just in the middle of all this work. so, yeah, it's, you know, possible. but it's not that frequent at this point because we're still, you know, still processing the material. that's an interesting piece. a pistol that who knows where it's from. it's from somewhere on the preservation virginia property. it was kept in the national park service collections, because we didn't have a collections area before our archaeological project got started. and it looks like it's been through a fire, burned. i believe it's early 19th century. the cock still has a flint in the jaws. it's pretty, kind of interesting. but i wish i knew where on the island, where on preservation virginia property it was found. it could have been turned in early 20th century. the national park service maintains their own collections for jamestown and before 2007 one of the sort of legacies we

decided to leave rather than another monument on the landscape was to join the collections, to some extent. so, a new facility was built adjoining our building. we've made sort of a campus, and while the collections are kept separately, they are in one spot, so someone coming to see a particular material type, doing research, it's more convenient and easier for them. they can go to both collections to do their work. hopefully we will survive into the future. we've organized the materials and we built the structures to be permanent archives, and i would hope that 400 years in the future, you know, there is a jamestown collection that's capable of being studied and

examined by scholars of the future. i look back 400 years and say, well, how many collections have survived? and i do worry about that. but there are things, collections, that have. so, we just have to be -- hopefully we'll be really good stewards now and train up the next generation of stewards to take care of this stuff. >> they were made so they could fit several down and encased together. side by side, these bottles will go into a case. and that's where the name comes from. and they are a type of drinking bottles used in early 17th century up until, like, 1650. but then when you get into the 19th century, you're going to find a machine produced that quite different from the handmade. if you have a better piece, you

can tell what the shape of the wine bottle was, and you can pin it down to a ten or 20-year time period. this is probably a case -- >> that piece is in there. >> this program is one of a multipart look at archaeology on jamestown island, virginia. check the "american history tv" website, cspan.org/history for schedule information. the national counsel of public history held their meeting in milwaukee, wisconsin. american history tv spoke with -- next, joanne free man and university of chicago professor william collins describe acts of violence in the u.s. congress leading up to the

civil war and checks on war power in the modern era. professor freeman is working on a book entitled field of blood, violence in america. american history tv is at a organization of american historians annual meeting in milwaukee and we are going to talk next about congress and american politics with joanne freeman, a history professor at yale with professor william howell from the university of chicago and europe, political american politics professor. thanks for joining us. let's start off, professor freeman, with a book you've been working on called field of blood congressional violence in america. congressional violence. normally when we hear about congress, we don't think about violence. >> that's true. the book is really about the couple of decades, the 1830s,

'40s and '50s before the civil war and it's about physical violence. pushing, shoving. pulling of knives, pistols. mass may lees with 20 or 30 guys and part of what i'm talking about in the book is there's a lot more than people realized. a lot of it's hidden. you have to search for it and find it and once you do, you sort of realize, congress was a violent place. so i'm looking, sort of cataloged a lot of it and now, i'm trying to look at some of these locations. >> what's going on there? why did congress become such a violent place? >> america was violent, legislatures tended to be violent. but congress in this period is involved in all these sort of major shaping issues and part of what's going on with the violence is westerners tend to be aggressaggressors, so partic

over time, you're talking about slavery and you want to shut somebody up, it's really effective to reach for your knife. >> and this is part of the context you brought this up in a discussion today on congress and politics in general. did you find people sort of surprised at the level of violence of emotion that was going on in congress? we don't see that in congress now. we do see emotion. >> that's true. i do think generally speaking, our image of congress in this period is clay, calhoun and webster sort of making great words. they're not surprised there's some violence. there's 119 incidents.

and particularly given a lot in the house and senate chambers. just doesn't tend to be put in congressional records. they didn't know it was there to look for. >> what was the biggist take away from this discussion? >> the importance of violence, not just, it's a surprise. it was happening as much and it was such a prominent feature. speeches that are given of the doings of government. the stakes involved -- >> it's politics. >> yeah, and it was shaping what was going on in important ways. this is, i don't know of any congressional scholars that have looked at this phenomenon, so it's really exciting.

