once we figured out where we were going to land in terms of within which principles. >> i any ywant to thank you. >> history bookshelf features popular writers in the past decade. it's every saturday at noon eastern. joe environment ellis talks about his book "american creation," triumphs and tragedies at the founding of the republic. the book recounts the findingst united states. during this hour long event hosted by the new york hiss tore historical society, joseph ellis is interviewed by richard

brookhighser. >> we're very proud to welcome two distinguished speakers this evening. they both contributed to shaping our nation. joseph j. he will sis the ford foundation professor of history at mt. holioke college. he is author of several books and the recipient of several prestigious awards including notably the pulls pull pulitzer prize in hist rich. his most recent work is "american creation: try you haves and tragedies at the republic" is called subtle and brilliant. we're also pleased to welcome back richard brookhighser. among his many books are "america's first dynasty," "alexander hamill son: american" and "what would the founders

do." he was also the curator at the new york historical society. he is a regular contributor to the national review and writes column for the new york observer. so now before we begin this terrific program this evening, i would ask as always that you please turn off your cell phones and now join me in welcoming our guests to the new york historical society. thank you. >> we're both federalists. so that's all that really matters. before we begin, i want to embarrass our guest by adding a little more praise.

we've been in a founder's revival for the last 10 or 12 or perhaps more years. and like the founding itself, it's been a collective enterprise. there are many writers involved in that making different contributions. but also like the founding, there's been an indispensable man. and i believe that's joe ellis. he was there at the beginning of the founders revival. he brought the knowledge and the unimpeachable credentials of the academy and he joined them with a literal, readable style. it's a pureless combination. and i'm very pleased to be here. and i greatly enjoyed your book which i finished yesterday. so just taking off that introduction, you -- >> i'll take it. i'll take it. >> no, but you talk about the

numbers of people who made the founding. and you say that, you know, the most prominent ones that you're going to be discussing are sort of the obvious first string. >> developed on what i call the casa blanka principblanca princ. >> also you devoted more space and more space than i've ever seen to a man who is mentioned in every book on this period but not really gone into enough. he was a remarkable, very unusual character. he was also a man of color. so tell us all about this guy. he was quite a character. >> i discovered this guy. actually, he was more well known in the late 19th century. theodore roosevelt wrote about him at one point in time. he said he was the greatest person to ever come out of alabama which might not necessarily be the highest

compliment. but he was a mixed blood. he was three quarters white and one quarter creek. his father was scottish and had his estate confiscated and went back to scotland. his mother was half french and half creek. but because creek society was matrolineal, he was regarded as full-blood creek. he had a classical education in charleston, south carolina. he read latin and greek. he spoke or wrote french, spanish, english, and greek. he was well read so that when the americans announced at the end of the revolution that according to the treaty of 1783 all the land between the alleghenies and mississippi was

now american territory. he said we never signed that treaty. he is also a totally unscrupulous character. he is the talleyrand of the southwest. and washington and his secretary of war henry knox identify him as the one guy who could be able to control the creek nation. the creek nation is sort of like the south. they have a lot of other tribes that depend upon them, cherokee, choctaw. if we can sign a model treaty with them, we can avoid indian removal. this is a big, big deal. one of the great failures of the founding is the inability to reach a just settlement with the native-americans. and washington and knox devote most of his first term -- this is the thing washington really cares about.

nobody's written about this enough. >> he had a lot of dealings himself with various -- >> during the french and indian war wouldn't necessarily clue you into the fact that he was as -- he changed by this time, washington had. he really wanted to avoid indian removal because he believed that the native-american populations had a right to the soil. and to dispossess them was to violate the principles of the revolution. and knox agreed with him. in fact, when you read some of knox's stuff, it's almost like a culture anthropologist today writing about the need to preserve these -- and what they want to do is create a series. my chair is positioned in such a way that i'm looking at only half of you. so let me try to look over here periodically. what they want to do is create a series of enclaves or homelands between the alleghenies and the mississippi that will allow the

