>> here is look at some authors recently featured on book tv's after words, our author interview program. stewart taylor examined campus sexual assault. and elizabeth rosenthal reported on the health care. and the life of the first fema female president in africa history. >> and nebraska senator will argue that america's youth are not prepared for adulthood. and former saturday night cast member and senator al franken

will discuss. and nbc chris hayes will look at racial inequality in the united states. >> this era of what we know starts at the moment of-- or the peak of the level rights movement in the chronically bound sense that we think of it and it starts at the moment when, you know, jim crowe legislation is being dismantled. huge up in the northern cities and the fight comes to northern cities where essentially the fight is lost. i mean, you get the fair housing act, in some ways it's a high water mark, but then you have the busing fights and you get what you get. you get essentially a society that gives up on the project of desegregation as a social. and there are dozens of court decisions that whittle away from it, parent involve almost

makes it impossible to create a desegregation theme voluntarily through a school district, through the abandonment of fair housing legislation, everybody. like the enforcement of it, right? so what facilitates this, we have each other living near each other. we've given up on desegregation and in its places, we'll put corralling and controlling. and a big thing i've come to believe in writing this book, if it should be a priority to revive desegregation, explicitly in those terms as a social project. >> after words airs saturday at 10 p.m. and sunday at 9 p.m. eastern. you can watch all after words programs on our website, book tv.org.

>> the elite framers, people like madison, hamilton, washington, were a little bit aghast that so much democracy had led to these debt relief laws and paper money laws in the mid 1 time and they wanted to shut down these populists. and they did write article 1 section 10 which bars states from paper money laws, debtor relief laws, and the idea was with a national government with very long terms in office, six years senators, four year presidents, there was nothing analogous to that in state confusions. electoral college picked the president, enormous constituencies.

the original house was 65 members for the entire country the massachusetts legislature the delegates and others 55. and they thought the more constituents you'd elect the relatively affluent people in the community and the larger the constituency, the more independence they would have from constituents influence. in a state they were in the direction of more elite rule because they thought you couldn't trust the average person in government. they thought they would redistribute property. and that's why he was a lifetime tenured senator and president. that was a extren extreme-- some voted for a lifetime

tenured president about because they thought that property rights wouldn't be protected in a republican form of government. >> interesting. just take one quick thing, we're obviously, as is often the case during presidential election years, people often have questions how we got the electoral college. can you take a bead on what, sort of where at that came from and what was the frame work's rational for it? >> so, for most of the convention, they thought that the congress would pick the president and that's the way most state constitutions work, the legislation picks the governor. for most of them, they agreed the president would be selected by congress for a term of seven years. and they thought it would look at the president for behavior, and the ability to be reelected. the problem with being picked by congress, he would be dependent on congress for his reelection, and the point of

having an independent president is to check congress. if he would give the president a veto, if they were-- the president would be leary about exercising a veto. and the other election by the people, a problem with that, they didn't entrust people with that important a task. one of my favorite quotes from the convention, george mason, a delegate from virginia saying, asking the people to choose the chief magistrate would be like referring the choice of colors to a blind man. they didn't trust the people. that's one problem with direct election. the second problem with direct election, southern slaves wouldn't count. 34% of the south population were slaves and they thought they should county for the power of the nation and thought if you had direct election, the small states would never have a president and this is the era of poor communication, poor transportation and they weren't assuming the existence of political parties.

they figured people in large states would vote for their candidate. if you gave from massachusetts james hancock and the other for james wilson. and there were compromises with differences, you're not going to have a president picked by the people. you're going to have state legislators are those. and they assumed there was independent judgment. and then they aportion that the south gets greater clout and the states have greater opportunity to elect somebody. so the electoral college, plus your house numbers and plus your senators. and this one has bigger than the population of delaware. and in the electoral college,

there would be a 4-1 advantage rather than 10-1 advantage. the slave states liked that because their house numbers includes the number of slaves for the three-fifths rule and other complications worked in there. the only way to defend the congress today and the indirect election never works that way so now we have a pop already-- and it's possible for the faithful elector. in terms of mal aportionment, it gives voters in wyoming more power. california 55 electoral votes. wyoming has three. but they have bigger population than wyoming and unless you can see that they're discriminated, there's probably no defense for

it anywhere. it gives some people inflated power in choosing the president. in the senate it's 67 more extreme, why do some people have two different senators, that's california. that's a power play by the philadelphia convention. they tried to justify why the small states would be everwhmd -- ov overwhelmed by the larger states, but i'm sorry, that's long-winded. >> you can watch this and other programs on-line at book tv.org. >> here is look at upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. in may 31st to june 2nd, look for the annual trade show in new york city where we'll sit down with authors and publishers to discuss the forth coming books.

later in june, live from the 33rd annual printers fest in chicago followed by the annual roosevelt reading festival hosted by the fdr presidential museum in hyde park, new york. june 17th. for information about the book fairs and festivals book tv will be covering and watch previous past past