right now i would say putin has an inside track right now. at this moment. and maybe the jihadists, i don't know. but we are at war and we better realize that. we are at war against the jihadists and they declared war on us on 9/11 and killed our people. until we win, we have the risk of losing. >> finally, bruce herschensohn, we haven't really talked about the mideast but the president recently diverted into saudi arabia on his trip to europe. >> he did. >> i want to talk about the middle east situation as far as israel and saudi arabia and some of those other countries to tie it into obama's globe. >> yes. i would like to do that. saudi arabia could have been our covert and overt friend in a coalition that would include the united states and israel and any number of sunni gulf states because they despise what's

going on in iran. they're not really pleased with iran, the shias anyway, but they despise it. they don't want iran to get the bomb. if they do, they will get the bomb and you can count on that and i can understand that. so what is going on is the speech that president obama gave on israel in which he started by saying the borders should be based on the 1967 lines. do you recall that? he said that's what the borders should be based on between israel and palestine, talking about palestine as though it's a nation. do you realize what he's saying? he is saying before he won the war in israel, it would be like saying to david cameron -- david cameron saying to us we want to go back to the 1775 lines. i hope you understand, yes, of course that is what we should

do, or we would be sitting right now we are sitting in southern california, we would be sitting in northern mexico if we went back to the lines preceding the u.s./mexican war. too bad but that's how borders come about, by winners and losers. generally that's how they come about. unless there's some geographical entity, mountains and rivers or whatever but that's how most of the borders are. and they won a war. they won a war they sure didn't want to have. do we have the time for me to just tell you one quick -- it's called an occupation and people say obama uses that, president obama uses that word all the time about an occupation, they're occupiers. how can any people be occupied when they never had the land to begin with? and they didn't. it sounds to most people as though the '67 war was over west bank and gaza.

wasn't over either one of them. at that time, jordan had already seized and taken the west bank and called it the west bank because that's how it got its name, from jordan's invasion and seizure in 1949. egypt already had gaza. before that, the british had them. before the british, turkey had them. before turkey, it was the crusades. before the crusades it was rome and back in biblical times, i don't know what happened before then. but they never had it. so how could someone be occupying their land? what do you mean, their land? there is no such thing as their land. palestine was always considered an area like we say scandinavia. there's no country called scandinavia but there are a number of countries we consider to be in it. palestine, that was considered as jewish as it was arab. it was when i was a kid. that's the way it was

considered. that's all. but it is a myth and one thing happened in that war that i think is worth knowing about. israel was very concerned that it was going to be two fronts. it was going to be the western front which was egypt, tanks were already being sent across the sinai, he had sealed up the gulf in the south and syria in the north, but it was particularly -- they thought they could win a two-front war. they didn't think they could win a three-front war against jordan as well on the east. so the prime minister at the time talked to our ambassador and said we can't talk to king hussain because we don't have diplomatic relations. could we use your offices or maybe the ambassador to jordan's offices, the u.s. ambassador, to guarantee, israel guarantees we won't take anything that jordan considers its territory,

including their west bank, and even referred to the term west bank, which no one really would refer to as judea and samaria. anyway, even that, we won't go in there if you could do that. well, this guy did, our ambassador did what a good ambassador does, contacted his secretary of state. the secretary of state contacted president johnson. president johnson did one better. he wasn't going to have an ambassador do this. he was going to send the undersecretary of state to ahman, jordan to talk to king hussain. he talked to him, he said israel guarantees it won't touch one bit of territory if you just sit on your hands when egypt and syria are at war with israel. israel guarantees it, he says president johnson wanted me to tell you that the united states guarantees that israel won't do it. at that time of history, king hussain was not as strong as he was in later life. he became a very strong guy. he was weak and he went to his

other arab leaders, including nasir, the president of egypt, and said nothing doing, man. i'm sure they were more articulate than i am right now. they didn't say nothing doing, man. they said no. the war started. israel attacked egypt and syria, just like that, ruined their air forces totally. they didn't touch jordan that first day but jordan sent in its tanks across the west bank into israel proper and they attacked jordan, and that's how israel got what is called the west bank. >> we have been talking with pepperdine university professor bruce herschensohn. his book, "obama's globe, a president abandonment of u.s. allies around the world." you're watching book tv on c-span 2. >> over the next several hours, we are going to feature programs

