but i like you have always enjoyed reading history. and quite by accident, i game a scholar performer of john adams and thep later alexander hamilton. yes, i wear a wig and tights. an unusual thing to do, but it's a great, great medium and you can get people who hate history, really involved in whatever you might sacrifice in terms of accuracy, you more than make up for in terms of audience participation and involvement. i've been to prisons and schools that feel like prisons. and it's incredible. it's just amazing how excited people get when they actually have a chance to talk to a founding, the founding member of this country. but that's not why i'm here tonight. you heard this jennifer's introduction, my wife janie and i are coming out with a book called founder's advice. secretary ben it e et did it a

number of years ago, but it was different from what we're trying to do. i have a background as ayg?z historian, but i'm married to a woman who was in business. she was in washington d.c. working for a defense contractor and had the opportunity to go to seattle to work for a small start-up company that had not yet gone public. microsoft. and when she started with microsoft, it was such a small company that they could have employee meetings in a small auditorium, a lunchroom, and she had the opportunity to listen to this man time and time again named bill gates, who didn't talk about making good products and capturing market share. but he talked about changing the world. and i think for her, that was such a, that was such a heady experience and the experience of being in a company like that at that point in time was so

remarkable she really began to take an interest in the whole idea of success. what is it? how does it happen? what do successful people have in common with the rest of us in equal measures? and so, with her background and mip, we reasoned that maybe, we might be like reeces peanut butter and find a way to merge our interests, but perhaps it's even more important than that. some of this stuff is very timeless. when you see some of the advice the founders are giving her, it's most poignant to a child or grandchild. you realize that these are, these are the kind of insights that probably didn't go around sharing with the rest of the world. one of the definitions of secret, something shared by the

initiated. in a sense, these are initiated insights. these are prime things that the older generation found useful either because they did them or failed to do them and that they wanted to give to their offspring and their children's

thought you could learn a lot more about life from the ancients than you could by reading modern thipgs. and a huge part of their education was determined by how well they knew various ancient writers. a good education in the time of someone like thomas jefferson consisted of learning ancient languages, latin and greek, you're better off if you can learn hebrew along the way and you read ancient texts, just as the original authors wrote them and the more you mastereded them, the more educated you were assumed to be. i had the opportunity to be at the boston public library and to hold john adams' copy of cicero's orrations in my hand. every time adams read that book, it was a lifelong favorite of

him, every time he read it, he wrote his name is it. his name was written six times in it. all he did throughout his life, all he read in his library is massive, he went back again and again to that original text that meant so much to him. the founders learned enormously from the ancients. not just about war and politics, by the way, have any of you read or dabbled in plu tark's lives? i bet a number of you do. that was sort of the poor man's classical education. if you didn't have the opportunity to read all of these great ancient works, you could sit down with a translation and you could read these moral biographies of these incredibly successful people throughout ancient times and also a few as

well and plutarch is very, very good at giving you the things that worked, that made their lives particularly successful and occasionally showing you you could ruin your life by doing something that wouldn't be constructive at all and the thing that's amazing is that these lessons stuck. they were incredibly important. general george washington said good-bye to his senior officers here. was called during the revolutionary war, the american fab yous. any of you know who fab yous was? the american fabiuk. and read about fabius maximus. he was considered successful because he managed to ultimately win a war by never fighting a major pitched battle with his opponent. he avoided fighting major battles against alexander the

great because he knew if he did like the other romans, he'd be defeated. so he would avoid a major encounter until he got an opportunity to strike, perhaps not decisively, but meaningfully. that was the bottle. that george washington used during our american revolution. we did not have an army that was sufficiently strong to be able to fight the british. so, we only did it well actually, washington broke his rule a time or two and it was nearly disastrous when he did. but primarily, that was the rule of thumb thumb, to behave as fab yous. keep his army, then when the opportunity presented itself, to strike. of course, he did that decisively, with the help of the french or help with the incredible strength of the french navy and army. amazing. absolutely amazing. a military strategy in the 1700s

