mister chief justice if i may wrap up. what we know from the fda's actions and statements, no change was permissible because it is not scientifically justified. that established reaction in a matter of law. >> thank you, counsel, the case is submitted. .. for a complete schedule of programming on booktv this weekend visit booktv.org. you can also follow updates on our social media sites @booktv. we kick off with national review, richard brookhiser who

recalls the life of the supreme court 's fourth chief justice, john marshall. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning. we are going to get our program started now. but there will be coffee and food still in the back so today if you need to get up please do so. thank you all for coming to the forum posting richard brookhiser. hosting his new book on john marshall. a special welcome to our friends at the manhattan institute. our cosponsors today and to our c-span2 audience. my limits lindsay craig. president of national review institute. a nonprofit organization supporting the national review mission. it is my pleasure to welcome you. this is a wholly-owned

subsidiary and we are in remission to advance the conservative principles he championed and support the talent at the magazine. this past february, it marked 10 years since the valuable opportunity to reflect on his contributions to our nation. we held successful events -- we realized the young staff our organizations were just barely reaching their teens when phil passed. to them buckley and his passionate and persistent -- words on a wikipedia page. this fall, we took the legacy events to over 15 college campuses. last week we were at berkeley.

-- there was discussion about the important values. as ronald reagan warned, item can be lost in a generation. appreciate the philosophy and experiments, successes and failures. and importantly reflect with gratitude for those who have paved the way before us. that is an important reason why we support the work of richard brookhiser on -- things to people like you we continue to stand up for the values that made this country great. exceptional effect. we are not afraid to say. will highlight that making the case for the american experiment is our title. please come join us. our featured guest this morning of course is richard brookhiser. a journalist, biographer and

historian. he first published at the age of 15 and has held many roles over the years. today he is senior editor at national review and a fellow. he is most known for his biographies on the american founders including alexander hamilton, and george washington. he has been awarded many honors. notable among them is the national humanities medal given to him in 2008. we are so fortunate that he has a strong passion to documenting founding and bring it to new audiences. after he talks about his book he will sit to talk with more topics in depth. there are no cards on your table. -- note cards which will be collected.please enjoy the discussion with richard brookhiser. please join me in welcoming him. [applause]

>> thank you, lindsay for the introduction. thank you all for coming out. i'm always glad to be speaking here because i was married here 38 years ago. i'm still married. [laughter] same wife. [laughter] i just want to think one person, that is the man to whom this book is dedicated, lewis. i met him in 1982 covering him for national review.when he was running for governor against mario cuomo. he lost the race. and new york is still suffering from that onto the second generation. but america has benefited because lou was freed by that defeat to pursue his great love, american history. and what he has done for american history over the years is stellar with the institute,

exhibition of the new york historical society in 2004 and alexander hamilton. we were for hamilton before he was cool. it was a great honor for me to be able to dedicate this book to him. i'm sorry the supreme court has been so out of the news in the last few months but i will try and make this talk relevant anyway. [laughter] the reason that it is in the news is ultimately the fourth chief justice, john marshall. he was the man who made the federal judiciary the legislative and executive. this morning i want to say a few things about him personally. i want to talk about how he led the court, i want to look at one of his important cases. then i want to talk about some of his critics. both in his lifetime and afterwards. the most important thing to say

about john marshall is that even though he spent most of his adult life in richmond, one month a year in washington d.c., when the court was in session, several years in philadelphia, six months in paris. but all of his life he was a country boy. he was born in virginia. the first house he lived in was a log cabin. the second house was a framed house. the third house had glass in the windows. this is not quite daniel bodin. it is nothing on the frontier. but it was definitely a life in country. he retained his country habits and attitudes office life. the word people use over and over again to describe him, is, simple. people meet him for the first time. they knew him for years and they described him as simple. he did not care how he dressed.