native-americans to be protected. and the key political decision which in fact still obtains, that's how we got casinos, is that the native-americans are sovereign nations. they're just as sovereign as england or france or italy. >> didn't john marshal -- >> marshal's decisions later on qualified that a little bit. but marshal who is a protege of washington and worshipped the ground he walked on, he thinks he's acting in washington's legacy and the cherokee decisions of 1830 and 1833. he calls them quasai nations. but the executive branch of the government is the place to deal with them. and with the support of, you know, the senate, then you can

pass treaties. those treaties are law. the federal government issen in obliged to regard the laws as invaluable. and washington thought it was his personal word, too. so he signs a treaty with mcgillivray. he invites him to come to new york. >> and this was a great show. >> it's a big deal. >> they drink every night with washington and with knox. the congress tauz kes a recess greet them. they are treated with more ceremonial splendor than any ambassador from england or france. and in some sense, that's sensible. this treaty is more important. because whether we're going have war on the borders for the duration. they sign the treaty.

mcgillivray agrees to the terms. mcgillivray thinks that ultimately the united states is going to dissolve. >> not a foolish opinion. >> no. it's because he's reading the european experts who all believe that this republic will not survive. you know, what is lincoln's words, whether this nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. and so he thinks it's okay. he's a realist. >> this is his holding. >> yes. if they want to pay me money, they have to pay me money. he needs to be bribed. and his other chiefs need to be bribed. he'll sign this treaty. the problem with the treaty from the american side is that they cannot enforce it. there are so many settlers coming from georgia and south and north carolina moving across the alleganies they can't stop them. knox says it would have required a military force of 50,000

troops. this at a time when the total size of the american army is 2,000. >> right. >> okay. and washington says what will it take? a chinese wall? in some sense, a just solution to the native-american problem is made impossible by democracy. >> because these people are free to -- >> these are individuals performing their happiness. they want land, right? and here are some numbers. in 1783, at the end of the war, there are 5,000 whites west of the alleganies. in 1790 -- in 1800, in the second census, there are 500,000. >> well -- >> you can't stop them. you just can't stop them. and so indian removal becomes inevitable. >> and -- >> and washington doesn't want it. and mcgillivray keeps thinking

i'll beat them. i've got 5,000 warriors i can call at a moment's notice. and there is great correspondence from mcgillivray who says we ran into this group of georgian that's want to settle in our country, creek country. there are 300 families. and they negotiated with me. and they said will you let us live in your kingdom? and mcgillivray says i juggled with them. i juggled with them. and i left them unclear. i told my braves, if they settle, kill every one of them. >> but now he dies himself very soon after. >> he does. he's got syphilis, alcoholism, all kinds of other problems. >> and does the creek nation suffer? >> yeah. they pretty much dissolve. when real removal comes under jackson in 1830 and up to '36, there's not much left of the creek nation to remove.

it's disintegrated. >> one of the points you made which i guess it fascinated me because i just reviewed a book about thomas payne. so this was kind of the -- >> not necessarily your kind of guy. >> well, look -- the greatest journalist who ever lived. >> okay. >> these are the times that try men's souls. that is the greatest lead that was ever written, maybe ever will be written. >> he's the first embedded journalist. >> the first embedded journalist? he is writing it on a drum head by a campfire. and you just, you know, you just have to honor that performance. >> right. >> but you make the point in talking about year 1776 that payne, he's also very much part of the picture, common sense is a huge hit. it has an effect.