normally seen weekends on c-span 3's american history tv. coming up, a look at how the founding fathers, alexander hamilton and john adams, gave and took advice in their personal and public lives. followed by hamilton's ideas about honor in politics. then a discussion about pennsylvania's whiskey rebellion and other local uprisings against the federalist-led u.s. government in the 1790s. >> tonight, c-span in prime time spotlights veterans health care. we'll have highlights from hearings on capitol hill, including doctors, whistleblowers and those directly impacted by issues at the v.a. >> upon returning from the second deployment, brian was evaluated, he was diagnosed with ptsd, tbi depression and anxiety. at this time, i would like you to refer to the documents that you received, brian's medical documents. it's documented that brian could

not remember the questions asked from the therapist during the interview. he had extensive back pain. he couldn't sleep. he felt profound guilt. he suffered from low self-esteem and as a result, he was a risk for suicide. nonetheless, he was just immediately discharged and told to follow up. how in the world you can ask someone who can't remember the questions asked to follow up with the v.a. is beyond me. brian deteriorated quickly from december 2010 to may 27th, 2011, when he took his life. he couldn't stand how he would be angry, depressed, anxious, but he didn't know how to cope. it took a toll on his relationships. if the d.o.d. and v.a. assessed brian for suicide risk, it was their duty to treat him, but he received nothing. he applied for disability but was unable to wait.

>> you can see more of that hearing and other events related to veterans' health care issues tonight on c-span. next on american history tv, author william chrystal discusses the advice gleaned from the founding fathers' personal correspondence and its temporary relevance. he looks in particular at the advice passed on by alexander hamilton and john adams. not only to their political colleagues, but to their own families, and why that advice was so valued in developing the emerging american identity. the fraunces tavern museum hosted this event. it's about an hour. >> it's a delight to be with you again. i love this place. even though we are not technically in fraunces tavern. it's so much a part of where we are, so many incredible things happened. if you know the story of the american revolution, you realize

that this is where general washington said good-bye to some of his principal senior officers. he realized this was the place exactly a week before colonel burr and general hamilton faced one another in a duel and they sat next to one another. can you imagine, with all of this impending. burr was somewhat sullen. hamilton was animated, apparently, quite animated, and he was induced to sing his favorite song here. an old marshal song called the drum. which is a fascinating song. i love the way it ends. it's with hamilton really singing paeons to this country and the fact this country would live forever. fraunces tavern, an incredible place. it's fun for me to be in and amongst a group of people who know a lot about american history as well. that doesn't happen very often.

i -- you all know this. the same problem. and when people find out you're interested in history, they sort of look at you like, what's wrong with you? why can't you get a life and do something useful? but i, like you, have always enjoyed reading history. i have enjoyed american history and quite by accident, i became a scholar performer of john adams and then later, alexander hamilton. yes, i wear a wig and tights. an unusual thing to do, but it's a great, great medium and you know 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, i've been to 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 -- to a founding member of this country.

but that's not why i'm here tonight. you heard in jennifer's introduction, my wife janie and i are coming out with a book called "founders' advice." secretary bennett did it a number of years ago but it was different from what we're trying to do. i have a background as a 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 that she began to really take an interest in the whole idea of success. what is success, how does it happen. what do successful people perhaps have in common that some of the rest of us don't have in equal measure. and so, with her background and mine, we reasoned that maybe we might be like reese's peanut butter and find a way to merge our interests, but perhaps it's even more important than that. some of this stuff is just downright timeless. when you see some of the advice the founders are giving, and it's most poignant usually when it's to a child or a grandchild. you realize that these are, these are the kind of insights

that they probably didn't go around sharing with the rest of the world. that's why we have used the word secret. one of the definitions of secret is something shared by the initiated. in a sense, these are initiated insights. these are the prime things that the older generation found useful in their lives, either because they did them or because they failed to do them, and that they wanted to give to their offspring and their children's offspring in the hopes that it would give them an opportunity in life to be incredibly successful. they gave advice on every topic. how many of you believe in giving advice, by the way? how many of you are dead set against the whole idea of advice? what's the old saying, a person convinced against his or her will is under the same opinion still. they thought advice was important and they sought it in no uncertain terms.