when he was in raleigh north carolina one time, he forgot to pack a pair of pants. [laughter] when he arrived they were unable to supply so he had to cover himself with his judicial robe all the time he was there. his hair was cut by his wife. if his wife had not cut it here as we would look like. he had very different attitudes towards drinking. he liked it a lot. when he became chief justice before he had a custom already that the justices when they deliberated, they would hear cases during the day than they will go to the boardinghouse they were staying in and discuss them over dinner and after dinner. the courts customers that they could only have wine at these discussions if it was raining outside. i assume that was to cheer

themselves up. so marshall, when he became chief justice, he would always ask one of his colleagues, usually associate justice story to look out the window and tell him what the weather was. and they would say the sky is perfectly clear. and he would say our jurisdiction is so vast that by the law of chances it must be raining somewhere. so wine was always served to the marshall. marshall loved simple exercise. and simple games. he walked several miles before breakfast every day of his life until he simply became too feeble to do it anymore. his nickname in the army was silver heels. it was partly because his mother sewed him socks with white patches in the heels. but it was also because he could jump on a bar resting over the heads of two men. his favorite game was coins. which is a horseshoes only laid with metal rings rather than horseshoes.

and the point is to pitch them over a post called a meg. people that sampling this said he would devote as much attention to deciding whose point was closer to the meg as he one of the great supreme court decisions. the other important thing about him, was who he most admired. one of the men was certainly his father, thomas marshall. thomas marshall homeschooled him and dedicated him being a lawyer. but the other man that he admired was the father of this country. george washington. marshall volunteered when he was 19 years old. to join the virginia militia in 1775. the following year he joined the continental army. he was in the revolution up till 1781. almost the entire length of it. he fought in seven battles.

in three of them, commanded by washington, brandywine, germantown and monmouth. he also spent the winter at valley forge where washington again, was in command. marshall saw his commander-in-chief in defeat. he saw victory and he saw him at this terrible winter in camp where they were not close, fed and unpaid. he said washington was the rock on which the revolution rested. he was the man who saw the project through. who brought it to success. when washington returned, his commission to congress at the end the war in 1783, marshall wrote a letter a few days later to a friend of his. he said the military career of the greatest man on earth is closed. may happiness attend him wherever he goes.

whenever i think of that superior man, my full heart overflows with gratitude. this is not a trivial feeling. marshall followed washington again after the war when washington and other leaders decided the american form of government needed to be changed. the articles of confederation under which we declared our independence, were not sufficient to carry out the task that the government had to do. we needed a new constitution. washington presided over the constitutional convention in 1787. then a year later, john marshall was a delegate to the general ratifying convention. he followed washington again in 1798. the first two-party system had arisen. the federalists versus the republicans. the first republican party is

the ancestor of today's democrats. there was the party of jefferson and madison. the federalists whether party of washington, adams, alexander hamilton. and marshall was a federalist. in 1798 washington summoned him to mount vernon and told him he had to run for congress. the federalist party was weak in virginia. in washington thought it needed new, younger blood. marshall is a lawyer in private practice. he needed the income and get refusing and decided i cannot say no to the greatest man on earth. i just have to get up at the crack of dawn and get outta here. then he put on his old uniform. so marshall as he put it, he acceded to this representation. he ran for congress. and then it was from congress

that president john adams picked him to be secretary of state after he had a cabinet shakeup. then at the end of adams term, adams loses the election of 1800. to thomas jefferson, it is their rematch. adams had been him narrowly in 1796. 1800 was a blue wave. jefferson won the white house and jeffersons party took both parties of congress from the federalist. so in this lame-duck., adams and his secretary of state are trying to fill the federal judiciary with federalists. then adams gets a letter from then-current chief justice ellsworth. ellsworth said he had gout and so he was leaving the job. and adams had to fill this post. so the name he sent to the

