good schools, james, vice chancellor and president of the university of buckingham in england talks about private schools in poor countries elevating the educational standards and setting an example of the countries can learn from. watch this weekend on c-span2. ♪♪ >> now a conversation about the fourth chief justice of the u.s., john marshall. his life, time on the supreme court and impact on american history. this is from george washington's mount vernon. >> that evening, thank you for joining us this evening for our latest digital talk. special hello to our friends and affiliates of the john marshall house and john marshall center for history and civics. we are grateful to the organizations cosponsoring tonight.

i'm at the library center for digital history in addition to my hosting duties this evening, i've held conversations at the washington library we feature interviews america, george washington's world history. i encourage you to check out our most recent episode we published today which explores long-lost journalor of german barbara who participated in the transatlantic slave trade, found byby historians buried in the archives and you can find that episode as well as the rest of our episodes by going to our show's website george washington's podcast.com. we gotta wait show plan for you this evening, wew are going to learn about the marshall house, a little bit about the marshall center and a lot about john marshall himself, the chief justice in many ways supreme court what is today one of our guest argues helps keep theod american union together in its

early years. as this happens, today is march 4, the day of presidential inauguration and on this date in 1801, john marshall administered the presidential host of office to his cousins nemesis thomas jefferson. talk robert about his new book on marshall in a moment, first, we are lucky to have a couple of special guest this evening to tell us more about the importance of preserving the past tout help shape our future. director easy them operations of education at the john marshall house kevin walsh, president of the john marshall center for constitutional history and civics. welcome to utah, thank you for joining us this evening. >> thanks for having us. >> jen, tell us about the john marshall house, what goes on there? >> i am thrilled to talk to you today about the john marshall

house but in order to understand the john marshall house, i'm going to say a bit about virginia for the organization is operated so we've been around 132 years the nations oldest statewide organization so we own and operate a john marshall house, and often these count. i have the opportunity to be the director of operations for all the wonderful historic places but we are also an organization that statewide preservation, there's a lot of places we've worked with john marshall and his family would have interacted with. fornt example, we have been in coordination with the community and advocates to support the

creation of a 9-acre memorial park at the bottom and we've also worked to preserve randolph masonic lodge in both sides were included as part of our annual sites program so we have a wonderful restoration team and we've been able to restore john marshall's, and the county and worked on places like monumental church, aho church marshall foud in richmond. so now i'll get to the john marshall house. the marshall house was built in 17904 he and his family. he lived there until his death. at that time he went to hisr daughter and then his granddaughter before it would end up being for the city. when johnit marshall in 1790, it was already an urban setting.

he owned one entire city block and you could see the house there on the right hand corner. he would have to walk to get to the gina capitol where he would have worked and met hisco colleagues on a regular basis and the house was built in anwn area where his colleagues would have been other lawyers, doctors, very prominent. he also would have had one and p half million, one of the half story laundry small office on that one city block so sometimes it's referred to as an urban plantation and i do want to note that at any given time, between eckstein people on his property, people like brooke, who was enslaveded so we've only begun o

study the history of that presence on the site but we are continuing to research and working to build strong relationships with the people who work there so -- go ahead. >> you go ahead, i got a question about operations currently but continue on the. >> absolutely so well, i'll kind of answer that right now. we have some restrictions in place right now. for all of 2020, we've been offering digital programs because we were open for a little while but the entire time we were offering digital programs and. we are limiting people so we can maintain social distancing and that will start again in april. actually, this is a great -- these are great interior

showings of the home preservation virginia leadership when we ended up acquiring the house and operating the house in 1909, we were able to have credit law of the original furnishings. at this time, we have just under about 50% of the furnishings in the house belonged to john marshall and his family and also on the left, the portrait is of hehis mother but you can see a closet and there's books in the next hour copy of george washington's biography. [laughter] so for those of you were not familiar, he wrote his first washingtonf george and he had a trunk full of his papers delivered to his home. >> i love stories of their

correspondence. can i have this stash of papers? he just imagined how long it could have gone. [laughter] >> that's terrific. thank you very much. how can people find more or learn more about your organization? >> our website is preservation virginia.org, we also have a heavy presence on instagram and facebooky so you can check that out as the larger organization and on marshall facebook page an instagram and if you go to the website, you can find the john marshall house. >> well thank you very much. a nice segue into talking with kevin i would imagine a good amount of time in those spacess thinking about constitutional law in thel early years so could