>> in discussion, did you have other scholars participating? >> there were some in the audience! are y . >> are you asking about the other paper? >> in the session today? >> yes, there were. we had another section looking at the contemporary period and the engagement of congress and foreign policy making. it's a very different topic, but in other ways, not so much. a legislature trying to come together and shape big debates and he was looking at trying to constrain the president's ability to wage the war abroad. >> on that particular subject, you've written some of the ability of congress, the authority of congress to wage war. what is the law now in terms of, what is congress's role in declaring war? >> well, congress hasn't

formally declared war since world war ii and there have been since world war ii, all sorts of instances where presidents have just unilaterally sent troops abroad. one class of military action and other classes where congress authorizes the use of military force, but often authorizes it in really broad ways and so, this has led a number of scholars to conclude that congress is all together ab di kate its authority to an executive which is unbound. that strikes me as overstating matters quite considerly. but it's the, it's a striking feature of the modern era. that congress is not out in front defining military policy. >> book review, looking at rachel maddow's book, drift,

about american military power, wrote this on war powers. said especially the last half century, the decision to go to war has become too easy. congress' institutional prerogative has been ignored. only a tiny fraction of the american population serves, sends a family member to war, permitting a majority to remain on oblivious. for congress to abdicate what the president called the shots? >> yeah, at the front end. that doesn't mean at the front end, deliberations about whether to initiate force. that doesn't mean that congress isn't an important player in shaping decision making. let me try to be clear. during this period, when we -- abdication, wars have really done a number on three presidents. trum

truman's approval ratings are in the high 20s. johnson decides not to run again in '68, precisely when the vietnam war is seen as a full blown war and bush, a big reason why he loses both chambers of congress in 2006 and why we have a president obama and not a president clinton is because of the unpopularity of those wars. in all those instances, members of congress played an important role in shaping the debate. so, there are things congress can do to make wars costly to presidents that are not up to the statement of the constitution. it's not about congress declaring. we're not declaring putting a tight leash around the president, but they can do thing to make military action incredibly costly and really relevant, domestic politics of war. >> so, are you saying that congress, by doing almost, by abdicating in my ways, congress has become more popular by letting the president take the

fall? >> no, i wouldn't go that far. i don't want to claim they are -- my sense is that congress is not fulfilling its basic institutional obligations and matters involving war, but that isn't to say they're irrelevant. they're not doing a lot of formal things. when a military action goes awry, what they can do is give all kinds of speeches. and launch investigations and talk about the incompetence of our president in putting our troops in harm way. that kind of behavior is cost to the president. >> time is back into congress this way. professor freeman, you're ed editing a volume on -- one of the founders -- congressal

violence had a dual. how would we -- what was his view on the role of the legislature and executive in term of the war powers? >> well, hamilton's very much a fan of executive. to an extreme degree in that time period, to the degree some accused him of trying to be a monarchist. so on the one hand, you could say he's in favor of something or would have been in favor of something that would have been presidential power, but on the other hand, in that time period, i think america had to think differently about war because the government was new. we basically didn't have much of an army. didn't have a way to fight a war without really deliberately setting about to do something. so as much as i think he would

like the enhancement of presidential power, he was a realist about what should or shouldn't with p happening in war. we had an almost war with france. quasi war, kind of a gip of a name. is almost war. with france. there's a case in which a number of people were pushing, were sort of pushing for war, but that would have involved a lot of building up of military forces which would have involved congress being involved. but still, war was a charged issue in a brand new baby country. >> i think you're pointing to something really important, which is that in order to launch a military action, you had to build capability first, which requires all kinds of political coordination in ways when you

have a standing army and you have all kinds of military capability, and you're in an era when the president can unilaterally make decisions about when we're going to wage war. this is an important way in which congress is less of a constraint. doesn't have to go say, let's start raising taxes so that we can -- the armaments we need in order to wage war. >> but congress does have the responsibility to authorize and proep rate for those departments. >> but the challenge to a president of going before congress and saying write this check so that i can launch a new military action is significantly greater than the one that involves the president going to congress and saying write this check so that we can protect our troops who are in harm's way today. the latter is an easier debate to have from the president's

standpoint. >> did we take the decision out of, this may be more of a institutional question, but the next, our military leader was the leader of the revolutionary war. did we give the right to declare war to the executive based on george washington? based on his experience? >> i wouldn't say that's why that happened. i would say it's hard to imagine someone else who could have been the first president giving the degree of power that the executive had, so maybe part of the case there is because washington was there and because he was so trusted, he gave up the power and went home. the best way to be trusted with power is to surrender it and leave. he should have done something to take power and he didn't. i think it made it easier for us

