have or the germans have with immigrants. we think we have an immigrant problem, but it pales in significance compared to the problems the french orbrits would face over the coming century. they can't believe those arabs who have been living there for three generations, they don't look french. they're not real french. but we don't have that problem. however much we think we have a problem -- sacred quality in our eyes. even though people don't read it, they still feel it has a sacred quality. and i think we go back to them the way lincoln said we ought to. that they are flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood. because he drew inspiration from them. all on jefferson, he said, when

he was talking about equality. and he felt this connection that i think we continue to feel. i mean, people ask me questions like, you know, what would george washington think of the invasion of iraq? no other -- i mean, people don't -- in other countries do that. people don't ask, what would -- >> what would charlemane say. >> they don't ask that question. they don't have that kind of connection with the past. as history-minded as they might be, the brits don't have that kind of connection. so i have a lot of sympathy for the tea party. i know they distort the past, but i understand the emotional need because i think it's there for everyone in some sense. because there's no other basis for our americanism. except these ideals that they

created. >> and one of the points you make in your book is that this sense of our ideals was very early on accompanied by a sense that we were an example to the world because of those ideals. louise mentioned the show right here is on the american and haitian and french revolutions which all happened in a pretty contained timespan. shall we talk about how we reacted to those revolutions? >> yeah. well, i think we started with the notion -- you think, this is the little colonial rebellion. this is 4 million people by 1790. what did it matter? and yet they thought that this little colonial rebellion had world-shattering importance. that it was the most important event in the history of the world. and that it would spread democracy around the world. and when the french revolution broke out ten years later, they had no doubt that they had created it.

and, of course, some of the french revolutionaries, the er he nt the key to the bastille, the symbol of tyranny, the prison in paris, sent the key to george washington. and the key now hangs in mt. vernon. and so we thought the french revolution was a carbon copy of our own. now, when it spiraled out into tyranny, we just assumed, well, the french don't have the stuff, the virtue, that makes a revolution successful. and from then on, all through the latin american revolutions take place, we are the first state to recognize them. now, there is one -- and this is true throughout the 19th century. 1848, the greek rebellion in 1820, the french -- the first state in the world normally to recognize the new regimes which all failed, of course. now, there's one revolution we don't recognize and, of course, the obvious one is the haitian. and that was not -- that haitian republic was not recognized until lincoln's administration, for obvious reasons. this was a rebellion of slaves who slaughtered their white

masters. it was impossible for a southern-dominated republic to recognize that regime. it took lincoln to do it. >> but john adams did send a consul. >> oh, adams -- yeah, but we didn't diplomatically recognize it. the federalists were very keen on having relations with the haitian government. again, the federalists have come up in the eyes of the scholars over the last 20 years, you know, through much of our history, through this 20th century, it's the jeffersonians who dominated scholarly attitudes. they were the party of the democrats, and they were the party of the small farmers and so on. and the federalists were a bunch of aristocrats. now, recently because of the

development of anti-slave feeling and women's movement, people like hamilton and many of the federalists are much more liberal on these issues than the southern-dominated jeffersonian republicans. so the federalists have recovered some of the press that they lost through the first half of the 20th century. >> the rural vote has come in. i found a letter that hamilton wrote. the consul that adams sent to haiti was a man named edward stevens who was a childhood friend of hamilton's. they had grown up in the virgin islands together. and stevens wrote hamilton and said, do you have any thoughts about a constitution for haiti? it's very interesting what hamilton did. and he said only a military

government is possible. but he did try to have some balancing of powers in it. he said, you know, there should be judges elected for life. and you should have a council of generals to propose taxes. so he wasn't -- i don't think you call that a hopeful particularly, but he's trying to make some suggestions. >> well, even jefferson, when he looked at the latin american revolution, he said, well, they're probably not going to work very well. they'll probably -- these people will wade through blood and military despotisms for generations. but as they want to become republicans, i wish them well. that was a kind of -- it's a kind of patronizing pessimism we had to its people which became more pessimistic as time went on because all of these revolutions failed. the revolutions of 1848, hungary and the hungarian empire all failed. to give you one anecdote that i think expresses american chutzpah, if you will, is daniel webster as secretary of state d minister in washington complains

to him for american instigation and support of the hungarian and the revolution that's taking place in the austrian and hungarian empire. and he says in exact contrary, we the united states take nothing less than full responsibility for all the rebellions that are taking place in europe. and he goes on with this kind of pride in instigating rebellion and then ends his message to the austrian, hungarian minister in washington, besides, compared to the great extent of the united states the austrian, hungarian is but a patch on the earth's surface. i mean, this kind of spread-eagle bombast was very typical of american diplomatic language. we were just considered by many people, of being a really wild,