you tell us about the marshall central? >> absolutely and hosting thank you for hosting this event this evening. i'm looking forward to hearing about his book, he called the final founder and we think marshall one of those underappreciated heroes of american history that did hold the country together a lot of place in the john marshall center is a way of connecting the constitution to classroom civics education, continuing legal education, getting judges and lawyers, zoom right in classroom and i'll provide resources teachers, were founded in the late 80s to support preservation virginia john marshall house truly a treasure here in richmond but we have

expanded outreach in terms of history and education and civics so for example the classroom program we have will give teachers lesson plans were they can teach about rule of law where they can for example, look at what is the role of cheese chief justice in impeachment? for the 220th anniversary swearingen thomas jefferson today. marshall new the first ever president personally. what can teachers bring to the classroom about inauguration, peaceful transfer of power? at -- our name says it all. john marshall center of civics to really bring the constitution alive in classrooms. >> at the moment, you alluded to the classroom but given the pandemic, what is your experience working with teachers

through digital means? >> we are all modeling through together so i think when you have online resources people can use, that's a good thing. every teacher is doing his or her best to provide, i teach law at the university, i have quickly learned how to make interesting presentations so we have found it to be a challenge but the teachers have risen to the challenge. we are all kind of doing this together. >> where and folks reached the marshall center?rs >> john marshall center.org as well special partnership we have right now with preservation virginia save john marshall's road so i say go to save the road.com and join us to

preserve, this is true national treasure. john marshall really led the way in terms of energizing the road but if you don't believe me, many believe he was on the first, john marshall was the first. i guarantee he's not wearing a robe. marshall standardized it the uniform for the judicial branch throughout the u.s. and we are working with preservation virginia to preserve john marshall's road. john marshall center.work. >> i think we got a couple of pictures of the rope itself, to. as we are thinking about the robe, and you're talking about marshall standardizing these things, where does john marshall come down on c wearing or not wearing a wig? >> that was a big>> question, right? i want to say you were awake

like once and then he went home and took off and it didn't really stick so the week was a little aristocratic. it's interesting, these things really did make a difference, people paying attention, i think marshall were a simple rope which he took from the virginia school, it was a gesture toward the public simplicity and impartiality and in some ways was kind of a outreach to the jeffersonian, the election of 1800 was pretty terrible so when it's 1801, i think it meant something. >> was at the rope he wasas wearing? [laughter] >> i want to be really factual about that and say likely? [laughter] so this is been 108 years.

when it opened to the public, as far as we know, this is the robe, we don't know that he has more. he never wrote about it but he did write about the pattern but not having more than one so as far as we know, this is the robe. [laughter] >> to build on what jen said, in 1801, maybe it was the second inauguration, john quincy adams, is a good chance that this thing was at in inauguration since he did so many of them. >> something our conservator noted when he was analyzing the road, there is hair paul made and quite a lot left that's

contributed to the deteriorating in the silk and the rope so it was definitely one. [laughter] >> thank you very much to the both of you for joining this evening and telling us more about the marshall center and the robe. i'd love to see that in person someday. >> i can tell you when. [laughter] is just announced on april 15, we'll have a virtualou unveiling so the robe is returning to the john marshall house april 15 we'll send out, if you follow us on any of our platforms, we will send out announcements so youor can see it. >> that's great. synchronize your watches. thanks so much. all right, that was terrific. now it's my pleasure to welcome to the stage our main yes,

robert. he's an author and journalist at the university of pennsylvania, previous work includes probably the best i'll everun heard, wort president ever, james buchanan is tannins, he's here tonight to talk about his new book, john marshall, the final. >> thank you very much. normally i talked at some ways with the people don't know anything what i'm talking about. [laughter] so now i'm talking practically everybody out there is going to know more than i do about john marshall. >> we will talk about marshall and then quincy adams. >> marshall was the answer on jeopardy friday, the clue in a sense.or

