starting now our summer series that features programs from our archives with well-known authors. next, historian joanne freemanm talks about her life in writing. she appeared on our monthly program, "in depth" come in september, 2019. >> host: you are going to hate this opening question. trace the arc of the nation's history from 1783 to 1861, the political history of the nation. >> guest: i won't use the word

hate. [laughter] it is a little daunting. trace the arc. i'm going to do a historian thing and think generally. i guess i would say if yo they e looking at american politics from the beginning, we could even go past the civil war, we are talking about paradoxes and conflict and improv. the periods but i tend to focus on more at that part, it's the improvisational nature of that fascinates me more than anything else. it's because the nation was founded in the world of monarc monarchy. what that means wasn't so clear at the moment. there is a lot of improv in those early decades about what the nation is, how it functions,

the tone of the f government, hp a nationon is going to stand out among the nations of the world. what does it mean to be in a world of monarchies and was the nation going to get any degree of respect and equally and if not more significant as far as the inside of the nation is concerned, what kind of nation is tha it going to be and that s true on every level you could s agine. so there is a fraud kind of ideological level but there is a ground-level how democratic a nation will this be. who is going to own the land and how is it going to be literally rescued from other people. what kind of rights .-full-stop people have and what rights will other people not have at all. you know, a lot of the questions that they are wrestling with now, questions about equity and equality and rights and race,

those go back to the beginning of the public and beyond. as a historian, living in a moment we arthemoment we're livd thinking in a t broad way, we dl with these big questions and legacies of undecided things. >> host: where we inherently democratic to begin with? >> guest: no. we were not a monarchy and americans have a very strong sense of white male americans have a strong sense and they thought they were creating a more democratic regime than what had been around before so they were thinking very much and it is the reason there is a bill of rights attached to the constitution so msn, they were very right minded but by no means was it founded with

thinking there will be equality. there were different i don't what to call them parties but different kinds of view, the federalist, hamilton, the republicans, jefferson which is oversimplified but those are the two camps and they had a different view, each is how democratic the nation should be. federalists wanted it to be less,ic republicans, somewhat me but even so, it is a pretty limited view of democratics. so, when i teach about this period, and i tell my students there's all kind of words you have to think about the meaning of, democracy is a big one, because you see that in the founding period and it doesn't mean the same thing bu that it means now. you have to recalculate the way you look at the founding of seeing these words now that are kind of political. >> how many planes of view was there back then, today in a sense we are divided democrats, republicans and dems. was that the case back b then?

>> test for they were not thinking about the way that we think of party. it's an organization you affiliate yourself with. you bring yourself back to the mindset of the founding. first they were assuming a national party, like the idea that the nation, they could get something that overarching among all of these diverse states, that wouldn't occur to them but even beyond that. it meant in the national center those some kind of the position or compromise or something would be worked out a thought and that was the point of the national center was to have all of that.

initially there were federalists and republicans, but even under i would like to call them under the laws of political thought there were vast differences they were federalists in massachusetts or south carolina. that could mean something very different. so it was more of a spectrum i would say than categories. >> what were some of the improvisations and some that did? >> guest: one of the wonderful things about studying and writing about the founding is they put things in right and you don't expect so, john adams writing to a friend and say hello showed an american politician dress.

i don't want to look like the isch of british or french european aristocrat. the clothing i have this from my years in europe and had a lot of ways. is that too much leads to the american commercial by strip some off it away or washington, how many horses would seem appropriate, it sounds trivial and goofyfy and it's part of why it's so much fun to teach but on the other hand they are seriously think about the fact those seemingly stylistic decisions are going to shape the tone and character and when everybody sets the precedent, that kind of improv could have a big impact. on the one hand it is almost comical because it seems trivial but on the other hand it is and and that in and of itself is iainteresting. >> host: we had several hundred white males believed

forming the country. was there buy-in from the people who lived here at the time? >> guest: there's a small group of people that have power and on the other hand the resolution was popular it wasn'o conducted by 30 guys in a room so it's important to remember that whatever is going on in this time to count, although that you either have power and they are worried about maintaining power, there's a lot happening around them and part of p the challenge or the what o i want to call it, difficulties, the tension of this period is the american people figuring out how to voice what they want, how to demand what w they want, how does the system work for them and if it doesn't work for them, what can they do to make it work for them bittersweet isn't just a handful of guys running everything. they have the power. but the american people understood in a broad sense that they have rights in some way

different kinds of people have a different understanding that there was a broad sense that wwhatever the experience was tt was going on in this new nation that the rights were something being worked out and determined and that they potentially extend it more widely. >> host: joanne freemanm, which was a whig and what did he believe? >> guest: i'm going to answer by moving ahead in time to whigs. so, this goes back to the question about parties and categories. particularly now, people like to go back in time and make straight lines between the parties of th past and present d see if you are republican, go back to jefferson, there are no straight lines in history. and there are certainly no straight lines when it comes to political parties. parties bounce back and forth, things change all the time, so

for a while, you had the democratic party, and you had what was no more than anythingng else is the anti-jacksonians. it wasn't really a party the people that really are not for that. we don't like jackson. that becomes sdk to party and you end up in the mid-19th century with essentially for 1 a while two main parties and one t the ms. jackson, democratic supposedly popular, supposedly the common man or a white man on one side and then on the other side coming youhe have the whigs which are centralized and represent in a way sort of two threads we can still see that represented a different point of view. >> if you were the governor of massachusetts for president of the united states at that time, who held more political power? >> guest: at this time meaning

the early founding or whenever i want it to be? [laughter] okay, well if you go all the way back to the real founding moment, that ismo a good questi. there were people like hamilton and federalists who assumed that the bulk of the power was with thpowerless withthe state and ne national government, which was new and who knew what it and come test beyond the skeletal competitioconstitution. it's brief for what it does. so they both answered the question would be the governor of massachusetts probably. although on paper you might say he has a lot of power. but their power is premature to be grounded inin their state overtimey, that shifts but in te 19th century, the first half of the 19th century if you were to

pick up a newspaper from the period, congress would be getting a lot more attention we assume that precedent is all-powerful and at the center of the news coming and thatt is in an early american way of thinking about. >> host: the president doesn't play the large rol a large rolee president place today. that is partly deliberate and partly reflects my interest, but it's true throughout this period clearly the americans understood that the president was significant in early founding period they were probably trying to figure out whatth that means. congress, as the people understand congress is where the nation is being worked out in a

ground-level kind of way and people felt they had a direct connection with their member of congress. when members of congress stood up and particularly when you get into the 1840s and 1850s, the congress stood up and assumed they were speaking to theirr constituents and the pres was creating that kind of a conversation back and forth. congress mattered tremendously in ways that nowadays we are more focused for different reasons, but i think the 20th century we tend to focus on presidents, and that wasn't necessarily the case. >> host: would we recognize congress today as it was back then in the early republic? >> guest: in the early republic, no i don't think we would recognize it in the early republic or the 19th century. i suppose in some ways it might be what we assumed congress should look like.