being guided by a roman who lived well, well in the ancient past. the founders were incredibly important. again, to the founders, the ancients were incredibly important. that's one way we're different. i think you could read ancient writer to your benefit. how many of you have been forced during your education to read plato or cicero or any number of people? did you find there was benefit in there? to the degree that we're open and that we believe perhaps that certain, certain sort of things are natural laws and that they recur, to that degree, i think we can find great benefit in the past. in any case, the founders did. a lot of their advice sounds like the advice of ancients, but not all of it. a lot of it is personal. one of my favorite letters is a

short one written by john jay. to his son. in which he gave a few seeds and told him to plant these seeds in his uncle's estate. and then says you know, when i walk around my place, i'm sensible to the fact i've -- and i derived a wonderful feeling from that. soim simple as planning trees. that's the degree to which they're their advice extended. the founders are extraordinary. you've got one of these hand outs, if you don't raise your hand, i think they can get one o to you. it's hard to talk about a back the that isn't finished yet.

where i do, is that i get to go over -- who is an extraordinary american, not as -- how many of you know something about chief j justice marshall? for our judiciary system was really brought into being and without him, we'd be in a terrible state. he's really the one that initiated the whole idea of judicial review. i don't want to get into a political discussion, but judicial review has kept us more cognizant of first amendment rights than anything else that would have happened. chief justice marshall writes this incredibly beautiful letter to his grandson. how many of you have had a chance to read it? okay, while you were sitting here. interesting. of course, he makes the plea for reading the ancients that you might expect him to make given

what i had just said to you, but perhaps more importantly, he has this wonderful section on how to become a good writer. how many of you have been schoolteachers in your life? any of you? a few of you. isn't that great advice? how do you become a good writer? you have to have 30 students in a class and a teacher in front, no. he's saying you do this yourself. sit down with a page of a book written by an author you find to be a good writer. he named someone he thinks might be to his grandson's benefit. sit down with it and then, read it, digest it, then try it in your own words and after you've written it in your own words, compare it with the original. in it doesn't measure up, do it again. a great, great platform for self-learning and it's an amazinging thing.

strikes me as timeless. i'm not a teacher, but just strikes me as a timeless thing. that one could still learn to be a good writer usinging this particular formula. marshall was an incredible man. had such a commonness about him. he never intimidated anyone. except for one, his second cousin, thomas jefferson. if any of you have been to monticello, it's a little mountain, well, marshall got back as him by calling him the llama of the mountain. but in any case, marshall was extraordinary in not given offense. he was so common, they tell this wonderful story about him, he's at some kind of a farmer's market in richmond, a woman has

just bought a chicken. she offers him a quarter to take it home. he was a very common man, but an extraordinarily gifted human being and this letter to his grandson when you know about marshall i think to me is an extraordinary look at how a successful man built his own successful life. even though he had some formal educati education, he none the less developed himself. that's what a lot of secrets of the mound er founders are built around. developing themselves. one of the ways the founders differ from us enormously is that they loved to use guilt. how many of you were raised with guilt? hate guilt. how many of you use guilt? you're in good company.

the founders absolutely loved guilt. i'm going to read a couple of things. i'm going to have to put on my glasses here. couple of wonderful things they said about guilt. a couple of wonderful examples of guilt they used. dr. philip rush, an extraordinary man, was considered in some circles, to be the one from saving philadelphia and yellow fever. he was a great advice giver and inventtive letter writer. he had a son studying medicine. expected his son to be regularly in touch with him. it appears that after asking for a pair of boots, his son somehow

fell out of communication with his parents, so that when the boots arieffed, they arrived with this note. my dear son, here with, you will receive your boots. they will serve i hope two purposes. first to keep your feet and legs warm during the winter and secondly, to remind you that you have a father and mother in philadelphia who have never forgotten you for a whole week since you came into the world. i never knew an instance of a man becoming imminent, respectable or wealthy in the profession of medicine who was deficient in punk yalty in letter writing. you have parents who have never forgotten about you for a whole week during your whole life. i think in the guilt school, nobody beats abigail adams. she mastered it.

in a letter written to her son, john quincy, when he was in europe with his father in 1780, abigail said you need to attend constantly and steadfastly to the precepts and instructions of your father. will i hope have a due influence upon your conduct. for as dear as you are to me, i had much rather you would have found your grave in the ocean you have crossed or any other untimely death prop you in your infant years rather than see you an immoral prolif gut or a graceless child. whoa. abigail had high expeck tases.