>> will this work out nicely. i do y want to remind the audiee it will have an opportunity to ask questions of you in the second half or the final segment of the t show and you can do tht by typing in the comments wherever you are watching on facebook, youtube or twitter and my colleagues and i will give you a little face time, if you will, with the audience. >> i guess the big question is, you written about james buchanan, what drew you to john marshall? >> let me go back to why i'm interested in history in the first place. my career was as a journalist pretty much but when i was young i grew up outside of philadelphia, a big history buff and he took into philadelphia, so i wrote about this awful

history. the first book i remember getting, just facts about the president. whenever james monroe mother died or chauvin coolidge is favorite, knowing gloves but in any case, these figurines of presidents, i realized he's not a president but a little bit of history that accumulated in my brain in the way i looked at history which is what i can bring to the study of john marshall, not the facts because there are facts all over out there and it'sud this thinking about different things about

american history is what i love about it and why marshall? well, after i had done buchanan, i still speak about buchanan because there isn't another buchanan expert out there but i wanted to see somebody who was important but not all that well-known. i've always thought about the 18th century, i worked at a tv station down the street, sometimes i'd work at night ande i would, the lights are dim and liberty bell is there, i see an loperation of ben franklin and thomas jefferson walking down the street and they would say,

big party last night so i want to know about the rest of their time for what they do. marshall, picked up a marshall biography instead of a hamilton biography, used the word marshall with three exclamation points. he just wasn't a guy who sat there with a pen writing like that. >> brought up as madison, a lot of people probably know marshall for that right there about judiciary but also the fact that he was chief justice, can you get a sense of marshall's life? what does it look like? >> you have to go back to mid

18th century united states. he came from what ben would be called established family, his mother's family but they were only established for couple of generations. if people were in a crowd ac elizabeth because somebody in the 14th century did it and it goes down the line, these people did what they had to do, they did what they did and a lot of people don't understand everybody knew one another. 2600 people, everybody knew everybody in a city that's now in a large city so marshall was

a friend of george washington and maybe it meant something there but certainly with some of ithe west virginia or whatever it's called these days but up the political ladder today except ther steps want as i dont know, they were concrete. people made their way the way they wanted to. marshall virtually went to know school. the year of learning school when he had a minister come in and teach him five seconds yet he

was able to write. george washington didn't go to college either. it was a different kind of growing up and we want to save the founders did this or that. well, they were, they liked to play one thing marshall was, he was sort of like the gym teacher, he was the fastest runner, there's a diary entry of somebody who said jump over a pool that was extended onto people's head. that's what he did.he they didn't have the olympics

then and i he probably did it, it was sort of a rough time as we all know but it was that kind of thing so they went from that whether you were marshall or somebody else and being in the military will quit the military and you start going out with the daughter of a prominent person and then you go to philadelphia because you need to, that's another great one. i know, i love learning about the myths, the courage of this time, marshall wanted to get inoculated from smallpox so apparently richmond where you had to get everybody like anybody else, you had to get

everybody's approval that you would be inoculated. they didn't want to catch it so for him, it was to go to philadelphia so legend is, he walked to philadelphia it's possible when you have to go through weeds and trees to get their so resuming he did, we'll say that he did,. >> let's talk about his relationship with george washington. he mentioned washington a second ago and jen when she was on in the background there, the living room of washington, john marshall, what was their

relationship like? >> i would say marshall was washington's chief acolyte. well, they could have met before because hisld father knew him, e forget valley forge wasn't f600,000, it was in the low tes of thousands, maybe not even that show is he certainly found it, they weren't doing anything, they might plan battles but they were actually having them so they probably met there, probably cross at some time. he was a soldier from new jersey and then he quit but later on,

washington brought in the cabinet he offered him high judicial places, they were furious. there was a time that marshall came with washington to now burning, washington who wanted him to run for congress and marshall saw the proposition, he was a federalist in a republican area but still tried to escape, washington knew he washe tryingo leave and said i'm sorry you are doing this, you are running.

it was not that unusual being friends with washington, when washington died, they write the first f biography of washington. >> let's talk about that because we have some screen o shots from the first volume of that biography in the collection at the washington library, the portrait ofsh washington, what s marshall's intent? what does he hope to accomplish by writing this? >> the thing is, marshall gave the eulogy for washington and philadelphia and we forget it took several days for the news of washington'she death to get o

marshall and philadelphia. it didn't come up there, there wasn't anything and so the writer obviously had to switch horses, get cbs out, i don't think they had gps. anyway. [laughter] but anyway, he doesn't want to write the w biography, he figurd marshall could use the money so they arranged to have a subscription service for this biography and it would be three hrvolumes, i guess because it ws going to come out in three pieces and it would cost i think $5 but it doesn't really matter, a sum of money that was feasible.

