>> i'm david rubenstein and i have the honor and privilege of interviewing joseph ellis about his latest book "the cause: the american revolution and its discontents, 1773-1783" . welcome to our show joseph ellis. >> pleasure being with you, david. >> for those who don't know joseph ellis he is one of the country's leading scholars on the revolutionary war era. he is a person whose written 13 books on the subject.

he is a graduate of the college of william and mary, a got his phd at yale. his opener of the national book award. his latest book is an explanation of why we went to war with the british and why the british ultimately ended the war unsuccessfully from their point of view . i would say of all of joseph ellis's book i enjoyed this one the most and lord more from this book than any of the other booksso thank you for writing this book . >> i'm glad to hear that. the author of a book is perhaps the most myopic person in terms of understanding how it will be received but i'm happy with it and i hope other people will agree with you. if you like the book founding fathers which is about the 1790s, i think you'll like this one which is about the 1770s. and i didn't know what i was doing 48 or 35 years ago when

i started writing about the late 18th century but it turns out i was trying to write a history of the american founding and it turned out i was doing it backwards . and this book should come first chronologically but i don't think i could have written it a few years ago. i've learned something since then thank god so you will it's going to do well when you send it out into theworld . >> what attracted you as a young man to devote your career to the american revolutionary war and eight and the heroes ofthat period ? >> i didn't even major in history in college, i majored in philosophy. i couldn't afford to go to law school and yale picks me

up, god knows why. nobody ever said how i got into yale and at yale i came under the influence of a historian named edmund morgan and he was an american and he set me on my course. another of my mentors there this guy called woodward i worked along with him and i asked him if i could write my dissertation on thomas jefferson . he said you're not old enough to write a biography. you have to have lived life before and so i didn't try to do that for another 25 years. that's where i caught in my guest at william and mary in williamsburg unless it had some kind of influence there but i'm stuck with the late 18th century . because i've written biographies of three presidents, washington, adams and jefferson come times i get identified as a presidential historian. i don't think of myself as a presidential historian.

i have written about the three first presidents but at any rate, and morgan let me write the way i wanted to and i think teaching at a liberal arts college allowed me to work on my own story in a way that aimed at the general audience rather than just the other group of professional historians. there you go. >> let's go to some of the key points in your book and i'll remind everybody i'll be asking questions for another 20 minutes or so and then there will be about 10 minutes or so where you can have your questions submitted so submit them to the chat room and i will read them subsequently whenwe get to that section .av what do you mean by the cause? why did you call your book because where did that phrase come from ? >> obvious good question.

the in the early stages of the war for american independence, nobody called the american revolution. the britishcalled the american rebellion . the colonists starting in 17 7475 started talking about the common cause. which is at the time meant the colonies response to the british occupation of massachusetts and especially boston . and the rallying of the institutions to support them in response to what wascalled the coercive acts . and the common cause then just got reduced to the cause . and it became a convenient way label, a convenient kind of canopy in which people and colonies and individuals with different political agenda could come together enand they might not agree on what they were for but theyknew what they were against .they were against the british policy and great britain's attempts as they put it to

enslave them and so the cause becomes a cover alter. that stays in place till the end of the war. and it's a convenient way for people to leave but they all agree. >> the conventional view that i've learned in school was the british wanted to pay for the effects of having soldiers here following the a french and indian wars also known as the seven-year wars so they opposed a lot of taxes and the taxes were not popularbut your view is it wasn't the revenue so much thebritish wanted . they wanted to make it clear they were in control of the colonies , is that right? >> that's right. starting in the wake of the end of the treaty of paris in 1763 great britain gets a third of this huge area including canada and they decided they got to actually govern it and because up till

now the phrase purchased was benign neglect. now that they've reached this level of world power they got to act like one so they begin to as you say impose taxes. why i think it wasn't a money issue but a power issue is that the actual cost of enforcing the legislation, putting troops there, having people collecting revenue was greater than the revenue raised by the taxes so britain had about 140,000 pound debt and they were hoping to reduce it but they were mostly holding to assume control over the colonies. and the colonies perceived that control as they put it this sounds a bit paranoid but as they saw it as an attempt for a plot to enslave

