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>> hello everybody. wow, what a streak we have. i'm proud to introduce our next author. she's a el gait an exciting writer. she's the kind of person that other writers just adore. and boy does she know how to pick a good topic. unbelievable. you know, even jon stewart was interested in cleopatra. she is welcome she's somehow brought to life cleopatra in a way that nobody else had. and by the way, cleopatra a lot of people knew cleopatra for a long time. of course, shoos won so many prizes it is fairly ridiculous,

is when she was a child she won pulitzer prize for writing vierra about the wire of vladimir nobacoff runner up for plitser in earlier in 1995 and see how young she is it is superannoying for the rest of us writers. ron who snows how to write a book himself said about this stacey. even it forced to at gunpoint, stacey ship would be incapable of writing adult page for a lame sentencing, and david you know that guy that just always writes best sellers just like stacey most recent, live what he said about her. history in the hands of stacey ship is invariably full of life, light, shadow, surprise, clarity

of insight, and so it is again and then some in her latest work the witches. few writers combine as she does to perb scholarship in a exceptional gift for language in amazing reach and agility of it is a superb book and turn it setting the stage in the hands of stacey shift. she bring you back to 7th industry massachusetts an exceptionally cold winter and the mystery begin when when a minister daughter starts to scream. stacey. thank you mary.

if here at this hour you're a die hard or passionate lover of history or both or you want someone else to walk your dog. i like to think of history like mount rushmore. but it turns out to be an oddly malleable thing with moods and fashion and changes of heart. studded with misconception and jot outright fiction. pilgrim never heard anything talk about about plim knot rock or anything against cherry trees. some of the luscious fictions grew up around our commemoration of the past. which reminds me of a library joke. a man walks into his local library. i can't tell this with a straight face and asked can you tell me why so many major civil war battles were fought on national park lands?

[laughter] none of which explains what we've done with this one immutable truth executed nine people for witchcraft. those innocent men and women they were 14 women and 5 men were convicted in salem, massachusetts courtroom. they hanged several miles we on a spot and this will tell you something about how the epidemic was viewed in its immediate aftermath in a spot that we can barely locate today. sometimes it seems as if the trauma of an event can be measured by how long it takes us to commemorate it. and by how thoroughly we mangle it in the process. if you go back to salem to get a start of the chapter in our history you discover that town has embraced its past with what

you call uncommon people accused of witchcraft but none was a pirate. one was a harvard educated minister and other richest merchant in salem, but that's something else. for several hundred years, salem did everything it could mft to bury this chapter of its history. as late as 19 a 52 when arthur miller visited the subject of witchcraft was taboo you couldn't get anyone to say anything about it complained miller. stigma lifted only when the salem filming of the abc sitcom bewitch. i see some of you remember that show it was modern houses wife had supernatural powers and twitch could make value you mean cleaner work immorts to her husband. for various reason it is made since in 1970 shooting number of sitcom episodes in salem.

and that allowed town to embrace its inglorious past and how it did so in 1992 is unveiled the memorial to elizabeth montgomery. the television show star, she had effectively laundered the history. still over next years, salem vigorously rebranded itself, this is the town paper. this is the football team. [laughter] >> and this is the police cruiser generally it turnld itself into witch city. every possible slogan, you can see every one of these when you walk around salem but this is my favorite, this is a t-shirts. after bewitch community of wickens established themselves today a very good place to buy crystals or a broom stick or a magic wand also a very good

place to get a tattoo. a witch museum opened in a former church. the restored home of the 6092 judges recast itself as the witch house. and, of course, halloween now belongs completely to salem where october 31st is a month long celebration. this is particularly io roning as pearson and in 1692 most puritan had a horror of holidays renounce christmas and saint day and wound up with a calendar described as dullest in western civilization but in other words you can leave salas 4re78 today without a hint of its actual history. but you better book now if you want a room for next halloween. what precisely did happen in 1692 toward end of january after especially what are had issue winter two little girls began to bark and yell, and shudder they fell dumb and seemed to fly across rooms. they lived in whaftion then