senate was that of the first man to be chief justice of the united states, john j. the great spymaster, diplomat, federalist author pick chief justice from 1789 to 1795 and then, he is left to be governor of new york. adams sent the name to the senate and the senate confirms him. then they got a letter from j saying he wasn't going to take the job. jay said the federal judiciary lacks energy, wit and dignity. and he was not going to be chief justice again. so we have to imagine adams and john marshall sitting in adams office with this still unfinished white house. the exterior shell is done but the interior is a construction site. and adams says to marshall, who shall i nominate now? marshall said, i do not know,

sir. and adams government and said i believe we will nominate you. so this is how john marshall gets the job in february. another man very important in marshall's life is the winner of the election of 1800, thomas jefferson. marshall's second cousin once removed. -- he would twist anything marshall, jefferson warned joseph story before he got on the court. that you must never give a direct answer to any question that marshall asked.

secretly directing this behind the scenes. and writing waves and popular sentiment to serve his own popularity. he also thought jefferson had been a disloyal secretary of state. serving george washington's foreign policy is with one hand while undermining them with another. in march 2018 or one, the one cousin, the chief justice, swears in the other cousin. the new president. now, marshall, to a court there were only six justices in those days. they were all federalist and have all been appointed by washington or adams. but in only 11 years after jeffersons administration and james madison, the partisan balance of the court is changed from two federalists to five

republicans. congress has increased the size of the court to seven. federalist had died or retired and they had all been replaced by republican judges. and yet, all of these republican justices followed marshall's lead. so how did he do that? i think the first reason was the simplicity of talked about. the genial madness. he liked his colleagues, his colleagues liked being with him. and this is the irreducible basis of success in any political field. marshall also practiced deference. if there were colleagues who were more expert in areas of law than he was, he would let them take the lead. if it was admiral t law it was a different justice. we should deference you get difference in return.

so it is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. a third factor was that marshall was always the smartest man in the room. and many of his colleagues were brilliant jurists themselves. but they all acknowledge his superiority. his mind was not quick. it took him a while to get going. but once he did, he was almost implacable. william he started out as an advocate later became attorney general. he described marshall's monmouth atlantic ocean. everyone else's minds were mere ponds. then there was tenure. marshall was chief justice for 34 years. still a record. he will swear in five presidents and nine inaugural. he is picked by john adams in goes to the second term of andrew jackson. then the middle of that tenure, there is an 11 year. , 1812 through 23 where there

were no personal changes on the supreme court. we've only had one such period ever again. so marshall is there a long time to exercise his geniality, his deference and his intellect. probably his most famous case, the one we were all taught about school is marbury versus madison. and that establish the principle of judicial review. i think the most important thing about marbury wasn't that principle, john marshall did not invent that. there was already well known, alexander hamilton had written about it in the federalist papers. marshall had spoken of in the virginia ratifying convention. but it is a long opinion. 9000 words. and the news, when it was issued, was at about 8500 words of it are a scolding of the jefferson administration. telling it that it has misbehaved. that william marbury was

entitled to a commission as a justice of the peace in the district of columbia. the jefferson administration had not delivered this commission to him. they ought to have done it. marshall decides that marbury cannot get it because the means of regress that he is seeking is something the supreme court cannot do. the law that given the power was unconstitutional. but most of this decision is shaking his finger at his second cousins administration. the decisions that were most controversial, in marshall's lifetime, where the supremacy decisions. the ones where the court asserts its supremacy over state courts. and there was a series of these fletcher versus peck. converse regina, mcculloch versus maryland. but the case i want to talk about this morning, because of

its economic significance was fletcher versus peck and this had to do with a land deal in georgia in the 1790s. georgia was the poorest of the 13 colonies. but it had vast back country that went all the way to the mississippi river. were now the states of alabama and mississippi.and georgia realized it couldn't not sell the land off. so it made a deal in 1795 to sell 35 million acres for a penny and and a half per acre. every member of the georgia legislature was bribed to make the sale. the going rate was $1000. one legislator took only $600 and said he was not greedy. [laughter] when word of this got out, the people of georgia replaced all of these legislators at the next