scary kind of country, a dangerous country in the 19th century. >> and webster was a good diplomat. >> that's right. >> when he wasn't holding force. >> he's a conservative man. he's a good wig. he's not somebody that you'd think of as doing that, but that's the kind of attitude we had. we were really bumptious. i mean, president grant, the french -- finally overthrow napoleon iii in 1870. and establish a third french republic. president grant sends a message to the new french government congratulating them on adopting american principles. i mean, what would the french foreign office think of that? we don't know. they must have just been -- as if they had no republican tradition of their own to draw on. they had become americanized. now, the big turning point, as you know, occurs in 1917 which i think is very illustrative of our attitude. in the beginning, in the spring, the czar is forced out of --

forced to abdicate. and seven days later in may, we recognize the new republic. the korenski government, the first nation in the world to recognize the russian republic. wilson is ecstatic. and he has a new partner for his league and so on. and the minister in moscow writes back, russia will come out of this with correct american principles is what he's saying. well, a few months later, six months later, the bolsheviks take over. what happens? we are the last major state in the world to recognize the soviet union. i think ireland was the last, but we were the last. 16 years, 4 american presidents, the last state -- now, what happened? we had always been recognizing these rebellions. i think it's because the soviets were not a species of the revolutionary genius americanas.

they were a whole new genus altogether. all of a sudden we have one that isn't like us, that's offering a whole new universalist message contrary to our own with the same kind of universalist aspirations as our own, the communist aspirations. and i think the cold war begins in 1917, interrupted briefly with the war against a more sinister enemy, nazi germany, but quickly resumed after the war. and the fear of communism was a real fear. that they were threatening the meaning of the united states. and its role in history. >> who owns the principle of revolution? >> exactly. where's the future? i mean, there's a new biography of lincoln stephons. he comes back from the soviet union in the 1930s and says, there's where the future is.

there were a lot of american intellectuals who bought into it, and that scared the bejeesus out of it. that's a cold war speech that was based on the fear that communism was spreading, and we had to stop it. contain it. as george cannon said. >> i want to get to questions. i'm sure we have a lot. but before we do that, my last question, you've spent a lot of time in this period and with its great men and with its obscure men and women, who would you want to spend an evening with if you could? >> well, i think -- i admire george washington greatly because i think he stood head and shoulders above the others. we tend to lump them all

together, which is unfortunate because, you know, presidents day, all the presidents, they didn't think so. they thought washington was way ahead of the rest of them. but the man you'd want to spend the evening with would have been benjamin franklin, i think, because he would have kept you laughing and he had a million stories. washington was not a great dinner partner. >> okay. we're going to be taking questions. and if you'd like to have a question, if you want to ask a question, we've got two microphones. one there and one is being set up over there. before you ask the question, please state your name. and please just ask one question. and no speeches with rising inflections as questions either. and we have two staff members who can help you. so let's start with the mike over here. and we'll just alternate back and forth. >> hi, allen astro.

in your book, you argue that the revolution is a widespread issue interest within the american population. but you don't really say where they thought that virtue was supposed to come from. so i'm wondering if you'd say a little bit more about that. what did they think the source of virtue was that would sustain the republic? and would you say a little bit about what you think yourself might be the source of virtue in 21st century american to which to sustain our republic? >> well, the virtue is the classical term was disinterestedness, was another synonym they used meaning impartiality, willing to suppress your private interests for the sake of a public good. which was, of course, what the romans and greeks thought was the ideal character to have to sustain a republic because if authoritarian governments can

suppress private interest, but if everybody runs off promoting his own selfish interest, you've got chaos and only a monarchy can hold that. you needed to have obedience from the bottom up. and they felt, from their experience in 1775, '76, the courts were closed in most of these colonies, states, as they emerged. and yet people weren't running amuck. of course, there were popular ways of keeping -- there was a lot of oppression brought to bear on toris and loyalists. but nonetheless, it seemed as if the country was expressing a kind of virtue. they started out very, very idealistically inclined and found they were disillusioned by what happened. many of them. the elites were. and i think that's where the crisis comes in the 1780s. we're not as virtuous as we thought we were.