them. there was some truth to that. mainly not that the british intent to enslave but once you surrender control to parliament you couldn't be sure how far they would go. and each month the british made in 1770 seems to confirm the diagnosis that they're trying to spite them so by the time you get to 717 five and 75, 76 the americans believed that great britain which is about to send 32,000 troops and 10,000 terrorists toinvade them , great britain is trying to enslave them and in fact what the british managed was all they want to do is make it into colonists. second-class british citizens to be sure but not slaves. nonetheless, that misunderstanding persists and the british decision to militarize this conflict in 1774 might stand as the

greatest blunder in the history of british statehood. if you want, i think american readers might be able to understand the british thinking and british dilemma in the war. possibly for the first time. the world power running over with confidence, certain of its invisibility both economically and militarily steps in to a quagmire that is unnecessary and unwinnable war. that sounds pretty familiar to me. so the colonies, from your point of view they didn't want to be independent. until the moment of the declaration of independence. what they wanted was to have their relationship with the british government and basically each colony would have its own relationship. they were dying to have the united states of america,is that right ? >> you're right.

the reason i'm saying it's such a blunder is once the war starts going badly for the british by 1777, 1788 the british say will give you everything you wanted. will let your own legislatures do that and let you the continental congress. if they said that in 1775 we would never have had a rose revolution but by then it's too late. too many towns have been destroyed, too many women have been raped and missed the opportunity. you point out in your book americans tprobably think this the american colonies would be valuable economically but in those days it was not the american colonies but the libyan hecolonies where the money was. is that a fair understanding and the british were more worried about their money to be made from the caribbean colonies than they were for the money from the american colonies, was that a fair description? >> that's true, especially jamaica.

jamaica is more profitable than all the 13 colonies put together and when they come into the warin 1778 , the british devote the bulk of their military resources to protecting their hold on the caribbean. and that's what they're most afraid of. so again, another contemporary term, you ever hear of the domino effect? they're afraid if they let the americans go then canada will go and then the caribbean will go. so their fixation on suppressing the american rebellion is based on a belief that dave if they let that happen their entire empire might very well collapse. >> in your book you point out that the colonial leaders are

sending entreaties to king george all the time picking he's surely the nice person. if only he knew how bad the parliament was he would handle this appropriately but he turns out i think you will point out he was worse than the parliament in terms of thecolonies ? >> it is. there's a consensus that parliament is a tyrannical body intending to impose its will on them. they begin to develop the argument that george iii doesn't know what parliaments doing . john dickinson, one of the early revolutionaries develops this argument. if only george iii newwhat was going on he stopped it all . and pretty soon over time they come to the realization that banking on george iii is a hopeless cause. because nobody is more committed to imposing imperial power on thecolonies than george iii .

and when the war is over and they're looking for scapegoats erthe first thing you do when there's a war is look for scapegoats. they should have fashionedon george v but they end up fact passing on the generals . not so much cornelis and or but then george jermaine, the secretary of defense. and because if you pass on george iii your passing on the whole empire and at any rate before he begins to lose his mind, he doesn't lose his mind. before he becomes mentally depraved e, george iii exercised the greatest imperial power of any british king since the glorious revolution. and he's the real scapegoats. >> was george washington a military genius to win the war with so few troops? a lot of times is troops

weren't even close to barely but or was he just lucky that the british bubbled their effort to win was he a genius for the british bubble or both ? ba>> washington himself would say he was lucky. he said winning the war was like astanding miracle . it's like god was on his side. the way i put it is tas a general washington was not that effective. he lost more battles than he won. if you think about it most of the great generals in world history starting with hannibal through napoleon and rommel and robert e lee and up losers. washington wasn't a great general but he ended up a winner. and at some point he understood a basic strategic reality that became all-consuming and crucial. that he didn't have to win

the war. the british had to win the war. it's a lot easier not to lose . as long as he kept the continental army back and as long as the colonies stayed united behind him the british cause was hopeless. then he was right about that. but there is a kind of resilience to him and to the ordinary troops in the continental army who are the real heroes in this book. ordinary troops in the continental army who 10 to 15 percent were african-americans. they're the ones who deserve the real credit. it's a 7 and a half year long marathon and it's a war that's more vicious than and barbaric than we imagined. if we had matthew brady photographs of the civil war