marshall was a little slow on this and doesn't quite come out on time and then people ask for their money back and i hate to bring up this negative thing about it, they find the third volume isn't about washington at all so these people wanted the washington biography but there looking for stephen kueng novel, they'll get it. john adams, who of course knows washington, it's like to low, it's years late so in the meantime, there's this guy selling it working as a salesman for this publisher and philadelphia named we and he

picked up on the idea that i could write a better one than this and he writes the cherry tree and all the stuff we know, i don't know if he had wooden -- but he qualifies, he calls it some sort of euphemism that's not fiction and it not o nonfiction, it's somewhere in the middle. [laughter] but marshall was incredibly difficult, i'm sure he viewed it as being an everybody's house with the bible and their kidsid drawings or whatever anybody else would have but it is, lots of famous people have written biographies from washington,

washington irving, there are other dominant people, not just historians who love washington so i think marshall wanted everything about washington to be in this book. he viewed him as this wonderful man and wanted to write a wonderful biography. >> as a writer, you find find yourself in a battle with marshall who labored over him and sometimes work and sometimes it doesn't. >> i tried to, in my book there are little essays about american history that marshall inspires me to write. marshall almost became president, and the craziness of

the elections and i have a section of other people who could have been president or who i think could have been presidentnt. henry clay, jefferson davis and so on but i think yes, even though marshall buchanan, i knew i was in there. and i know i view things differently from what i called real stories who want the facts out and write a big book, i don't want to write a big book.k i want to write a story book for people to be inspired to look up things. we know everybody died and

starve to death that's not the real story, that is part of the story, they'll start to left, we wouldn't have had a revolution, would we. >> will be coming up on questions in a few moments, there's want to remind you if you have a question, type it into the comments, we'll collect those turn to your questions about ten or 15 minutes or so. one of the key things you discuss in your book is this idea that marshall in the early 19th century keeps the union together in the period after the constitution adopted, how did the court accomplish this?

>> it had nothing to do, he had nothing to do. he couldn't have had a federal problem because the country just started. >> one of the things people would be appalled at, he was supreme court justice, he ran up and negotiated a peace treaty with, in england. one of the reasons marshall detained chief justices, third chief justice went off to negotiate as well soccer. of course another thing i loved, people forget how the country is

so massive in comparison to other places but half the people know what they were thinking, days, if not weeks to get a letter there. how does madison tell jefferson what is happening in france if they were lucky, three or four works to get their message. when marshall was negotiating, how did he know what the administration wanted him to do? so i feel that marshall is sitting there waiting for the right job but he was secretary of state and chief justice at the same time, john roberts was

secretary of state, he'd have to quit one or the other but who knows. in any case, he finally finds chief justice job, we can see where things are going, where the conflicts are going between the newly found parties, publicans and he can see what might happen between legislative and executive things, people not looking at something and he builds up the supreme court or courts in general as arbiters. >> in a sense, i feel like it was reserving the country, you can't prove it but i don't see anybody else saving the way you did. washington of course but now washington is on.

>> if anybody watches hamilton can understand once he's gone, the beginning of the country, somebody has to take over all these people, they are pretty smart people, adams and jefferson but they need somebody like marshall. if it wasn't marshall, it would have had to been somebody else. >> part of what you are y doingn your book is explorations of american history my left theio opening introduction for you talk about your father dragging you to the different places when you were a kid and is a graduate of university of virginia, i have to ask, would you mind telling a story about the time your father essentially -- not only out deficits will? not a friend of mine knew my

father, he was a lawyer and a municipal judge for some time but he was a big history buff. 1961 when it was a civil war centennial, he determined we were going to lead at christmas time and take a drive around. it was frankly more civil war and that and he is like an outward.ng we go into the library or wherever the archives were and he says to this guy, i want to bring out jefferson's will. judge so-and-so, that so-and-so said i could come here and the guy must be little and he's