but instead, the american revolution, while actually being a revolution goes at an evolutionary pace. you talk about that a little bit. because that's not, you know, when you read history, when you turn on the television, you know, and you either see the things that are happening now or you read about what happened in the past, evolutionary pace is not the phrase that often comes to mind. >> most revolutionaries are not regarded as could eed conserva. adams most especially. certainly payne doesn't fit in that regard. that's the reason you're mentioning him. if you're the kind of person who believes that justice delayed is justice denied, then you won't agree with me. and a good many historians on the left would find -- will find and have found this argument

unacceptable. but here's the argument. one of the reasons the american revolution succeeded and created a stable set of republican institutions, the first republican western history over this area of land was that the pace of the revolution was controlled. i say they're really good at pace and space and they're really bad at race. and by pace, i mean people like adams and washington, too, recognize that if -- there was a radical agenda attached to the revolution. what do you mean by radical? now we would call a liberal agenda. it is the liberal mandate. women should be given the vote and regard as equal. >> and they did get it in new

jersey. >> they did. that was a total accident. >> but the politicians took advantage of it. >> they did. >> for a while. then they closed the loophole. >> yeah, they were made scapegoats. there was this horribly corrupt election and what has changed? there was a spasm of we have to fix this. and so the poor women were made the scapegoats. >> they d before there was mayor daily, there was new jersey. >> yes, right. >> but there was a radical agenda. the american revolution is a revolution. it's not just a war for independence. though it is certainly that, too. and the first one of its kind in the western world. but it had a radical agenda that was introduced in '75, 1775 and 1776 and tom payne is one of the most articulate spokesmen for

that agenda. and if you wanted to pursue that agenda literally, it would mean the end of the property qualification, women's rights, the end of slavery. and i'm not sure it would go so far as civil rights for all people, blacks and whites. i think that was not in the picture. if you tried to implement that agenda, the people i'm writing about believed pretty much to a man, say payne, that it would implode. that the french revolution is an example of what they eventually regarded as what would go wrong. so that we have to delay this. this is a seeping revolution. this is an evolutionary revolution. i mean abigail writes john, march 31, 1776, remember the ladies letter, a famous letter. it's clear that consideraticien

of educated women is -- they're aware of the fact that the very arguments being made about it americans against the british against arbitrary power apply to the family. they apply to jenld gender issu. that's not something that air oblivious to. it's clear that a lot of people think -- and adams gets the letters when he's had the board of ordinance. who is this guy heading the continental army? this guy owns over 300 slaves. actually, at that time he owns like 100 slaves. this is wrong. can you get illiterate letters probably written by freed slaves, you know, calling attention to the incompatability between slavery and the values on which the revolution is based. nobody says slavery is okay. >> that's right. that was a later generation.

>> i believe that was the right decision. that's why we're federalists. the one issue that i'm undecided about is slavery itself. >> okay. let's talk a little bit about that. when we had our alexander hamilton show, we made much of the new york manumission society. >> which wez a member of. >> these were the local founders in new york state who were part

of this, about 30, 32 -- >> actually, new york had more slaves -- had the most slaves of any state north of the potomac. >> that's right. and they had a real problem to deal with. this was not like, you know, vermont which never had any. >> it was easy in vermont because there were two slaves. >> that's right. but it took a long time, not until 1827. but if the united states had gotten rid of slavery by 1827, i mean we would have died and gone to heaven, right? no civil war. >> they passed legislation in new york in 1803 or '04. i think it was a gradual emancipation. so that last slaves would have lived on up until the 30s and 40s, smart. it's a lot easier if the economy

is not dependent on slave labor. the total economy is dependent on slave labor. south carolina is 60% african-american. and equally dependent on slave labor. and actually the emerging kingdom in south carolina is huge, huge economic boom. one of the things i think people -- if you want to look for an excuse for the founders on this, and i don't necessarily think we need to, but most of the founders thought that slavery would die a natural death. most of the founders thought that slavery was a dying institution in the west. it was part of the medieval, dark ages, a form of human inequity that the enlitenment was going to end. it was also a form of labor that could not compete successfully with free labor.