of course, both parents did. we got a couple of letters from her and we have a couple that john quincy wrote in reply, so you can see the effect of all of that guilt on a child. of course, john quincy is an incredible overachiever. at 14, goes to russia as the secretary of our delegation. he is serves in congress for some time. serves as a cabinet member and of course, becomes president of the united states. and the most extraordinary thing about john quincy is what happens after he serves a term as president. he becomes a member of the house of representatives and serves 30 years in the house. what an extraordinary thing for a president to do. he didn't seek fame and fortune. what he sought was to serve the

people with the united states of america and he does it extraordinarily well. he does things that i think deserves our eternal thanks for. he defends some of the slaves, the would be slaves accused of rioting. the riot as they were being taken to this country against their will. he successfully manages their defense. he is a lifelong opponent of slavery and dies pretty much in the south after a member of congress. he learned his parent's lessons well. one of the appenducovvclj six ws advice he gave to his children. it's kind of collective. it's pretty detailsed about what sort of an education they need and what sort of people they need to become. we've used the word secret. i'd just like to ask any of you

if you could think of one secret that the founding fathers might have believed was essential. what would be a secret piece of advice that you would give someone you love? any ideas? that's big. actually, i think what i'll do now is share ben franklin's list of virtues with you. george washington of course carried a list of 110 virtues around when he was a young man and worked at practicing them, but wasn't as systematic as benjamin franklin. he determined that each and every week, he would practice one of them every day. and of course, keep a record when he was successfully doing it. 12 virtues initially, let me name them for you. would you like to hear his

virtues? the first is temperance. silence. speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. avoid trifling conversation. order. let all your things have their places. let each part of your business have its time. resolution. resolve to perform what you ought. perform without fail what you resolve. frugality. make no expense but to do good to others or yourself. that is waste nothing. industry. lose no time. be always employed in something useful. cut off all necessary actions.

sincerity. use no hurtful deceit. think innocently and justly and if you speak, speak accordingly. justice. wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty. moderation. avoid extremes. forbear resenting injuries as much you think they deserve. klein kleinlyness. tolerate no unkleinlyness in body, clothes or habitation. fran quillty. be not disturbed at trifles or accidents common or unavoidable. number 12. chastity. rarely use veinry but for health or offspring. he worked at these so regularly

and so well that he let and was talking to one of his friends one day, b b b a quaker, and he told him how, how extraordinarily able he was able to practice these 12 virtues and his friend said, benjamin, you need another one. humility. imitate jesus and?l2(+ socrate. that's what he said. franklin was probably the most great at working at self-improvement, but i think many of the founders embodied that as a principle. they knew we needed to make progress in life. that if we wanted to be successful, it wasn't enough to have a dream, but we needed to have a plan and we needed to work at that plan. in order for it to come about.

but if they all had one secret, what perchance do you think it might be? what did they aim at perhaps more than anything else in their own lives as you think about them as a group? probably not giving enough hints. apply yourself to your studies. that's incredibly important this them. what do you think would they claim is the chief republican for being here? well, serving others. if you read the little, the little piece by goodno on the back page there, which have you looked at that as well? just a small quote. how many of you know about him? he was from elizabethtown right across the river. elizabeth today. he was an extraordinarily capable human being. one of the founders, a trustee

of princeton and later become one of the founders of princeton seminary. he was part of a remarkable congregation in elizabeth that had so many revolutionaries in its midst and this was written to the son of one of those people. be a citizen of the world, he's telling us and you know, the more you do that, the more you're going to realize that even as you go about doing your regular business that the great obligation we have is to those in distress and the happiness of mankind at large. there goes that word, happiness. it's really a recuring word in that period of time. thomas jefferson uses it in the declaration of independent

pennsylvania. life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. which was really a twist on john lock, who uses life, liberty and property when writing his thesis. happiness. happiness. what the heck is happiness? how many of you have pursued it somewhat in your life? how many of you know when you don't have it? i think it's huge for us. a wonderful letter that we're going to share a part of with you. is by someone named phillip skylar. one of his desenn dents is sitting back there. great grandson.