we're like the founders in a lot of ways. we share a lot of things in common, but one thing about them that was incredibly different from us as a people, not you as a group in this particular room, they thought you could learn a lot more about life from the ancients than you could by reading modern things. and a huge part of their education was determined by how well they knew various and sundry 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 mastered these ancient texts, the more educated you were assumed to be. i had the opportunity a number of years ago to be at the boston public library, copley square,

and to hold john adams' copy of sicero's oration ns my hand which is a really, really neat thing. every time adams read that book, it was a life-long favorite of his, every time he read it he wrote his name in it. his name was written six times in orations. everything he did throughout his life, all that he read and 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 plutart's lives? plenty of you knew about it. 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 in the original languages, you could

sit down with a translation of plutark, his lives of eminent greeks and romans and you could read these moral biographies of these incredibly successful people throughout ancient times and also a few reprobates as well. he was very, very good at giving you the things that worked that made their lives particularly successful and also occasionally showing how you could ruin your life by doing something that wouldn't be useful or constructive at all. the thing that's amazing is 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 fabious. any of you know who fabious was? he was the american fabious. go to plutark's lives and read about fabious maximus. he was a roman general who 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 always kind of avoid a major encounter until he got an opportunity to strike, perhaps not decisively, but to strike meaningfully. that was the model 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, to behave as fabious. to avoid major encounters, keep his army intact, then when the opportunity presented itself, to strike. of course, he did that decisively, with the help of the

french, more than help with the incredible strength of the french navy and the french army down at yorktown. 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. i mean, to the founders, the ancients were incredibly important. that's one way we're different. i think you could read ancient writers to your benefit. how many of you have been forced during your education to read plato or sicero 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, anyway, to that degree i think we can find great benefit

in the past. in any case, the founders did. a lot of their advice really sounds like the advice of ancients, but not all of it. a lot of it is incredibly personal. one of my favorite, absolutely favorite letters is a short one written by john jay to his son in which he sends him a few seeds and tells him to plant these seeds in his uncle's estate. and then says you know, when i walk around my place, i'm sensible of the fact that i'm walking under trees that my father planted. and i derive a wonderful feeling from that. something as simple as planting trees. that's the degree to which their advice extended. the founders are extraordinary. an extraordinary lot. you've got one of these handouts, hopefully. if you don't, raise your hand.

hopefully we can get one to you. it's hard to talk about a book that isn't finished yet. but one of the wonderful things, i think we made our basic selections. but one of the wonderful things that comes from living where i do about an hour and a half from richmond, virginia, is that i get to go over and visit the house of chief justice john marshall fairly often, who was an extraordinary american, not as well known as he ought to be. how many of you know something about chief justice marshall? i think a lot of what worked in our judiciary system was really, was really brought into being at this point in time 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 i think than anything else that would have happened. chief justice marshall writes this incredibly beautiful letter to his grandson.

i don't know if -- how many of you have had a chance to read it yet? 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. and you have read this as well? isn't that great advice? how do you become a good writer? do you have to have 30 students in a class and a teacher in front? no. he's saying you can do this yourself. you sit down with a page of a book written by an author that you find to be a good writer, and he actually names someone he thinks might be read 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 amazing thing. it strikes me as timeless. i'm not a teacher but it just strikes me as a timeless thing that one could still learn to be a good writer using this particular formula. marshall was an incredible man. as joseph said in the little introduction that's written here, he had such a commonness about him. he never intimidated people. well, i should say except for one. there was one that called him the gloomy malignaty. that was his second cousin, thomas jefferson. if any of you have been to monticello, it's a little mountain, well, marshall got back at his cousin by calling him the llama of the mountain.

but in any case, marshall was extraordinary in not giving 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. that has just been killed. she offers him a quarter to take it home. he does it. he takes the quarter, takes the chicken, follows her to her house, presents it and then goes back. chief justice of the united states supreme court. 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 education, he nonetheless developed himself. that of course is what a lot of the secrets of the founders are built around, developing themselves. one of the ways the founders

differ from us enormously, though, is that they loved to use guilt. they loved 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 that they used. dr. benjamin rush, the philadelphia physician, an extraordinary man, was considered in some circles to be the one responsible for saving philadelphia from yellow fever during one of the outbreaks. benjamin rush was a great advice giver and an inveterate letter writer. he had a son who was studying medicine, was away at school