it is a group of white men in a room above and beyond that they are debating and making decisions and those are the things we assume congress should do. over time, the united states become somewhat more violent and congress as as representative body and in that case it begins to look in some ways as we would necessarily respect. >> host: that tobacco juice rugs of the house and senate are an apt metaphor for congress in the decades before the civil war. yes, there were soaring oratory on occasion. yes, there were union shaking decisions being made, but underneath the speech pontificating and politics was a spit splattered rod. the antebellum congress had its admirable moment, but it wasn't

an assembly of demagogues. it was a human institution with very human failing. >> host: that was important for me to make in the book because my assumption about what most people think about particularly congress and this time could come from the period of clay and webster is that congress was a bunch of people in black suits and it was important for me right off the cuff to say this is a human institution and number two, it is an unruly dictation. it's a different world then you would assume. and the book is about this human institution and how it functions and how that shaped not just nation's politics but americans understanding of the nation. >> host: what is an affair of honor?n >> guest: good question. that is another fundamental

thing in early point of my first book i talk about. people think about goals, and i think that becomes an all-encompassing term. and people assume that otherwise was people on the field facing each other and shooting each other. the point of an affair of honor or even a dual was counterintuitive. the assumption with the view of two men onou the field facing eh other shooting, someone must be trying to kill someone at one of my earlier point is the point is to prove that they were willing to die for your honor it means it's a long ritualized series and negotiations very often that can take place and you don't even have to make it out to the

dueling ground. in affair of honor includes all of that negotiation. once you get past that point and you are on the dueling ground, it becomes a dual but even at that point, death isn't the point. the point is the performance of the. if you think about it, that is a terrifying thing to face someone with a gun standing there and allow someone to shoot at you. to prove that you are the kind of man, the leader that is willing to die for your name and reputation. it makes no sense to us now been madbutit made so much sense to n this time period hundreds of people end up looking through. >> host: why are we talked at the beginning of u.s. history about the hamilton global cto for? >> guest: why are we taught about it, partly because sometimes history is about, or some of the ways people teach history is of good stories that

seem to sum things up so you get a dual, jefferson versusto hamilton, charles sumner, dramatic stories people sort of used to encapsulate lots of things. i think if people teach that they teach it for us all as they one and only instance and it's a siginto thiskind of this great f these two men and that somehow typical of that period and they were so fierce it was hamilton and burr are dramatic characte characters. i think it has a lot of character work maybe more than anything else, but at least not until recently has that been taught as a slave getting deeper and kind of understanding something about the guts of politics in the period and how they really work. >> host: what happened on that day in 1804 and why did it happen? >> guest: they have certainly been opponents for a long time.

hamilton was largely to fuel behind the opposition. he really thought of him as something of a demagogue because he can from the equivalent of new england royalty. he was someone hamilton saw as an opportunist. he says early on in their relationship is for back in 1792 pretty much a p direct quote, i consider it myre religious dutyo oppose his career. that is serious opposition you have going there. so, he's pretty bound and determined to quash his career and that goes on for f some tim. the election of 1800 when there ends up being a tie between two candidates from the same party, burr and jefferson and hamilton steps forward with everything he can do to quash the chances, this doesn't make him happy. i think they came near a dual at that point and it was over four years later. berger was running for governor of new york on the hamilton once

again forward to do everything he could do to stop that from happening, and as luck would have it, someone steps forward after that and says ken you see there's a newspaper report of rd that hamilton said about you at a dinner party, hands this over and burr who at this point needs to prove that he is a man and a leader worth being followed feels compelled to redeem his name and reputation so he acts on that and it happens to be hamilton's words so you end up with him being handed something that in his mind is dual worthy and so he commences with hamilton. they exchange these ritualized letters. it doesn't go swimmingly, said he spends a virtual letter and they usually say those when you initiate, they say the same thing. i heard you said this t about me is that true or false.

about us or deny if i need an immediate response is a gentleman and a man of honor. if you get one of those letters you knew you were in trouble and in a dueling territory so you have to think hard about how you were going to respond. she uses 18 words for one word, a lengthy response in which he talks about why, you know, supposedly something more despicable, these are the words he picks up on. what do you mean despicable. when he writes this sort of letter in which he is talking about what does despicable mean, let's talk about word the despicable, is it a bad word, i don't know. so that is insulting all by itself. ..

>> a challenge might be againstli the law, the punishment was different. massachusetts you could be publiclyin humiliated and in rhode island there was a fine. but it was largely the

lawmakers so the people making the law and breaking the law. >>host: do we spend too much time talking about the actual duels and the set up brother were is that a microcosm? >> people tend to focus on that story. but it does tell you the politician in the political culture at the time that i can tell you of the politics of the. and killing the former secretary of the treasury it's a pretty dramatic story and it

makes sense that's the one but for 21 that stood in for what is were studying as well. >> member did not get elected governor of new york. >> he did not. we have reasons to be irked. and first of all some time before the dual he is asked about the doctor that normally came and ehrenberg said something like we don't need doctors. just get it over with. he thought it would be typical. you shake hands and you leave but tragically he had become a

villain for killing hamilton but i don't think that was his purpose. >>host: what was his life like after that? >> not easy he flees because at that point although it is common all the enemies gang up after killing hamilton and he is foldable. that's why you don't try to kill people and you become vulnerable for murdering someone. he and his friends and newspaper editors flee new york he ends up in south carolina where he hides out.

and vice president goes back eto washington. and finishes the vice presidency clearly will not stick around for the second term. and appears to be marching around with the young man and guns and sentenced something would happen we can see where they would have a different kind ofo power. and then is acquitted and local politics are national politics.

and then to have that exile. and t is a tourist attraction. people like to go to his law office and here in the window he gets snubbed insn the street. and i still think it is a sad ending. he does not have an easy time of it. there are a lot of aot accounts when he comes back to finish the vice presidency and what they say is you can see the fatigue and anxiety of doing what he did.

and those are difficult years he's only one of two politicians ever using politics using the word find he said he was engaged for fun and honor and profit. and then just to be more honest but in some ways it's not so fu fun. >> who is the other? >> the other person from south carolina i read a lot of 18th century political correspondence. >> professor freeman you said you are a hamiltonian.