election with a new set. and they passed a repeal act. which nullified the sale and also forbade it from ever appearing in a georgia court. the repeal act said any officer of the state who so much as referred to the land sale would be fined $1000. so georgia has undone the sale and made it impossible for litigators in a georgia court. of course the purchases of the land were not intended to move to alabama or mississippi. they were going to flip their purchases immediately for a profit. this is very old american real estate story. and then the second purchasers are going to flip their tracks in turn. each set hoping to make a profit. but this would only work if the sale were valid. the first thing the purchasers did was, they got a legal opinion from alexander hamilton. who was no longer in government. he was practicing as a lawyer

in new york. and hamilton wrote a brief opinion saying that the sale would probably be upheld because of article 1, section 10 of the constitution. which group is the states from impairing the obligation of contract. he says the original sale be considered a contract. and if this were taken to court, the courts will probably uphold its validity. but how could the purchasers bring it to court? georgia has prevented from being litigated in georgia courts. the 11th amendment forbids citizens of another state from suing a state. but if a citizen of one state sues a citizen of another state, that could be a matter for the federal courts. robert fletcher of new hampshire sues john peck of

massachusetts. who sold him georgia land. and fletcher said, you do not have a legitimate title to it because the repeal act has nullified the original sale. i want my purchase price back. it was $3000. give me my money back. so the case goes to court. it takes a while for it to reach the supreme court. it is argued in 19 on nine. there is a flaw in one of the proceedings so it is re-argued in 1810. and marshall writes his decision. he follows hamiltons legal reasoning. he says that retracting a sale is unjust. it is also probably impossible because he says, the past cannot be recalled by the most absolute power. but his third and most important point is that it is unconstitutional. because article 1, section 10, forbids states from impairing

the obligation of contracts. then what marshall adds to this argument, and it is startling to read it. he says, article 1, section 10, is a bill of rights for people of the states. of course, we think the bill of rights as the first 10 amendments. protecting freedom of speech, freedom of the press. right to keep and bear arms. no warrantless searches and seizures. marshall is saying no. before the first 10 minutes there was already a bill of rights in the constitution. and this protected the obligation of contracts. so john marshall contracts, they are so important that protecting them becomes something that we would call a bill of rights. and the reason i focus on this case is that when we think of the founding fathers, mostly responsible for our economic system, we naturally think of

hamilton. especially if the musical. [laughter] but you know he deserves that reputation. but hamiltons plans and his projects needed a legal armature to support and that legal support comes from the decisions of john marshall and his court. fletcher versus peck, another contract case decision, dartmouth verse woodward and finally a commerce clause decision. these are the pillars of the american economic system. marshall had critics in his lifetime. obviously, jefferson is one of the most put in. but mostly jefferson does this in letters to friends. complaining about marshall. and this is a lifelong theme of his correspondence. jeffersons objection to marshall, is that constitutional questions should

not be left in the hands of a body that is irresponsible to the people. justices of the supreme court are picked ultimately by the people because they're nominated by the president. confirmed by the senate.and we elect the president, we like the senate. so we have a role in picking them. once they have their jobs, held them for good behavior. they never have too stand before popular judgment again. and this violated jeffersons sense of how a democracy should work. in addition to simply abusing marshall, he tried to think of alternative ways to adjudicate constitutional questions. one idea of his was that once there was ever sent a question which according to the constitutional convention. he suggested this in a letter to james madison and madison, as he so often did, he threw cold water on the suggestion. he said this would be tardy,

troublesome and expensive to have an ongoing series of constitutional conventions. another marshall critic was senator johnson. he was most famous for having killed tecumseh in the war of 1812. it is probably second most famous for his campaign song which went -- [laughter] but johnson was a principled, small democrat. and in the early 1820s, he offered a series of constitutional amendments to limit the power of the board. one will allow congress to restrict his jurisdiction, to take certain cases out of the courts purview. another proposed to give the senate a veto on supreme court decisions. a third would have required a super majority of justices to rule unconstitutional questions. none of these amendments ever