to have that first executive. i always think he doesn't get a lot of credit for the difficulties of being the first executive and having to be the guy setting precedence in any number of ways. you know, he goes to congress. for the first time. to have basically a treaty read and get you know, advice and consent. he just wants to hear what congress says and there are carriages outside and it's noisy and people can't hear, they ask to have it read a second time and washington clearly is beginning to get impatient and someone says, you know, president washington, e we might like a day or two to talk about this and he erupts and says it defeats the whole purpose of my coming here and storms out. that's it. i'm not going back to congress. so in his mind, president said i'm not doing that again. it was humiliating and waste of my time. being that guy who's setting precedence of behavior that are affecting ultimately that might affect policy. >> moments like that that begin to show the rise of

congressional power. that congress declares its authority to whether overtly or by implication, we want a few day to consider this treaty. >> that's a great example, but a poignant one. it's one little guy who stands up. he writes in his diary, kind of scared. stands up and says, we need a little time. and waits to see what happens. a reminder of how new the situation is. >> you're writing in your, the book on congressional violence, you're writing in a period ahead of the civil war. you talked about the statesman calhoun and webster, did the executive leadership that may have been missing in those years ahead of lincoln's election? >> i don't know if i would go that far. i suppose i would say there are strong positions of leadership.

of shaping policy to an extreme degree, but i would say that congress is a force and a presence and that there are people in that period who are asserting and shaping what they envision congress as being. again, still an evolving institution. >> the federal government is so much smaller. and our expectation, their expectations were so much more reduced than it is today where today, it's hard to, i think their government is involved in call kind of our life. and the president in particular is seen as the central, the central personality to whom we turn. to whom we invest all our hopes and aspirations. imagining today's world where in the president wasn't doing it, there would be a vacuum, but

these are different times. >> as you look at 2012, you look at the balance of power among the three branches. where do you think it's the strongest? days? >> well, i think that in today's politics, if you're looking for a single branch of government to provide the kind of leadership that's required to address deep trenchant social problems, the only branch of government that can provide it is the presidency. that congress is dysfunctional in this regard. i mean, the congress already as a collective decision making body has a hard time of attending to problems that don't have obvious solutions. i'm thinking things like how do we attend to a comprehensive energy program or a deal with global warming, things of this sort of scale. it's -- and then when you build on top of that rising polarization between the parties -- historic highs right

now. >> you called it dysfunctional. looking back in history, is there another period of time where you're writing about pre-civil war. was it dysfunctional then and more dysfunctional in years past? >> i would say the common -- look, the level of polarization that's between the parties right now is at historic highs. that in conjunction with the rise of the personal vote, that is parties are weaker and the connection between individual members and their districts are what often matters most for the electoral prospect, members of congress getting re-elected. that this has made it very hard for members of congress to coordinate effectively with one another. and so when we see congress exercises influence, this is true of military action, but it's also true of health care policies. they're the naysayers. they're the yeah-buts. yeah, that's a great thing to do, but. we're going to make what was a reasonably straightforward

policy intervention, we're going to weigh it down with all kinds of provisions and compromises and that is good for -- potentially good for deliberation, but it's not good for leadership. >> i would also add as far as the sort of dysfunction question is concerned, the 1850s, part of what happens in the 1850s is the sort of national party system collapses and things become focused around section as opposed to party. and that's a problem if slavery is the big issue. toward the late 1850s is -- and i think it's relevant today, as well -- congress functions partly on the floor, partly in committees and partly in private. in communication and negotiation and sort of asides. there's a sort of social level in which a lot gets done, a lot of agreements are reached and arrangements are made. and i think congress is particularly dysfunctional when

that isn't operating and i don't mean anyone, i mean people opposing politics and being able to informally chat over dinner, you know, the sort of cross partisan dinner parties where people are -- you know, right now you're not seeing any of that. >> no. >> that's a piece of institutional congress that's being stripped away. >> what you see in its place are individual members of congress grandstanding to empty chambers, right, giving these big speeches, taking a clear stand, and nobody is in the chamber. right? there is no real meaningful deliberation that's going on. it is beyond disagreement. it is lack of meaningful engagement across the various parties. >> public or private. >> yes. yes. >> is part of that because of the modern world and the communication and somebody can go out in front of c-span on the house floor in morning-hour speeches and give a speech and nobody is there. and in early days in congress and giving speeches was not only policy was also entertainment, and people would come to see speeches being made and great