>> it doesn't mean i necessarily agree with hamilton but i am someone who finds him fascinating but in the sense i have spent a lot of time and energy trying to understand why he did what he did. and the hamiltonian scholar. and there were many so i am a hamilton and curious scholar. >>host: rather than the ten-dollar bill and a musical what is his legacy? >> one of the things at the time he was known for a mixed

legacy. but the national government needed to be strengthened. and then pushed through to the constitutional convention. and then to lot look back some strengthening of good or not so good but it matters a lot. and that now superstructure that we take for granted. >> and to tell us so we are

listening to. >> ♪ ♪ what are we listening to? >> it's very hard not to do this. [laughter] >>host: i wasn't on camera so i could. >> that is from the hamilton musical the ten commandments talking about the rules of dueling and largely taken from the chapter of my first book that talks about the dual and the rules. >>host: did you have a part in the hamilton musical? >> they used my work when he was writing it and as i discovered after the play he found the book and made use of

that word is comical and bizarre to me that i mostly discover that when i went to see the play off broadway in the audience sitting with a friend who is a colleague and friend and that song came on i leaned over and said the dueling song this is excellent and then it have going on and i thought that sounds like me. but the book is really based on another biography that they talked to me when he was writing the biography so it can't really be me but then there is a lyric that refers a

document at the historical society about the doctor turning his back to have deniability i heard that line from the stage return to my friend and said that's my document. that's my document. so then when i got to talk to him later i said is it based on that chapter? he said of course it is. t >> so it ultimately became a broadway musical so that was a mind blowing experience. >>host: how accurate is the musical? >> is musicalte theater. they did a lot of work to make people aware of people and the. they were not aware of. it reminds people about the contingency and the founding

the first we run the revolution and then we have a constitution blah blah blah. there is no of course in that moment so the play reminds people of that contingency and taught people who haven't thought of it before these are real people and that's an important thing. so there are things that are historically inaccurate in many things that are not discussed in the play in any major way. that to see a piece of musical theater my response was there is a lot of history and their

more than i would have expected to see. there is a lot in there that i think young people have become interested in the time. and you can grab a hold of that to say i know you're interested but let me teach you about what really happened or the reality and in ways that are not shown inn the play so being wrong is a great teaching opportunity. >>host: and the tweet you sent out. you tweetee a lot says hamilton and jefferson seminar today i asked how many had seen hamilton or her new the music. but then they read applications for the course and thee majority mention the

musical. >> exactly what happened. but it is true i had my first meeting of my seminar and then to explicitly say hamilton mania like were not crazy about it anymore but the class is limited in size so they have to ask for a place so i'm curious what brings you to the course. a lot of people said i really liked hamilton the musical and i have a lot of questions. that is a wonderful thing. so i guess it's not really advertising but it's called

the age of hamilton and jefferson after the first two weeks is start with their papers and their writing. it is thematically arranged of what america was. and party politics. it doesn't say one is right or wrong. and that depends entirely on what they focus on and those letters i then teaching it the d or 23rd year and it's different every single time and i learne things clearly i read those letters many times

beat you can only learn them depending on the questions that you bring. it's a fun course to teach civic the same day in response to a former student you tweeted about john adams book. and then coming to my seminars more than anyone else. and say whatever they want. >> why are you in the course? because it has been profoundly meaningful tobe me. i don't want to yale answer but there was an old house down the street. i saw a movie or read a book. i give my students full permission to say whatever they want.

for a while it was a john adamsd biography. and now i'm curious. and now i want to learn more about the time. and then some people interested inca the musical but buerothers don't want to say that musical. and then they are more focused n on that. and then 30 people trying to get into the course. one set exclusively i like the musical and i'm here because i want to learn more about that

time. that's an excellent reason as a teacher. love it or hate it but ask questions. >>. >>host: we ask the author to talk about his or her body of work this month is joanne freeman author of affairs of johonor. , alexander hamilton writings. she edited that the essential hamilton is what she edited. the field of blood is her most recent book that came out lastr year. she will be with us for another hour and a half. she will take questions.

how did you get interested in the. ? >> and this time. it was everywhere. and with that reporting dispatch. and cutting out the newspaper articles, also the musical 1776.

and in some ways it was real. these are real people. and those statues of people on the ground to figure things out. maybe 14 years old. because reading and early biography of john adams. i start with reading and then i geto to hamilton and i stopped because he was strange in comparison to the other people. and had i weird beginning of

his life foreign relatively poor in die is as a dual and as he in person he wanted to accomplish great things so i identified with the young person wanting to have an exciting life. i read his biography i won't name it because i didn't like i it. i wish i could reconstruct that i read that and said it didn't sound convincing but it did so i asked what the writer read that gave him the rights and she pointed me to the 27 volumes of the hamilton papers i pulled out a volume and looked at them. it isn't the easiest thing to

read but that was the real stuff not someone telling me about history but that was theso history. but that is the most exciting thing ever. i want someone to read this stuff. i just started to read the papers started at volume one and then started again and did it for years and years. it never occurred to me be a professor or a professioned of historian. there was out, just what i like to do. decades later i realized i have an interesting database in my head i have gotten to know him in a way. >>host: when you put together writing how did you compile that?

and i was a teaching assistant and jefferson and hamilton and at the age of jefferson in honor of my being there but there is a library of america and this is only belittled from what i just said that in thee weekend i pulled together and then me photocopied all the letters it was like a glossary of names. because and it is made to go

along with the jefferson volume. id with that addition the writings. and i should say that library is a wonderful nonprofit organizationon to put the writings and the letters into printpi forever. it is near and dear to my heart. so they created that volume as a grad student. it includes with reporters and manufacturers but a lot of personal letters that i

selected because it shows hamilton as a person and exposing something about his politics or as a politician. and showing who he is as a person. he never intended anybody to see. a favorite one i like to teach with and within a week of the constitutional convention he sits down and says what do i think will happen next? let me think about this. and people trust washington. and that would be good.