any way, skyler writes this incredible letter to his son. what will be shared when something happens to him and his wife and what he has to say in here is pretty interesting. happiness ought to be the aim and end of the exertions of every rashable creature and spiritual should take the lead. temporal happiness does not really exist except in name. the whole idea of happiness was an incredibly powerful philosophical strin that runs through this generation and they had so many different ways to address it, so many different ways to work at it, but they all believed that was really the

chief aim of human beings, that we need to be happy people. they think happiness is best achieved by working on yourself, your relationships to other people and by doing everything you can to benefit those. many do it in a consciously religious way, some that are philosophically, but happiness is our chief end in the vise of the founders in all we do for ourselves and for others, it is designed to achieve it. suppose you're near death and someone asks you for a letter of advice for a child yet to be

born or who has just been born. what would your letter look like? let me share with you what thomas jefferson wrote. i'm not going to read the whole thing, but this is written to someone named thomas jefferson smith. this letter will to you be as one from the dead. the wrirt will be in the grave before you can way its counsels. your affectionate father has requested that i address something to you which might have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run. and i, too, as a name sake, feel an interest in that course. few words will be necessary adore god, reference and cherish your parents, love your neighbor as yourself and your country

more than yourself. be just, be true, murmur not at the ways of providence. so shall the life which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and efable bliss, as if to the dead to care for the things of this world, every action of your life will be under my regard. farewell. extraordinary as that is, jefferson includes a deck log of con nons. meaning there are ten of them. number one, never put off till tomorrow wh you can do today. two, never trouble another what you can do to yourself. three, never spend your money before you have it. number four, never buy what you

do not want because it is cheap. it will be dear to you. number five, pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold. number six, we never repent over having eaten too little. number seven. nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. number eight, how much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened. number nine. take things always by their smooth handle. number ten, when angry, count ten before you speak. if very angry, 100.

a letter to someone just born. that it might continue to be an influence to people, but they believe that advice was a benefit. they all gave advice certainly and a number of them, the number of them thought advice was worth taking. one of the reasons that hamilton didn't like john adams was that he wouldn't take advice and in the mind of hamilton, he said, you know, the wisest of men may profit from it, lesser minds certainly need it. one of the thipgs he thought was so great about general waugs was that he would seek the advice of

those around him, then think about what needs to be done. revolve slowly, as hamilton put it, but surely. they believed that advice was absolutely essential to the world as we know it and we live in a time today that's conflicted on the subject of advice. have any of you heard the saying that advice is a form of abuse? ever heard that one? that one came to me not too long ago. i don't think i was given any advice at the time. but i think for some people, with the idea of learning that way from ore others is an incredibly unuseful thing, but i think hamilton is closer to being right. who of us can't benefit from being right? when he was a young person study

ing in kings college, he would listen to other people. there was a little group they had for self-improvement. their own private little group. it wasn't a college group and this little group would present papers to one another. there would be bits of advice offered on to how to make them more acceptable, better. hamilton wrote some of the most incredible pamphlets of the time. maybe that doesn't work, hamilton, you need to do this, do that. it was absolutely essential. this little move for self-improvement. p participate in master mind groups? we think of them as essential and really successful people gather together to share advice and information with one another. i think highly functional people and the founders were among the most functional people in the world, realized that the best

advice you can get will only make whatever decisions you need to make better than they would have been otherwise. so, i encourage all of you to rethink the whole subject of advice if you think it might be a form of abuse. guilt, might not be out of the realm of possibility. jefferson once said to his daughter, i will love you fo you learn to read liveie in the original language. you don't if don't? it was the world in dh they lived. a lot of their advice is timeless. how many of you would not think a letter like john marshall's has a place in front of young people who have their lives ahead of them? there are certain things about it that are date d, but a lot o what he's saying is absolutely wonderful and useful and if you've never looked through

plutarch's lives, look through it and look at some of the pseudonyms he used and look them up, see who he's referencing. see who they are and what they did and you'll understand our political climate in this country perhaps even better than you would have otherwise. absolutely essential. in the world of the founders, optional in our own world, but i think i'm trying to make a case that advice the not a bad thing, particularly when you think it's a truth and it will be beneficial to the people with whom you share it. as i look back on my own life, i rue having to have learned these things. if i learned them earl i listen, wouldn't it have made a lot of difference? i'm going to quit talking now.