known as salem village hamlet five miles down road from salem town, and community today known to its immense relieve in massachusetts. girl's father and uncle were village minister samuel paris and resisted what seemed the obvious diagnosis. four years earlier, a family of boston children suffered identical woman. she hanged november of 1688. that case was very well known. probably as much to the village children as to their parents. after weeks of prayer, with no change and girl's condition and no other viable explanation for it, it seemed clear that witchcraft was at work. the girl soon named three names and three different women had enchanted them. one of them quickly confessed that she was, in fact, a witch. she did so in collidescopic

detail with a story about yellow bird and black cat and regular hogs and been recruited by devil himself and that she had flown in a wink with of an eye boston and had several accomplices. three separate report terse took down her testimony which created this sensation. immediately grown men began to harl unearthly sound and had winged beasts from the moonlight. already the girl's symptoms had spread to a hope to a cohort of teenagers many eve themmer is vapts they would play starting role of the 1692. identifying the witches, displaying their bruises and their bites and their bloody limbs to the courtroom. ultimately predicting whom witches would attack next. fingers pointed soon in all directions, the epidemic spread to 24 communities. they called them salem witch trial by and over massachusetts was a village most effected. one in ten of its residents

would be denounced. so many to accuse that witnesses confused their suspects. the youngest was five and eldest nearly 80. daughters accused mothers. brothers their sisters. parishioner and husbands tended to ashore court that they had long suspected that wives were witches. let me talk for a just few minutes about witchcraft and how it worked. what exactly was a witch? is the early americans he existed as plainly as a heat or light as one authority had it it was as obvious but theory to convey men through the air that wind would flatten the house. the early american witch i should add did not look like this. although there's something of the wizard of oz about the salem story. nor did the 178th century witch look like this. this by the way is the original

wicked witch of the west from the 1900s edition of the wizard of oz i particularly like flying pink tail on unexpected -- this is an early halloween witch. or it should be. there she is. first halloween celebrated without witches and when finally witches appear the scene they're colorful and only dress in black after a the 1939 wizard of oz movie. the witch is a 17th century new englander knew her with someone who performed unnatural by virtue of her contract with the devil. from that pact she grew power to transform herself into cats, wolves, rabbits which would be a man or a woman though more often female. and she had familiars that did her bidding. those would be turtles or weasels, cats, dogs, toads were prevalent. 17th century woman is feeding

her blood to her diabolical toads with a black cat familiar she illustrates 1621 english case mft this woman is acquitted of all witchcraft charges. these are are more diabolical familiars you will see they raise from barnyard pig to fantastic gargoyle like creatures a surprising number of massachusetts men to 1692 assault by cats by oversize cats, killer cats glow in the dark cats or neighbors disguised as cats. black cats with a favorite so they turn up throughout the stey lem testimony. black dogs occur in salem records too although historically they have feline form so family cat -- moose looking i hope just a little bit demonic. a witch enchanted with ointment

and could be a muttering contentious or she or he strong and unaccountably start. both kinds of witches turn up in 1692 as wealthy merchants, sea captains who are witches. minister and homeless five -year-old girls who are witches. while her power was supernatural. her crime was religious. and her ultimate target ftion the soul rather than the body. and her connection to the convulsing children every english man knew what enchantment looked like. according to legal guide on many massachusetts desks in which was about to land on minister's desk this was the volume it manifested as paralyzed limb, crossing gnashing and violent shaking in other words the symptoms of the salem girls to a t. among the abundant proof of her existence was biblical

injunction against her shall not suffer a witch i'm sorry to share with you basic english translation of exodus 22:18. any woman using unnatural powers or secret art is to be put to dakota. that pretty much covers woman i know. when massachusetts established a legal code first capitol crime was adultery and second was witchcraft so you know blasphemy next and murder after blays pany. in years since laws have been caught iffyed massachusetts, however, had hanged only six. so besides the mystery of the salem symptom is really a greater mystery, why in 1692 the hasty and merciless prosecution? the charges were familiar from earlier cases. casting spell on livestock was a common one and enchanted fireplace and wagon, they sent dishes sailing.