but however maybe he will be made president somehow. may be other countries will sweep and to take over so with this imageag of chaos and foreign nations creeping in it is fascinating. but this is a guy pushing for the constitutional convention forever. but at the end of the memo he said with thisis apocalyptic count so he has great hopes but he is perfectly willing to assumein the experiment probably

will not work and and then it will probably all collapse. that is fascinating to me it gets you past all the other courses and says i think this is will work. that's not someone you expect from someone like hamilton. calls at thee library effort in studying hamilton. where your parents history buffs? >> no. [laughter] my grandfather was but i don't think i knew that. he was a civil war buff he has the civil war books but i didn't know anybody who is interested in history so i was

off doing my own thing and i felt it was a weird thing to do. and hiding the books under my bed i remember being embarrassed in my dad and make fun of me. other people have comic books and i have volumes of the hamilton papers i was off doing whatever i was doing it was decades later that i discovered what i hadat been doing. >>host: what did you folks do? >> i was raised in westchester county. my mom initially was a kindergarten teacher but went on to do some work in interior design and my dad was a market researcher working for

bristol-myers and then in the movie industry to apply market research techniques to film. i waited watch focus groups talking about movies and he would give us a dollar and give us a questionnaire. . . . .

professor on probably brian lamb's show and just the idea of it. i have some friends on the conservative side. i belong to a history group with them and i said there is a group that talks about the early congress in all these politicians trying to kill each other. this was the most wonderful idea. >> guest: that wasn't what i

initially had in mind. you got in his typicall head we than anyone else in the country today. he's the founding father. he was ambitious. hamilton goes in the constitutional convention and he knows that the role is because p. is for born and can't be president, do you think he would have liked to be president and mean to him?er >> guest: thank you for the nice things you said. okay, two-part answer. first of all, there was kind of an exemption clause in the constitution that if they were there at the time it's ratified, you actually were able to be president the second half of my answer ise i don't think that e

ever assumed that. there are various points at which he was put forth in a position. washington considers sending him to england and hamilton steps forward and says don't do that. i am not popular. that will create problemsea for you. i don't think that he assumed he would be president ever. i will go beyond that and say he kind of likes the idea because i think that in his mind it meant he was being very virtuous and promoting the idea i ideas not e they would get popular but because he felt that they were the right thing toth promote.

calling in from the bronx. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. quick comment i'm so pleased you referred to the fact republican party and so forth were not the same as theyre are today and today's republicans constantly refer to them as the party themselves as the party of lincoln. is this accurate and number two, i went to a presentation at the historical society about a month ago. a professor i don't remember his name out in oklahoma is writing the book pursuing the thesis that hamilton was jewish. any credibility to this. thank you very much. >> guest: okay. so the first question i've already forgotten, it was about

the republican party. the problem with drawing that , nd of a straight line is if you love, and there are wonderful 20th century political historians have done this kind of work if you look at what the parties represent and what they stand for and what their policies are, they changed dramatically over time so you can track the use of the word white republican but you can't consistently favor the party stood for in 1850 or 1860 and what the party stands for now so politicians of all kinds have all kinds of reasons to want to draw those straight lines as a political historian i think of any timeit here coke you kind of cringe when that happens because the first thing you think of is all of the ways in which thatt isn't true. rhetorically speaking it has usefulness but historically speaking it doesn't usually reflect a reality. as far as the book that is going to be coming out i'm not sure

when, i think from oxford university press, i haven't yet seen the manuscript. i've heard about it and i've spoken with some about it, so i can't judge the credibility of it or not. i know that the scholars have been working on it and have done a lot of research. i'm really intrigued to see it. i don't think you can rulee out anything until you've seen the evidence and have a sense of what leads to thego conclusion,o i'm certainly not going to say that it's not possible. the other thing, hamilton is interesting in this reason he comes in, there are not a lot of records from his youth. you have to do some research like this person did to find things out about his youth and because of that, there are a lot of blank spaces regarding his youth and people often like to project different things. for a while people talked about him being somehow or another the illegitimate son of george

washington oral kinds of stories and other creative things with her applied to hamilton. some of them might be true but he fact of the matter is you need to get to the evidence. i'm actually really looking forward to seeing that because i want to see the stuff about the argument. fascinating if it's true. >> host: what do we know about his life on the island and why was he bor going there, who is s mother? >> guest: his brother was named rachel. her parents were supposedly french. i've actually done research on this at some point. it's like the ultimate vacation. i will go plant myself here for a month. then it was like the perfect vacation so it was in the morning hours i was researchingg the archives and then lie on the beach and that was kind of the for me.

his father was the fourth son of a somewhat noble the first son inherits everything so he kind of went out into the world. supposedly his parents didn't marry but he was born illegitimately and at a certain point they moved to the island at his father leaves the family at some point, doesn't come back. his motherea runs a general stoe of some kind, they are not well off and she dies while he's at a relatively young age so he isn't a lot, doesn't have a lot of money, doesn't have connections and forfeit and gets off this island and ultimately ends up in north america and turns into the revolution because he's so gifted and a great writer and people put together ale charitae

fund to send him to north america for an education and that is how he ends up ultimately in new york. >> host: how would you describe his relationship with george washington? guest: i would say the shortwave would be conflicted. no one knows he's going to end up the president andid how important he is but keep themselves in this relationship with the nation's first man. >> host: said he was an icon at that moment. >> guest: by the time he becomes president or is a diary by a senator william mcclay and he refers to washington as the first man. just kind of in struck. so that is what hamilton needs

in this memo where he says if washington becomes president, we might be okay. people did respect and admire and in some ways left washington as a different kind of a figure. he was one of the few that had played a worldwide reputation because of the war fighting and winning the revolution so that's crucial hamilton ends up being in contact with him and trusted by him and give him power by him. that in a sense makes hamilton's career added to the fact hamilton is a strong thinker, aggressive, never doubt what he thinks or has to say, it's always sort of shoving himself into situations, putting his foot in front of people, so the washington relationship is key. without it it's interesting to imagine i don't know where he would have gone without it. with him he puts himself in that sphere that allows him to have the kind of influence certainly

a that he wanted to have, but it's conflicting because he isn't good with authority figures and he kind of during the revolution washington makes wa clearar hamilton is kind of a favorite. hamilton doesn't want to be anybody's favorite events to be promoted were appreciated for his merits and he doesn't like the fact people see him as a favorite. during the war he and washington have kind of a spat and it's at a point they are both fatigued. he'd been up working with washington, he spent a lot of time at the desk writing things come either listening to washington tell them what to write or writing things and correcting them after washington looks at them so they were at this late point in the war, tired, and hamilton was working with washington believes his side, runs down the staircase to deliver the letter, gets stopped at the foot of the stairway, lafayette apparently had a way of grabbing a thought of your lapel and talking with you in a very engaged manner. he does hamilton for a few