how do we solve the problem of holding a republic together when the populous is not virtuous. and this is where the structure of government comes in. and that's why madison was so obsessed with building a structure that would account for -- that would keep us a republic without having a virtuous populous. he was still counting on a virtuous leadership. but i think he hoped that this structure by itself would deal with a self-interested factious people. and in some sense, we had a civil war, but we have muddled through, and we're still muddling through. it's very difficult to get anything done. it was built into the structure of the system. power is dangerous. and that was the fear they had. and that was madison's fear certainly. and it's created a problem for

us. if we had a parliamentary system, john boehner would be the prime minister. think of it in those terms. >> hi. i would like to know who was allowed to vote. was it the landowners, or was it the elite? who was elected to be voters? >> well, it changed as time went on. but at the outset, it was property owners in most states. but white males, 21 and older, who had some property. now, in some states, the property qualifications were very low. in pennsylvania, for example, quite radical, and vermont, too. but you have to keep that in perspective. we are the largest elector of any state in the world. and we did even in the colonial period. two out of three white males could vote in most colonies. now, compare that to england

which itself was considered a democratic state by european standards, one out of six adult males could vote in england. so by any standards whatsoever in the 18th century, we had the largest most democratic policies in the world. women, of course, did not vote yet. that's the 20th century, except in some states. that was a 20th century accomplishment. certainly black slaves did not vote. at the time we had the largest electorate in the world in the 18th century. >> there was black people that owned property, but they were not allowed to vote? >> yes, in northern states, yes. they started -- they were voting in new york and pennsylvania at the outset, yes. if you were a free black and had property, you could vote. and women -- in new jersey for about nine years, women who had property could vote. that was taken away, and there was not a single protest from any woman.

>> ray tillman. canadians today are taught that the u.s. revolution came about because we didn't want to pay our taxes which of course, the brits levy, they claim because of french and indian war debts. but the canadians believe that the motivation of the americans revolting was largely economic. we, of course, were taught it was liberty and freedom and so on. quantitatively on the aggregate motivation, say in the 1760s and '70s, what was -- what were the american motives? 90% one or 10% through the other or 50/50? what would you guess? >> i think that's an impossible question to answer. obviously, economic issues were important. people were frightened about what -- if they could tax us, what they could do. i think it was more a fear of

power. i'll give you one example. the tea party, the massachusetts radicals throw 10,000 pounds value, that's millions of dollars by our standards of tea into boston harbor. and the country is appalled by this. without virginia, there is no revolution, because it's the most populous, richest state. virginians are appalled by this tea party. and if the brits had acted moderately, which is asking a lot because they had been appeasing the colonists every moment, they repealed the state back, they kept repealing and backing away. and now enough is enough, they said. destroying property, that's outrageous. and they come in with the coercive acts. they close the port of boston, do away with the town meeting, change the massachusetts charter. well, the virginians say if they can do that to massachusetts, they can do that to us. now, if the economic is the fear

of power, of sovereignty, it's a complicate the issue. i don't think you can measure it complicated issue. i don't think you can measure it in terms of, well, they're going to lose some money. there was much more fear of what an alien force, 3,000 miles away, could do to them. i think it's a fear of power. >> would our representation in the british parliament have alleviated that? >> yeah, some people proposed that. i think the americans would not -- they figure they would have been manipulated. that was called the scottish solution, because the scots had been given 100 members in 1707. we weren't going to buy into that because they had already about 560 or 580 members. it's a huge house of commons. bigger than our house today. and we would have been diluted. but i think the canadian point, you have to understand, the canadians are a bunch of loyalists. the loyalists went up there. think about this. if you want to know the difference between canada and the united states, what's our trilogy?

life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. what's the canadian trilogy? peace, order and good government. there's the difference between the two countries. that comes out of the north america act of 1867. it's two different cultures. they really are still very much affected by their loyalist beginnings. >> thank you. >> next question. >> you talked a little bit earlier -- >> what's your name, please? >> i'm nathan from horace mann school. you talked a bit in the 1780s, madison is worried about tyranny of the majority, the state legislatures are running amok. i was wondering what you thought about the relation of the uniquely american concept of judicial review on this concept and especially today, we had citizens united. recently we have a health care challenge coming up. >> right.

