home, the slaves at mont yeller had been in virginia as long as madison's family had so

it was a failed scheme from the beginning that you can see him clinging to it not able to think of anything else but to give the type of hope he had at this awful institution. >> maybe just to wrap up this part, can you say a word about this madison were here tonight, would he think we had been true to the basic principles embodied in his work? >> i think he would be appalled by the scope of the federal government. he would think we have moved far away from the limited powers given by the constitution to the federal government. he might be somewhat gratified, though it would be much greater , at seeing the ways in which the constitution does still proves itself relevant time and again. i was earlier telling people stories that it just occurred to me in the last few weeks the

supreme court is considering a case that involves whether the police have the authority to search your cellphone if they stop you for a traffic violation. there were two instances in which this happened and those two cases are argued before the supreme court and it is interesting, when i mention to people that is wrong, they will say that is right, maybe the guy who was stopped was a terrorist, and what is interesting and what i try to emphasize is that is not how we decide things in our society, how you feel about it, with the you think that is right or wrong, we turn to the constitution to make these decisions. and the supreme court justices will go back to a constitution that was formed so long before there were cars, before there were cellphones but the justices

have to go back to the fourth amendment which madison wrote that talks about citizens not being subject to what is the phrase? unreasonable searches and seizures so he would be gratified, i think, that the constitution still live so there's an enormous effort to ignore it. >> with that, why don't we -- >> let's thank lynne 11 and vice president cheney. they have agreed to a few questions which we will do before the book signing and i will start with this young man who is from what school? >> chatham university. >> your question is? >> you talked how he was viewed by his peers. could you talk about how he was viewed by the public? whether he liked him or didn't

like him and the way he kind of started the government? >> madison wasn't the kind of person -- she would not be the fellow who elbowed everybody else out of the way to get to the tv cameras all i don't think all of his deeds in the early republic were fully appreciated by his fellow citizens but certainly by the time his presidency was over he was deeply appreciated. his contemporaries were most in fizzy asked about his job as commander in chief. i think that has been lost. good question. >> from corona high school. >> what is madison's most significant since domestic president? >> his most significant domestic

achievement? the constitution. what we had was a country that was growing increasingly unstable during the articles of confederation. what madison did with the constitution and this idea that action would be put against faction, ambition against ambition was create a stable environment. alexander hamilton is often credited for the economy we have today, the vital economy the united states has but madison's role in giving businessman and the rest the stable environment in which to live was a major contribution. >> what precedent did james madison said during his presidency? >> what precedent? he said an important precedent,

really important as commander-in-chief. there was a seditious movement going on in the northeast, they particularly didn't like the war, as they hated the war because it was very damaging to that part of the country economically. there was so much anger about the war that there was talk of secession. even some organizations towards secession. there was an effort to strangle the war by going after the people, the big bankers of the northeast and convincing them not to fund the war. i think when madison refused to put down that kind of protest that was free speech. you are welcome to stand up and say whatever you want and you are not going to be oppressed. when madison let free speech continue even though in my opinion a lot of it was seditious, he set a very

important precedent. it was certainly one that his countrymen appreciated. he knew that in fighting for the republic, you didn't want to -- he didn't want to suppress those rights that the republic had been created to protect. so that is it. >> which president in the last century would you best equate to james madison? [laughter] >> new question. >> it is a good question. i find myself as a historian thinking that you have to take the founders and abraham lincoln and put them in an entirely different category. not because they were different people but because the challenges they faced where so enormous. it is hard to think of somebody

like franklin pierce. maybe you could include franklin roosevelt in there too. you look at president as an existential challenge, what they were doing didn't work out, there would go the republic. the founders face that kind of existential challenge. i think they engrained themselves in our national story because of their overcoming the challenges they faced. lincoln faced is that a you could save franklin roosevelt did too. last century would be the 20th century. maybe roosevelt in terms of the challenges he faced and overcame. >> from casper, wyoming. jan gray. mrs. cheney. about madison's height, he was only 5 foot 4, he was our shortest president. i wanted to know in your

research did you find that he had any troubles because of that especially with regard to his relationships with women? he didn't get married until he was a lot older and dolly was 17 years younger than he was and mr. vice president, i wanted to ask you about paul presidents. eisenhower, not only bald presidents, i was wondering if you think there are going to be any more? >> if i may go first. >> please. >> i have always believed in the principle that my good friend al simpson, known from the senate, used to say we all have only so many hormones, do you want to waste your is growing hair?