studying medicine, and expected his son to be regularly in touch with him. well, 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 arrived, they arrived with this note. my dear son, herewith, 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 eminent, respectable or even wealthy in the profession of medicine who was deficient in punctuality 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. both parents, she said, this is quoting, 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 crop you in your infant years rather than see you

an immoral prolifigate or a graceless child. whoa. abigail had high expectations. of course, both parents did. we got a couple of letters from her in our book. we also 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. he, at 14, goes to russia as the secretary of our delegation. he 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. i don't think it's quite as profitable, would have been quite as profitable then as perhaps it is now, but he didn't seek fame and fortune. what he sought was to serve the people of the united states of america and he does it extraordinarily well. he does things that he, i think, deserves our eternal thanks for. he defends some of the slaves, the would-be slaves who were accused of rioting and had the temerity to actually riot as they were being taken to this country against their will. he successfully manages their defense. he is a lifelong opponent of slavery, an extraordinary human being, and dies pretty much in the south as a member of congress. he learned his parents' lessons well. actually, one of the appendices we have in this book that we're doing is advice that he gave to his children. it's kind of collected, it's pretty long.

it's pretty detailed about what sort of an education they need and what sort of people that 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 absolutely essential. what would be a secret piece of advice that you might give someone that you loved? any ideas? industriousness. 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 with him when he was a young man, and worked at practicing them, but he was not nearly so systematic as benjamin franklin. franklin came up with a list of 13 virtues. it was initially 12 virtues and

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? okay. the first is temperance. eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation. 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 as you think they deserve. cleanliness. tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes or habitation. tranquility. be not disturbed at trifles or accidents, common or unavoidable. number 12, chastity.

rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation. he worked at these so regularly and so well that he went and was talking to one of his friends one day, a quaker, and he told him how extraordinarily able, he was able to practice these 12 virtues and his friend said benjamin, you need another one. humility. imitate jesus and socrates. that's what he said. franklin was probably the most extraordinary of the people who worked at self-improvement, but i think many of the founders embodied that as a principle. they knew that we need to make progress in life. they knew i think that if we

wanted to be successful, it wasn't enough to have a dream, but we also needed to have a plan and we needed to work at that plan in order for it to come about. do some work all of the time. frankly, i think all of them did it. 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 you enough hints in asking. you have a thought? >> apply yourself to your studies? >> apply yourself to your studies. of course. that's incredibly important this them. what do you think would they claim is the chief reason 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 even though he hadn't attended it and later became one of the founders of princeton theological seminary. he was always a devout member of the presbyterian church. he was part of the remarkable congregation in elizabeth that had so many revolutionaries in its midst. people who made great contributions to this country. this was written to the son of one of those people. it's really wonderful. you read through what he says we're supposed to do. be a citizen of the world, he's telling us and you know, the more you do that, you're going to realize even as you go about doing your regular business, that the great obligation we have is to those who are in

distress and the happiness of mankind at large. there goes that word, happiness. it really is a recurring word in that period of time. of course, thomas jefferson uses it in the declaration of independence. life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. which was really a twist on john locke, who uses life, liberty and property when he's writing his theses. 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 happiness is huge for us. but we aren't always, you know, we aren't always aware of what it ought to look like. here again, a wonderful letter that i'm going to share a part of with you is by someone named philip skyler.

here again, is that a familiar name to some of you? it is to you, several of you. one of his descendents is sitting in the back there, doug hamilton, who was the fifth grade grandson of alexander hamilton who would make him a sixth great grandson of philip skyler. anyway, skyler writes this incredible letter to his son. to whom he has just given a part of his estate and is explaining how things are going to be shared and what will happen when something happens to him and to 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 rational creature and spiritual happiness should take the lead. in fact, temporal happiness without the former does not really exist except in name.

the whole idea of happiness was an incredibly powerful philosophical strain 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. we think about happiness in completely different terms but i think they really decided that happiness is best achieved by working on yourself, by working on your relationships to other people, and by doing everything you can to benefit those who are in need of assistance. and many of them do it in a very consciously religious way. others do it in ways that aren't particularly religious at all, but are philosophically clean. but happiness is our chief end in the minds of the founders in all that we do for ourselves and for others, it is designed to achieve it.

let's suppose you're within a year of your death and someone asks you for a letter of advice, for a child who has 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 under those circumstances. this is one of the most amazing letters i think he wrote, and he was an incredible letter writer. i'm not going to read the whole thing to you, but this is written to someone named thomas jefferson smith. this letter will to you be as one from the dead. the writer will be in the grave before you can weigh its counsels. your affectionate and excellent father has requested that i would address to you something which might possibly have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run.