orators as you mentioned. >> that's probably part -- i suspect there are a variety of things in play. and another big thing is money in politics and the amount of time they have to spend today simply raising money, creates less time for them to engage with one another. when you have to spend a lot of time raising money and taking out clear positions that your constituents are going to like and then generate a basic set of accomplishments that you can point to, there is not much time left over in a day for members of congress to meaningfully deliberate, openly deliberate with one another. >> and i think technology, because technology is the link between congress and the public, does have also as you suggested an influence. i mean, i am really intrigued by the moment we're having now with people sitting and tweeting in congress and the fact that anything, any politician says, can become international within a millisecond. but what's interesting is in the late 1840s you get the telegraph

and an increasingly nationalized press, and it is a different technology and they're equally sort of freaked out about the implications of it. so there is an incident in 1850 in which that one senator pulls a gun on another senator. >> in the senate. >> in the senate chamber and nothing happens and they're both restrained and the moment passes and they're about to happily charge on with what's going on happen. and someone, a new hampshire congressman stands up and says i feel the need to say something. i hope you all realize even as we sit here they're beginning to read all over the country that we've just slaughtered each other in the senate, so everyone is sort of like, oh, okay, it is instant, and it is the press which means nothing happened but that's not what they're going to read in the newspapers. it is an interesting kind of similar moment in which the technology is opening possibilities, but people haven't entirely figured out how to harness that in the best possible way. >> do you think we're well

served by having members serve long terms? and always lots of talk about term limits in congress. >> people have -- i've looked at this a bit, particularly at the state level. in some states you have it and some you don't. >> state houses and things like that. >> exactly. and my understanding is that the literature suggests that the big problem with term limits, you can see the argument for them, right? we want people who will lead and not pander. i'm going to free you up from electoral considerations. why? because you get to serve one time for six years and you're out of there. on the other hand, and this is a big on the other hand, particularly with the congress, we are asking people when they go to congress to take positions and write laws about which they know very little. and we ask and in order for them to learn something, they have to

invest in expertise. and if what you do is you say you'll be here for six years and you're out of here, there will be less incentives for them to invest in that expertise required to enact good policy and instead it is, look, you have six years. run. go as fast as you can, but if you think about just having nothing but freshman members of congress as a way of dealing, go back to the transient social problems, that's another layer of difficulty, right, dysfunction for a national legislator to overcome. >> and yet through the bulk of the 1800s, probably certainly the legislators were, quote, citizen legislators and went back for long stretches of time. >> and there was big and constant turnover, especially in the house. a lot of one-term -- >> really? >> yes. i don't know what the percentages. there was a very high percentage of freshman congressman who beamed in and beamed out, and what that meant is some of the people who weren't, who actually were re-elected did have some institutional importance not even just on issues but

institutionally speaking. >> knowledge. >> right. >> going back to your book on congressional violence, you talked about finding sources and things about things that frankly a lot of people don't know about, so it is pretty interesting. where were you finding these sources? these are in the congressional record? are they -- >> some of them are. the record of the time really was created by newspapers and a lot of this isn't in there or if it is in there, it is kind of coated. like you will see a bracket in comment and it will say the discussion became unusually excited at one moment. and having researched around for a while i now know what that means is probably someone punched somebody or called someone a liar to his face and had to be held back, there was probably a physical moment there, and you don't see it, so historians -- it is not like these archives are new to historians. historians have been using the criminal end of the

congressional record in all kinds of interesting ways but they haven't necessarily known all of those little coated buried things actually might boil down to violence. when you start there and see a moment you think, i wonder what the noise in the corner they're mentioning is and you go to newspapers and you look at the moment, and hopefully you find something in a newspaper and if not you go into diaries and letters, sooner or later if you keep triangulating evidence in most cases you can figure out, oh, that's what happened. but the fact that you have to do that, you know, with each -- >> what's striking about this is on the one hand you're documenting a lot of violence and on the other hand an effort to not speak openly about it. >> absolutely. >> right? this tension between we're going to engage in violence regularly but it will often be hushed away, put in a corner. >> yeah. >> trying to make sense of that. >> we have a couple minutes left, and i want to find out from both of you, what's the value coming to a gathering of