minutes, hamilton looks at the end of the top of the stairs is washington clearing down as he says some thing along the lines of colonel hamilton, you've kept me waiting these ten minutes. you treat me with this respect, sir, and hamilton at this point is tired of being an aide and would rather be on the battlefield and says i'm not aware of that but if you believe that, then we part and storms off and basically surrenders his position. washington sent someone out to apologize and hamilton refuses to take the apology, waits until he can be replaced and leaves and then writes wonderful two letters, one to his father-in-law in which he says something like i need to tell you what happened. i need to explain to you why it happened and please understand, don't think it is badly of me as the night and he writes another letter to his friend, a fellow

aid. we've come to an open rupture. it's not the first time but it's going to be the last time i take it. he sees himself put upon and that kind of tells you about that relationship and how almost every sentiment that he needed him so much in that way and the fact that he's an old set of it doesn't necessarily contain himself in ways that would have been useful at the time. washington is patient and sort of allows him back into the circle. >> host: next call comes from mark in fayetteville arkansas, please go ahead. >> caller: hello and thank you. i have a comment and a question. my understanding is that james somerset and american slaves aworking for his american mastr

in england sued for his freedom in 1772 and won his case, freeing himself and about 15,000 other slavesee in england. the case was widely reported and followed in the american colonies, and there was widespread concern among the slave masters that they might lose their so-called property on which their wealth was based. a very good book ona the subjet is a slave nation from 2005 by two professors at rutgers, so i believed that the case in england in 7072 was one of the

real causes of the american revolution. mostly it isn't acknowledged as such but my question is what are your thoughts on this and thank you so very much. if you are touching on is the plaintiff is true beyond this period and beyond. number one, in england there was anti-slavery activity going on with a stronger pitch initially been what's going on at the time of the colonies. that had an impact certainly on what was going on in the colonies of theun united states also obviously the institution of slavery was as long-standing kind of third rail particularly if you were a southerner. it affected your political decisions, it affected your understanding of what kind of power you had and how you needed or wanted to maintain it so you

could say the institution of slavery in and of itself even before the constitution or throughout the colonial and early america plays a major role in pretty much shaping everything.e it was something as you put it to people who owned property of that kind put that front and foremost in what they considered protecting and institutions of government are about among other things property rights, so certainly that is part of the mix of things that is constantly front and center throughout its existence. it hasn't always been that way and the way people tell the story into some of what we are seeing in recent years and decades in particular is people being aggressive about restoring that vital central part of the story of how we understand who we are as a nation. >> host: next call for you comes from tom in chicago, go ahead. >> caller: hello, thank you very, very much.

several years ago when the movie link and came out, like a lot of people, i became fascinated with thaddeus stevens, tommy lee jones played him so brilliantly in the movie and he seemed like an admirable character. what i'm wondering is the violence on the floor of wongress the right to put in your latest book, given how easily provoked some of these other congressmen were especially on s the other party, and given how provocative in a kind of brutal rhetorical way, did anyone ever pull a knife on him, but he challenged to a duel for any of that, was he on the receiving end of any of this violence? >> guest: that is an interesting question. thaddeus stevens, politician and

real character was a dry weight. he had a kind of fun study. i am not aware of anyone ever explicitly, but what was particularly wonderful about stevens is that come into this isn't going to be surprising given everything that you just said, he was effective in speaking up and snapping at any southernesoutherner that made ae in that direction. so, for example, after lets you write in the early years of civil war when southerners are trying to find their way back into the union, louisiana, thaddeus stevens among others, when a southerner spreads violence, stands up and says something like you know, not a lot of humor here necessarily back in the 1850s. i was. i remember what it was like back then.

do we really want to let them back in, i don't know, he's the person to sort of step forward and say that. it's interesting people didn't necessarily run at him. there is a moment someone threatened him and he referred to it as a momentary breeze. there was a momentary breeze and everyone laughed because someone was kind of threatening him. he isn't at the receiving end that he is someone that is never ugraid to speak his mind in the midst of it. there is a moment when there is discussion and voting on what becomes ultimately the fugitive slave act. it would've congressmen go and basically hide in the congressional library so they don't have to vote on the issue and when the voting is done, he says out loud to the congressional record you can send someone to the library now and tell everyone to come back. it's safe.

so he's that guy that says that. that's what i know he isn't really attacked. >> host: let's go to may 22 i think it was, 1856. the name that is relatively lost to history. it wasn't until i reread preston box. >> guest: the teenage charles sumner. it took me a while to right field of blood, ultimately 17 years. but one thing i will say about that chunk of time is when i said to people i'm writing about physical violence in the u.s. congress come most people even if they did an didn't know named say something along the lines of there was that guy, yes, charles sumner. people have the sense that there was at least one violent incident in congress. charles sumner is the massachusetts abolitionist senator setting by president brooks of south carolina --

>> host: a congressman. >> guest: in the house, comes across the senate. sumner had stood up and made a very aggressive anti-slavery speech and enact he had insulted according to brooks, south carolina so brooks comes into the senate and basically says he was seated at his desk and with speeches to send out, he's insulted my part of the union, my state and basically threatens to punish him for it and violently canes him. the desks were bolted to the ground. ultimately in his anxiety to get away, he pulls the desk from the ground but brooks continues until his cane brakes. there is a number of interesting inings.

although there was a lot of violence in congress which i write about in this book, deliberate attacks like that are supposed to take place in the street. violence erupts al also find particularly in the house that if you are going to stage an attacke in that way it's suppod to have been in the street and for two days he tries to catch sumner outside on the capitol grounds because that is the proper way to be a congressman. why, well you can see because what happens when he confronts him in the senate chamber. a southerner conference in a northern abolitionist in the first and beating him to the ground, that comes the south beating the north into submission, and it's deeply symbolic kind of way that has national repercussions. in a way that there were not the repercussions if it happened outside, but the symbolism of that cut the power of that happening in the senate takes it off the chart. >> host: and there was somebody else,si the covert

protecting or making sure people didn't come to his health, correct? >> guest: another south carolinians was there keeping anybody that tried to interfere away. the fact of the matter is people were yelling don't kill him, don't kill him, but here's the f teresting part about some of the congressional violence and it's kinits kind of counterintu. there was a lot of violence throughout this period. fighting was kind of a given method seemed fair and by that, i mean there were rules so if you're going to insult someone you only supposed to if he was present to defend himself. if you were going to attack someone you only attack if you man.attacking an unarmed you yourself are supposed to be unarmed. fairness was considered to be faimportant. so an example of that, there is an account from the late