became law. mostly squashed in committee or defeated in the senate. and then, long after johnson and jefferson and marshall died, abraham lincoln was also a critic of the supreme court. particularly of the dred scott decision of 1857. this was the second time the court overturned a law of congress. this was the missouri compromise. chief justice explained that it violated the fifth amendment. which says that there can be no taking of property without compensation. so therefore, congress has no right to forbid a property owner from taking his human property into any territory of the federal government. lincoln attacked this decision from the day it was rendered. until the first inaugural where he'd been sworn in by chief

justice who one witness that looked like a galvanized corpse. lincoln said, that the parties to any suit that comes to the supreme court have to abide by his decision. so therefore, for dred scott had to remain a slave. he also said that these decisions could not have value as precedents. unless they met certain criteria. he said they had to be unanimous, he said they should also show no apparent partisan bias. if you set criteria it wipes out a lot of supreme court decisions. not only dred scott but many others including some in marshall's own lifetime.this is a proposal, another proposal that has never taken flash. in the issue is still with us. whenever a political party feels on the short end of the

stick on the supreme court the thoughts turned to ways of restricting the courts power. but we have never found the magic balance yet. marshall died in 1835. andrew jackson gave a very gracious tribute to him. much more gracious than anything jefferson would have said or marshall said about jefferson. but the most gracious tribute of all came from a club in richmond, where marshall had played his favorite game every saturday. from may through october. and they ruled that since john marshall was irreplaceable, the club should always have one fewer member. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, that was marvelous. bill buckley in terms of what he valued most was probably the

quality in this led him to make some poor choices over the course of national review. he gave liberal writers like gary wills and gideon there start or at least increased prominence by publishing them in the pages of national review. which annoyed the publisher of the time to no end. he occasionally had to remind bill, we are conservative magazine. but fortunately, he did not always have to choose between the quality of the words and ideological soundness. it would have been bad for national review if that was the case. but richard brookhiser really exemplified what he wanted national writer to be. eloquent, cultured and witty. and we cannot be sure what bill would think of anything. the national review is doing these days. we don't get the memos anymore. but something i'm completely confident in his every time we publish something by rick

brookhiser we think you something will appear when it comes to -- who had a great revival of history writing and biography in this country and rick was the front runner with his wonderful book about george washington written about 20 years ago or so now. i thought we would dig in a little bit about marshall. then maybe talk a little bit about your craft and to questions which people will write on the note cards. can you tell us a little bit more about the sources of marshall's ambition for the court. was this a product of a long-term view of what goal we should have in the system or is it some of kind of a ambition

dynamic where anyone is naturally going to want to increase the standing and power and prestige of their branch or department of government. >> will, certainly, there was that element and marshall comes the court after a decade of frenzy politics, 1790s was our first decade of partisan politics and because it was all brand-new it was really quite mad. we wring our hands over politics now but i tell people, go back to the 1790s. it was just worse, politicians are killing each other. you know, hamilton was not the only one to die in a duel. one of marshall's colleagues on the supreme court, a republican appointee, livingston, he killed a federalist in a duel. he shot the man in a ring and he bled out in five minutes.

and this never came up in confirmation. [laughter] >> did he have a high school yearbook? [laughter] >> so there is that partisan edge to marshall when he first comes on the court. but we have to remember his homeschooling. and his father gave him william blackstone commentaries on the laws of england to read in their little cabin. thomas marshall was one of the american subscribers to the first edition. the weight book publishing work you had people do an asset of time they would buy the book. they were subscribers. so blackstone was the text in the english-speaking world for the law. he really tried to summarize the english common law and

explain thousands -- and organize it. so this is the virginia backcountry and this really sets the direction of his mind. so he talked about how important marshall influence was with his colleagues. so you are studying the founding and observations about life in general. if you had to choose, what is more important terms of having most over others?personality or brainpower? >> well, you know it is tough with marshall because he has both. certainly, initially, personality. well, initially and then over the long haul. because these guys are coming to washington every january through february. the way the court works is that they had a winter session. and it came to last about one month. and they were all sitting in a boardinghouse in the same