they bid and claw and bludgeon anyone who refuse to sign devil's book cut us from an early english case. accused women did not farewell and why riding a pig? oh, they're not riding a pig, oh, no they seem to have gone away. oh, well. should have been riding below that. some witchcraft is clearly u at work here accused ofbq witches and do a great deal of flying down chimney and over apple tree ultimately to a diabolical sabbath and english witch did not fly. continental witches, however, did which will provide a significant clue as to what happened in 1692. those who confess to witchcraft will have flown i should add by their own confession on devil shoalers or pole or branch and sticks. no new england wism would ever fly on a broom. there are possibly there they are -- some french flyers.

this 15th century but leave to a french woman to fly gracefully. the accepted logic on phenomenon went like this. witches existed in all time the and places. how was it possible that imagination could deliver the same conceit across cultures and ire are as? in other words, witchcraft was so propows rows you couldn't make it up. so the impossibility of a shared delusion was that of the most compelling reason and not to subscribe was hair city. in 16 2 then witch could be a foot stamper or troublemaker, but it could also be someone who simply denied the existence of witchcraft. faith aside served a purpose. it made sense of the unfortunate and eerie, sick child, and disappearing kitchen scissor. what else shrugged one husband in court? might have caused those black and blue marks on his wife's arm? one more breathtaking thing

about the trials. they came to an end because scope of the crisis tax the imagination could there really be that many witches floating around massachusetts and because of what appeared to be an overzealouses court carefully, quietly, anonymously sane man began to speak up. few of them, however, questioned existence of witchcraft. at issue was simply the difficulty in identifying it. many would believe that innocence had died in 1692 but most also believe that guilty witches had escaped. to my mind writers can be immensely unhelpful about what nudges towards a particular subject. i can't say precisely where my interest in salem began but u i can report that you don't head off into the long hall of writing a book without some kind of obsession. the kind that wakes you up in night that make you read daily newspaper through eyes of someone who lived centuries or

hundred was centuries earlier. so i began thinking about salem began to feel to me eerily, oral culture like internet feeds on rumor. both very effectively so mass astair ya. we too know something about how fear can corrode our thinking. about how raging against the power of darkness can convince us that we stand in the light. here is an instructive tale about a different war or terror about politics of fear. both of them conducted by enlightened men. because at the center of the events in 1692 were increase matter, the most e ill illustris and had no trouble when i knowing its way through massachusetts. he was convinced that the colony was under assault more to the

point he relish that attack and proved colony special status. the epidemic seemed like a badge of honor for their proof but new englanders were chosen people. american exceptionalism really begins here. specific authorities regularly appeal to matters for giants they owned most extensive printed matter in massachusetts. they had devoured library on subject of witchcraft. it was to that we owe our knowledge of the earlier boston epidemic and he pleasured best selling volume and wrote more about salem and decade afterward puzzling over what could have caused witchcraft epidemic and concluded it was fault of the native americans. one additional thing that may have contradicted to my salem obsession it is not loss that after writing about ben franklin years in france eight years for which two and a half times as many documentation as the rest of franklin's life combined i

wrote a life of cleopatra for which no shred of documentation what had so far. so here with salem blessedly was an an archive with diary and sermon and church record best of all a u thousand tripghts arrest warrant, petitions this is a page that best of 17th century penmenship from sermon book of samuel paris the village minister. this is the accounting of many jail keeps that incarcerated witch suspect. a 17th century prisoner had obligation for paying his own charges so jailers tended to be very meticulous in their records. the trial then struck me as terrifically urgently relevant when you factor apings and conspiracy theory. some were obsess with origins and thanks in large part to hawthorne and to arthur miller trials inserted themselves into our dna. and talking about witches this

past year, it's sometimes seem to me that half of america descends from settler of 17th century new england and the ore half start in high school. [inaudible] willlet me end with confession a 72-year-old farm woman. for me she was the start of the story and finally of the book. we don't know initially accuse foster but we do know that she submitted to three intense facts to interrogation. initially she denied any involvement with witchcraft. but sheen began to inspool astonishing tale. i should say that six alleged witches hanged by this time now it is mid-summer. the epidemic really takes off at a gallop that begins in general or february and from start to finish it last only ten months. the foster admitted had appeared to her as a bird. and his direction she bewitched