1850s, a letter from a congressman writing into his life and he looks up and sees a menacing looking stranger standing in front of one of his colleagues with his fist clenched writing in the letter just doesn't look good. i think there's going to be a fight. but he looks at the stranger and his colleague and he is a bigger man. there will probably be fine whatever happens. but when he thinks he spots a wet hen he thinks holding the weapon he stands up and immediately positions himself behind the stranger in case he pullsdi a weapon, so it's if tht stranger reached for a weapon he would have stopped it. some of what is happening in the case of brooks and summer, certainly that seems like an unfair fight in many ways. in the investigation of that afterwards, not surprisingly, there's a huge congressional

report about it. brooks is asked did you at least warn him that you were going to do this and when he clearly didn't, he's reprimanded for not warning him. what you did was bad but also you should have warned him, which tells you about the culture of congress at that moment that somehow that would have made it better. >> host: was preston reed elected? >> guest: he was reelected and by northerners he gets something of a throat infection and suffocate and die is very suddenly. what's interesting about those i write about in my book and most of the aggressive fighters at least for much of the period i write about are southerners. people in the period when you look at an incoming congress, they tended to try to break the ranks down and binding them in

noncombatants. fighting in an incoming congress and the noncombatants. they tended to get re- elected because they were doing -- henry weise was a fighting man and at one point is reprimanded. shame on you for what you do. he caused 12 fights already in a session. you should be sent home, and he says do it. you know what, they will reelect me and put me back here because i'm here to do this. i am fighting for their rights and he's right, to some degree for the period of time, people who fight i in that way, southerners who were willing to fight and if they come and i would say maybe 10% of a given house would have been considered fighting. they are put there because the assumption is they will use that edge to fight to protect their interests including the institution of slavery.

>> host: next call for joanne freeman is robert in atlanta. >> caller: professor, you are delightful. thank you. my question was about the conflict in the relationship between hamilton and washington, and you'v you pretty much answed everything, so if i may, i will ask something else. what do you think were the prospects of hamilton handed the bill not occurred and had he just been cast adrift. what he jus he'd just have livet his life that way or would he have tried to get onto the national stage? >> guest: that is a really good question. i have a little bit of evidence about what he was thinking. first off by the time the door happened, hamilton's political

career isn't doing very well. evenen without the dual he wrota number of templates that he thought were logical but didn't do him any favors, so first he defends himself against charges of misusing treasury funds by confessing to an adulterous affair. that didn't do his reputation of a favors. then he writes pamphlets attacking his own candidate john adams. that really didn't do him any favors, so people that were supporters of the point were backing away from him as whatin they call an indiscreet publication thatey he doesn't he discretion or control for himself and that he is a danger, a liability so his career is already suffering. the federalist, his party as a whole are fading away. the nation is moving in a more democratic direction so on that level, too he has much less power. so in one way or another i don't think that he was going to gain

political power so the question if it hadn't happened with what he had done. he left behind one or two clues about that. he might have become kind of a political commentator. he was pondering another collection along the lines of the federalist, the essays that he wrote with james madison. in those years he was thinking of doing that again and he had approached one friend and colleague and have sort of said would you be willing to write for something like that. i think that he would have been commenting on the american government. he saw himself as someone who was going toen stand back and weigh in and probably be able to win but a commentator of that, now that said in the final statement he wrote before the dual in which he explains why he feels compelled to write the duel, the last paragraph of that

is fascinating. something along the lines of some ofg you may be -- and addressed to prosperity if he dies in the duel. some of you may be wondering why i ended up fighting this duel and i don't support dueling. i should have agreed not to fight this, but here's the thing. hi some point in our future, in the case of the crisis in our public affairs, which seem likely to happen, he wants to be able to step forward during those crises and be useful and i think that's to be useful, he needed to protect and redeem his reputation so that he could be a public figure if needed again. ..

>> here is the thing. people read the federalist essays as objective commentary on the constitution. this is an exaggeration but i tell my students it is a commercial advertisement.

the purpose was here is why you should like them. the idea behind it was that they will distrust this swap might be bad about it and then they said and to explain why this is in such a bad thing and why this might happen. it is intended to be objective with that objective statement it is a document with a purpose. those written to defend and promote the new constitution. ideally they will ratify. >>host: jane from california.

>>caller: i am in the midst of a dilemma i'm almost finished with the biography and then to go into great detail that identifies the trees and i'm having great difficulty trying to come to peace with this because he did write the declaration of independence but his behavior and lack of integrity and all of the terrible things he did is overwhelming me and how do you deal with this? >> that's a good question. there is a tendency

particularly looking at this time. to take sides. particularly with hamilton and jefferson especially now hamilton gets alll this it's interesting when hamilton does well jefferson doesn't. but i would say when you readd a book that appears to be very one-sided in that way the best thing to do is pick up another book with another point of view this book as a very strong opinion about marshall and they don't see eye to eye and heha detested marshall i encourage you to reade a biography of jefferson with a different point of view. the students generally come into a class may be they never even understood or haven't taken aside one of the best things you can do is read with

a have writtense personally. i love to read that but if you read a jefferson biography that presents you with the evidence to support that, then you can evaluate what y you see. this will be a broad statement but i almost wouldn't trust a book, any book that is that one side without reading another point of view so that you can evaluate and decide what you think. personally with jefferson i don't see good guy bad guy between him and hamilton it's neverr that clear. the important thing of others in this. nobody was absolutely right most were not wrong and it's the banging up of the ideas against each other that leads

to something functional. that's a way to think of the. there are aspects of jefferson i'm not particularly fond of and aspects of hamilton i'm not fond of either but blending the ideas and what doesn't happen and other politicians and public figures find a way to build and improve. >>host: we go back to your twitter feed. first of all why do you use 1755 as your handle? >> we don't absolutely know when he is born it's either 1755 or 1757. there is a pieceec of paper that suggest 1755 he has appeared

to have said 1757. i went with 1755 because it is a document. i'm not as strongly invested in either but that's where it comes from. >> it has somebody tell me with great disdain that they feel very strongly. i don't have that much personal investment. >>host: this tweet is from 2018 i will throw an idea out into the twitter sphere to see what happens what if there was a giant history rally with teachers and historians getting together to discuss what we can learn from american history to help us in thee present? what was your reaction. >> that was interesting. i was very honest. it was an idea i thought would

be useful and have power to think of american history and help us wrestle with the president later that out there not knowing what would happen but god a really big response or teachers or historians and e-mail and organizations and public figures and all of those things so yes, let's do this i have spoken to a number of colleagues but this is something i am eager to pursue next year i think it would be a wonderful thing to have the day when we can talk and argue and russell with american history.