i'd be happy to answer questions. i've got a lot more letters to share with you. i think you get the flavor that the advice of the trainers gave. you understand the whole thing is about happiness. ask me anything you want. thank you. >> you talk about cincinnati and what it meant to the romans. >> washington was considered about the societity of cincinnati. the organization formed after the revolutionary war of officers who had served in the continental army and it's a hereditary society. there's only one hamilton, right? >> it's kind of like a back up plan on the older one. >> i think the episcopal church

has one like that. it's be going on this time. it was considered a really, really dangerous thing by certain people after the war. of course, thomas jefferson was really fearful of the society. of any organization. he didn't like the military. it was this great roman at that point in history, the only one having put together this big army and won this major campaign, left it and went home and became a farmer again. to be like cincinnatius.

he consciously did exactly. one of the reasons he was hammered so much during the administration was because you can't attack george washington. he was off limits. even if you didn't like him, you couldn't say anything negative about him because he was the symbol of america, the noble virtuous person, so it's one of those examples. here again, there's a nice long biography of him in advertise lives. yes, sir. >> there's like three missions in there. the second was to never let the people forget what they thought.

it's kind of like the lessons learned from the war to promote and the third was to take care of the widows and children that were -- yeah, there's a great guest book entry. there's a wonderful enter tri that someone wrote b about having come here, by remembering what was and what happened, we will be better in the future, preserve our libertieliberties. any other questions? yes, sir. >> when i was in high school and college, i read a great deal of -- well authored. i really understand why, i don't

think that our teachers knew well, but i don't think they understood the significance and now, i do understand the significance. >> absolutely, they were read k, they were equipping you to read the same things that our founders had read and read to such benefit. i don't think john adams sat down six times with cicero's orrations because he liked the way the text flowed. he was refreshing himself with themes of liberty, of independence. transce senn dance. we can read them profitably in translation, but now, we're in a time where our educational system believes that if it isn't looking ahead, it's wasting time

and energy and of course, we do that i think at some peril because not only are we inclined to forget lessons that shouldn't be forgotten, but we're consciously ignoring a huge part of the curriculum that shaped the very people that created this country. we, you know, i hear people all the time when dressed up as hamilton talking about well, they were such great men and where are great people like that. why do we live in a time when people are just not so smart and strong and motivated? we're educated differently and we need to be. we need all of the technical sorts of thins that can help us compete. they lived in a three mile per hour world. they wrote with quills. read by candle light. it was a different world, but i think we may have lost something by breaking so completely with that past.

and i'd like to think that's part of what you're saying. but you're right, we should explain why we're asking them to read latin. >> we often talk of the need for technological education and this is true, but what you can wind up with is a slave society. they know their own jobs very, very well. they don't know much else and they're ruled by a tiny elite who does not something else, but is not necessarily ben ef lens. >> thank you, give you a hand. i couldn't agree more. you're absolutely right. >> i have two questions. did john and abigail adams ever send conflicting advice to their children? zpl. >> not that i know of. they were of one mind in terms

of how their children should be raised. she of course did a lot of it on her own and you know, they actually had the, they had the terrible burden of having a son that didn't turn out well. if you saw the paul giamat giamatta mini series, you get the sense of that where john turns his back on his son and never wants to see him. i don't think abigail did that. are you contributing to this or have different question? >> different question. >> just a second then. so, you had question number two. >> i don't mean to be funny, but ben franklin, his chassty, had an illegitimate son. >> we're asking to believe that these founders actually pract e practiced what they preached.