>> how do you think that kind of strand has intertwined since marbury versus madison since the american revolutionary period? >> well, the judicial review developed very slowly and against much opposition. the development of the courts, i would say, along with the creation of the constitution was one of the principle accomplishments of the federalists. the federalists of the 1790s, if you will. it is a curve of democracy. no way to justify nine individuals deciding issues and say, well, that's democratic. you have to face the facts that it is a way of curbing and softening the affects of democracy. often good causes, minority rights, individual liberties and so on. but in no way is it a democratic institution. now there were people who gan arguing that they are a kind of representative of the people and

people said, well, if that's true we should elect them, and that of course has happened at states, about 39 states elected their judges. that's not happened at the federal level. it would be very -- you know how difficult it is to maend tamend constituti constitution. i think gingrich suggested doing away with the 9th circuit. [ laughter ] which he said would be on the face of it, unconstitutional but after all, he cites jefferson's party doing away with the 16 judges in 1801. so there's a precedent for that. but the courts really are a curb on democracy, something that we've come to accept. and i think it's quite extraordinary that we're willing to accept the degree to which the courts, particularly the supreme court, affects our lives. i mean, when you think about 2000, the election, that was remarkable, the acceptance of that in many countries that

would have led to riots in streets and gunfire and killings and we see what's happening in the middle east. we didn't have that. and that, i think, is part of our respect for the court, which has to be handled -- the court's quite aware of this -- they have to handle things very carefully. they don't want to get out ahead of public opinion. but it was developed very slowly judicial review did not take off right away. it was fought tooth and nail for decades, particularly by the jeffer sewnians, particularly jefferson himself. madison came i think, to appreciate the court bletetter n his colleague, jefferson. >> jefferson said if john marshall, whom he hated. >> yes. >> if john marshall asked if the sun was shining, he'd say, i don't know, si, i can't tell. whatever you say you get marbury out of madison. >> such a shrewd -- one of great

minds. without great education. i mean he didn't have a lot of college education. he had a great mind, however. >> sir? >> alvin, before the question, the federalist had a comment on judicial review. the idea of reviewing by the courts let the constitutionality of state laws, which was not passed. my question has to do with john adams and the election and his term after george washington. he went home. and the question is how important that going home alone with his family, after his family, in the wagon, sneaking out of washington, as it were, how important that was in establishing a firm anti-men nor cal in the united states. >> one party of such planting another was an extraordinary moment in the history of western politics, and adams' willingness to surrender and the federalists willing to surrender power to this new party.

and they didn't think of these parties as we think of them. i mean, we think -- they need the party accepted the legitimacy of the other. the federalists never thought they were a party, really. were a legitimate government besieged by french-loving possible traitors. it was not politics as usual, and neither of them thought that parties should be perm, even the republicans, jeffersonian, they did not believe in parties. so, that was an important moment, i think that transition. the federalists thought that, well, they'll call us back as soon as they see how wild the jeffersonians are, they call us back. it never happened. federalists never posed an electoral threat again. by 1820, not even putting up a candidate. >> we have time for one more

question. >> which is you. >> jake rosa, york prep. what do you think the founders would think of the occupy wall street and occupy oakland, seattle? this is a serious question. >> yeah, sure. >> well, i think it's akin to the kinds of questions i often get. what do the founders think of something we're doing. i think that's extraordinary. i don't know of any other culture in the world would ever ask that, where that kind of question would be asked and i think if has something to do with our connection of them. who knows what they would think. they were used to riots. they were used to people spilling into the streets. madison was not -- he was alarmed by shea's rebellion but it wasn't shea's rebellion that alarmed him. he was worried about what the

shea -- they were put down quickly by military force. he was worried about when they turned and began electing people to the massachusetts house who were going to then promote legally what they were unable to do by rioting. and of course, that's one thing you might say about, you know, the occupying -- the next step is to engage in electoral politics. you call attention to something but then the solution in the democracy is to organize and win elections. and i think that's -- of course madison was frightened by this. he thought that's why he was designed the constitution to somehow prevent the states from -- from doing harmful things. but nonetheless, that's the way we deal with our ultimately, we are not going to go the way of the middle east rioters. we have to have trust in our electoral politics. i think that's -- i think we'll muddle through all of this turmoil.

it's not -- it's not -- it's not as bad if you get any perspective. one thing history does give you is a sense of perspective. this is not the most serious moment in our history. it may seem so, but i don't -- i guess you'd have to say most serious moment was at the beginning and then in the civil war. and since then we've had some serious moments. and i don't think this is the worse o. worst. maybe it's bad. we'll see. we don't know the future. that's one thing that we just don't know of. >> thank you, gordon wood. thank you. >> dale gregory has an announcement. before you leave, dale gregory has an announcement. >> for those who don't know, i'm dale gregory, vice president for public programs. two very quick announcements. our museum store is this direction on the 77th street side. you can purchase your