several children and a hog. this is the record by the way if repeated examination this is not the best of 17th century handwriting. the neighbor who was a witch had led her to a diabolical cab both in may arranging her trip through the air. foster provided precise details of that gathering to which the witches have flown from all over new england and reconstruct meeting from over 50 sworn testimonies. but last we have no image. this is the closest we can come, this is 17th century engraving of a german witch cab sabbath but themes are familiar as these men and women fly by various means to a clearing. you remember that i said that -- there have been no flying in massachusetts before 1692, well suddenly everyone is aloft. second report that she had flown

to a pole one sharing with her neighbor. as sailed through the air they crashed but took off a second time and foster hurt her leg in the fall. you can see she was not the first woman to plunge to the ground at often is moment. about the crash not only from her official account but because of local minister had heard her confess and questioned her privately afterward in prison. he was fascinated by mechanic of witch crafts and lied to meeting on a stick. what had she done about food she told him that she had bread and cheese in her pocket she described the standing ground on which she sat and provided details of the timing of the flight in both directions. as for the accident she claimed that her leg still hurt her. she was entirely forthcoming. asking if it was true and seclude her daughter into the conspiracy. hardly marted that she denied that because daughter

immediately confessed imrim nateing and daughter arrested after that, and she assured authorities and grandmother practice witchcraft are. let me go become to ann foster's account. to enter into the world of the early american to grasp what could have the epidemic we have to find today what we consider today to be a solution. this was a narrative challenge for me essentially writing a book of nonfiction that had its center event. so ensure that challenge was to make a crazy thing seem perfectly rational and then afterward to show whyed it been crazy. here's the woman that believed that she had attended a diabolical sabbath but envision difficulties getting there and felt she had still feel its afterefnghts. more over that sabbath stood at

the center of the story. it amounted to a full conspiracy against the state. they felt that witches were plotting to overthrow church in newly seated government so this was original plot against america. foster reported there were 25 conspirator, granddaughter said 70 and estimate would soon rise to 500. it is gravity in part explain the prosecution. witchcraft became a political crisis for a colony that felt vulnerable for any number of reasons nothing to do with witchcraft. all of which convince me that book opened foster's flight. that sends us into the heart of matter and signals to reader that implausible things were afoot. i had to begin with how ann foster was to a diabolical meeting 12 miles away. here was the initial stab at the

first line of the witches yes, i write on yellow legal pad it is embarrassing first line of chapter two because i much later wrote an introduction which retitled chapters one because he explained no one reads introduction. should you care to know how long it takes to write a book it seems that i made amendments at opening line on april 8th, 2013, an i did not see my children for the next two years. by later that day, the line had evolved to this. i had in hand and foster sworn testimony along with the account of that minister who interviewed her in prison but i also had to check number of details. for example, if, in fact, you flew just above tree topover so salem could you see as far as the ocean? how thick were the trees? for this i plague kind enough to

take me seriously, and, of course, i needed to verify the night. there upon followed extensive correspondence of my favorite research librarian a man of superu human tenacity to give you some idea. this is one of several multipage e-mails in which he confirmed that, in fact, the night of may 15th, was not inky. a bright moon shown over massachusetts that evening. so yes you're hearing correctly i spent hours with circumstances underwhich the vent took place which is surely definition of lunacy. let me point out something ems too in trying to recreate foster flight with detail i too landed in the darkness of error. you may have noticed it already but i didn't see it for months.