boardinghouse. so they all like cheek by jowl in there and having all of the meals in there. you can imagine, if they really didn't get along, it would get kinda funky. and marshall is always trying to smooth rough edges if they arrives. at the end of this tenure, this justice henry baldwin, andrew jackson on the court and the problem with baltimore, he is pretty smart but he was intermittently insane. [laughter] he missed one whole year when marshall was chief justice because he was mad. you know -- can you imagine? >> well justice alito will not be with us for a year. i made cannot conceive of it! when baldwin wasn't mad he was extremely difficult. he was very prickly and he hated justice story for some reason. story returned and there was a letter of marshall's to story

and it says i was with brother marshall and he made stories of you that -- and i think that is the container of the vessel within the heart of it is, the power of this man's mind, once he is fully exercising it. in sum compared him to a great bird taking flight. you know, it takes a while to sort of flap and flounced around the ground but once he is airborne he is powerful. >> obviously, very committed federalist. tell us a little about why you think the federalists went wrong. because pound for pound arguably, they have more talent. it is hamiltons vision of the country comes closer to fruition then jefferson. and it is a rich vein that runs

throughout lincoln and teddy roosevelt. why do they end up losing out to the jefferson republicans and dying off? >> the approximate reason is the war of 1812. the of the antiwar party. the hard-core of the federalist party, this included some close friends of marshall's. were not only antiwar, they were defeatists and secessionists. and they wanted britain to win and they wanted to break it up. take new orleans out of the governor who was from new york when new york to leave too. this is the author of the constitution, right? his conclusion was, well, it didn't work. time to tear it up and start over. it's really extremist feeling and when the war of 1812 ends and was more or less a victory, they just look terrible. the other thing is that for all of thomas jefferson is occasional wacky notions,

impractical ideas, he didn't really believe that most people would be mostly right most of the time. he was a true, small democrat. and you know, that i think connects him more firmly to what america is about. then even the federalist were even their vision of our prosperity and expansion and you know, the way we would relate to each other economically. jefferson got that political thing and it was really his i think, most basic conviction. you start off your book an introduction about marshall and washington which he touched on the relationship. i was struck by just how their indication the incredible influence of washington because it's a very significant to american history if you just a mentor to alexander hamilton

and john marshall. >> let alone the revolution in becoming the first american president. but how important was that relationship to marshall and have you read marshall's biography of washington? >> oh yes! i cannot recommend it. [laughter] but i think that he choked. because he admired his subjects so. and so there is a kind of air of -- it stiffens it. we said about washington was he is in congress when the word comes that washington has died. december 1799. and he is the representative who informs the house of it. then in the course of his speech he says that he was first in war, first in peace, first in heart to the country. he took that line from henry lee. another congressman in a fellow

war vet. it was good borrowing and that is what he thought. >> conservative view was a one room perhaps why should conservatives revere a man, john marshall, that did so much to establish or submit the federal supremacy within the system, what would you, how would you answer that? >> marshall's view of the supremacy, he is establishing, is that when a case comes to the supreme court, supreme court decides it. you know they are not roaming around looking for things. they are sitting there. their role is passive. and people disagree about something. they take it to court somewhere. up it comes through the system.

and it arrives in their laps. they have to decide it and if there should be a conflict between the law in the constitution, what happens only once in marshall's 34 years. he says we have to decide what the law is. so it is not may be, may be his view of supremacy is a little bit different from what we experienced recently. >> a couple of questions from the audience. why didn't marshall recuse himself in marbury versus madison? >> is a great question. there's another great marshall book that says he suborned perjury and setting the whole thing up. it is a complicated story but the commission that william marbury got as justice of the peace was issued by president john adams.