and i too as a namesake feel an interest in that course. few words will be necessary with good dispositions on your part. adore god, reverence 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 into which you have entered be the portal into one of eternal and ineffable bliss as if to the dead it is permit tod care for the things of this world, every action of your life would be under my regard. farewell. extraordinary as that is, jefferson includes a decalog of canones for observation in practical life. decalog meaning there are ten of them, number one, never put off til tomorrow what you can do

today. two, never trouble another for what you can do yourself. number 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. great image.

number ten, when angry, count ten before you speak. if very angry, 100. a letter to someone just born. i think the founders, of course, they realized that a lot of what they said and did would be recorded by posterity, but a letter like that i don't think jefferson had any real knowledge that it might see the light of day or 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, a 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, as hamilton said, he said the wisest of men may profit from

it, lesser minds certainly need it. advice. one of the things hamilton thought was so great about general washington was that he would seek the advice of those around him, and then he would think about what needed to be done, he would then resolve slowly, as hamilton put it, but resolve surely. they believed that advice was absolutely essential to the world as they knew 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 giving any advice at the time. but i think for some people, the idea of learning that way from others is an incredibly unuseful thing, but i think

hamilton is probably closer to being right. i mean, who among us can't benefit from advice? part of hamilton's genius when he was a young person studying at kings college, not far away, was he would listen to other people. there was a little group that they had for self-improvement. it was their own little private group. it wasn't a college group. this little group would present papers to one another. there would be bits of advice offered on how to make them more, you know, more acceptable, better. hamilton wrote some of the most incredible political pamphlets of the time using that group, getting more ideas being told well, maybe that doesn't work, hamilton, you need to do this, you need to do that. it was absolutely essential, this little group for self-improvement. and what do we know in our time? how many of you are in business? how many of you participate in master mind groups? we think of master mind groups

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 highly 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 martha, he said i will love you if you learn to read liviie in the original language. you mean you won't love me if i don't? it was the world in which they lived. but advice was critical to their world view and a lot of their advice is absolutely 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 dated, but an awful lot of what he's saying is absolutely wonderful and useful. and if you have never looked through plutark's lives, never looked through plu tart's lives get ahold of it and use some of the pseudonyms hamilton used when writing publicly. see who they were and what they did in the society and you will 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 am trying to make a case that advice is not a bad thing, particularly when you think it is the truth and you think it will be ben official to the people you share it. i rue having had to have learn so many of these things so late

in life. if i could have learned them earlier on, would that have made difference? absolutely essential. i'm going quit talking now. i'm happy to any answer questions. you understand the whole thing is about happiness. ask me anything you want. thank you. [ applause ] any questions. >> would you talk about cincinnati and the society of cincinnati and how it formed. >> washington was also considered it was about the society of cincinnati which is is organization formed of the revolutionary war of officers who had served in the continental army and it is a hereditary society.

doug hamiltons represents his family in the society of the. >> there is a backup plan on the older one. >> i think the e miss cmiss co-pal church has one of those two. it was considered a dangerous thing by people after the war. thomas jefferson was fearful of any organization that seemed to him to be elitist and that he thought might become an instrument which would undermine the liberty of the american people. cincinnatious of course was this great roman general and we remember him because 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. and of course washington is often considered to be like him. a lot of parallels made to him, for than to fabious in fact but he very consciously did what cincinnatiis had done. he was off limits of course politically. one of the reasons hamilton was hammered so much during the administration was he was -- garbage washington was off limits. he was the symbol of america. the symbol of the cincinnatiis the noble virtuous person who does what is best for all the people. so society of the cincinnati is one of those examples.

there is a wonderful biography of him in plutarch's lives. >> there are like three megs missions, one is to keep the missions together. the second was to never let the forget forget what they fought. so kind of like the lessons learned from the war to promote those things and the third was to take care of widows and children that had no money. >> yeah there is a great guest book entry. some of you walked in past that and interesthere is a wonderful some had written that by remembering what was and we'll preserve our liberties. a great way to look at it. ignorance about our own history has cost us many things throughout the course of this country.