just, we can't do that, we can'o bring out that. said so-and-so said it was okay and finally the guy does and my father photographed it and reframed it and put it on his wall and now i have it on my wall because i'm sure whatever they dour now with jefferson's will digitally is much better than what i have so --ib >> that's a fun story and speaks to the fact that you were instilled early on, there's a chapter in your book you talk about that, the importance of studying three and right now we are talking about investing in

funding and how much we should be putting a towards things like technology, engineering and math and often the case things like humanities, the support. >> i would deliver, my kids also liberal arts school and david in one of his thoughts, we printed in the pioneers book, first about how history is no different than any of the other, poetry and if you don't study history a little bit, we talked often about the fallacy of the media, what's happening now is the most important thing well,

it's this argument, yes off course it's all around you, all around you what's happening today. like somebody was a the greatest and i will say past year because this is what's happening now and when i would go, it was for the buchanan book, the 2016 election and people said my god, is the worst possible thing. 1856, 1800. if you go back, america goes back that far, one of the things i put in my book is that marshall's great decisions were great but when you read, it's almost like you could have a

sitcom. madison, if you wrote a sitcom, it would be too much to go into it but one of the basic things, marshall at secretary ofnd stat, getting his commission out so he is conflicted but who would allow marbury versus madison? it would be appalled and say a conflict of interest. they are looking for the last three supreme court justice t hearings, i won't get into it but their particular conflict of interest is nothing, the greatestf decisions america has. >> at the end of the day, you called your book john marshall final founder, why is marshall

the final founder? >> is the last man standing, the will and mind of founders. there were two people who were cofounders who lived longer than him james madison but they retired. he wanted to be retired but madison was retired, marshall was chief justice when he comes, i live in philadelphia, the place on marshall died, the same hospital in the yes, he comes up, i forget where he was at the time, he rides all the way up,

have a man, but the guy who dies on the operating table basically. but he's working until then and a long career. he's only part of it. i hope people get to read my book the founding father, it wasn't really that hard. there are only 3 million people in the first, white people, i'm sorry. people who could even less than that so if you wanted to be a founding father, a little mafia

in you, you probably would be able to. >> we are about to turn to audience questions but i have to ask, not john quincy adams? [laughter] >> i guess so. john quincy, he did grow up with his father but he was a little young when he started, still ten or 11 with his father so i don't count him, he's too young. >> the roger of the founding fathers. [laughter] >> we could probably talk all night but let's get some audience t questions, how do you see marshall's personality with the heavy guy, probably easy to

look at this guy and say he's a lawyer and very serious. >> he was one of the greatie partiers so they did a thing called writing circuit, each had certain states, he had north carolina and virginia so he was at raleigh, the capitol with 700 people. can you imagine the capitol 700 people? he got to raleigh, each night he would go to the same pub no the same people and the big drink of the time, i don't think of team, is awh fortified one but marshal

had a club in richmond, if you a pull and not a horseshoe but a circular thing with the hole in the middle and that was his thing. he was also, when he recorded his life, he was a young teen. he's in law school and in his notes you find little things, littletl inscriptions like junir high or probably and john so

he's a wonderful guy and he had a tough part but he wanted to get things done -- i don't know, another thing, he said we could only drink on rainy days and a young justice to go out and pulw back the curtain to see what it is and he would say it's raining somewhere. he was like a jimmy buffett of the supreme court justice. [laughter] >> now i have the image of marshall in a hawaiian shirt. thank you very much for your question. adam will like to know, he knows buchanan started his life, in his early career, he crossed

paths were influenced by john marshall? >> they all each other, once adams -- once buchanan comes to washington as congressman, he's got to know the supreme court and whether he was influenced by marshall, i don't know but like anyplace else, at the time he started, you had to be federalist and it's just the way it was when he finally converted. he was mostly influenced by henry clay who was the generation federalist. >> very good. thank you. another question from make use, be true to say he appreciated

for his every hold together? >> he was a great friend of john adams. one of the mythical conversations was when they find a new chief justice of marshall, i forget who he wanted.d. it doesn't matter, he said so and so and adams said no, i think it will be you. or he really -- they were all sort of friends. i know more about philadelphia so one thing marshall did, a supervisor of washington d.c., is down the secretary of state