but the man who stamped the great seal of the united states on it, sealed it and prepared for delivery was the secretary of state, john marshall. and john marshall told his brother, james marshall, here, deliver these commissions. and james apparently did not take marbury which is what was taking on the desk when they commit and then they say will they didn't deliver this thing, it's not leaving the office. so this is the origin of the suit. why didn't he recuse himself? there were a number of things where justices would not recruit themselves. there is one where marshall sold his bank stock but i did see other justices in other cases who were like giving tips to their relatives. based on the basis of the court. just kind of wild stuff.

standards have tightened up. >> how did marshall react to jackson's resistance to the decision on moving the cherokees? >> will cover the whole jackson presidency was dismaying to him. jefferson of course, they had tangled but there was a quality of jefferson that he could get very exercised over things and then he would leave them alone. you know if he lost, all right. you know, he would move on. jackson never moved on. you know, he just had a will and a follow-through. marshall hoped he would not be reelected. his help, i believe, was that if someone else won marshall would retire and associate justice story would be promoted to be chief justice. in marshall even attends the election. he attends the first political

convention in american history. which is the anti-masonic party. he's invited as a person to come to their convention. and i think is probably betting them to see how sears there. seeing how can we beat this guy? could these people be the ones? and you hear about the anti-masonic party today and it seems like a crazy thing. the people were alarmed that there was this group with secret oaths and andrew jackson happen to belong to it. it was sort of a populist way of flanking the populist president. but of course jackson gets reelected. and as far as the cherokee decision goes, marshall just has to live with that. jackson would not see that the law was enforced and it was impressed to the final stage. the final stage would have been if samuel wurster, he is

imprisoned to the church is bringing the lawsuit. he would've had to tell his attorneys that the decision is not being followed. georgia is not obeying the decision. therefore the president, the court must notify the president of this and he must execute the laws. but at the same time that this is happening, the nullification crisis with south carolina is coming to a boil. and will georgia join south carolina in the resistance? so the missionary is leaned on by the employer's as new england religious employers say look, drop this lawsuit. we don't want to split the country because of your problem.so he did. we never reached the point of the ultimate clash. >> the question of the hour that everyone is wondering, whose side would marshall be on

in the back and forth between president trump and chief justice robert over the attack on obama judge who stayed one of his immigration actions? >> i cannot imagine marshall tweeting. [laughter] or doing any public expression outside of his decision. i mean he wrote letters to people. but you know, he very deliberately, did not do anything in public more than that. i think he would certainly agree, i mean it is not that trump is a genius to notice us but their own health judges can pick and where they come from and how they decide. marshall knew this better than anybody. but i think he would have tried to move the court in the direction of that ideal. marshall was a federalist but he was not an out there federalist.

he did not lead with his chin. he reigned his court in. they were a couple of times where, instead of you know, confronting jefferson as frontally as federalists would have liked. including some of his fellow justices, he steps back. he does not want to get the court into an open political fight with the white house. so i think that ideal of these justices as being picked by the political process but then, apart from it and beyond it, was something that he wanted to have the court and body. >> with the seven or eight ministry left, only to widen the aperture little and talk about your craft as historian. how you choose your subjects. >> i chose this one because an old friend of mine told me to write this book. he also told me to write the

last, he gave me the title for it. i thought about for a second and i said, that's a great idea! >> is he giving you your next book? >> no, no. jeannie gave me my next book. he has given me two books and jeannie has given me three. jeannie has the lead. you know my first biography was george washington. hamilton was kind of a natural follow from that. i wanted to do governor morris as the third but my publisher said no, you can do adams or andrew jackson. so i picked adams. then i went to morris. you know, i take suggestions, sometimes i come up with my own ideas. >> why haven't you done jefferson yet? >> i always do jefferson. he pops up in all of these books. and he's very important in the

marshall book because he is the antagonist. you know, marshall is like prior rabbit. he was gets with men. but jefferson has a point. this small democratic objection that he has is a serious point probably an unresolvable point. it is just in there in the system that we have and you never want to get rid of it. jefferson i think would be very hard to do frontally. i think of his mind as like a big house with a lot of rooms and that all have connecting doors. there is something kind of odd about the way he lived and thought and it was tough to get out. >> how do you research? do you research as you go? or do you sit down and burrow in for months or a year?