... i had wanted to stress how much the dark, disorienting,

terrifying blackness was a player in the story. and after all, everybody knows witches fly at night. of course when i went back to look, there it was, foster's granddaughter, very plainly tells the justices done >> that the meeting had taken place at noon. a plush carpet of meadows unfurled below as she flies salem, or swears she did, over red maples and streams. there's a bridget moon in sky which is no longer dark. there will, of course, no flights through the air in 1692 or goblins in the parlor. how did niece things seem to happen? when you pry the whole chapter apart you see it makes uncanny and holy modern sense.

i hope you took from the book what i took. how quickly we jump to conclusions and information can lead us astray. fear warps our thinking, preconceived notions trip us up. above all the salem history reminds us of the importance of keeping our heads even when that leaves a question unresolved and leaves us off balance. that's an uncomfortable state but it was noted, bewilderment is crew. henry james wrote, if we were never bewildered there would never be a story to tell about us. thank you. [applause] we have time for questions and

there are two microphones in the aisles for whatever gets there first. >> i'm wondering about why people would confess to something that they didn't really do. you know, there was this situation in central park with the central park five. these were teenaged boys, and they confessed. the police worked them over. they confessed to crimes they didn't commit. and i'm wondering what the process is whereby somebody is going to do something like that. >> turns out to be remarkably easy to extract a false confession but in salem, with some of the young men who are accused, they're actuallier

tortured and they were hung up in a gross fashion but many of the people who are brought in are women, many of them have never been -- never stood before an authority before. the men who were intergifting them are the best dressed, wealthiest, best spoken men in colony. they're terrified. they often are men who region logically and nimbly, so a woman who says i'm not a witch, never practiced withcraft. i don't know what a witch is, is immediately asked how can you be certain you're not a witch if you don't know what a witch is? the manner of questioning was rather circular and imprisoning. it's exacerbated by the fact that confession comes naturally to a puritan and the fear that you might actually on some level be complicit is very close to the surface.

so that you hear in the some of the testimony people saying, i wasn't able to confess but i don't know if i couldn't because i was innocent or if the devil was stopping my words. so there's a certain confusion. everyone feels they have a spot on his conscious of some kind, and because there's no such thing as a guilty conscious in 17 century, that must fee diabolical. the admissions became rampant because it became clear to people if you confessed you did not hang. so only the people who revised authority would go to gallows so confession is used as an additional means means of prote, and insidary confession is -- the epidemic spreads.

>> so a large part of the whole salem witch epidemic is politics in 17th century massachusetts. i'm interested in hearing your thoughts on arthur miller's later take on the salem witch trials and particularly how it kind of adds to the gender politics in a way that it makes the women, the young girls, who at the center of the story to be the accusers, the evil ones, rather than the individuals who may simply be trying to assert whatever power or agency they might have. >> i guess a short answer to your question, miller diverges from the actual records in a zillion ways. whatever you think of "the crucible" it's a play, not history. the most interesting thing he does with the girls to sexualize them and sexualize the relationship if john proctor and

has to raise the age of abigail. he makes this into sexual politics elm missing piece about salem is did any of these girls actually suffer some kind of sexual abuse? the colony felt vulnerable at this time. the girls felt tremendously vulnerable. living in a world where indian attack is imminent and many of them have survived indian attacks and often be -- girls have often been assaulted by the men in homes in which they live. most of the girls didn't live at home. they were servants in other people's homes which means they're prey to masters, the boys of the house, other servants in the house. there's a lot of sexual imagery in the accusations but we can't pin any to these particular girls. any number of aggressions, rapes, unwanted advances in the court records but not the salem records. miller took the greatest liberty was in using some of those vulnerabilities and attaching them to the story, where we know

a lot about -- the hints these girls had dropped but nothing on the record. >> personal question. in 1953, a fellow from my neighborhood name arthur miller was influenced by the mccarthy era and went to salem because he was looking at an image. did you have something like that, a political thing in your mind that motivated you to go and do that? >> i don't know if i was clear what -- obviously the mccarthy beat was a perfect analogy in many ways. as i said i'm not particularly adept at being able to say why i wrote something. 'll give you an example of that. only after i finished this book, for reasons which i thought i had just explained, a friend said to me, did you notice that the entire time you were working on the book you were living with an adolescent girl? that was totally lost on me and a girl who was between the -- of

the aim of the accusers of these bewitched girls. was reading this material about this subversive, about these -- terrorists in the yard because a lot of this is the is about the indians lurking outside and the nefarious catholics were embarking in boston harbor and take over the puritan establishment. i was reading that in the wake of iraq. and, yes, think i probably saw an echo of this alien invader idea, invisible enemies among us. all about many ways terrorism and immigration. and those are two issues which we seem to be grappling with still today. so i think that may have been some of it but i didn't really see that in any conscious way at the time. >> thank you. >> i did not act in the to crucible, and actually a direct