we think of it differently. we had artists like goya instead of the ones like trumbull we think of it differently but more americans died in the american revolution per capita than any war in american history save the civil war. if you get into the countryside it's really barbaric . the final battle of the war, the most important battle at the end is the battle at yorktown where george washington in effect gets cornwallis to surrender but the french were indispensable . why were the french so interested in helping the americans that they have some old terrier motive or did they escape the just hate the british more than they like us? >> mostly the latter. everything was payback time for having lost the french and indian war and the americans opposing the british were opposing francis lethal enemy. and it turns out by the way the british spent so much money helping us that they begin to go bankrupt and it's

for that reason they have to call the stateshigeneral and that's what starts the french revolution . but without the french both in the war and especially the last battle of the war, we couldn't have won the war. at that moment. we wouldn't have lost it but yorktown is mostly a french raoperation. the french navy arrives just in time. the french jigare masters of trench warfare and of moving canada and there's only one american military activity during that battle that's an attack on one of the fort and it's led by therhode island regiments of the almost entirely african-american soldiers . it becomes the leading combat unit in the continental army but mostly black and they take the rest of it is a

french victory, french the ation and when american expeditionary force arrived in france in 1970 to help the french give one of their staffofficers , they said to tell lafayette we have arrived. it's our time to pay you back. so the battle ofyorktown occurs in 1781 . cornwallis is too embarrassed to kind of show his face at the time of the surrender so he doesn't do that but the british surrender. why did it take two years to negotiate the treaty of paris and what was going on ? >> it's two more years and there plare scrimmages that keep going on and people are continuing to die especially john law who had become one of the major figures of the american government and he's one of the people that believes it's also a war for

emancipation of blacks but that the americans have to decide whether to assign a separate treaty with great edbritain because the french are being draggedout by their obligations to spain etc. . because it's dragged out, the continental army is up in just north of west point in newburgh. and as i think you know from the book, the newburgh what do they call it? it's almost an insurrection by the army. asking washington to leave them because they haven't been paid for over a year. they're starting. and they think when the war ends, they're going to lose any leverage to get there pensions and they're probably right about that. so they athreaten to exercise

two and washington of years before them. it's one of the more important species in his life . effectively saying we cannot repudiate the valueswe are fighting for . we will not leave you with this and i ask you i tell you you must not do this. and they file them at that moment it's one of the first washington when later told george washington refuses to become gta dictator, george iii says if he does that, there will be the greatest man in the world. and at that moment he was. you think about it, that'snot what caesar did. that's not what cromwell did or lookwhat napoleon will do . that's not what castro will do . dictators tend to believe that they are the revolution and difficult times separating themselves from it . >> we have questions from those that are viewing and let me begin with anna. what set you on the path to becoming a historian?

what sparked your interest in history? >> gosh. i think reading biography. i came to history through biography. and i love biography cause there was always a center of this topic. i thought look, we all come into this world the same way and we all leave the same way . what can we learn from people who were here before us, some 1000 years before us. that's perhaps an adolescent way to come to this history but as i said they didn't i didn't major in history, i majored in philosophy and i decided to go in the history for many reasons as i said because i couldn't pay for law school and also because through history you could raise questions that philosophy usually addressed.

i thought i was an intellectual historian whatever the heck that meant . and so it's a strange path but it worked out for me. >> from mark we have a question. what role did free african-americans play in the revolution ? >> free african-americans. the freest of new england which had the greatest number of free african-americans served in both the new england militia and then the continental army. about 10,000 over time. roughly the same number of free blacks who were escaped to the british army served in the british army. the british army they were er not allowed to serve incombat units . the american army they were. and the service of african

american army was the last time we had a genuinely integrated american military force until the korean war. so i featured billy lee in the book as a profile. billy isgeorge washington's manservant is with him the whole war . and washington nreason in his will . and on the upside there's a man named harry washington who escapes from mount vernon and serves as serves the british and ends up being evacuated out of new york at the end of the war going to nova scotia and eventually to sierra leone. interesting pattern but one black man serves the cause with the commander-in-chief and the other goes and pursues his own freedom with the british and eventually achieved it but when he gets to sierra leone he helped lead a movement, a resistance wool claiming ironically there being taxed