cincinnatiis, another of the noble ancients. >> when i was in high school and college i read a great deal of the latin authors. and though your talk was the first time i really understood why. i don't think that our teachers new latin well. and that was not the problem. but i don't think they understood the significance of these writings. and i for the first time hearing you talk now i do understand the significance. >> absolutely. they were reading -- they were equipping you to read the same things that our founders had read and read to such benefit. and here again, i don't think john adams sat down six times with cicero's orations just a because he liked the way the

text flowed. he was assessing himself. and all things that were so important. we can read them properly i think the translation but i think now we're in a time where you are educational system believes if it isn't looked ahead, if it isn't forward thinking it is wasting time and energy. and of course we do that at some peril i think. because not only are we inclined to forget lessons that probably shouldn't be forgotten but we're consciously ignoring a huge part of the curriculum that shaped the very people that created this country. i hear people all the time when i'm dressed up as hamilton talking about well they were so such great men and where are great people like? why do we live in a time where people are just not so smart and strong and motivated? well, we are educated differently. and admittedly we need to be. we need all the technical sorts of things that can help us compete in a more complex world.

they leaved in a 3 miles per hour world. they were walking around horses. their world was incredibly different. wrote with quills and read by candle light. it was a different world. but i think we might have lost something by breaking so completely with the past and i think that is part of what you're saying. but right. >> would be that we often talk about the need for technological education. and this is true. but what you can wind up with is a slave society, where the slaves all know their own jobs very very well and don't know much else. and they are ruled by a tiny elite who does know something else. but is not necessarily benevolent. >> thank you. i'll give you a hand. i couldn't agree with you more. i think -- you know, you're absolutely right. >> i have two questions.

the first one, did john and abigail adams ever send conflicting advice to their children. >> 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 -- they had the terrible burden of having a son that didn't turn out well. and of course if you saw the paul giamatta minnie series you get the sense of that. where john turns his back on his son and never wants to see him again. i don't think ab fwal actually did that. i think she kept seeing him. are you contributing to this or do you have a different question? >> i have a different question. >> just a second then. so you had question number two. >> i don't mean to be funny but ben franklin, his chastity -- he

had no legitimate son. >> well we're asking to believe these founders actually practiced what they preechd. you know, thomas jefferson never asked someone else to do something you can do for yourself. i was the host of a national public radio program for many years "the thomas jefferson hour." brilliant man, clay jengenson does receiversen. brilliant guy. but we are going through this on the program and suddenly came to that one. never ask for something which you can do yourself and he just erupted in laughter. because jefferson owned slaves. the only reason he was able to do is because he had all the other people doing the other stuff. but it's great advice. a story closer to home in new york, there was an eminent

theologian and political philosopher who wrote the serenity prayer actually. he's remembered for that. he suffered a stroke. his later years were difficult and onerous and he confessed to his doctor he was getting tired of getting all these happy letters telling how the serenity prayer had changed their lives. and he said, you know, i'm glad they're feeling that way but i can't feel it. and his doctor said oh don't worry about it. everybody knows that doctors and preachers don't practice what day preach. i think founding fathers in some cases that is true too. yes, sir. >> i just got a -- you read the letter from abigail, that was to john quincy? >> yes. she comes across as somewhat traditionalistic as opposed to her approach today is the first

women's liberation's advocate. was there any element of advice that she gave to her children that could be viewed as being sort of more modernistic than traditional? >> not really. keep your nose to the grindstone. work hard. give it everything you have got. and you know, remember god. be respectful and you will turn out just fine. she's pretty traditional. she did want us to remember the ladies though or wanted congress to remember the ladies when they were deliberating over independence from great britain. i don't think she wanted them remembered in quite the modern sense we would think. i think what she intended probably was they gained 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 saying we'd like not to be property and have laws that treat was dignity and respect. and by and large the constitution went a long way to

improving the lot of woman i think. yes, sir. somebody in the back there? >> i didn't read the letter to the grandson yet. but the last page -- not really the last page. you mentioned that when he served in the army, his feelings about patriotism, that's what i call, is different from the virginian, that they considered their state as country. so even in the beginning of the formation of the nation. so i'm looking at the word patriotism, in your book with the letter, is anything -- you have marshall's devotion was mirrored in his care to his family. however his devotion to his country, his patriotism is there any wording that really catered saying this is a country that had serves -- you follow what i'm saying? is that clear. >> i think you re