so they thought if we contain it, like containment doctrine in the cold war, the same thing as about the communism and the soviet union. if we contain it, it is -- the contradictions within it will destroy it. >> well, that might have worked. but they failed. >> right. they didn't foresee the cotton kingdom. >> but how does the louisiana purchase fit into this? because that's also -- >> i write about that. >> and you argue, don't you, that that destroys the containment strategy. >> it does. it does. once you expand the market for slaves that far out, i mean the louisiana purchase is everything between the mississippi and the rockies. it's the midwest, it's the greatest, largest area of fertile land on the planet. it's one of the great deals -- makes the purchase of this island here look like child's

play. what i really argue in the book is -- and if you really love jefferson, you're not going to like this book. you don't want to buy this book. you're going to get really upset about this book. that the louisiana purchase was probably the last opportunity the founders had to put slavery on the road to ultimate extincti extinction. >> by containment strategy. >> more than that. containment, first of all, making any new state admitted from the purchase prohibit slavery as a requirement for admission. they've done that in the northwest ordinance. and jefferson, when he was in the federation congress back in 1781 had proposed, you know, making slavery illegal and any new territory admitted anywhere. and that lost by one vote.

but by 1803, jefferson changed his mind. or he's changed his feelings. and so they refuse to take this action. but in addition -- here's how it would -- this is all monday morning quarterbacking. at its worst form is a form of presentism that isn't fair to the founders. want i want to make it clear. >> you have written a recent book about this. like what could have worked? knowing how important this slavery issue is, knowing that 632,000 people are going to die in the civil war and 2 1/2 generations of african-americans have to live in slavery for 50 years. what could have been done to avoid this? and there was an answer.

the answer was prohibit slavery and all the incoming territories and use a portion of the revenue that would be garnished from the sale of those western lands and eventual revenue of those western lands totaled something between $600 million and $700 million. back then, that was actually a lot money. >> that was a lot of money. >> use that money to compensate the slave owners for freeing their slaves. now the kicker and this is the thing that is so tough to face. almost everybody that was in favor of ending slavery to include -- well, you know, later on harriet beecher stowe, even abraham lincoln up until '63,

they all thought that once you ended slavery you had to send the freed african-americans somewhere else. back to africa, latin america, caribbean. this generation, the founders were extraordinarily imaginative in so many ways. they can imagine a larger public. they can imagine separation of church and state. they can imagine political parties. they could not imagine a bi-racial society. >> well, though, but the new york manumission society argues against that. >> really? >> they were not a colonistization group. and one of the things they did is they set up a school for block children in new york which were i think in the 1830s or 1940s, they were folded into the new york public school system. but they many projects. when they started off, they weren't abolitionists at all. one thing they did is they

helped people who were being seized, you know, ott grounds oh, you're an escaped slave which was a bit fraudulent enterprise. they just grabbed people and say oh, yeah, you ran off. come with me. and they would help defend these people in court. but, you know, as they expanded and they had more projects, one of them was education. and that certainly -- that certainly suggestive of not just like, you know, casting these people off or telling them you're free here you have children. we're going to educate them. so i think there at least potential. >> i think there are exceptions. washington is an exception. washington, as you know, freed all the slaves he owned at mt. vernon which are about half the slaves of mt. vernon in his will upon the death of his wife. but he also provided an

endowment to support them until they were educated and capable of some sort of independent professional or life and work. and in virginia, any freed slave had to be sent out of the state one year after free. for the very reason i'm talking. but nobody is going to mess with george washington, okay? washington's going to do what he wants to do. and nobody challenged the terms of his will. i think that there are places where you can see americans capable of imagining if not a biracial society of genuine integration. most of these people in new york want these people to live some place else. >> that is still the case. >> but the dominant view is especially every place south of the potomac. if the numbers are unacceptable.

40% in virginia, 60% in south carolina. we will be swamped. racial war will result. >> that's jefferson. >> jefferson, yes. actually, adams says something like that, too. >> the army is -- >> and no correspondence with jefferson. and so one of the major impediments to any gradual emancipation scheme is the conviction on the part of many of the major players that when it happens, it has to be accompanied by ex-patriotation. the cost is astronomical. ? makes ut a nonstarter. what yefr son said very late in his life, 1823, he says once you look at those numbers, you need never look at them again. >> in which he was doing. >> yes, he was. >> he drew up the sums. >> but he always did that. jefferson is really great if