without their consent. it's two different black men usingdifferent courses for the same reason, liberty . >> suppose the americans had lost the war, and history have been different? would we eventually have become free or is it too hard to predict ? >> if we had, it depends how we lost it. if we lost it in a real military way and they could have lost at the battle of new york and long island they would have taken on the american elitists including washington, jefferson and carried them tover to england in a show trial, hung them, but there are severed heads on spikes around most of westminster. and if they lost the war towards the end and the

american army just disintegrated and yorktown didn't happen it would have been a more peaceful negotiation and we would have begun to see 50 years earlier the creation of something called thebritish commonwealth . we would have been the first followed by canada and australia and new zealand to i remain in the empire and economically connected to the empire but have our own political independence. >> here's a question from hannah, can you tell us what you're working on now and what you're currently reading ? >> what am i working on now? when you finish a book and your half finished you go all over the place to advertise it. i'm thinking about the next book. i mentioned this to you earlier and i'll share it with the audience. a book that asks the question why the founders failed to end slavery. i do think they failed and that's atragedy that could

have happened differently . and while i do think there are among the greatest leaders in american history in political terms and creative terms i think they failed on that all-important issue . and there are reasons that i think we haven't thought about . what am i reading now? i'm reading a book about the red sox in the glory years of their last pennant race. and i'm hoping that it turns out to be a predictionof what they do this year . >> so what would you say was john adams most important contribution and why was he chosen to be the first vice president ? >> actually adams most important contribution was made earlier in the game in the 1760s and early 70s. you can see this in the film and he's used to recognizing that american independence is

inevitable. and that america as he put it was looking for a messiah that would never call. later on it becomes vice president because he gets the second number of votes after washington in the election of 1789. he hates the vice presidency. he says it's i guess the most ridiculous idea ever invented by modern man. but one of the things that some listenersmight be surprised by , the first four presidents of the united states, washington, adams, jefferson and madison did not regard the presidency as the capstone of their careers. they regarded it asan epilogue . adams thought his greatest contribution came in the run-up to the revolution. washington's contribution was made during the war,winning the war . epperson believed his best contribution was the

declaration of independence. madison believed his best contribution was leading up to the constitutional convention. we overvalue the presidency there. i would also make the case in my own view that none of the early american presidents ever run for president in the kind of political conditions required now. they would regard it as an active constitution . >> we have two minutes left, here's another question. where was the average american about the war as it was being fought given that battles were small and dispersed in time and geography ? >> this is the thing but i'll try to be brief because ourou time is limited . the local l level its safety and inspection arecreated in 75 . that make it impossible for someone living anywhere in america no matter how far away from remaining neutral during the war. that probably would be the biggest group, 40 or 50

percent. they rojust would love to get on to be with their ordinary lives but they're required to make a commitment and if you don't make the commitment to the cause, that's where the cause is appraising him. your numbersare going to shun you . you're eventually going to be banished. you're not going to be killed but you're going to be forced to face the fact that your cast out of the congregation. and it's because of that the british can never win the war because they can win every battle and after every battle as soon as they leave the other side takes over. unless the war stays with them they're going to be punished it's the war at the ground level that makes it impossible for the british to win the war and ordinary americans are forced to take a clear position in a way that many of them would prefer not to have done. >> we have 30 seconds left. what is the main message of this book you would like somebody to take away in 30

seconds ? >> we're fortunate to have had a group of people leaving us at the beginning who guarded the public interest g better than the popular interest in charge. it's a republicbut not a democracy . and how much we only ordinary soldiers in the continental army and it should go back to them. the capacity for irony and paradox. this is why the subtitle is and its discontents. when we and the war, we are incapable of dealing with the native american issue effectively and the slavery issue effectively because the government is a federation of sovereign states. it is the all-purpose, no bonus. the united states is a plural, not a singular noun that leads us to tragedy .