not celebrate or tell a glossy view but talked about the way in the past how we push through. at this point it is vague i have just begun conversations but i was so encouraged by the response i expected nothing and now i think wouldn't it be a wonderful thing to have a day not just in washington but in some way to create a day when people on the local level talk about history in a targeted way. asked me in a couple months i'll have a better idea but i am a historian, i engage with scholars and scholarly history but i also fervently want to communicate with the public

and i think that historian scholars should be among the people who are dealing with the public some of us do some of us don't there should be more of us doing it but what a great thing to take part in to have a conversation of the complexity. >>host: so c-span cameras can be at this event? >> i would love c-span cameras at this event. a[laughter] >>host: leavenworth kansas go ahead. >>caller. i want to ask come i didn't come in at the very beginning so perhaps i missed this but it always seems to me that hamilton's greatest ha was his economic ideas. that he was for the banks and the assumption of the states

debts. when so many of the other founding fathers distrusted banks, jefferson thought we should all be farmers. it just seemed to me that paying our debts from the very beginning made such a huge difference in this country and in our later success. can you talk about that? >>host: what do you do in kansas? >> i'm retired. business insurance. >>host: what is your level of interest in history? >> i've always liked history. i've always been interested in history. i think the way things are no now, if you go back and read history it is comforting for one thing to see the long

haul. >> that's a good question. i think you're absolutely right the financial plan. i spokel earlier about him being a powerful nationalist as his legacy a vital part in the fundamental thing he did was step in as the first secretary of treasury when enthere really wasn't a national structure for finance in any way and create that structure. he was the perfect person for the job he thought in terms of a plan this is what i write about as a person and talk about the fact in his personal life and as a politician the perfect person to say to solve this problem the revolutionary war each state gets their own

system dealing with debt and now i take on this national position. you are right. he has a three-part plan winning the national government to assume state debt and have a national bank and to promote manufacturing and those are crucial and he aysays our debt is the price of liberty we need to step forward to prove our credit as a nation in the broadest way possible that we have credit and our reputation and trustworthy to have financial credit we have to tended to our debts. he says credit is an entire thing and by that he means is not just financial it's who we are as a nation be you are absolutely right that is a concrete thing thatrt he did to

step forward to create that three-part plan to push it through and stand behind it to the point there were many people. they were more complex and you are absolutely right they were the agrarian idea more urban and finance oriented that hamilton step forward to do that kind of work on the groundep level. it's tempting to look at people like hamilton and jefferson to think of them as the ideology for one of the things of hamilton's how good he is with that ground-level nuts and bolts work when he takes office. he doesn't know much nationally about the nation's finances but he creates a

questionnaire that he sends out to those around the country tell me about trade and customs. information that to get the national view of financ finance. he is wonderful in a variety of ways in his plan is a crucial part. >>host: responding through twitter three your idea history begins before the colonists arrived at the symposium if it is held must include native american history. >> absolutely.y. absolutely. as soon as i say yes then the question becomes how broad and chronological but you are absolutely right. and particularly given the long arc of american history is about fighting for rights

and have being rights taking a way you have to deal with all sides of thets equation with people whose rights are seviolated and how they fight for their rights that has to be at the center. so again i've had two conversations so far about this. it is something i want to do now i have to figure out how toso do it. >>host: before we run ou of timeti we have to talk about benjamin brown french. >> yes wherever you are, i thank you. writing my most recent book starting with physical violence in congress i found roughly 70 physically violent incidents each one could be aic chapter.

's a part of my challenge was how do i tell the story or investigate? and early on in the process i found benjamin brown french he was writing about lincoln in the lincoln white house but he left behind the 11 volume diary with a correspondence a newspaper column and he is amazing. what is wonderful about what he left behind in 1830 through 3271 he died. he looks through his eyes and to see it through his eyes but he arrives in a small town in new hampshire and writes all

of this down but when he comes to congress everybody likes him, he is collegial, he's trying very hard. he is a northern democrat to appease the southerners wanting to do anything it takes to promote his party and protect the union. by the time of the civil war in 1860 and he talks about this in his diary he goes to buy a gun he will carry on his person at all times. my thought and writing the book was if ii can explain how the person who enters washington wanted to appeasewa southerners who buys the gun is ready to shoot them i call that the emotional logic how

much does that make sense to him and the others? that iss interesting of how we understand the coming war so benjamin brown french allowed me to do that so i lived with him at least decade if not more and what is fascinating is he is like the forest count of thehe period. making the footnotes in the book a lot of them say really he was there. something significant happened benjamin brown french is right happen.tching it french is right there he sees it happen. when he has a stroke to go back to the presidency there is french holding his hand. the gettysburg address abraham lincoln up on a platform standing beside him is benjamin brown french.

the assassination who was at the bedside? standing beside his after he dies benjamin brown french. he is therefore everything he is an incredible eyewitness who is very generous to put his thoughts and feelings down on paper he really ends up showing what it felt like to be in that extreme polarized climate and how americans turn on each other to the degree that they did. >>host: where did you find his papers? >> there is a publisher bridge addition from the library of congress many years ago. he adored lincoln. people who write about lincoln know about him. one of my favorite is that someone gave him a fox of the confederate flag under each

foot which lincoln finds very funny or he is in a room with lincoln at the white house lincoln says out loud to a room full of people anybody know how to spell the word missile? french rights what kind of the president is willing to admit to ask a room full of people with no shame? he loveses lincoln but with all these other writings and correspondence is his poetry. when i was finishing the book with the epilogue i'm trying to figure out 17 years later is like the last ten pages i cannot figure how to end it come on french give me something. i'm shuffling through papers and agonizing and discover the year before he died he wrote a

poem of what congress meant it was like he smiled down and saidid here i'm sitting in my office i can see the capital from my office the capital is my home so he was remarkably generous in the way he gave me evidence the book would have been impossiblet without him. >>host: new york go ahead. >>caller. >> thank you very much professor freeman on thent pronunciation of my town but also as a historian. so what words of wisdom would

you give to today's congress what not to do to strengthen the nation of ours that is divided n? am interested in your comments. i love the idea you want to create a whole new cultural thinking. i appreciate that. >> i think people ought to look at historians to come up with solutions that is something i cannot i do. but the time the government has functioned best is when people listen to each other. the idea we are on debate and compromise sometimes that's dirty rottenn nasty we have