brilliant man if -- clay jenkinsson does it brilliant, but we were going through this one night in the program and suddenly, he came to that one as jefferson. never ask another to do something which you can dpo yourself and he just erupted in laughter. jefr owned slaves. the only reason he was able to do what he did is because everyone else doing the other stuff. it's great advice. a story that's closer to home in new york, there was an imminent theologian named knaver. broke the serenity prayer. suffered a stroke. his later years were difficult and onerous and he confessed to

his doctor he was just getting tired of all these happy letters from people telling them about how the serenity prayer changed their lives. he said, you know, i just, i'm glad they're feeling that way, but i can't feel it. his doctor said don't worry about it. everybody knows that doctors and preachers don't practice what they preach. >> read the letter from abigail to john quincy. she comes across in that letter as somewhat traditionalistic as opposed to the image presented of her today as the first women's liberation advocate. was there any element of advice she gave to her children that could be views add more modernistic than traditional? >> not really. >> keep your nose to the

grindstone, work hard, give it everything you've got and you know, remember god, be respectful and you'll turn out just fine. pretty traditional. didn't want us to remember the ladies. she wanted congress to remember the ladies when they were deliberating over independent ens from great britain. i think what she intended probably was that they gain some rights under law. they had none. they were property. i don't think she was saying we want the vote. i think she was sayi ining we'de not to be property. we'd like to have laws that would treat us with with dignity and respect. by and large, the constitution went along way to improving a lot of women i think. yes, sir. somebody in the back there? >> yes. >> read the note to the grandson yet, but the last page, not really the last page, you mentioned that when he started

the army, his feelings about patriotism, that's what i call, he's different from the virgi a virginians. i'm looking at the world patriotism, in your book with the letter, anything even in last paragraph, you had massive devotion to his country was m mirrored in care of his family, however, his devotion to his country, any wording that really cater to say this is a country. you know, how to serve. i'm saying -- that clear? >> i think you read a lot of his judicial decisions and you see how much he loved his country. within a year or two of the new government after the constitution, it was clear we had two political factions. you had the federalists, trying

to put together a new government under the constitution that would knit these 13 littinging states, knit them together and provide for the commonwealth, the preamble of the institution. it would provide for the common defense, the general welfare. it had the power to tax, a year before that had ond before reserved for states. it was doing something con pleatly different and we have thomas jefferson who's read the ancients so much and he knows that almost in any republic, there's somebody hungering for power, somebody who wants to be he's suspicious of everything. james madison, something of a federalist. i think interested in the entire union over perhaps the interest of their own particular state. madison joins him and they become absolutely masterful political opponents and i think

the federalists never really recover from their efforts, well, they don't recover from them, but they just become incredibly ab instructionistic. we think of the political system toews at obstructionistic, but read about the democratic republican party and federalists and all the terrible things they said about one another. it's incredible. i think we've been there before. and i think we were there in a way that was profound. the thing that made marshall extraordinary in virginia was that there weren't many federalists there. by and large, they were democratic republicans. jefferson people. and he paid no small price with his political views. he was really helpful to madison in the ratification convention getting virginia to ratify the constitution, but i think he became lonelier in the years

past with views that were federal as opposed to the jefferson point of view. he speaks magnificently of it. i've only quoted a little bit there. he never wrote an autobiography of himself, but justice story, who was a contemporary of his on the court, delivered this wonderful essay about him after marshal died and incorporated a lot of what he had been given earlier by marshal. i think the part that i quoted really gets it why marshal was different and why a lot of the federalists were different from democratic republicans. it was what they had done during the war. it was what they experienced. marshal was a virginian. he was a bit of a backwoods virginian, but he fought in a number of the battles in new jersey. but he became part of something that was a lot bigger than virginia. and he got to know people from

many different states, many different backgrounds, and it changed, it changed him and he began to think of the united states as his country. not virginia. and he became to think of the government as the government of the united states, not the government of virginia. and of course, this gets revisited in the american civil war. this is exactly what's happening. the secession begins. these states are asserting the rights that they retained when they voluntarily became a part of the federal union. the view of lincoln was that's not true. you can't leave. you're in it, you stay in it. but it's primarily over the belief of the southern states that they were the primary unit. they had given certain things to the federal government, but they hadn't absolutely given up their right to be virginians or south

carolinians or whatever. i don't know if i'm answering your question well. marshal talked about it in a lot of different decisions. i can get a biography. >> you're -- let me just say this. not in any of his letters of advice to get the sort of answers you're looking for. >> came out of the church with the american flag and a woman said patriotic. i have two flags. but i thought about it because i look up the word fascism. and i believe, this is me, i believe that americans born, americans and immigrants -- first let's talk about born