descendent of one hover the ones killed, so i'm interested in any stores about sure but the lor es was targeted from a widow in a family property dispute. i wrong at the how much you think there was intentional bickering, targeting going on, and whether in a general matter whether new arrivals, the immigrants to the area, or whatever, was there any kind of rational way that there were certain people being fingered. >> suzanna martin is one of the few of the accused who actually uses sarcasm in the court and she is very disrespectful with the justices. she has been strident and outspoken in the past accused of richcraft in the past. a number of them to. it's undetermined if they've were accused because they were strident or strident because way

were accused bet all the former accusations come back to be reactivated by the fury in 1692. no one seems to be prosecuted for reasons of his or her property. many people can be prosecuted -- accused for different reasons. in one case there is a decades old long-standing, unresolved, overlive litigated, familial grudge over a property line and that claims a few lives. in suzanna martin and other cases there had been previous court cases which people still had bad feelings about in many cases men are accused because they had formerly been officials, and told people what they didn't want to hear and they were accused in one case an an andover constable is accused because he didn't want to round inanymore and after he was done he was accused of witchcraft.

>> you showed some notes on a legal pad and the different drafts you had for the -- >> the embarrassing thing i showed you. >> my question is, can you take us through, when you have an idea to finished product. do you have motivation and then outline what the book will be or just start writing and do you allow it just to pivot from point to point? >> in short, because i could do this for several hours, it usually takes me four to five years, of which i spend the first three years in the archives, so i had no idea where the book begins, what i'm looking for necessarily. i'm just kind of following my way through the archive and just reading as much as i can. for example, didn't know when i starred the book i would be mountains of puritan sermons. had i known that i wouldn't have attempt this book. no good for the soul. i don't start until -- the material starts to in some way

marinate or ferment or whatever verb you want to do in my mind. i knew ann foster would be the way into the story, but you're always surprised by what you find, and the whole idea in a funny way to have a very open mind when you first begin a project, because you don't -- if request you follow a thesis through the woods you'll proof your thesis, and specially in this case where i felt it really incumbent on me to leave the answers to the end of the book so it read as a thriller with a real explanation at the end. that was important 'as was the idea of conveying what it felt like to live and breathe the new england air in 1692. what did these dream about, fear, preoccupations, obsessions, what they were yearning for. i'm being told we have one minute left. >> i was don at thing about -- wondering about the extents of the research.

did you find yourself in a courtroom or talking to to a geologist's what the rooks look liked or what kind of wood they used to build the cabin. did you see how that would be displayed even though it was rough. >> i try get as close as i can to ground level. it's hard when you're write agent cleopatra in a world -- her egypt is gone. not even the coast is in the right place and moon is in in the right place. that's about it. this is easier but very hard to recreate. i said to an archivist, what would the houses smell like? he said go to someone's plantation. brilliant. i hasn't thought of it. i said to the women, what were the worst months of the year and every single one of them said january and february, which is precisely when the witchcraft broke out. just saying. >> thank you very much. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> that concludes live coverage of the national book festival mere in washington, dc. if you missed any of the program wes aired today you can watch tonight the entire festival, reair, at 12:00 a.m. eastern time and watch individual programs online at booktv.org.

in october the southern festival of books in nashville,s at 's'. then the boston book festival and the wisconsin book festival that takes place at the downtown madison public library october 22nd. and on october 29th the louisiana book festival held in baton rouge at the state capital and other downtown locations. for more information about the book fairs and festivals, booktv will be covering, and to watch previous festival coverage click on the book fairs tab on our web site, booktv.org. >> presidential candidates hillary clinton and donald trump have written several books many of which outline their world view and political philosophy. democratic candidate hillary clinton as written five books inch heres most recent title, "hard choices o'she remember her 2008 presidential campaign and