seen polarization many times before sometimes extreme polarization but there needs to be a willingness to debate the matter how fierce that can be right now we are in such a polarized moment to right now it's not helping us it's easy to say that sitting in a studio talking to you are don't have a solution how to change that because congress is reflective of a larger view we talk about congress being representative in our smack in the middle of that. i have no brilliant solution. i wish i did but to be an american that is not a useful way to find her way out of the moment we are in how we get beyond that i cannot give you

that answer. >>host: e-mail. has she found readers or her students if they believe the political violence she described ended at the civil war because in history in 19 oh eight finding a dual and fight between the tennessee senator and a constituent one block from the state capital. >> it doesn't end with the civil war. that's a good point it doesn't happen on the floor like it did before and you can see that when louisiana tries to get back into the union and they show up and there were two violent incidents happen after louisiana begins at process. but unlike before the war you

want to let them back in? to remember what this was like? that power dynamic shifted. 's now as you are suggesting that doesn't mean it stops you could say southerners are no longer effective deploying in congress but they are in the south during reconstruction and violence continues among politicians it's an important point to make glad you asked thee question it just shifts it is tempered in some ways and american politics has been violent in a variety of different ways for a very long time but the broader question is how we continue that violence i wish i could offer you aaiat brilliant solution i o not have but it's an important

point to make it isn't like violence suddenly ended. >>host: new jersey go ahead. >>caller: thank you to c-span for another wonderful program and also to professor freeman for your wonderful research and work. i did see you in 2004 giving a presentation at the 200th eyniversary of the dual and i enjoyed that. so with your field of blood text, have you considered the dual in california? broderick was a senator from california and the supreme court justice they filed a dual just outside san francisco but broderick was

killed. given the context of california and slavery in california is that something you thought about? you mentioned there were dozens of other examples but what your thoughts were. >>host: are you an amateur historian? or is this part of your profession? > indirectly. i am the and also a new york city and also i am very involved to be in history in your viewers should know that a visitor center will be open in a couple years. i'm very interested as an amateur historian. >>host: i did not expect that answer. [laughter]

>> incident you are describing is famous and dramatic. what i did for the book precisely as you are suggesting once you start broad and beyond washington was violence between peoplet in congress is exponentially enormous i limited myself to those in washington in the capital when congress was in session because looking at how it was shaping the congress and what americans thought of the state of the nation. i had to stop myself from going beyond that there were any number of incidents that i could have pursued i would be year 57 and working on the book going that way but in the end i was interested in the mix of people in congress from

different parts of the union dealing with violence and an understanding of justice and different political viewpoints and what happens when you put those people together in the house and senate and force themns to deal with contentious issues that puts me into the project when youpr have those populations in a veryna public venue with nation and breaking possibilities what happens in that climate? >> washington dc go ahead. >>caller: i am a big fan of american nations. he has a unflattering episode. i will be very quick. during the revolutionary war soldiers from appellation there is no money to paylv

them. continental congress gave them iou and they could use that to pay their taxes to the state of pennsylvania. then robert morris who is a protége of hamilton. robert morris engineers people can no longer pay their state taxes with the ious. so they are forced to sell the script at 15 percent of face value. and then they end up owning 50 percent of the script and then hamilton and morris shortly after, but the idea

and paid in hard currency gold or silver and tax the veterans so there is the whiskey rebellion but it is unsavory. >>host: we will leave it there. >> that is an excellent point that becomes a controversy in the early part of his time as secretary of treasury. he explicitly says those who comeea forward there should be a way to discriminate between speculators hoping that down the road they would be paid in

full that buying them up for minimal amounts and then discriminate betweens the veterans who really are owed the money and hamilton says now. first of all is not practical because we cannot track how each iou had gone. but but that's how he wants to use them. he says if they are practical as currency than the stated value needs to be what they are worth so that's unfair to those who are given them to begin with that's total leave valid you can seewo his logic and also how that is not fair to many people and at the time people said that it's not the

only thing that said you are doing something that will benefit the speculators and these money men you are so eager to impress with the new government you can see this illogicc but he had his logic but certainly that would be his counter argument. >>host: and tom from denver you are on the air. >> thank you for taking my call. playing jefferson and you defended alexander hamilton. >> that was a long time ago. [laughter] >> here's a funny thing about that. going on to do other things but at the time i don't know

what to call him a jefferson reenactor very well known for doing that. like jefferson our radio show that he was my senior thesis advisor in college. he was becoming interested in jefferson my senior year in college i was already interested in hamilton. i go into his office he was building a model of monticello. i made a snide remark about jefferson and he looked at me. [laughter] he had no idea i was interested in hamilton are he in jefferson. we cross paths at that moment and then i lost touch for a very long time that we crossed paths later when he was doing his jefferson work at the

national endowment for the humanities that decided we would do this debate i remember which state it was a public debate and it was filmed and i remember he made a snide comment about hamilton like it's taken me a lifetime to get to jefferson but i could do hamilton in a weekend and he guy boo'd so i must've put in my two cents that they stood up for him. but i had no idea but it was fun and what an honor to do that with a former teacher of mine and the weirdness having us and up. he was teaching english at the time nothing to do with history at all it was a

wonderful debat debate. cthink i have it on a vhs videotape somewhere and now i can't play it but it was a wonderful event. >>host: and maybe reenact on your podcast. >> maybe not. [laughter] it is american history podcast four of us cohost. we do a deep dive back into history and look at the deeper path. recently there was a show about reparations over slavery. for this week for labor day the history of labor in america. we've done and cultural shows about collecting things but what is wonderful it's conversational it's fun to

listen to. obviously this is self promotional it's fun but historical as well and it is called back story. >>host: we want to close with the affairs of honor that you write the notes on method. >> this book approaches politics in an unusual way. does notxa examine political events or personalities in isolation or reduce them to the level of historical anecdote. it tackles a broader theme to lose sight of perspective aiming at the midpoint between history and detailed analysis of the political narrative using the vantage point of the ethanol historian which is what? >> when you write about the founders, people think of them

in this great man what if you think of the elite to population of men in a particular environment and what they do. i meant looking at the behavior of the population in a place looking at the founders in that way we understand them differently. i want people to think of the founders as great men the individuals in the climate doing smart and not smart things and how we make sense of that. >>host: are a guest for the past two hours joanne freeman. >> thank you for having me. >> reading the things of thomas jefferson as an infidel of the french government it sounds reminiscent. the things said about abraham lincoln and fdr to be a dictato dictator.

it does come with the territory but in the modern political era post-world war ii i have never seen anything like it.