and adams says i'm going back to quincy's job so feel it's possible marshall was the first to speak in the white house because he s did bunk in their while he was supervising. i don't know if it's true he was building at the capitol and the white house but before his family could move in. >> thank you very much and we've got time for two more questions. who was some of the founding fathers and the importance of that time marshall was closest too and agreed with most? we talked about a lot in that. but the women he was closest too and who be aligned with ideologically? >> ogcertainly adams but just ln you know your enemies, there are

three ways jefferson didn't like him. you mentioned this, they were antagonist, they would have been in our alleged sitcom, the angry neighbors. they were second adams cousins and then his father in law married jefferson that was a different party and he is the last federalist and they broke up very quickly. however, you have to remember this may have all of these, when marshall close approves, congress and presidency but in

that day and then republicans have the president and congress every single judge in america was a federalist so can you imagine if people were complaining about the supreme court, biden is that we have the supreme court, it's what jefferson was facing, and avalanche of our positions in the court. >> that's one reason they survived so long, they were able to accomplish their goals. thank you very much, great question. final question goes to lisa, in your researching of marshall, is there one thing or did you -- the ability to note chief justice marshall?

>> like i say, the other life in the white house when the president were george bush the younger or barack obama, i would have loved to have been there when they said you couldn't go out with him or something like this, something they alreadyg know or reprimanding him for leaving the butter out or something. similarly, i try to imagine his daily life. he just seemed to like his life. he loved his life even though she became a wreck after she died in childbirth. he always wrote letters when he was ins washington and insisted letters back from her, he seemed to have this great life at the

club, chief justice and yet a 23-year-old so people have these lives and when you watch john adams on tv, sometimes you get the idea that oh my god, how is he living? he seems like a downer all the time. he has black shades over him but when marshall had, i just think she had, when i read something factual, i try to imagine what he's thinking and that's mainly what history is about and i tell everybody to find a little piece ofom history, my mentor and i, e

decided to start a podcast called standup history. that's the life of podcast, i don't know many people who listen to them except us and we have such fun and we are just trying to find the viewers aspect of history. american history, when you try to encapsulate it, you find something you're interested in and you are in your head and say what really were they doing? what were they thinking? >> check out the podcast for the episode. [laughter] >> that's right. i won't get into it but it's about a guy named daniel siegel

who is a fascinating character who everybody knew when he was alive in the middle part, really part of the 19th history and nobody knows who he is now. >> that's a good teaser. thank you very much for spending your time with us, appreciate you talking to us about john marshall. ... >> and is week i believe. my colleagues are at the university of central florida and it david has written a recent book about the conspiracy of - and be sure to check out this series which will take

place over the course of march and april and may. and you can explore the founding moment in considerable detail for you and you can find it more information about shells lecture series and about the david had talking to watch the replay of had talked with replay of any of our topics by going to www. . mount vernon . org. thanks again robert and thank you to kevin i just want to thank patrick and samantha steiner behind the scenes there as well for operating the cameras working to collect all of these questions. your help is appreciated as usual could not have done it without you cannot everybody. we hope to see you back euro soon. >> book tv, on "c-span2", top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. saturday 10:00 p.m. eastern, on afterwards, in her book, insanity defense former

democratic california congresswoman and national security insider, jane look at pressing national security issues. she's interviewed by former homeland security secretary during the obama administration. a sunday five and noon eastern, on in-depth. the conversation with military historians. and is more than two dozen books on morrison the 20th century. including a soon to be released operation and pedestal. sunday and a 10:00 p.m. eastern, in his book, really good schools, james, chancellor and president at the university of buckingham in england, talks about private schools in poor countries limiting their educational standards and sending an example that other countries can learn from. watch book tv this weekend, on "c-span2".

presidential historian as often talked with our c-span viewers and listeners for the past 30 years. professor brinkley was educated at ohio state and georgetown and is taught at tulane, and university of new orleans in addition to that he has spent his past 17 years at rice university in houston rated author of some 20 books, focusing on subjects from secretary of state to jimmy carter and theater roosevelt gerald ford and fdr. and recently, we invite him to talk with us for a long time, six hours . to. >> on this episode, here are some of the conversations with douglas brinkley, subscriber you get your podcast. up next, baylor university history professor robert elder confederacy advocate, john