her time as secretary of state in the obama administration in 2014, booktv spoke with secretary clinton about the book, and you can fine that interview on our web site. published in 2003, "living history by is secretary clinton's account as her time as first lady. while still in the white house she released a children's book about letters written to near family pet, and also -- her family pet and authored a book about life as first lady. and in her first book, "it takes a village" she argued society shares the responsibility with parents to for raising children. republican presidential candidate donald trump has written many books. his first several titles released in the 1980s and '90s are accounts of his business tracks -- transplantation transactions and read companies in his two moe recent books, time to get tough and crippled america he writes about politics and outlines his

vision for american prosperity. several of the books have been discussed on booktv and young find them on our web site, booktv.org. >> i think the trend has been clearly in the wrong direction on both sides. the congress has not been assuming its responsibilities, which has forced at least this president to do more things by executive order that there's no question that they should have come together and passed immigration reform legislation. and -- [applause] >> and they weren't that far apart, and yet the president and this congress -- the congress, would not sit down and talk it through. so, in the book, i emphasize that it doesn't take but to change this -- doesn't take but one thing. one person that is willing to be

a leader and step up, whether it's congressman or senator paul ryan has the potential to do that kind of thing as a speaker. i have a lot of faith in him. or a president, let's say -- i worked all the time with bill clinton. we didn't agree philosophically. he was a character but we talked and a lot of times i didn't want to talk. he called one night at 2:00 in the morning. phone is on trisha's side of the bed. she picks up the phone, says it's the president and hands it to me, i start saying, yes, mr. president. we'll look into that. yes, sir, yes, sir, and i hung up, goodbye, and i handed the phone back. she says wants he want? i said, i don't know. something about central america. but here's the point. we talked all the time. we worked through all kinds of things. budget issues, tax issues, defense issues. safe drinking water, portability of insurance, you name it.

did we agree? no. a lot of times he pressed -- we pressed each other to the point we'd get mad but we communicated. that is true with reagan when i was whip. we met with reagan just's every tuesday morning that congress was in session at 9:00. sometimes it was bipartisan, sometimes just republicans so this trend of not communicating has just -- is a recent phenomenon. it started doling with george w. even though he tried hard to get immigration reform. and by the way, say to mississippians, look, immigration is one of the big issues in the campaign. admit it. if we had down what we should have done in 2007 we wouldn't be here now and immigration reform is not just below illegal immigrants. it's about legal immigrants. we got people that want to come into america that have something to offer, can't get here. one time i had two doctors from canada that wanted to come to

picayune, mississippi two doctors, highly qualified. you would have thought i was trying sneak in saddam hussein. it was hard. so tarted with bush. i saw it coming in 2006, and now this president and this congress just don't talk. that's why they -- the deficit worries me. more than ever. because now we're about my grandchildren. it's not about me anymore or us. it's about in the next generation, this is a bugger here and congress and the president are not dealing with it. so the next president -- all hillary would have to do if she is president would be to follow the roles, to a degree, of president bill clinton. because he did meet with us and he did talk with us. or if it's trump, somebody, some of us, have got to reach out and say, mr. president, you say you're going to change washington? the first thing you need to do to change it is to begin to communicate. four things you need to make

washington work. number one is communication. if you don't take you ain't going to get nothing done. real simple. number two you have to build a chemistry. clinton made me nervous but we had a relationship. a chemistry that made it possible for us to turn that into action. the other thing we have lost is -- what are we for? republicans or democrats. do we know? real ya know what either side would actually do if they're in the majority in the congress and have the white house? and last but not least, i've seen it. leadership. one man. or one woman. that will face the slings and air rows of -- arrows of the media and saying we're going to delve an energy policy in america and have all of the above. we're going to do it. so, it could change, on a time.