>> i spend like, my books are about 80,000 words. or 200+ pages. i spend one year of reading only. then one year of writing in which i'm also reading. and the one thing that has changed over 20+ years i've been doing this, is you know, google books. the books online. if you want senator jones memoirs from the 50s it's like -- i even read online about the pension request. because it's the only evidence we have that marshall was injured at the battle of germantown. he never mentioned it but a fellow soldier said this in his pension request and you can go online and read this man's handwriting. >> you ever get stuck either on a research question or writers block? >> never writers block. if i'm stuck in a research

question, i asked my dear friend nicole, who is a phd in history and she configured everything! the one thing in the marshall book, i noticed one of the famous cases collins versus virginia.i had a hell of a time finding anything about the brothers who were involved in this. they had sold out of state lottery tickets in virginia. and this became a supremacy case. there is nothing about them in all of the other biographies and i think it's fossilized anti-semitism. i think a pulitzer prize winner said lottery winners named cullens pretty was just dismissive and am curious about them. and other biographies followed in his footsteps. they just did the same thing.

and i wanted to know, who were these people? nicole found an article in the maryland historical journal from 1923. cullens, told me the whole story. >> sue have a wonderful blurb on this new book and he refers to your minimalist style. obviously, 80,000 words is a substantial work. but you do not write a certain style. as a matter of choice or your style as a writer? >> i guess it is style. but look, there's a place for those big books. if you want to know everything or almost everything that can be known, and you do not want to read the collected papers, which are volumes and volumes, that is what those books do. but i am trying to tell you the story, the whole arc of the life but you know, focus on what is most important about these people.

to us. i am interested in his marriage, some of his family background but i mostly interested in his career and in his cases and who the litigants were. how did this get to the court. >> did the cases present a new challenge in writing do you ever think you're digging into these cases and this is why i didn't go to law school and be a lawyer? >> that was the fear. i did not go to law school. i have even less legal education than marshall had. he only had one semester at william and mary. the professor was george with. that's pretty good. i had worries about this. at some early guidance, they were knowledgeable scholars that gave me tips and pointers and it was just a matter being patient and being patient and

see what was going on. i didn't always do it. marshall's opinion on treason and the trial of aaron burr is huge. a 25,000 word opinion. and it seems to me there are a lot of wheel spinning. he goes through these english sources on treason and intuit and intuit. and since the basic question is, there was no active work upon the united states proven, why does he have to you know, that is the case. why is he doing all of this other stuff? that's just a women's objection. >> latest and jama, the book is john marshall. please thank john brookhiser. [applause]

>> here's a look at some authors recently featured on booktv, "after words". our weekly author interview program that features best-selling, nonfiction books and guest interviewers. and activist reflect on his work with black lives matter and how to advance social justice movements. and the economic policies of the trump administration. and louise actually examine the growth of the legal global trade with the emergence of new technologies. in the coming weeks on "after words" journalist stephanie land will report on living in poverty. former trump administration strategist, sebastian gorka will offer his thoughts on how the u.s. can strengthen its national security. and this weekend alan examines if the american dream is

attainable today. >> young kids i talked to from texas said, i thought that barack obama was going, things were going to be better. and in fact, they are not. i think that has forced us to really take a good hard look at what is success? because getting to the presidency, you know is that success? that should have been our dream and our goal. i feel like a lot of us thought that is the dream. ...

1979 c-span was created as a public service by the television company. and we give coverage of the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. now booktv's monthly "in depth" program with david corn. david corn has offered a car authored 6 books including "blond ghost," the lives of george w. bush and most recently "russian roulette: the inside story of putin's war on america and the election of donald trump". >> host: david corn, you have been in washington a long time. with your take on the last two