americans. it's the lack of love for the nation. i don't feel there's a love. it's like i have this flag, it's like people look at me like what do i have a flag for. and as a teacher i bought the little flags. there's no r more. this is sad. but that's me. >> thank you for being who you are, really. yes, sir? >> did these letters touch on slavery and attitudes on slavery? i shouldn't say that. i think george mason in one of his letters discussed slavery a bit. but i think for most of the southerners, slavery was a fact. they didn't see it ending. it would have been neat if i could have gotten letters from somebody like robert king carter who freed all his slaves or edward kohls. he comes along a little later.

jefferson writes him and coles says i want to free my slaves. jefferson says it wouldn't be a good idea to do that. for a lot of different reasons. and coles gets the idea he needs to leave. he actually moves to what was then the west. he becomes an early governor of illinois. but frees his slaves as they are crossing the ohio river from slave territory to free territory. there were people that did it. here again, i think that letter of edward coles is beautiful. i think he really understands that slaves are human beings. they are entitled to every right that a human being has. every natural right, which here again in the declaration of independence is well specified. during the revolution, he said the people that yelped most

about liberty are the ones that are have a whip in the other hand and beat the slaves. something to that. >> last question. >> last question, okay. >> what was your thought process of collecting these advice letters? and also getting the letters. >> there are a lot of letters that should be in this. and in fact, this could be several volumes. if the the first one is perceived to have value, maybe we'll do another one. we have the letters. we have lots and lots and lots of letters. reasons for selecting what we selected i think comes down to personal preference in many cases. making points that we think might be of interest to people. and dare i state the commercial motive. we include a lot of people who

have homes that are still standing because they have booksto bookstores and it's an outlet for selling books that are not being published through traditional channels. and i think that's just recognizing what is. i would love to have some letters who followed oliver wolcott, followed hamilton and the secretary of treasury office. other people, there are a lot of interesting founders that would be fun to include some of their letters. thank you very much. it's been a real pleasure to be with you. [ applause ] on the next washington journal, our guests include bob cusack, editor in chief of the hill newspaper. also karl smid from the aids institute to discuss federal funding and his group's role. washington journal is live on

c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span 2, here on c-span 3 we compliment that coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. then on weekends, c-span 3 is the home to "american history tv" with programs that tell our nation's story including six unique series. the civil war's anniversary visiting battlefields and key events. touring museums to discover what artifacts reveal about america's past. history book shelf with the best known history writers, the presidency looking at the policies and commanders in chief. lextures in history with top college professors delving into america's past. and our new series featuring our government and educational films from the 1930s through the '70s. c-span 3, created by the cable

tv industry and funded -- watch us and like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. next history in american studies professor joanne freeman talks about the concept of honor and led to his death in a dual with aaron burr. the awareness society hosted this event. it's 40 minutes. >> i have the pleasure to have introducing joanne freeman. she's got a long history with the museum and an even longer one with alexander hamilton. now 25 years ago, john hersag approached a young woman working at the library of congress where the papers are lodged. this woman not even a grad student had already cure rated an exhibit. that became one of our earliest

exhibits and that was joanne freeman. her history with hamilton is extensive. we have many here in the audience, but how many of you have read all 27 volumes of the papers several times? joanne has, she started early reading them as a teenager. her research to the hamilton in scotland as well as in saint kroi. she immersed herself in the culture by living there for several weeks. she has so much experience that she went and fired -- she did this at a gun range calling this oddly satisfying, not much of a kick, but a nice full pop and a dramatic smoke of puff soon after. joanne, we have a historian trying to capture the mood and

moment of what it was like several hundred years ago, and this actually extends through her ph.d. work that was done at the university of virginia, of all places. so a hamiltonen in jefferson country. that's immersing yourself in a different culture. joanne pulled that trigger in research of her book, which won the best book award from the society of historians of the early american republic. it also received high praise from her peers. joseph ellis called that book, quote, unquote, a landmark work. and writings appeared atlantic monthly was published and ranked as one of the best books of the year. that's just a sampling of her work. she has numerous articles in peer review journals, op-ed pieces in "the new york times," appeared in a host of