but it's going to take a person of strength because i've seen it. washington is a tough place. i rode the high road and i got knocked down into the valley. but best thing about being in valley is you learn when you got back up how you can do things better. so it can change. i don't see it right now. i don't see if with mitch mccome, with nancy pelosi. i do see hope in paul ryan itch don't know what to expect from chuck schumer who will probably be the senate democratic leader. he is smarter than reid. he is every bit as partisan as harry reid, but there's one difference. he is transactional. you can do business. they don't say it that way in new york city but they understand it. so there is some hope but begins in the white house. leadership begins in the white

house. we've got to get a different tempo coming out of that place. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> here's a preview of some of the new books being published this fall. coming up in october, supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg releases "my own words. ". in october, let me tell you about jasper, the latest from dana perino, former white house press secretary and co-host of fox news "the five. "garp editor at large, gary young, reports on gun violence in" not a another day in death of america "and an account of the rivalry between president

harry truman and general douglas macarthur inch november, senator bernie sanders recalls his campaign for the presidential knock name in" our revolution." megyn kelly looks back on her life and career as a journalist in "settle for more." thomas freedman looks at the speed with which the world is changing in, "thank you for being late." john wideman, literary arts professor at brown university, profiles lewis till, father over -- emmitt till. look for these titles in book stores in the coming weeks and mocks and watch for the authors on booktv. >> after the spread of the cotton gin, the cotton trade exploded. the u.s. export half a million

pounds of cotton in 1800, exporting 2 billion pounds by 1860. cotton represented 60% of what the u.s. was exporting to the world and it was 40% of what was going out of new york's harbor so a huge deal. the next biggest commodity was i think tobacco and it was less than 10%. so, cotton threads tied new york and the south together, i believe in a long and codependent relationship. the cotton south, the plantation south and new york city grew up together. the explosive growth of the cotton plantations straight across the south, across the deep south, was largely funded by new york banks. that's where all the banks were so of course you came to new york for your funding. the new york merchants supplies the planters with everything from the pianos in their parlors to their plow shares so the clothes they put on slaves. new york not only shipped a significant portion of cotton

but new york harbor is where those ships came back to filled with european goods and that made new york important to washington, dc, or washington city as pea came it. a big impact on the federal government because the government drew large portions of the revenues from the custom news new york harbor there was pared where the entire federal bug was coming from them customs house in new york city. now, it wasn't just the bankers and the shipping magnates who profited from cotton. thousands of works were directly or indirectly profiting from cotton. dockworkers and people in the shops, people in hotels and the gambling houses and the restaurants restaurants and the brothels where southerners would come up and treat new york city as their home away from home during the summer months. everybody was in various ways dependent on maintaining the

cotton trade, which means they saw it in their best interests to maintain the plantation system and slavery. new york workers also feared that if the 404 million people enslaved in the south were suddenly set free, they'd all come flooding up no, and take their jobsway. the big irony there is that the 12,000 free blacks in new york city, the exact opposite was going on. white workers took their jobs from them, froze them out of the unions, so there wasn't really going to be a problem with fighting for their -- the white guys fighting for their jobs against black workers. so, because of cotton and that long and enormous economic tie to the cot to be -- cotton south, not all new york issue buzz the majority of new yorker pro south and antiabolition. they were in effect what people call copper heads at the time. northerners sympathetic to the south.

it's also worth mentioning that new york was a major northern hub of the translattic slave trade. slaves aren't being brought into the united states by that point but a huge slave trade internationally, and ships out of new york were picking people up in africa and taking them to be slaves in places like cuba and brazil. congress declared this piraciy, which was a hangs offense, as early as 1820 and then everybody turned a blind eye. it was an open secret that new yorker were investing in slave ships and profits were enormous. many, many slave ships were first it out in new york harbor and sailed out under the he of the harbormasters. if they were caught, the slave ship captains -- which didn't happen because the u.s. nave where was a dozen ships and the atlantic is pretty big.

if slave ship captain was caught and brought back to new york for trial it was very, very, very rare for him to get convicted. half the time, more than half he time they never even method it to the trial. just allowed to slip out of the jail. judges and juries were notoriously lenient with them. i they were convicted and sentenced to anything they would be sentenced to two months or four months in jail as o'opposeed to being hung. the whole long history of new york's involvement in the transatlantic slave attraction only one slave ship captain was ever hanged for and if it that was because he had the bad luck to get caught after lincoln was in the white house the civil war had started. so, the politics had shifted. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> you're watching booktv on c-span2. it's television for serious readers. here's a look