that is okay by me. [applause] >> the lady from redlands, calif.. >> you mentioned how important was to madison, the freedom of conscience. i am wondering how you feel about the fact the john kerry, the whistle-blower who expose the torture program is the only one sitting? >> please finish. >> i think, the supreme court has wrestled with this too, you are welcome to believe anything you want, you are welcome and to say almost anything, but what you can't do is violate national security ordnances that would endanger the country. ed snowden is a case in point. i think he is a traitor and i

feel it does not bode well for our society that he is being valor rise for having betrayed his country. [applause] >> i am sorry. you need a microphone. >> gentlemen? >> maybe this is off point. [applause] >> frank? >> i respect your right to speak your mind but i also reserved the right for myself and dick not to answer your question. [applause] >> dr. frank cannon in the back

of the room. >> you spent five years living with in addition to the vice president living with james madison. >> the other 45 to dick. >> can you talk about writing a book like this? where are the papers? where did you visit? if you had -- could ask him, james madison, one question, that emerged from your research was with the question be? >> that is a puzzler. i and to think about that one as i talk. the madison papers are in different places you have to travel in a little bit. you have to go to princeton because there are unpublished papers, you have to go to philadelphia. there are published papers about madison's family in the presbyterian historical society but they are on line. they have been digitized and done a wonderful job of digitizing them.

golly's paper as well. has been done by the university of virginia so think of that. research is so much easier than it has been before. i think i was chairman of the national endowment for the humanities for a time. i used to be appalled at the things we funded, but if they were to increase the endowment's budget so they could make the funding of the founders's papers and digitize them so citizens could have ready access, that would be a good expenditure. i can't give you a serious answer. i have to think about what i would ask madison. some my not serious answers i would say how tall worry you? that his been disputed. is favored aide said 5 foot 6. there is confusion with the aid was trying to be flattering. i am 5 feet tall. 5 foot 4 would be just fine.

>> the young man who studied in singapore and is a student at pepperdine university. >> my name is jacob young. pertaining to james madison's life is there a particular piece that the history books are missing that you think there's not enough information on or you would be interested in learning more about? >> there were two things that stuck out to me as i went through, personal things, this idea that he was shy is a 20th century invention. his contemporary said nothing about that. he was a county politician who had learned the traits of not speaking before you need to, being respectful to your elders when you were a very young politician, not speaking carelessly. madison spent a great deal of his life cleaning up after jefferson who was french-speaking carelessly.

the fact, in fact he wasn't. and the sickly thing, that was important too, to get rid of this myth that he was so -- so burdened by his health that he could barely get out of bed. you can see this vital politician as an man who was that way and the idea of him being shy and sickly is damaged his reputation and i hope my book will do something to restore it. >> at gentleman from orange, calif. with a quickie. >> mr vice president where did you go on your first date? >> oh. well. we went too formal, thrown by one of the high school girls's social clubs. we went with some good friends

and double dated. lynne did where an amazing read formal gown. afterwards we start what in casper -- is referred to as ceo. >> oh stock. >> it gets better. we hadn't been there very long when we discovered some friends of ours including somebody who dated lynne before i did have let the air out of the tires on our car. so we spend a lot of time creeping down to the filling station to get air in the tires, and in danger of violating lynn's for a few. and i was very concerned at this point that we violated the curfew on the first day. i would get in trouble with somebody. the great thing about it in

retrospect was and secretary to the police chief. ..